Riptide by Annabeth Chase

Chapter Ten: Medusa

(The Lightning Thief pg 169-187) 

We kept walking and as we got further from the bus, the tension I was holding on to started to melt. We might have lost all our stuff, but we had managed to face down three Furies and survive. It was hard to admit that I had needed Percy's help back there, but he was probably right.

If he hadn't jumped into the fight with those Furies, they probably would have killed Grover and I and then kept searching for Percy. We were on this quest together. Despite how annoying he could be and despite our parent's rivalry, we were going to be stuck together for the next few days.

"Look, I ... I appreciate you coming back for us, okay? That was really brave," I said, trying to apologize for yelling at him earlier.

"We're a team, right?" he responded and once again it hit me how new to this world of gods and monsters. It didn't seem like he'd ever experienced being on his own hoping against reason to find some way to carry on even when it seemed like everything was working to deliberately oppose you.

"It's just that if you died ..." I started trying to explain how important this chance was for me. "Aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

I finished realizing I probably hadn't gotten my point across. I had never been very good at vocalizing my feelings and talking about him dying probably wasn't the best way to explain what I was thinking about.

I was kind of expecting him to yell at me, but he was either too nice or too tired and instead asked, "You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?"

"No ..." I said, taking a deep breath, "only short field trips. My dad ..."

"The history professor," he interjected, surprising me with the information I had told him on his first day at camp. I hadn't really thought he was listening, and I certainly hadn't expected him to remember. Thinking back on that day I realized again that was another time I could have been a lot nicer to him.

All I had thought about since meeting him was trying to get a quest. Thinking back to my first day at camp and how lonely and scared I had been, well, he probably would have appreciated someone being kind and understanding. But instead, Chiron had tasked me with introducing him and showing him everything. I hadn't taken time to think about him, I was only thinking about how he might be the person who I could go on a quest with.

"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home," I told him, trying to explain myself. "I mean Camp Half-Blood is my home. At camp you train and train and that's all cool and everything. But the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

I lost my nerve before I could say the last sentence, this is where I can prove they were right to take me in. I didn't know if he would understand or if anyone would. The longer I was at camp without being able to do anything important the more I worried that one day everyone would just wake up and realize I didn't belong. They would realize that I was more trouble than it was worth, and I would end up alone again. Would he understand why I needed to prove I was valuable?

"You're pretty good with that knife," he said.

"You think so?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. It was too dark for him to see my face, but I had started to tear up a bit.

"Anybody who can piggyback ride a Fury is okay by me." He sounded sincere even though he was clearly trying to lighten the mood with a joke.

But his comment about the Furies reminded me of what they had said on the bus and how it had made me doubt the plan we had for getting the master bolt back.