love and war | p.j & a.c¹

1.05

Something—or more like two somethings—slithered past the bathroom door, making sounds like sandpaper against the carpet.

"Yesss," a second reptilian voice said. "He drawssss them. Ssssoon we will be sssstrong."

The things slithered into the cafeteria with a cold hissing that might have been snake laughter.

Annabeth looked at Percy. "We have to get out of here."

"You think I want to be in the girls' restroom?"

"I mean the ship, Percy! We have to get off the ship."

"Smells bad," Tyson agreed. "And dogs eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and ship."

I nodded too, "Whatever those things are, i don't feel like meeting them."

Percy shuddered, i guess he figured if we were all agreeing on something he knew he should listen. Then we heard another voice outside, both Percy and Annabeth's faces went pale.

"—only a matter of time. Don't push me, Agrius!"

"I'm not pushing you!" Another guy growled. His voice was deeper and even angrier than the other guy, "I'm just saying, if this gamble doesn't pay off—"

"It'll pay off," The first voice snapped, "They'll take the bait. Now, come, we've got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket."

Their voices receded down the corridor.

Tyson whimpered. "Leave now?"

Percy looked at me, and then to Annabeth, we came to a silent agreement. 

"We can't" He said.

"We have to find out what Luke is up to," Annabeth agreed. "And if possible, we're going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus."

I raised my eyebrow at the pain in her voice, she genuinely sounded hurt because of this Luke guy. Even though she hated me, I found myself wanting to beat up whoever this guy was for hurting her.

Whoa, what the hell was that?

☽☾

ANNABETH OFFERED TO GO ALONE, BUT WE ALL PROTESTED; EITHER ALL OF US WENT OR NONE OF US.

She didn't look happy that I was voting to protect her, but she gave up anyway. We stopped at our cabin long enough to gather our stuff. We figured whatever happened, we would not be staying another night aboard the zombie cruise ship, even if they did have million-dollar bingo.

I checked that I had my dagger and that my clothes were all folded neatly in my bag. I also found the necklace that i've had for years in the bottom of the bag, i'm not sure why Hermes packed it, maybe he wanted me to look stylish?

Anyway, the necklace is a braided leather cord with a magnetic clasp. It has a small peacock feather charm hanging off of it. I'm not sure when exactly I got it, but i've had it for as long as I can remember. 

I put the necklace on and gave my duffel bag to Tyson, who insisted on carrying all of them. 

We sneaked through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly. We hid whenever someone passed by, but most of the people we saw were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.

As we came up the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved us into a supply closet.

I heard a couple of guys coming down the hall.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.

The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome."

"I hear they got two more coming," one of them said. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!"

The voices faded down the corridor

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. "You remember, Perce—from Cabin Eleven."