OH, CHÉRIE!¹ percy jackson

006

❛006❜

THE NEXT MORNING, percy was moved to cabin three. he looked pretty miserable, but ivy couldn't blame him. the kids were acting like he had some rare disease.

nobody mentioned the hellhound to percy. the attack had scared everybody. it sent two messages: one, that percy was the son of the sea god; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill him. and the camp borders weren't going to stop them, either.

the campers steered clear of percy as much as possible. except ivy, in her reasoning, she had nothing to hold against percy other than she plainly didn't like him. maybe a prophecy that predicts the end of the world, but it was too early to tell if percy was really the one. cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with him after what he'd done to the ares folks in the woods, so his lessons with luke became one-on-one.

annabeth still taught percy greek in the morning, along with ivy's latin lessons. but annabeth's always seemed distracted. every time percy would open his mouth, the blonde would scowl at him. as her best friend, ivy knew annabeth was thinking about athena's rivalry with poseidon.

even clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she had percy up on her blacklist.

that night, ivy had a bad dream. not the worst, but bad.

she was running along the beach in a storm. this time, there was a city behind her. not new york. the sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

about a hundred meters down the surf, two men were fighting. they looked like wrestlers, muscular, with beards, and long hair. both wore flowing greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. they grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

ivy wanted to stop them. she didn't know why. but the harder she ran, the more the wind blew her back, until she was running on the spot, her heels digging uselessly in the sand.

over the roar of the storm, ivy could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, give it back! give it back! like a petulant child demanding for a toy.

the waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying her with salt.

she yelled, stop it! trying to even use her charmspeak, stop fighting!

the ground shook. laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned her blood to ice.

"come down, little hero," the voice crooned. "come down!"

the sand split beneath ivy, opening up a crevice straight down to the centre of the earth. my feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.

ivy woke up, sure she was falling.

she was still in her bed in cabin ten. her body told her it was morning, and the fact that only a few of her siblings were in bed. but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. a storm was brewing. ivy hadn't dreamed that.