GOLD RUSH ↬ p. jackson x reader {book one}

SOMEONE WANTS TO BELIEVE ME

I ACTUALLY HAVE A MOTHER. A FAMILY. PEOPLE WHO MADE ME.

I paced the deck over and over again until I was certain every inch of the deck had been stood on by me. Circe talked about my mother. My family. That narrowed my parental lineage down by... well, not much. So, it wasn't a father that was responsible for my divine heritage. Great.

Annabeth tried to help keep lookout through the night, but anybody could see sailing didn't agree with her. After a few hours rocking back and forth, her face turned the color of guacamole and she went below to lie in a hammock. Leaving me and Percy.

He was the one to break the pretty silence of the wind blowing in my face and the ocean breeze engulfing my lungs. It made me feel at home, which I couldn't pin point on a map. Talking to the moon, Bruno Mars style, used to be my source of solace.

"What do you see?" He asked as we watched the horizon. I spotted a row of green spines slithered across the waves— something maybe a hundred feet long, reptilian.
"Ocean." I answered, my voice hoarse from so much silence. He laughed under his breath, like I had told a joke.
He inhaled. "What do you see when you dream?"

There it is. I pursed my lips. "It's complicated."
"I know."

I swallowed. Why was there tension? I took a deep breath. "I can't tell you when they're gonna happen, if that's what you're asking, but I can talk about what I see. It's like, when you watch a trailer for a movie. But I'm watching the trailer of somebody's life."

"There's clips of things. Sometimes they fade together. And I see them from other people's point of view. I saw Grover once. I don't know whose point of view it was from, because I didn't see anybody else. But he was talking to you."

"And you know that they're prophetic?"
I took a sharp breath. "Unfortunately." I whispered. "I had a dream a while back, before you came to camp, about.. I didn't really get it until it actually happened, but it had to do with you and Luke and lightning. Obviously, now we know."
"The lightning thief." He nodded. "And you didn't tell anyone?"

I thought of a comparison I once made to myself. "You know the story of Cassandra?" He mustn't've, because his eyes grew with interest as he waited for me to elaborate. "I could probably use a fact check, but Cassandra was a princess of Troy who was beautiful. So beautiful that Apollo gifted her the ability of prophecy, but she... she didn't want to show him affection, so he cursed her. Nobody would ever believe what she said, no matter the accuracy."

I took a deep breath, tolled from all the talking. "You knew Luke. At least, you thought you did. Would you have believed me if I told you terrible things about him after you truly saw good in him?"

Percy seemed to want to protest, but he couldn't. He knew it was true. Luke was the epitome of welcoming and brotherhood, even I knew that. Which was why I just distanced myself. I didn't want him to hate me, or like me enough to drag me along with him.

"What do you know?" He asked. "I'll always believe you."
I rolled my eyes, looking at the stars. "Right."
I'd never seen someone look with so much passion and promise. It scared me. Because it was new. It was tempting. It made me feel like falling from cruise ships and fighting sorceresses and entering dangerous uncharted waters to defeat unbeatable enemies.

Then Annabeth emerged from behind us, clearing her throat. We leapt apart, though I can't remember ever getting close to him.

We were just passing a smoking volcano island. The sea bubbled and steamed around the shore.

"One of the forges of Hephaestus," Annabeth said. "Where he makes his metal monsters."
"Like the bronze bulls?"
She nodded. "Go around. Far around."

We steered clear of the island, and soon it was just a red patch of haze behind us.
Percy looked at Annabeth. "The reason you hate Cyclopes so much ... the story about how Thalia really died. What happened?"

I winced. Prophetic visions were not the only things I got. Sometimes, if I focused really hard, I saw more. And I know I saw what happened that night, somehow.
"I guess you deserve to know," she said finally. "The night Grover was escorting us to camp, he got confused, took some wrong turns. You remember he told you that once?"

He nodded.

"Well, the worst wrong turn was into a Cyclops's lair in Brooklyn."

"They've got Cyclopes in Brooklyn?" He asked.

"You wouldn't believe how many, but that's not the point. This Cyclops, he tricked us. He managed to split us up inside this maze of corridors in an old house in Flatbush. And he could sound like anyone, Percy. Just the way Tyson did aboard the Princess Andromeda. He lured us, one at a time. Thalia thought she was running to save Luke. Luke thought he heard me scream for help. And me ... I was alone in the dark. I was seven years old. I couldn't even find the exit."

She brushed the hair out of her face. "I remember finding the main room. There were bones all over the floor. And there were Thalia and Luke and Grover, tied up and gagged, hanging from the ceiling like smoked hams. The Cyclops was starting a fire in the middle of the floor. I drew my knife, but he heard me. He turned and smiled. He spoke, and somehow he knew my dad's voice. I guess he just plucked it out of my mind. He said, 'Now, Annabeth, don't you worry. I love you. You can stay here with me. You can stay forever.'"

I shivered. The way she told it freaked me out worse than any ghost story I'd ever heard.
"What did you do?" Percy pressed.

"I stabbed him in the foot."

He stared at her. "Are you kidding? You were seven years old and you stabbed a grown Cyclops in the foot?"

"Oh, he would've killed me. But I surprised him. It gave me just enough time to run to Thalia and cut the ropes on her hands. She took it from there."

"Yeah, but still ... that was pretty brave, Annabeth."

She shook her head. "We barely got out alive. I still have nightmares, Percy. The way that Cyclops talked in my father's voice. It was his fault we took so long getting to camp. All the monsters who'd been chasing us had time to catch up. That's really why Thalia died. If it hadn't been for that Cyclops, she'd still be alive today."

They began to sit in the same comfortable silence that we had before, but the atmosphere was different. I swallowed hard and stood up. "I'm gonna catch some sleep. Wake me when you get tired." I said quietly, to neither of them specifically.