Percy POV
The first thing that registered in my brain when I woke up was the pain. It felt like someone was using a hammer to continuously pound my brain. I tried to focus less on the pain and more on what happened when the events of last night came rushing to me.
Ditching grover
Going to the park
Going home
Blacking out
What the hell happened last night? Was it even last night? What time is it? Where am I? I opened my eyes slowly to see a dimly lit room. I was lying on the cold concrete floor with shackles attached to my right ankle connected to a long chain that was attached to the other sleeping dudes ankle.
He was scrawny and was curled into a ball facing towards me. He had short brown hair and was so thin that his ribs were almost showing. He stirred and the shackles keeping us together rattled and the sound some him up. His brown eyes took some time to get adjusted to the shitty lighting of the room and when they did he looked just as confused as I was.
His eyes met mine and we just stared at each other, none of us knowing what to say. His mouth twitched into a mischievous smile but I knew it was fake. I'd seen it enough times in the mirror to know. But over the past three months it had gotten better. I stopped cutting so much, I stopped having panic and anxiety attacks frequently, I gained weight, I felt... happy.
"Hey! Did you hear a thing I just said?" The weird boy said.
"Huh? Sorry no."
"I'm Leo Mcshizzle Valdez." I stared at him blankly cause there was no way that was his middle name. Was I supposed to tell him my real name? I don't even know him.
"This is the part where you tell me your name."
"I'm Percy." I just told him my real name. If I was going to die in This place I might as well have someone remember me. Right as he was about to say something the door opened with a loud bang and a huge muscle man came sauntering into the room. Seeing that we were awake he pulled out a gun thingy and pointed it at Leo and pulled the trigger.
My heart stopped in my chest as I waited for a bullet to fly out and kill him but instead two little square box thingys attached themselves to his neck and shocked him rendering him unconscious. The man turned to me and all I felt was excruciating pain in my entire body before I passed out.
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"I hate him." I said to Poseidon while we were cuddling in his massive bed. I had a nightmare and was too scared to back to sleep by myself so, like many other nights, I got out of the room that I claimed as mine in his palace and made my way into his bed cuddling myself against him seeking the comfort that I much needed.
He always made sure to keep his door open and it also helped that my room was directly opposite to his so I had no trouble accessing it at all. Like many other nights, he had held me while I cried my eyes out for what had to be the billionth time. I thought he would get tired of all my sobbing and whining but he never did. He helped me through all of it and had started getting so much better.
"Who? Smelly Gabe?" I had told him all about it. All about him. The anger had rolled off him in waves and I could tell he was about to snap. Despite his short temper he never ever directed his anger at me. All he shown me for as long as I knew him was care, compassion and love. He had wanted to get his team and raid my house that night, arrest Gabe and kill him for all he had done,but I had barely managed to get him to not do it.
"No." I had told him about my mom, how she was the best thing to ever happen to me. How he teased me when I said that and that he thought he was the best thing to ever happen to me. I told him about how much she sacrificed for me. How I didn't understand why she put up with Gabe.
"No? You don't hate Gabe?" He stuck with me through all of it. He convinced me to go see a therapist and that when the time comes he would take care of Gabe. I didn't ask what he meant by that. Poseidon could be scary if he wanted to. And I was just glad I wasn't on the receiving end of all that anger.
"No. I do hate him. I meant my biological dad." I told him about all the resentment I had for my biological father. How he just left my mom like that. How I wished that he was my dad instead of whoever the asshole was. He tensed at that. It seemed to entice mixed feelings from him and that was where the conversation ended. He stroked my hair, kissing my forehead and lulling me to sleep. I had closed my eyes and fallen into one of the most peaceful slumbers of my entire life.
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"Percy wake up!" My eyes snapped open when I felt a sharp pain at the left side of my cheek.
"Why did you do that?" I snapped while holding my abused face.
"You weren't waking up. You sleep like the dead. And you were drooling all over me."
"Would you two keep it down." Came a voice from our right. I jumped startled and it was then I noticed my surroundings. Instead of the murky room we were in earlier this place was a while lot bigger and had a lot more people. All of whom looked to be between the age of eight to seventeen. Some were asleep, some awake looking just as confused as I was and some looked like they'd been here for a while.
"Where are we?"
"I don't know man I got here the exact same time as you." Leo said rolling his eyes.
"Shhhh!" The boy said again. He was blond. But his hair was so dirty you would've thought it was brown if you weren't close enough. He had blue eyes and this scar on his face from from his left eye to his chin. Next to him was a girl dressed in all black. She had this dont-fuck-with-me aura that rolled off her in waves which had me wondering just how she ended up here. She had a punk haircut that just and a nose ring. The only light thing on her were her electric blue eyes.
"Leave them alone Luke. They'll probably be next to go." The girl said.
"What are you talking about? Go where? What is this place? Who are you people?"
Just as she was about to answer the door on the other side of the room slammed open. What is it with these people slamming doors. The same man who shocked us walked in with two others and I could see a couple faces paling when the men started picking random kids and chaining them together. They came over to where we were seated on the ground and picked us up as if we weighed nothing. All four of us were tied and the remaining kids in the room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
At this point my brain had stopped trying to process what the hell was happening and I just dragged my feet as we were pulled on a pathway turning what seemed to be a million corners. As we made our way to where I thought was outside I saw Luke discreetly nod his head at the girl who was with him earlier. The big muscle dudes opened these huge gates and we were led out of the building into what looked like a huge market. It reeked of cocaine and cigarettes in here and I had to fight the urge to gag. It was when I saw a little girl about ten or eleven years old being dragged into a rolls Royce that my brain came back to life and registered where we were.
A slave market.
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