the anatomy of a hurricane
read on ao3
part i // part ii // part iii
or
part iv: surge
Unsurprisingly, the beginning of the end is Dionysus’s fault.
It’s been three weeks since they got back from the field trip from hell, and Camp Half-Blood stumbles around normalcy. They eat, they sleep, they grieve. And they wait for the end of the world.
Percy’s routine had gotten a lot less listless and a lot more hostile. Rather than pick at, he stabbed at the food he barely ate. At his daily perch on the boulder, his vacant stare out into the forest became a pointed glare at the sky. Everyday it got harder to ignore the whirlpools he created in the ocean, or the screams of the monsters he hunted.
But he started training with her again.
(Chiron tells her he thinks it's a good sign. Clarisse thinks he should shove it.)
Time passes achingly slow when your entire life is an interlude. Days crawls by in echoey stretches, with stale smiles and eyes far too tired for their age.
And then there are the Bad days. The days where Percy’s control slips. The days where the ocean rages and ground trembles. Afterwards, he’ll come to her, eyes wide with bags so heavy his pupils strain to hold them up, and shaggy hair falling past his ears. On those days, without saying anything, she’ll take him to the beach. Sometimes he cries, sometimes he holds her hand, and sometimes he does nothing but stare out into open water. He barely speaks to her though.
He barely spoke to anyone.
So, needless to say, it’s a surprise when Percy had shown up to the morning meeting right along with the other head counselors, sat down on his chair and stared pointedly at a plastic white ping-pong ball. His presence alone made every pause echo and every silence a scream. The heavy air made Katies gasp at the door all the more noticeable.
Shit.
(It’s about here when something in Clarisse snaps. It’s as if all this watching yet doing and saying nothing finally caught up to her, and she was no longer in control of her body. All she could do was observe.)
She saw Dionysus waltz into the room with no warning and a Diet Coke. She saw the way Percy’s hand immediately curled into a fist. The way the muscles in his arms rippled, like it took physical force to keep him from standing up. The way the veins in his neck popped out as they all listened to Dionysus ramble about how Percy’s being granted the ability to leave camp was practically charity, and how he should be ‘eternally grateful’.
She heard the squeak of Percy’s chair at the word ‘grateful’ and saw Beckendorf’s hand snatch his wrist. She saw how Percy clamped his mouth shut, said nothing, and nodded, like it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. She felt the collective sigh of relief of the others as Dionysus turned to leave, but realized it was a breath let out too soon, when the god stopped.
He turned to Malcolm and asked how the Athena cabin was managing under his leadership. Malcolm, stiff and paler than she’d ever seen him, stammered through something like ‘not to worry, they were doing fine’.
Looking back, it was probably deliberate.
Dionysus hasn’t been here these days. He doesn’t feel the ground tremble, he doesn’t see the tidal waves or the cracks in the earth.
He didn’t hear the way Percy screamed.
Intentional or not, at the time, it seemed out of pure ignorance when Dionysus—who was walking towards the exit—looked over his shoulder, and, as if it were the most casual thing in the world, called, “Just let me know if you need a replacement.”
Several things happened at once.
Chiron shoved Dionysus the rest of the way out the door, slammed it shut, and cried, “Percy, don’t!”, but the damage was done. Percy broke free from Beckendorf’s hold as the room began to shake, chest heaving and hands trembling. Conner and Micheal tripped over each other trying to back up, and Katie yanked Travis out of the way just before a shield hanging on the wall could fall on top of them. Will looked hopelessly around and Clarisse realized he didn’t have anything with him. She was seriously considering whacking Percy on the back of the head with Maimer, (which would do nothing considering the fact that he’s invincible) when Silena stands up.
