THERE WAS NOTHING BUT scrap metal for miles.
"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked once Percy had told them about Aphrodite.
Stella found it odd that he didn't look at her once since they had regrouped, not even when he told them about his peculiar meeting with the goddess.
"Oh, uh, not sure," Percy said, "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. She said not to pick anything up."
"That's all she said?" Stella questioned skeptically.
She knew he was lying and had no idea why. He met her eyes for a split second, and she couldn't pretend she didn't notice the small blush that coated his cheeks before he immediately looked away.
Zoë narrowed her eyes at him, equally suspicious. "The goddess of love would not make a special trip to tell thee that. Be careful, Percy. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray."
"For once I agree with Zoë," Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite."
Stella looked over at Grover, who was looking at Percy all funny. Did he know? She wouldn't put it past him, he had a strange empathy link with Percy. Did Aphrodite give him the talk? Stella continued to wonder what the goddess of love could have possibly told him before Percy shook her out of her thoughts.
"So," Percy said, anxious to change the subject, "how do we get out of here?"
"That way," Zoë said. "That is west."
"How can you tell?"
In the light of the full moon, Stella was able to clearly see Zoë roll her eyes at him. "Ursa Major is in the north," she said, "which means that must be west."
She pointed west, then at the northern constellation, which was hard to make out because there were so many other stars.
"Oh, yeah," Percy said. "The bear thing."
Zoë looked offended. "Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent."
"You act like it was real."
"Guys," Grover broke in. "Look!"
They had reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines, and computer monitors.
"Whoa," Bianca said. "That stuff... some of it looks like real gold."
"It is," Thalia said grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."
"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver, and jewels. It was broken on one side as if it had been split by an axe. "You call this junk?"
He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"
Stella swatted the crown out of his hands. "Maybe that's not the best idea."
"Look!" Bianca said. She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in the moonlight. "A Hunter's bow!"
Stella couldn't deny she was also drawn to the bow; it was beautiful. Bianca yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon.
"It's just like Stella's ring!" The girl exclaimed.
Zoë's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca."
"But—"
"It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed."
Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down.
"I don't fucking like this place," Thalia said, gripping the shaft of her spear.
"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked.
She gave him a hard look. "Zoë is right, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."
"That's the second time you've agreed with Zoë," Percy muttered, but Thalia ignored him.
They started picking their way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, they would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same.
"Pissed that Thalia's siding with a Hunter over you?" Stella taunted him after Thalia had walked away.
"Oh, shut up," Percy grumbled, finally looking at her.
She smiled, "Sooo... are you going to tell me what happened with Aphrodite, or are you going to continue acting all weird."
"What do you mean weird?" Percy laughed.
Stella rolled her eyes, her voice tinged with playful exasperation. "You're deflecting, waterboy. What did she tell you?"
"She warned me about the junkyard... and said our quest isn't important— unless it's for true love. And she has no idea where Annabeth is either," Percy admitted.
Stella nodded along, her mind working to piece together the information. She felt like he was leaving a few things out, but decided not to press him further. Yet, a thought nagged at the back of her mind. Was that what he was leaving out? Was his mission on the quest for his true love, Annabeth?
As Percy's words lingered in the night air, Stella couldn't deny the small twinge of unease in her heart. She had spent her entire summer with the two of them, and she was certain that there was nothing more than a platonic bond between Percy and Annabeth— but what if Percy secretly harbored deeper feelings for Annabeth? Stella couldn't quite pinpoint why the thought left her feeling a bit disheartened. After all, she wanted nothing but happiness for her friends.
Of course, the sole reason why she felt upset was because he hadn't confided in her... what other reason could she have?
Not wanting to dwell on it, she distracted herself. As much as she would like to say that they left the stuff alone, there was too much cool junk not to check out some of it.
Among the twisted metal and forgotten treasures, Stella's eyes fell upon an electric guitar shaped like Apollo's lyre. It was so sweet she had to pick it up. Percy watched her, impressed, as she played a snippet of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain." Being the daughter of the god of music had its perks, and Stella had a natural talent for any instrument she picked up.
