Constellations

Constellations: Chapter 8

Annabeth's POV

Telling Sara that story was risky.

I know. But she needed hope. I could tell we were thinking the same thing: We are getting close to the end of this aventure.

That could mean, we destroy all of those creatures, or it could mean… we fail. And, we die in the process. Because as long as we are alive, I won't stop running from them, it's me they want, and they aren't going to get me to destroy the world.

But that comes down to my problem: What if they threaten my family? My New family and my Old family? Will I give myself up? Will I keep running and let them die?

I know what they want me for. They want to use me to destroy the world. (Hasn't been the first time.) I only found out they were after me the day I met Nate:

~Flashback~

It had been 2 days.

2 days since the fire and I was still in shock. I had been having dreams about it, but I didn't think it was real.

At that moment I was trying to get out of New York, the further away, the safer they were.

I was walking toward the border of New York when I saw a giant sign way up in the air with the words "supermarket" on it. I started running, not because I wanted to get to the supermarket, but because it was them. The Shadow Creatures, the ones that had started the fire, that killed my siblings. I had seen what they could do, and I was afraid.

I was running but they caught up. They started grabbing at me, at my clothes. I felt something slip out of my back pocket, and held back a sob. It was the only thing I was able to grab out of my cabin before I left. My yankees hat. They only thing that I had left from my old life. Now it's gone.

After running for what felt like forever, one of them grabbed my hair and pulled me to the ground. I started to crab crawl backwards trying to get away, but I soon realized I was surrounded.

"Child of Athena" said one of the creature, "The last of one of your kind. You woke her, and then your friends brought her down. It is your fault the world is what it is."

"Safe!?" I remarked

"No! Crawling with mortals! Do you see the giants ruling the world? No, because you destroyed them! The only way to fix what you did is to get your blood."

The gears in my head were turning. They blamed me for saving the world!? That crazy! Then again all monsters are crazy, so nothing new. Another thing that caught my attention was that they need my blood, that was the same thing the giants needed to wake Gaea. Why did they need my blood? Percy woke her, too! Why me!?

One creature had walked away and broken a hole the circle they had made. I planned my escape.

"I surrender" I said quietly.

All of the Shadow Creatures laughed, it sounded like nails on a chalk board. One stepped forward and looked at, what I think were, his friends. "Did you hear that? She's surrenders!"

I stood up. 2 more shadow creature left, probably thinking they were no longer needed.

With no comeback or anything, I ran. As I was running, I began to cry. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. That was the moment I realized I wouldn't go home very soon.

After about 15 minutes of running, I began to walk. I had my arms crossed, and kept my head down. I was walking in the shade of a supermarket, when the alarms from inside the store started to go off. There was yelling coming from inside. A boy, older than me, came running out with a pack of bananas in his hand. The boy ran straight into me and we both fell on the ground. I was about to yell at him when I saw the grey colored eyes, I noticed we had the same color hair as well.

He had to be my brother.

"Sorry, gotta go!" He said, rather quickly. And he took off running. I started to chase after him, if he was my brother we had to stay together.

"Hey! Dude- guy- person! STOP!" I said yelling after him.

He ran into an alleyway and asked, "What do you want?"

I had my hands on my knees and was trying to catch my breath "I just want to know your name."

He looked at me skeptically, and hesitated "Nathan or Nate… My name is Nate."

I smiled, "Nice to meet you Nate. I am Annabeth, can I tag along wherever you are going?

~Flashback over~

I hate it. I hate myself for dragging Nate along, and then allowing Sara to come, too. I shouldn't have done that because now they're in danger because of me.

Anyway, moving on…

California.

Where some of my old friends are, and where my family is.

Great, just great.

I realized I was not hiding my nerves well, when Nate asked me 5 times in 10 minutes if I was okay. I had worked too hard to keep them out of trouble I wasn't going to let them get hurt now. I could keep these monster away from them.

Apparently, I can't keep engines from blowing up in their faces though.

We were driving through a dimly lit tunnel, it was completely empty and seemed to go on forever, Our car (that we'd stolen, of course.) Rumbled to a stop on the side of the rode. Nate hit his head on the steering wheel and hit the horn.

From the back seat, "Gah! Isn't there any quieter way to wake someone up!?" Sara yelled.

"Yes, there are many ways, but for some reason" I glared at Nate, "someone thought 'Hey! I'll take my frustration with the car- out on my sisters."

Nate mumbled and got of the car, Sara and I not far behind. As soon as we got the hood he opened it, and thick, grey smoke poured out.

"Welp, we're done for and we were supposed to continue driving back towards Katie's house so we could go back, but it took us 7 hours to find a car like this one, and I was sleeping, and now I can't!" Sara said. She was clearly still waking up because that run on sentence made no sense.

"Don't worry Sara, we will just sleep in the car tonigh…" Nate started but never finished. And I could see why.

It was like they knew we broke down here.

How? How in the world did they know?

Their cloaks hit the ground at the same time, their hands moved in the same direction, they were walking slowly knowing we would be too shocked to run away.

It was them

The Shadow creatures.

A/N:

Big plan for next chapter!

It's going to have _, with _, and _.

I am not giving away anything!

~E.T.