𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲.

Fight Club

"Yeah," he said. "Don't you?"

Lilia wanted to argue, but Annabeth waved at Rachel to lead on. Together they kept walking down the brick corridor. It twisted and turned, but there were no more side tunnels. They seemed to be angling down, heading deeper underground.

"No traps?" Lilia asked anxiously.

"Nothing." Rachel knit her eyebrows. "Should it be this easy?"

"I don't know," Percy said. "It never was before."

"So, Rachel," Annabeth said, "where are you from, exactly?"

She said it like, What planet are you from? But Rachel didn't look offended.

"Brooklyn," she said.

"Aren't your parents going to be worried if you're out late?"

Rachel exhaled. "Not likely. I could be gone a week and they'd never notice."

"Why not?" This time Annabeth didn't sound as sarcastic. Having trouble with parents was something she understood.

Before Rachel could answer, there was a creaking noise in front of us, like huge doors opening.

"What was that?" Lilia asked, nervously backing toward the closest person to her, Percy.

"I don't know," Rachel said. "Metal hinges."

"Oh, that's very helpful. I mean, what is it?"
Then they heard heavy footsteps shaking the corridor coming toward them.

"Run?" Percy asked.

"Run," Rachel agreed.

They turned and fled the way they'd come, but they didn't make it twenty feet before they ran straight into some old friends. Two dracaenae snake women in Greek armor leveled their javelins at our chests. Standing between them was Kelli, the empousa cheerleader.

"Well, well," Kelli said.

Lilia raised her bow Percy uncapped Riptide, and Annabeth pulled her knife; but before Lilia could even aim, Kelli pounced on Rachel. Her hand turned into a claw and she spun Rachel around, holding her tight with her talons at Rachel's neck.

"Taking your little mortal pet for a walk?" Kelli asked Percy. "They're such fragile things. So easy to break!"

Behind them, the footsteps came closer. A huge form appeared out of the gloom an eight-foot-tall Laistrygonian giant with red eyes and fangs.
The giant licked his lips when he saw them. "Can I eat them?"

"No," Kelli said. "Your master will want these. They will provide a great deal of entertainment." She smiled at me. "Now march, half-bloods. Or you all die here, starting with the mortal girl."

They were marched down the tunnel, flanked by dracaenae, with Kelli and the giant in back, just in case they tried to run for it. Nobody seemed to worry about them running forward. That was the direction they wanted them to go.

Up ahead Lilia could see bronze doors. They were about ten feet tall, emblazoned with a pair of crossed swords. From behind them came a muffled roar, like from a crowd.

"Oh, yessssss," said the snake woman on my left. "You'll be very popular with our hossssst."

She'd never gotten to look at a dracaena up close before, and she wasn't real thrilled to have the opportunity.

She would've had a beautiful face, except her tongue was forked and her eyes were yellow with black slits for pupils. She wore bronze armor that stopped at her waist. Below that, where her legs should've been, were two massive snake trunks, mottled bronze and green. She moved by a combination of slithering and walking, as if she were on living skis.