“STOP!” Silena commands, and, miraculously, he does. Percy falls to his knees, and when the ground stops shaking, it’s the first time anyone in the room is still enough to notice how hard he’s crying. Crying doesn’t really cover it. It’s animalistic, his sobs, so violent he positively heaves. It is raw and ugly and painful to watch. Clarisse is still frozen stuck to the floor, but Silena is quick to lose the authority in her stance, kneeling down to wipe his tears and put her hands on his cheeks, lifting his face to meet her eyes, and begin to soothe. There is music in her comfort, rhythm in the way she alleviates.
“Oh sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s all okay—no, no, no, no one is replacing Annabeth, I promise, right Charlie?”
A quick look of understanding passes between her and Beckendorf before the latter slides in to take Silena’s position.
“That’s right, no one is, and no one could—I'm sorry Perce, I'm just so, so sorry.”
When it’s clear that the sobbing isn’t gonna stop anytime soon, Beckendorf heaves a heavy sigh and rests his forehead against Percy’s, whispering, “I know, I’m sorry.” Over and over and over again.
“I need some air,” Silena says, her normally olive skin white as a sheet, appearing next to Clarrise. “Go with me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
They end up sitting in silence on the giant porch swing around the front of the building. At some point Katie wandered over too and the three of them sat, staring straight ahead. Katie links her arm with Clarisse’s, and Silena rests her head on her other shoulder. It should be familiar, the three of them sitting together, but it’s foreign in the empty spaces Annabeth should be taking up, throwing her gangly legs across their laps. Silena should be attempting to mess with Annabeth's curls, Katie should be complaining about Annabeth's sneakers on her thighs, growing tiny vines from the dirt in the bottom of her shoes out of spite.
The ghost of her laugh is stuck in Clarisse’s head. She wishes she could give apparitions the finger.
“You did great back there.” Katie speaks hesitantly, afraid to broach the subject.
“Yeah.” Clarisse adds. “You did good. I know you hate using your charmspeak, but he needed it.”
“Yeah, I know. Like Chiron said, ‘we have to contain him’.” (That's what he talked about when she and Percy were gone? Gods, Clarisse fucking hates that horse.) “But, I still feel bad. Messing with someone's head like that. Manipulating them.” She shudders.
Clarisse tries to think of anything other than the fact that Annabeth ‘dying’ in the first place is one giant manipulation.
(She fails.)
“You know, it was Annabeth who helped me learn to use my powers in the first place. Did I ever tell you that? Annabeth was the one who did all the research and taught me how to use it for good. She told me there was nothing wrong with me. It feels wrong using it against someone she….using it against Percy.”
Clarisse is putting a lot of effort into not standing up and punching a hole into the Big House wall Connor-style, when she feels teardrops sliding down the side of her arm.
“Katie?”
Silena, who was lost in thought after her confession, sits up and her eyes widen with alarm. “Kates, why’re you crying?”
“Because, I can’t fix the sunflowers!” Katie exclaims, tears rolling down her face. “Annabeth's gone, and Percy’s a wreck, and Travis doesn’t joke anymore, and Connor doesn't laugh anymore, and Micheal hasn’t fixed his bow yet, and I haven’t seen Grover in weeks, and all Beck does is work, and all Will does is worry, and no one sleeps or talks or sings anymore and I can't fix it! Any of it! The sunflowers are dying and I can't fix them, I can’t go anywhere near them, because they were her favorite and I don't understand how she can be gone—she was right here! Right here, and she was so good, so good, to everyone, and I can’t—it’s just—sunflowers!”
Clarisse has never been good at feelings. Especially not big complex ones, like the kind that crop up when someone you grow up with decides to fake die and leave you to deal with the aftermath.
But she can’t run. She’s supposed to take care of them. She promised.
“No.”
“Clarisse—,”
“No!”
“Try to understand—,”
“Understand? Understand what? That you have fake suicidal tendancies?”
“Clarisse, I read the prophecy when I was 10. I met Percy two years later. Every minute of every hour of every day I spent with him. I’ve known….. It's been on borrowed time. We've been on borrowed time. I've known it since the beginning. It’s all I’ve known. But, with this plan—,”
“This insane plan that not even Connor—fucking Connor—would go through with!”
