The Half-Blood Project

16- Desert Storming

Annabeth Chase 

I hate the desert. 

It's hot, musty, sandy,, and horrible. Percy says they found Piper and Leo wandering just outside of Carson City, something about escaping a school in the wilderness. I don't remember. 

By the time we're out of California, weariness droops over me and I want to keep driving as the sun rises into the sky again, shooting rays of light into my eyes, making me squint. Exhaustion is one of the worst things I've experienced. It's not my favorite. 

"You should rest Annabeth." Grover shakes my shoulder, he's wide awake, fiddling with his pipes. Percy had promised he would stay awake with me so I didn't have to talk to myself, but ten minutes in he was snoring like he hadn't slept in days. Maybe that's the toll of being a leader, sleepless nights he spends pondering about the future. 

I think I do the same. 

But he snores in the back, looking at peace in the many weeks I've known him. Maybe he was meant for something better than this life, a life we didn't choose. We didn't want to wake up every day, hoping it wouldn't be our last. 

I guess we can blame the gods.

Pulling off to an exit, where a battered gas station, it's closed but the pumps look in working condition, and when I peek inside, there's food and water. I tug on the chains and they break loose, they're not new or placed well so when I'm inside the little convenience store, I look around at the place. It's neat and orderly, the owners must have closed up for the weekend, which is strange for a gas station but I accept it. Food and water areas waiting for us. 

Percy comes in behind me, groggy and half asleep, but holding Riptide, the bronze humming in the dark of the store. 

"Grover said he smelled monsters, he's filling up the car." 

I pull my bronze dagger from the sheath, and like Riptide, it glows in the dark, like a light in the shadows everyone is drawn to. 

"You know I can handle myself right?" I sneer, unhappy that he followed me or is even awake. I don't appreciate feeling like someone who needs to be saved or protected. I can handle and hold my own perfectly fine. 

"I trust you can, but I came here anyway's," Percy replied and moved cautiously into the dark of the store, apparently without fear at all. But everyone has to be afraid of monsters, right? Frank told me only a coward shows no fear. 

Percy isn't a coward. 

Nor am I. 

There's soft breathing in the back, I hear it now, it's barely audible, I strain to hear it and follow the sound of it. Percy hears it too and we inch closer to the back of the store, our weapons raise, expecting a fight with some nasty creatures.

"You go left, I go right," Percy whispers as we reach a crossroads, one side is the cash register and the other is the bathrooms. 

"That's a horrible idea." I snap. "Splitting up is the worst thing you can do." 

"Do you have any better ideas?" Percy shoots back. I want to say something but he walks off to the right, towards the bathrooms. I sigh, wanting to sock the stupid idiot right in his green eyes. 

Hesitantly I walk to the cash register, gripping the hilt of my dagger tightly, breathing through my nose softly, so whatever monster is out there, doesn't hear my heavy breathing. 

I jump at every noise, hairs on my neck standing up, making me more nervous than before. Why did we have to split up? That's how everyone in horror films dies. He's an idiot.