"I have to admit I'm jealous you can play anything," Percy said after she gently set the guitar down, "But can you do this?"
He proceeded to reach for the skateboard next to him that had a beautiful "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" print on the board. It was Stella's turn to watch as Percy skillfully showed off all the tricks he knew. She couldn't help but laugh when he nearly wiped out during the last, daring maneuver.
"Okay, fine, I have to admit you know your stuff," Stella said with a grin after Percy playfully bowed as if to acknowledge his imaginary audience.
They moved along the junkyard and reunited with Grover, who had found a broken tree made out of metal. It had been chopped to pieces, but some of the branches still had golden birds in them, and they whirred around when Grover picked them up, trying to flap their wings.
Finally, they saw the edge of the junkyard about half a mile ahead of them, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert. But between them and the road...
"What is that?" Bianca gasped.
Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns wedged tightly together.
Bianca frowned. "They look like—"
"Toes," Grover said.
Bianca slowly, her unease growing. "Really, really large toes."
Stella couldn't ignore the nervous glances exchanged between Zoë and Thalia. Oh lovely, danger ahead.
"Let's go around," Thalia said, her tone cautious. "Far around."
"But the road is right over there," Percy protested. "Quicker to climb over."
Ping.
Stella immediately had her hand on her ring and raised Iliaktída in a second while Thalia hefted her spear, and Zoë drew her own bow.
But as their hearts raced, they collectively realized that the sound wasn't a threat. Grover had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo as if the column were hollow.
"Why did you do that?" Zoë demanded.
Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"
"Come on," Thalia said, directing her stare at Percy. "Around."
Nobody argued. The toes were starting to freak them out.
"Who sculpts ten-foot-tall metal toes and sticks them in a junkyard?" Percy muttered to Stella.
"Someone who wants to see us get our asses kicked."
He laughed at Stella's comment and received a nasty glare from Thalia.
After several minutes of walking, they finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.
"We made it out," Zoë said. "Thank the gods."
But apparently, the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, they heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.
Stella whirled around. Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and she realized why they looked like toes. They were toes.
The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor. He was impossibly tall—a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He looked down at them, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armored chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words WASH ME.
"Talos!" Zoë gasped.
"Who—who's Talos?" Percy stuttered.
"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."
The metal giant didn't like the word defective.
He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but Stella didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.
"Someone took something," Zoë said. "Who took something?"
She stared accusingly at Percy.
He shook his head, a firmness in his voice as he denied the accusation. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."
Bianca didn't say anything. Stella could swear she looked guilty, but she didn't have much time to think about it because the giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.
"Run!" Grover yelped.
Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance them easily.
They split up the way they had done with the Nemean Lion. Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path.
Zoë's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal.
Stella, Bianca, and Percy found themselves huddled together behind the shattered remains of a chariot, their hearts pounding with a mix of fear and determination.
"You took something," Percy said. "That bow."
"No!" Bianca's voice quivered under the weight of his accusation.
"Give it back!" He insisted hastily, "Throw it down!"
"I...I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late." Bianca's voice trembled, her hands empty and palms up in a defensive gesture.
"Okay, then what did you take?" Stella interjected, her eyes locked on Bianca, demanding an answer.
Before she could answer, they heard a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky.
"Move!" Percy tore down the hill, Stella and Bianca right on his heels as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where they had been hiding.
"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, its lifeless, mechanical eyes fixated on Bianca, Percy, and Stella.
Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed power lines began to dance. Stella understood what Grover was going to do a split second before it happened. One of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf. The lines sparked and sent a jolt of electricity up the giant's backside.
Talos whirled around, creaking and sparking. Grover had bought them a few seconds.
"Come on!" Percy urged, waving to the two girls. Stella wasted no time and rushed forward, but Bianca remained frozen.
From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a delicate statue of a god. "It...it was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have," Bianca confessed, her voice quivering with a mix of sorrow and guilt.
