I was lost, 'til you found me- (Perjasico)

Untitled Part 7

They walked in darkness for what seemed like several hours before finding an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Suspicious? Yes. But it was the only place they had come across after leaving town (Luke claimed that it wasn't safe and that they didn't want another ambush, to which the whole group agreed with) hours ago. Being more or less the most experienced fighter in the group, Percy insisted that the rest of the group stay outside while he did a thorough inspection of the house and made sure no monsters were hiding in the house, waiting to kill or capture (depending on whether they were working for Kronos or not). 

That didn't settle well with Luke. Percy hadn't even been travelling with them for 24 hours and already Luke felt as though Percy was trying to replace him as the leader. This was Luke's family, not Percy's. 

"I'll come with you," Luke said, his voice trembling from the amount of anger directed at Percy. 

"Fine, but the rest of you would probably be best staying in the courtyard, away from any danger," Percy said, clearly knowing why Luke wanted to come with him; Luke wanted to prove to everyone else that he was a lot better than some newbie that they met on the street. 

Jason started to argue with Percy on that, he was strong and could be useful if they encountered any monsters in the house, but Percy was not having it.

"No Jason, if you come then Grover and Annabeth will be alone and will have to fend for themselves if monster happens to ambush them. Besides, I think that you've had enough excitement for one day. " 

Jason nodded reluctantly, he knew what Percy said was true and he provided a good argument, however, Jason wasn't totally convinced that splitting up the group was a good idea. 

"If something happens, we won't know until it's too late to help." Jason worried. 

"We could always scream," Percy suggested. 

"Too easy, "Luke reasoned, "how about a word? If we shout that particular word, you should come and help us, if that particular word isn't shouted, but you hear us fighting, do not, under any circumstances, come for us." 

"What's the word though?" Jason pondered.

"Monster?" Grover suggested, thinking that this was all a waste of time and that them standing out in the open was quite dangerous, "you know, it would be a lot easier to simply just say 'HELP', rather than some fancy word that's not going to be heard anyway." 

"Too obvious, as soon as we shout help, they'll know that there's more of us, which means we may have just gone together," Percy explained, "we need something that won't be too obvious in the case of an ambush." 

"Owl." Annabeth simply stated, then rolled her gray eyes at the group when they turned towards her with looks of confusion etched all over each of their faces.

"It's unpredictable, will cause some sort of confusion for your attackers and easy to distinguish from background noise considering a lot of people don't scream OWL in the middle of the night." 

All the other group members shrugged and there was a silent agreement that the word to be used in an attack is owl. Once the group found a stone wall that Annabeth, Jason, and Grover could hide behind, and Luke and Percy ensured that there were no monsters lurking around, Percy and Luke headed towards the door of the abandoned property. 

Climbing up the steps of the abandoned house, in complete darkness, Percy wondered why they hadn't left the door open for light. He thought that maybe it was less suspicious, but what good was it fighting in the complete dark. 

They split up, both anxious to get this over with so that the group could finally rest; it had been a long day and everyone was tired. The detailing of the loft of the house was hard to see due to the lack of light, however, Percy was able to distinguish pictures of a family that had maybe lived in the house years ago. They were faded and black and white and Percy walked up to take a closer look. Five smiling faces looked up at him and looking at it made him think about his biological mother and how he could have had a proper mother and had a normal life. Don't get him wrong, he loved his mother loads, but she was always busy and chasing monsters 24/7 and finding demigods and bringing them to camp wasn't exactly what someone would call a normal life. 

Realising that he was spending too much valuable time looking at the photograph, he rushed to find Luke. This soon proved to be slightly difficult. 

"Luke! Where are you?" Percy whisper-shouted, looking around frantically. "Luke, where the heck are you?" Getting a little worked up over the fact that Luke had just disappeared, Percy hurriedly opened doors, craned his neck to look and slammed the door when nothing was to be seen. 

Suddenly, footsteps sounded up the steps and Percy, hearing them, slipped into the next room he found and hid, listening out. His breathing was heavy and his heartbeat thumped as he hid in the darkness. He didn't have to wait long before the floorboards near the door creaked and he could hear loud breathing, too loud and heavy for it to be a monster. As the noise grew soft and more far away, he let out the air he didn't realise he was holding and sighed in relief; it was gone. 

The door creaked slightly as he opened it and he waited a while to make sure he wasn't heard. Then, like a cheetah, he bolted down the stairs and out the front door. And that's when he heard it. 

"OWL!! OWL!" The words drifted in the wind, far away enough for Percy to have difficulty hearing, but close enough for him to make it out. 

Percy sprinted across the dead, brown grass, narrowly avoided tripping over a stray cat (who in turn looked at him and hissed) and jumped over a broken fountain located in the cracked cement that would have been a driveway long ago. All this and he still didn't make it. The shouting soon grew muffled and all too soon, it stopped, leaving Percy alone in the courtyard with nothing to entertain him but his thoughts. 

"Goddammit." Percy swore.