craving |PERCY JACKSON| [book 1] UNDER EDITING

XIV

SO THERE THEY WERE, Annabeth, Selena, Grover, and Percy, walking, or in Selena's case, limping, through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind them, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in their noses.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror, "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Selena was in shock herself. Out of all her years outside camp, all of her training, she wasn't prepared to deal with the three Kindly Ones all at once.

Quests were no joke.

The explosion of bus windows still rang in their ears. But Annabeth kept pulling them along, saying; "Come on! The farther away we get, the better. "

"Tin cans ... A perfectly good bag of tin cans." Grover mumbled and Selena smiled, holding up her satchel that was around her shoulders,

"That's why you travel light. You guys are lucky all of our money and ambrosia is in here." She stated with a smirk, popping a small amount of ambrosia into he mouth,  "I swear, I should be the daughter of Athena sometimes."

Annabeth glared at her and Selena shrugged, "What?"

They sloshed across the mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to Percy, "Look, I... " Her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave. "

"We're a team, right?" Percy smirked at her,

She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died... Aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind them, leaving the group in almost total darkness. "You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" He asked her.

"No ... Only short field trips. My dad... It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." She was rushing her words out now as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp, you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

"You're pretty good with that knife," Percy commented,

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."

"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you... Something funny back on the bus..."

Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured. "Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!" He puffed out a few notes, but the tune sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.