"Okay, maybe if we're very quiet--" I began, unaware of the quiet breathing that started to permeate the air by the archway that lead out of camp.
We inched past the arch and soon found ourselves on the opposite side of the entrance.
"PARIS, LOOK OUT!" Without warning, Thalia grabbed my shoulders and yanked me back just as a giant creature with black scales and scarlet eyes that glowed lunged for my face.
I let out a terrified scream, then felt a hand clap over my mouth. "Shh," Thalia hissed. "Be quiet."
For a split second no one moved. The sound of deep breathing and the slight rustle of a tail on grass filled my ears, that is, behind the rush of adrenaline that was shooting through my body. The moon had gone behind a cloud, turning everything pitch black.
Suddenly, I heard a gasp, something drip onto the dew coated ground, and a soft thud, like a body falling to the pine needles underfoot. Thalia was no longer holding my shoulders. I whipped about, trying to locate her in the dark without running into the drakon.
All at once, the full moon came out of hiding and threw bright silver light all around us. I looked about in a panic and saw Thalia, lying in a twisted heap, blood trickling from a deep gash on her back. Her breath was so shallow it looked like she wasn't inhaling. Would she be okay?
I heard a crackling noise, then felt a blistering heat hit me straight in the face. I dodged it and rolled, feeling something prickling just above my left eye. I rubbed the spot while lying on my back on the ground and smelled burnt hair. The skin where my eyebrow should be was smooth. I puzzled over this for a second, but it was a second too long. Something hard and cold, a stone, maybe, hit my right eye.
"SORRY!" Annabeth yelled over the fire breathing beast's racket.
I heard someone exhale, then a heavy crunch as several massive oak trees splintered into toothpicks under the drakon's weight.
"I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" Annabeth came over and helped me up.
"I'm fine, but Thalia--" Annabeth had already hurried over to the daughter of Zeus and was checking her wrist for a pulse. For some reason, this didn't bother me. At least, not like it normally did when Annabeth rushed to Thalia instead of me.
"She's still got a pulse, but she needs some ambrosia or nectar right away," Annabeth said to me.
I grabbed my bottle of nectar and sprinted to my sister's side. "Here."
"Just dump some into her mouth; I have to stop this bleeding," Annabeth grabbed a bandage from her pack and began wrapping it around Thalia's injury, but not before removing a five in claw that seemed to be made of some sort of metal. Titanium?
I tilted Thalia's head to the side since she was on her stomach and opened her mouth. My fingers were shaking so hard that several drops of nectar jumped out of the bottle and onto the grass.
"Don't spill it!" Annabeth whispered, she was obviously stressed. I decided not to talk back intead I steadied my grip on the bottle and gently tipped some of the nectar into Thalia's open mouth.
A few seconds later she gasped and came to life with a sudden jolt, as though her electricity had turned against her.
"Thalia!" Annabeth breathed a sigh of relief and gripped her in a tight hug.
"Ugh," Thalia groaned and Annabeth quickly backed off. She blinked a couple of times, then tried to stand.
"You need to rest," Annabeth pushed her back into a sitting position.
