Raging Seas [pjo au] || 1

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CHAPTER SEVEN
( OLD LADIES NO LONGER
HAVE KALI'S TRUST )

THEY SLOWED TO A hurried, brisk walk when they thought the bus and the screeching Kindly One was far enough behind them. The rain had slowed down to a drizzle during that time. The night sky was dark above them, covered with clouds and tinted yellow behind them because of the lights of New York City. It was hard to see as they walked along the bank of the Hudson River – it smelled atrocious, by the way – and they all stumbled a few times through mud, over tree roots and around tree trunks.

Kali kept her arms crossed tightly over her chest, occasionally having to take a few quick steps, a half attempted jog, to keep up with the others. Annabeth refused to slow down completely, which Kali didn't blame her for, but still – it wasn't nice having to practically scurry after the others. Percy had no trouble keeping up with Annabeth; he seemed to naturally walk fast. Kali thought it had something to do with him being a native New Yorker; ever since she moved there, everyone else just seemed to walk like that. Then Grover, despite shivering because of the rain and terror of the Kindly Ones, trotted easily alongside them.

She kept her head down, squinting through the dark to see vague shapes and outlines of tree roots and twigs. Unfortunately she couldn't see puddles or muddy patches of grass, so every once in a while a step she took would make water and/or mud splash on her shoes and lower calves. All the while, her mind was unable to completely stop thinking about the Kindly Ones.

Kali wondered how long it would take for them to reform this time; if they were going to run into them again. She's not that stupid, she knew that during the quest they were going to fight monsters, and those weren't going to be the only ones, but did it have to be those three right off the bat? It certainly had to be some type of miracle that they survived the encounter with the Kindly Ones twice now, especially since two of the Big Three seemed to want her and Percy gone.

And wasn't that fun to think about.

Grover shivered and brayed. His goat eyes had turned into slits, full of terror from the fight back on the bus. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Kali didn't feel much better. But she truly didn't know how much of that was terror and how much of it was exhaustion.

They hadn't stopped to rest ever since running from the exploded bus, and her energy was waning. The rain water gave her some strength to keep going, but between the adrenaline from the fight slowly disappearing and her lack of sleep from the night before catching up and how she hadn't eaten since lunch, Kali wanted to just rest and eat. Neither of those options were available.

"Come on! The farther away we get, the better," Annabeth said.

Kali trudged on, and bit back an annoyed groan.

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

"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," said Annabeth.