Percy couldn't hide his frustration, his voice strained. "How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?"
Tears glistened in Bianca's eyes as she clutched the figurine tightly.
Stella, her heart heavy with sympathy, stepped closer to Bianca. "Throw it down," she gently advised. "Maybe the giant will leave us alone."
With great reluctance, Bianca let the figurine slip from her fingers, and it tumbled to the unforgiving ground. They all watched as it landed amidst the scattered debris, but to their dismay, nothing seemed to happen.
The giant continued its relentless pursuit of Grover. It stabbed its sword into a junk hill, missing Grover by a few feet, but scrap metal made an avalanche over him, and then Stella couldn't see him anymore.
"No!" Thalia yelled. She pointed her spear, and a blue arc of lightning shot out, hitting the monster in his rusty knee, which buckled. The giant collapsed but immediately started to rise again. It was hard to tell if it could feel anything. There weren't any emotions in its half-melted face, but Stella got the sense that it was about as ticked off as a twenty-story-tall metal warrior could be.
"Crazy idea time," Percy said.
Oh gods, here he goes again. "As crazy as all your other ideas?" Stella asked.
Bianca, looking nervously between them, chimed in, "I'll do anything."
Percy told them about the maintenance hatch. "There may be a way to control the thing. Switches or something. I'm going to get inside."
"No! The only way to get inside is by standing under its foot— and that's just stupid! You'll be crushed." Stella protested.
Percy's determination didn't waver. "Distract it," He urged. "I'll just have to time it right."
Stella's stubbornness flared, and she refused to let him take such a risk. "It would be easier if I tried. If I get any serious injuries, I can just heal myself."
Percy had an unreadable look on his face, but she could tell he wasn't pleased by her proposition. Stella thought he looked like he would rather hurl himself off a cliff than let her do it. He opened his mouth to protest, but Bianca beat him to it.
"No. I'll go." Bianca's jaw tightened.
"You both can't. You're new at this! You'll die." Percy said, addressing the last part to Bianca.
Bianca, however, stood her ground. "It's my fault the monster came after us. It's my responsibility." She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into Percy's hand. "Here. If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him... tell him I'm sorry."
"Bianca, no!" Stella pleaded, but Bianca was already on the move.
Without waiting for further arguments, she charged at the monster's left foot.
Thalia had its attention for the moment. She'd learned that the giant was big but slow. If you could stay close to it and not get smashed, you could run around it and stay alive. At least, it was working so far.
Bianca got right next to the giant's foot, trying to balance herself on the metal scraps that swayed and shifted with his weight.
Zoë yelled, "What are you doing?"
"Get it to raise its foot!" She said.
Zoë shot an arrow toward the monster's face, and it flew straight into one nostril. The giant straightened and shook its head.
"Get ready to run," Percy warned Stella, turning his head to look at her with an urgency that left no room for questioning.
Confusion flashed in her eyes, and she stammered, "What?"
"Just trust me." Percy told her before turning to Talos and yelling, "Hey, Junk Boy! Down here."
Stella's heart raced as she processed Percy's actions. The adrenaline coursed through her veins as she knew she had to act swiftly. With Iliaktída, her loyal celestial bronze bow, firmly in hand, she sprinted towards Thalia. She watched as Percy ran up to its big toe and stabbed it with Riptide. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze.
Unfortunately, his plan worked. Talos looked down at him and raised his foot to squash him like a bug. Percy didn't see what Bianca was doing. He had to turn and run. The foot came down about two inches behind him, and he was knocked into the air. Percy hit something hard and sat up, dazed. He'd been thrown into an Olympus Air refrigerator.
Stella couldn't stand idly by as Percy's life hung in the balance. She quickly began to shoot arrows at Talos, her eyes locked onto various weaknesses in the creature's armor. Each arrow loosed from her bow was a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the battle. Talos began to slow down, showing signs of vulnerability, but Stella knew it might not be enough to prevent the automaton from obliterating Percy.