“It’s gonna be okay, You’re gonna be okay—,”
“It’s not just about me! What about them, huh? What about the Stolls? Connor adores you, Travis looks up to you. What about Micheal, and all his anger issues only you know how to deal with? What about Beck, and the machines? What about Silena and Katie—you told me once the four of us were sisters! What about Malcolm, the rest of Cabin 6? He’s your brother, they’re your siblings! What about Percy?”
“Clarisse.”
“He’s never gonna forgive you.”
Clarisse didn’t notice her ears were ringing, or how heavy she’s breathing until the silence that held as Annabeth dropped her eyes. When she finally lifts them, they're shining.
“Did I ever tell you what the last line of my prophecy was? To lose a love worse than death. Percy and I haven’t been the same since last summer. He’s my best friend in the world and he can’t get through a sentence. I hurt when I’m with him and I hurt when I’m without him. Whatever it is that we’re doing—it feels like losing …... Because it’s all right there, he’s right there, but he can’t look me in the eye. So, yeah, maybe I will lose him forever. Maybe I already have. But, I’d rather ask for forgiveness after he’s survived, than ask permission from a dead man walking.”
“Annabeth—,”
“It's for all of them to decide whether or not they forgive me. All I'm asking is that you take care of them for me in the meantime. Please.”
Take care of them. Annabeth’s ‘dying’ wish echoes in her head, taunting and begging her at the same time.
Take care of them.
Gods. It’s all so fucked, she wants to scream.
So, she grips Katie and Silena’s hands, and marches them to the spot in the woods where Annabeth and the three of them used to sneak out to after curfew in the winter months when they were the few kids left at camp.
And she does just that. She screams. She screamed like she’d been wanting to this entire month. She screams for Annabeth and for Percy and every kid at camp and she screams for herself. She screams bloody fucking murder. At some point Katie and Silena join in, and Katie’s still crying and Silena throws a rock and they end up hugging and shaking and deliriously laughing. And they all feel the missing piece, and they curse and cry and stomp and just mourn together. And despite what she knows, Clarisse mourns with them.
The fucked-upedness of the whole situation is still there, but Silena seems a little lighter, and Katie’s smiling soft beneath her tears, and Clarisse finally feels like she’s done something right.
She walks the girls back to their respective cabins, and heads to the Big House with the intention of checking to make sure Percy had been put to sleep. (Will had to switch to liquid valium and stir it into pudding now. Because again. Fucking invincible.) When she feels the earth rumble and vibrate as if building up towards something big—
And then silence.
Eerie calm.
The kind that’s followed by storms.
She runs.
When she bursts into the Big House, she expects to see Percy at the center of the room, with Chiron and Dionysus cowering in the corner, Beckendorf trying in vain to get Percy to breathe, knocked over chairs, and maybe even a broken ping-pong table.
Instead, she finds Chiron pacing on anxious hooves and Beckendorf sitting across from a straight faced Percy. His expression is unreadable and his fingers are interlaced above the table, squeezing tight enough to burn. Chiron is at the head of the table with a disgruntled god of wine at his side.
“What's going on?” Clarisse asks, already afraid of the answer.
Chiron speaks up, fast, as if the words had come out before he had time to stop them. “Dionysus has just received word that Lu–Kronos,” Chiron catches, too late to stop Percy’s eyes from flashing. “Has found some way to……incapacitate New York.”
“Incapacitate…..how?”
“They’ve put the entirety of New York to sleep,” Beckendorf interrupts, glancing over at Chiron. “There's no real way to sugar coat that, I feel like we shouldn’t even try.”
“I’m sorry, they did what?”
“Morpheus. He put every mortal on the island of Manhattan to sleep,” Percy speaks, slow, sure, and rageful. He has to pause after every word to take a breath. “He put my city to sleep. The invasion has started.”
“We don’t know that, right, Dionysus?” Chiron attempts to placate.
