Change

E I G H T

Written 9th of October

Kelsey's POV

*~*

So there we were, Annabeth, Grover, Percy and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.

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

I was pretty much in shock myself, in all my training at camp half-blood over the years i would not expect to be attacked by three kindly ones all at once, and to top it all off the explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there," Percy reminded everyone. "Our food and clothes. Everything."

I scoffed "Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight—"

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."

"Shut up, goat boy," I said .

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes, I fell into line next to Percy feeling a bit bad about my outburst. "Look, I..." My voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."

"We're a team, right?"

I 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...our" i gestured over to Annabeth "only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Percy except a glint of his sea green eyes.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood...ever?" He asked me.

"No ... only short field trips"

"How old were you when you left"

"Around eight or nine"

"Around?"

"Yeah, those years were a blur, i don't even really want to remember them. My mum, she-" My eyes were glistening and i refused to let the tears fall.

"Its ok, you don't have to tell me" 

I looked at Percy and sighed. "When i was eight my mum, she was in a car accident. and...and well she died" Percy looked at me but i continued "I had no where to go so i set off, i didn't know where i was going until a year later Grover found me" 

I was rushing my words out, a bit afraid Percy might stop me and make it awkward. "He told me i was a demi god and took me to camp half-blood, i've never left ever since other than a few field trips. 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."

"Wow, that must've been tough"

"I'm a demi god, it's happened to all of us" 

"Well you're pretty good with that sword,"