Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

052, meepers form ranks

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

"What do you mean you can't find him?"

"I mean, I can't find him!" Sylvie said. "I went to his cabin to apologize—"

"Wait, apologize?" Annabeth questioned. "Why were you trying to apologize to him?"

"I," she paused in her distress. "Nothing. We fought."

"Again?"

"That's not the point, Annabeth! I swear on the gods, he's missing."

Annabeth finally glanced up from her laptop, and Sylvie felt like she was actually crazy for being the only one who noticed this. "Are you sure, or are you just freaking out?"

"I'm freaking out because I'm sure!" Sylvie snapped. "I looked everywhere I could think of after he wasn't in his cabin—Unless he's somewhere frolicking in the woods, Percy's missing. Again. And I promise if he somehow followed after Rachel on that stupid ass vacation—"

"Sylvie," Annabeth interjected. "Breathe."

Sylvie breathed, although begrudgingly. Percy was missing, and Annabeth was worried about pointless shit like bodily functions.

"Let's go look for him again," she continued after Sylvie listened. "Then, if we really can't find him, we'll tell Chiron. He probably knows, anyway."

Let it be said that Sylvie felt an insane pride in her chest at being able to tell Annabeth I told you so when Percy was absolutely nowhere to be seen. Seriously. Sylvie marked THE DAY SYLVIE WAS RIGHT AND YOU WERE WRONG: AUGUST 14 on a piece of paper and forced Annabeth to keep it forever. She was never going to let the daughter of Athena live this down. Ever. If Sylvie lived past being a teenager, she would spend her entire adult life teasing Annabeth about this momentous day. Until their hair turned gray (well, a strand of Annabeth's hair was already gray). Until they died, even.

Okay back to worrying about Percy.

For some surprising reason, Sylvie had a little bit of hope for Percy's location when they went to Chiron for answers. Maybe Percy had just snuck off to Rachel (a less than ideal situation, but at least she would know where he was), or maybe Chiron just sent Percy off on another mission (though right after the one with Beckendorf, she wouldn't know why). Either way, Chiron seemed to know everything, so Sylvie was a little optimistic.

She shouldn't have been.

Chiron didn't know where Percy was, and he went through the same process as Sylvie and Annabeth did—he didn't really believe it, made them search a third time, and then declared Percy missing. After that, they got the entire camp searching high and low for where Percy could be. It was a fourth and feeble attempt, this time ordered by Sylvie actually, because she could feel her heart rate speeding up by the minute. All of this felt too familiar—Percy being absent from camp, gone without any trace, and absolutely no one knew where he was besides himself.