A/n: Sorry it's so short, my brother deleted my whole chapter trying to write 'I love you'.
Y/n's Pov:
The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. I didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed me where to look, and I recognized the faint blue symbol etched in the metal.
"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.
"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."
"No." I stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."
Sure enough, as soon as I put my hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.
"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but I couldn't tell if she was pretending or not.
She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and her regular marker-coloured jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face.
"So...after you?" she asked me.
"Well, you're the guide now," I told her. "So, after you."
"Lead on," Annabeth said with mock politeness.
The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark I couldn't see two feet in front of us, but Annabeth and Percy had restocked on flashlights. As soon as they switched them on, Rachel yelped.
A skeleton was grinning at us. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing—at least ten feet tall. Not only that, but it had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles, so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent shivers down my spine was the single black eye socket in the centre of its skull.
"A Cyclops," Grayson said. "It's ancient. It's not...anybody we know."
It wasn't Tyson, he meant. But that didn't make me feel much better. I still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown Cyclops, I didn't want to meet.
I looked at Grayson quizzically. "Since when do you know what the word 'ancient' means?"
Grayson frowned. "Shut up."
Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"
"Tyson," Percy said. "My half brother."
"Your half brother."
"Hopefully we'll find him down here," Percy said. "And Grover. He's a satyr."
"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."
She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. Annabeth and I exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged. We followed Rachel deeper into the maze.
After fifty feet, we came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.
Grayson pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."
Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right—those old stones—that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."
"We need to go straight," Rachel said.
Annabeth and I both looked at her.
"That's the least likely choice," I said.
"You don't see it?" Rachel asked. "Look at the floor."
I saw nothing except well-worn bricks and mud.
"There's a brightness there," Rachel insisted. "Very faint. But forward is the correct way. To the left, farther down the tunnel, those tree roots are moving like feelers. I don't like that. To the right, there's a trap about twenty feet down. Holes in the walls, maybe for spikes. I don't think we should risk it."
I didn't see anything like she was describing.
Grayson nodded. "Okay. Forward."
"You believe her?" Annabeth asked.
"Yeah," Grayson said. "Don't you?"
Annabeth looked like she wanted to argue, but she waved at Rachel to lead on. Together we kept walking down the brick corridor. It twisted and turned, but there were no more side tunnels. We seemed to be angling down, heading deeper underground.
"No traps?" I asked anxiously.
"Nothing." Rachel knit her eyebrows. "Should it be this easy?"
"I don't know," I said. "It was never 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?" I asked. Annabeth looked at Rachel in sympathy. Having trouble with parents was something we both understood.
Before Rachel could answer, there was a creaking noise in front of us, like huge doors opening.
"What was that?" Annabeth asked.
"I don't know," Rachel said. "Metal hinges."
"Oh, that's very helpful. I mean, what is it?"
Then I heard heavy footsteps shaking the corridor—coming toward us.
"Run?" I asked.
"Run," Rachel agreed.
We turned and fled the way we'd come, but we didn't make it twenty feet before we ran straight into some old friends. Two dracaenae —snake women in Greek armour—levelled their javelins at our chests. Standing between them was Kelli, the empousa cheerleader.
"Well, well," Kelli said.
Percy uncapped Riptide, Grayson pulled out my hunting knife, I took out my spear, and Annabeth pulled her knife; but before Riptide was even out of pen form, 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.
"No!" I shouted.
"Taking your little mortal pet for a walk?" Kelli asked me. "They're such fragile things. So easy to break!"
Behind us, the footsteps came closer. A colossal 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 us. "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."
~
It was pretty much my worst nightmare. And believe me, I've had plenty of nightmares. We were marched down the tunnel, flanked by dracaenae, with Kelli and the giant in the back, just in case we tried to run for it. Nobody seemed to worry about us running forward. That was the direction they wanted us to go.
Up ahead, I 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 Percy's left. "You'll be very popular with our hossssst."
I'd never got to look at a dracaena up close before, and I wasn't really 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 armour that stopped at her waist. Below that, where her legs should've been, were two massive snake boots, mottled bronze and green. She moved by a combination of slithering and walking as if she were on living skis.
"Who's your host?" Percy asked.
She hissed, which might have been a laugh. "Oh, you'll sssssee. You'll get along furiousssly. He'ssss your brother, after all."
"My what?
Immediately I thought of Tyson, but that was impossible. What was she talking about?
The giant pushed past us and opened the doors. He picked up Annabeth, Grayson, and me by our shirts and said, "You stay here."
"Hey!" I protested, but the guy was twice my size, and he'd already confiscated our weapons.
Kelli laughed. She still had her claws at Rachel's neck. "Go on, Percy. Entertain us. We'll wait here with your friends to make sure you behave."
Percy looked at me. His eyes showed nothing but pure worry. "I'll come back to you. I promise."
He then turned to look at Rachel. "I'm sorry. I'll get you out of this."
She nodded as much as she could with a demon at her throat. "That would be nice."
The dracaenae prodded Percy toward the doorway at javelin-point, and he walked out onto the floor of an arena.
~
Annabeth jumped around and moved, trying to see Percy.
"You see anything?" Grayson asked.
Annabeth turned to him at breakneck speed. "D'you think I'd be moving around and jumping if I did?"
Grayson held his hands up. "Well, I'm sorry. I just thought you didn't see him well."
"Well, how about you keep your thoughts to yourself!"
They broke into an argument. Annabeth threw insults and snarly remarks, while Grayson tried his best to not let his English and French mix.
After what seemed like five minutes, I had enough. "Guys."
Annabeth groaned. "Well, if you're just going to assume, then why don't you stop being a pussy, and do the work yourself!"
"Guys!"
Grayson scoffed. "Oh, alors maintenant je suis lui pussy!" (A/n: Sorry if it's incorrect, I used Google Translate)
"Guys!"
"You have always been a pussy, Grayson!"
"GUYS!"
"Says the girl who didn't talk to me for two weeks after she—"
"GRAYSON MARTIN AND ANNABETH CHASE, YOU LISTEN TO ME RIGHT NOW!"
The pair stopped arguing.
"Okay, what is going on with you both?" I snapped.
Both Annabeth and Grayson looked at me sheepishly.
I sighed. "Seriously. The bickering has to stop."
Annabeth pointed at Grayson. "He started it!"
"What?!" Grayson squeaked. "No, I didn't! You were the one who—"
From behind me came a surprised yelp. The Laistrygonian giant who'd been guarding us flew past me and smashed into the wall.
"AROOOOF!"
"Mrs O'Leary!" Grayson exclaimed.
Kelli the empousa screamed as a five-hundred-pound black mastiff picked her up like a chew toy and tossed her through the air, straight into Luke's lap. Mrs O'Leary snarled, and the two dracaenae guards backed away. For a moment, the monsters in the audience were caught completely by surprise.
"Let's go!" Percy yelled at us. "Heel, Mrs O'Leary!"
"The far exit!" Rachel cried. "That's the right way!"
Together we raced across the arena and out the far exit, Mrs O'Learyright behind us. As we ran, I could hear the disorganized sounds of an entire army trying to jump out ofthe stands and follow us.