{1} Princess - P. Jackson 🔱

"I fought my brother. Why? Deaths and Marriage. "

🌊

We stood up, gathering our things. When we were going through the door, I stopped and looked at the cup in my hand. "I'll be back."

As the girls waited outside, I took advantage that there was no line and went to the cashier.

"Hi, how can I help you?" The brown headed guy asked, not looking up.

"She said no." I put the cup in front of him, his number written along Maria's name with a smile face.

"Pardon me?" He looked at me with a frown.

"She said no. You can have your number back." I pushed the almost empty cup in his direction.

He let out a breathy laugh, "And she couldn't come and tell me that herself?"

"She didn't want to break your little heart. But she's too much for you, anyways." I put a hand on my heart, faking a sad face. "Good day." I turned around, hearing him cursing at me and angrily throwing the cup on the trash.

"What were you doing, Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth asked me when I got outside.

"Nah, the frappe he did wasn't that good, you know. Someone had to give him a heads up." I glanced quickly at Maria, who was staring fixated in the bag store window next to the coffee shop. She hadn't noticed that the attendant had written his number on her cup otherwise she would have done something. I felt Rachel staring at me but I only looked away quickly from her, clearing my throat. "Let's go."

🌊

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. I didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed me where to look, and I recognized the faint blue symbol etched in the metal.

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."

"No." Maria stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half- blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Maria put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but I couldn't tell if she was pretending or not. She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and her regular marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face. "So...after you?" she said.

"You're the guide," Annabeth said pointing to the entrance. "Lead on."

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark I couldn't see two feet in front of us, but we had restocked on flashlights. As soon as we switched them on, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at us. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing—at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent a shiver down my back was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull.

"A Cyclops," Annabeth said. "It's very old. It's not...anybody we know."

"Thank gods." Maria said, handing me her flashlight and tying her hair on a quick bun.

It wasn't Tyson, she meant. But that didn't make me feel much better.

I still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown Cyclops, I didn't want to meet.