Grover stepped in, somehow having dug himself out of the junk pile. He played his pipes frantically, and his music sent another power line pole whacking against Talos's thigh. The monster turned. Grover should've run, but he must've been too exhausted from the effort of so much magic. He took two steps, fell, and didn't get back up.
"Grover!" They all exclaimed. Thalia, Stella, and Percy ran toward him, but they knew they would be too late.
The monster raised his sword to smash Grover. Then he froze.
Talos cocked his head to one side like he was hearing strange new music. He started moving his arms and legs in weird ways, doing the Funky Chicken. Then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.
"Go, Bianca!" Percy yelled.
Zoë's expression reflected sheer horror. "She is inside?"
A sense of dread descended upon Stella, mirroring the horrified look on Zoë's face. An ominous premonition gnawed at her insides, suggesting that this situation was spiraling toward an unfortunate outcome.
In that tense moment, a sudden vision flashed before Stella's eyes. She saw the monstrous automaton crumbling, its metal pieces falling apart, almost as if in rapid decay. It was a fleeting, disorienting sight, and before she could fully grasp its meaning, reality snapped back into focus.
She didn't have enough time to think about what she had potentially seen because the monster staggered around, and Stella realized they were still in danger. The three of them grabbed Grover and ran with him toward the highway.
Zoë was already ahead of them. She yelled, "How will Bianca get out?"
The giant hit itself in the head again and dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his whole body, and he staggered toward the power lines.
"Look out!" Percy yelled, but it was too late.
The giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. Stella hoped the inside was insulated. She had no idea what was going on in there. The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG!
His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints.
Talos began to run.
"Wait!" Zoë desperate cry filled the air as they chased after Talos. But it was a futile pursuit, for there was no way they could match its speed. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in their way.
As the giant crumbled, it started from the top down, disintegrating in rapid succession: the head, the chest, and finally, the legs, which buckled beneath the weight of impending defeat. When they reached the wreckage, they searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head.
Desperation drove them as they overturned enormous metal plates, casting long, eerie shadows in the early morning light. The smell of scorched metal hung in the air, mixing with the bitter taste of failure. They searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.
Zoë sat down and wept. Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.
"Bianca!" Stella yelled out, on the verge of tears. There was no way the girl was gone; she wouldn't accept it.
"We can keep searching," Percy said, his voice filled with determination. "It's light now. We'll find her."
Stella frantically moved around all the fallen pieces of armor, trying to lift as many as she could to find the girl. "She— she has to be somewhere around here. We have to find her."
She could feel her body heating up as she dug around manically. "I— I can heal her. Everything will be fine, she will be fine."
They all looked at Stella, who was the only one still moving around, and noticed a golden glow around her that started to grow stronger and stronger.
Percy knew he needed to intervene and rushed to her side, calling her name with urgency. "Stella!"
But she was in a frenzied state, caught between hope and despair. She anxiously kept digging, her intensity unwavering.
He wrapped his arms around her waist to get the girl to calm down, his determination battling the pain as her skin was scorching hot. Percy had to hold on to her despite the fact that he could feel himself burning.
Stella's mind went blank when Percy's arms encircled her waist. She could feel the heat she was emitting, and her stomach sunk when she realized she was hurting him. Panic washed over her, and she started hyperventilating as Percy helped her walk back toward the group.
"Elle, we'll find her. Let me help you search. Just take a break and a deep breath, please, for me." Percy murmured.
"No, we won't," Grover said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."
"What are you talking about?" He demanded, his focus divided between Stella and their friend.
Grover looked up at them with big watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain."
Her father was the fucking god of prophecy, and she didn't see it. Why had she let Bianca go instead of herself? If she had paid attention to her vision, maybe she could have saved the girl. It was all her fault.
The desolation of the desert stretched out before her like an unforgiving canvas of regret. The endless expanse of sand and scrub only accentuated the gnawing guilt that consumed her. Here they were, alive. And Bianca di Angelo was gone.