"They didn't . . . I let them stay behind. To protect the camp."
Y/N sneered. "You mean even the people in your own cabin wouldn't help you?"
"Shut up, punk! I don't need them! Or you! Or nobody!"
"Clarisse," he said, "Tantalus is using you. He doesn't care about the camp. He'd love to see it destroyed. He's setting you up to fail."
"No! I don't care what the Oracle—" She stopped herself.
"What?" Percy said. "What did the Oracle tell you?"
"Nothing." Clarisse's ears turned pink. "All you need to know is that I'm finishing this quest and you're not helping. On the other hand, I can't let you go. . . ."
"So we're prisoners?" Annabeth asked.
"Guests. For now." Clarisse propped her feet up on the white linen tablecloth and opened another Dr Pepper. "Captain, take them below. Assign them hammocks on the berth deck. If they don't mind their manners, show them how we deal with enemy spies."
The dream came as soon as Y/N was asleep.
The same, as usual, again and for eternity, it seemed. Was this all going to happen—the fall from the frozen cliff, the run with the crevasse gapping behind him, the sky and the earth getting closer and closer, New York asleep—or was it just a dream? An illusion?
He didn't know.
He woke to the alarms ringing throughout the ship.
The captain's gravelly voice: "All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?"
His ghostly face appeared above Y/N. "Get up, Yankee. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance."
"The entrance to what?"
The zombie gave him a skeletal smile. "The Sea of Monsters, of course."
Y/N stuffed his few belongings that had survived the Hydra into a sailor's canvas knapsack and slung it over his shoulder. He had a sneaking suspicion that one way or another he would not be spending another night aboard the CSS Birmingham.
He was climbing up the stairs when something made him stop in his tracks. A presence nearby—something familiar and unpleasant. For no particular reason, he felt like picking up a fight. He wanted to punch a dead Confederate. The last time he had felt like that kind of anger. . . .
Instead of going up, he crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck.
Clarisse was standing right below him, talking to an image that shimmered in the steam from the boilers—a muscular man in black leather biker clothes, with a military haircut, red-tinted sunglasses, and a knife strapped to his side.
He gritted his teeth. It was his least favorite Olympian: Ares, the god of war.
"I don't want excuses, little girl!" Ares growled.
"Y-yes, father," Clarisse mumbled.
"You don't want to see me mad, do you?"
"No, father."
"No, father," Ares mimicked. "You're pathetic. I should've let one of my sons take this quest."
"I'll succeed!" Clarisse promised, her voice trembling. "I'll make you proud."
"You'd better," he warned. "You asked me for this quest, girl. If you let that slimeball L/N steal it from you—"
"But the Oracle said—"
YOU ARE READING
The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)
Fanfiction"You will be glorious. You will be my glory." Y/N's life was quiet before that day. What day? The day a giant snake tried to kill him. Then it became really weird for sure. First, a lightning bolt was stolen. How is that even a thing? Y/N didn't kno...
31. Between Scylla And Charybdis
Start from the beginning
