What The High Tides May Bring

Chapter 19

"This is your last chance, Percy. Tell us what you know about the whereabouts of the pearl or your friend dies."

Beckendorf lifts his head and shoots Percy a silent message: Don't do it! Don't let them win!

A few years ago, Percy might have listened. It would have been a tough decision, maybe the toughest he'd ever make, but he would have at least hesitated. Now there's no hesitation. Percy isn't a naive teenager anymore.

"I'll tell you everything," he says, ignoring Beckendorf's shocked face.

Percy has sacrificed everything to the gods already, and they abandoned him. Now he's turning his back on them as well.

"Why did you do that?" Beckendorf demands as soon as Percy's thrown back in the brig next to him. They haven't been allowed to see each other in weeks; part of Sciron's interrogation strategy was to keep them apart, but now they're just pigs in the pen, waiting for the slaughter.

"Why wouldn't I?" Percy responds, anger flashing up within him. "We're here because of the gods, because of my father. He needed help, so I dropped everything to find this pearl of his. But look where that got us! We're sitting here, rotting in the dark, half dead, and he even took away my powers!"

Beckendorf falls silent for a long time. "You've changed, Percy."

"Yeah, I have. I'm not going to be an errand boy for the gods anymore. What have they done for me?" Percy kicks at the puddle underneath him. "You've been the only person to stay by my side through thick and thin. You've been with me since the beginning. Of course I'm not going to trade your life for the gods."

"It's not just the gods that we're fighting for. If Sciron gets his hands on that pearl, then he's going to wreak havoc on civilization as we know it. Innocent people are going to die."

"Screw civilization. They see us as pirates and they'd string us up in a heartbeat. It's us against the world, Beckendorf, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise anymore."

Percy can hardly calm down his racing heart. He wants to rage against the world, to tear down every monument and every temple to the gods, to tear down every city and town. The gods are embedded in the very fabric of the universe and he wants to tear it apart.

It's a good thing he doesn't have the pearl himself.

"It's the line from the prophecy," Beckendorf says quietly, his voice subdued. "The betrayal of one may be the end. I thought it meant that one of the crew members would sabotage our mission. Now I realize that it means you."

"I think it means the gods. My father, in particular." Percy slams his fist against the wooden frame of the ship. "Taking away my powers when I need them most - that sounds like betrayal to me."

"Maybe he didn't take away your powers. Maybe you turning against him cut off your connection to his domain." Beckendorf pulls out a few wires and gears from his pocket. "I haven't lost any of my gifts. I could break us out of this prison in a heartbeat if I thought it could get us anywhere. But without your powers and our weapons, we'd just be imprisoned again or killed on the spot."

Percy slumps against the wall. He feels suddenly drained, as if all the energy inside of him realized that he was a lost cause and jumped ship.

"Sciron's going to kill us eventually anyway." Percy's hand drops into the puddle of water. "I don't want them to remember me as a hero. I don't want them to write legends about how I died for the sake of the gods." He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will away the sting of tears. "I want to be remembered as a kid who was just trying to live his life."