𝑻𝑶𝑮𝑬𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹 ⁽ᵖᵉʳᶜʸ ʲᵃᶜᵏˢᵒⁿ ˣ ᵒᶜ⁾

𝘿𝙞𝙙 𝙄 𝙖𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙘𝙤𝙤𝙡?

PERCY

Percy came ashore after conversing with his father's messenger. From where he was standing, he could see every emergency vehicle, in the sky and on land, in St. Louis surrounding the Arch.

He saw a little girl looking at him and tugging on her mothers sleeve. "Mama! That boy walked out of the river!"

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

"But he's dry!"

"That's nice, dear."

Percy was relieved that he was able to sneak past without getting noticed and hoped that his friends were okay. He was already dreading his interaction with a certain curly haired, brown eyed girl. He knew that she was going to kill him and send him to the Underworld in a different way than he originally had planned.

Pushing through the crowd, he tried to search for his friends. A few feet away was a news reporter, who was explaining about how a teenage boy was seen wilding out inside the monument behind him. Percy began to back away, trying to keep his head down and away from anyone's sight. Instead of crossing through the crowd, he opted to go the long way and walk around them.

He had almost lost hope of ever finding Lana and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, "Perr-cy!"

As he turned around, he got tackled by Grover's hug. The satyr said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"

When the two pulled away, Percy's eyes landed on Lana's form and could practically feel the anger that radiated off of her.

"Lana." He whispered out, taking a step closer and reaching his hand out to the shorter girl.

"I thought you died, you complete idiot!" She shoved his hand away and breathed out heavily. "Geez, Percy, I can't even leave you alone for five minutes. I thought the freaking quest was over because we couldn't find you!" She exclaimed.

Percy thought back to their conversation in the woods the first day they started their quest. How if he died, she would be dragged back to camp against her wishes. He felt ridiculously stupid and incredibly guilty for making her worry about him.

"I know, I'm sorry." He mumbled out. He tried to do puppy eyes on her, seeing as they always work on his mom, but it seemed to anger her even more.

She rolled her eyes before throwing herself at him, wrapping her small arms around his neck. Percy was shell shocked, standing there with eyes wide and jaw dropped. It took him a couple of seconds to wrap his arms around her waist and hug her back. He breathed in her floral smell and felt all the tension in his back escape his body.

Lana pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest again. "First, don't ever willingly fall to your death again. And second, can you even begin to explain what the hell happened?"