Heir of a Titan - Book 2 PJO

Chapter 24: Who's the Leader here?

It was late afternoon when the taxi dropped me and Percy at the Empire State Building. Mrs. O'Leary bounded up and down Fifth Avenue, licking cabs and sniffing hot dog carts. Nobody seemed to notice her, although people did swerve away and look confused when she came close.

I whistled for her to heel as three white vans pulled up to the curb. They said Delphi Strawberry Service, which was the cover name for Camp Half-Blood. I'd never seen all three vans in the same place at once, though I knew they shuttled our fresh produce into the city.

The first van was driven by Argus, our many-eyed security chief. The other two were driven by harpies, who are basically demonic human/chicken hybrids with bad attitudes. We used the harpies mostly for cleaning the camp, but they did pretty well in midtown traffic too.

The doors slid open. A bunch of campers climbed out, some of them looking a little green from the long drive. I was glad so many had come: Pollux, Silena Beauregard, most of the Aphrodite cabin, the Stoll brothers, and the Hermes cabin, Michael, Will, Austin, Kayla and the rest of my cabin, Jake Mason, Katie Gardner, and Annabeth, along with their siblings. Chiron came out of the van last. His horse half was compacted into his magic wheelchair, so he used the handicap lift. I did another quick scan. 

My heart was slamming into my chest, my cheeks were warm, and glowing gold in anger, hurt and embarrassment. The Ares cabin wasn't here. Clarisse was a stubborn idiot. And Raph apparently chose his cabin's pride over the fate of the world. With her heart falling into despair, and a hurt so bad she actually stumbled backwards into Percy, they were done. If his pride held him back from helping...then they were done. End of story. 

"You okay?" Percy signed, he had spun me around to face him. His sea green eyes looked at me carefully. 

"I...I thought I meant more to him then a dam chariot and his pride." I signed back. I sniffed hard and used the back of my hands to dry the tears that had slid down my cheeks. I didn't have time to cry. I had a world to save. Again. 

"I'm sorry sis." 

"It's fine. I'm fine. " I signed. "We have a world to save."

"Or destroy." he gave me a twisted smile. 

I took a shuddering breath and then turned back to the campers who came. Not many to fight a war, but it was still the largest group of half-bloods I'd ever seen gathered in one place outside camp. Everyone looked nervous, and I understood why. We were probably sending out so much demigod aura that every monster in the northeastern United States knew we were here. Will came up, holding some of my armor, breast plate and helmet anyways. He handed them over and I slipped it on, holding the helmet under my arm. 

As Percy and I looked at their faces- all these campers I'd known for my one year and Percy knew for so many summers- a nagging voice whispered in my mind: One of them is a spy. I should know when I'm being lied to, and I couldn't figure it out. It bugged me. But I couldn't dwell on that. They were my friends. (Well most of them, many of them still avoided me since I could full fire super nova) I needed them.

Then I remembered Kronos's evil smile. You can't count on friends. They will always let you down. That hurt. Apparently even the guy she thought would always have her back, she couldn't count on him.

Annabeth came up to Percy. She was dressed in black camouflage with her Celestial bronze knife strapped to her arm and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder; ready for stabbing or surfing the Internet, whichever came first.

She frowned. "What is it?" She signed as she looked back and forth between us.

"What's what?" Percy asked with a frown.