Beckendorf shifts in his chair, Dionysus clears his throat. “No, we don’t. Besides, the gods are preoccupied at the moment, so it’s probably best to keep this under wraps. No need to go barging into New York trying to be heroes just yet, when we don't know what our enemies have planned. Let them make the first move, and we can figure it out from there.”
“What?!?” Clarisse objects, sharing the same incredulous look as Beckendorf as he speaks up with her.
“You want us to do nothing? That's insane!”
“For all we know their first move is bombing a hospital. You wanna just let them bomb a hospital?”
“Insane! An entire island is asleep and you want us to do nothing? People could be hurt!”
“We can’t just—,”
“He’s right.” Percy cuts in.
“What?” “Excuse me?” Clarisse and Beckendorph’s surprise is simultaneous and visceral. Chiron’s eyes almost pop out of his head. Even Dionysus is too stunned to speak.
“He’s right. We can’t do anything right now. There’s no use barging out into the open where we’re more vulnerable. We watch what they do from where it’s safe. We can do that, right? With the shield?” Percy looks to Beckendorf, who is staring at Percy like he’s dropped from the sky.
“Uhh, yeah. In theory we should be able to, but it is a prototype and without Anna—my partner, there are some kinks.”
At the sound of what was almost Annabeth's name, Percy’s bicep ripples, as if he’s squeezing his own hand even tighter, which shouldn’t be possible considering how white his knuckles are. Yet, he simply nods and continues. There’s something in his eyes Clarisse doesn’t recognize. “It will work well enough that we’ll be able to monitor where they are and what they do. It’s a bad idea to rush in, and there's no reason to worry anyone if we aren’t doing anything. Causing a panic with no clear solution is stupid.”
“Exactly.” Dionysus agrees, “Who knew the boy had some sense.”
Percy’s jaw twitches. He meets her eyes. They’re red and puffy but there’s something in them she just can't quite place…
“Well, if that’s all, the three of you are dismissed.” Dionysua waves his hand. Percy stands and exits as Clarisse and Beckendorf follow dumbly.
Once they’re outside, they keep walking, looking straight ahead. She brushes Percy’s arm and says,
“Nice speech.”
“Thank you, I thought so.”
“But you don’t actually mean any of the shit that you said.”
“Not a word of it, I’m killing the bastard. We leave tonight.”
Clarisse thought about the end of the world fairly often.
She tried her best not to. But she was fairly certain it would. End, that is. In her defense, the prophecy basically says the fate of the world depended on a teenage boy making the right decision. Forgive Clarisse for not having too much faith.
Then she met him. And the prophecy kid was no longer some nameless figurehead, he was Percy, a scrawny kid with little to no impulse control and a heart too big for his chest. And when he let her take home the fleece on her own and take all the credit when they were thirteen, she was certain—they were all gonna die. Clarisse used to think despite having the power, Percy was too kind to make the be all, end all decision that would decide the fate of the world, too gentle to kill.
Then Mt. St. Helens happened. And suddenly Percy was the most powerful demigod of their generation. And for a second, Clarisse thought they had a shot.
Then Annabeth died.
(Sort-of)
And suddenly none of that mattered because Clarisse’s life was a whirlwind of nightmare situations and she didn't have time to think about the end of the world, all she could do was try and keep herself and the people she cared about upright and away from flying debris.
Percy and Clarisse snuck out that night on some pegasi, and Iris messaged Thalia and Grover who’d met them in central park. Thalia, ever the badass, hitched a ride on a giant timber wolf, and an apprehensive Grover did the same with Percy’s hellhound, Mrs. O’Leary.
(She did not know Percy had a hellhound, but she doesn’t think now is the best time to ask. All she knows is she likes him better for it.)
Beckendorph stayed back at camp covering for them, but gave them the shield which they used to locate Kronos. It took a couple tries, but eventually they found him heading for the Upper East Side, and decided to cut him off at the Williamsburg Bridge.
They’re standing on the empty bridge, after getting the few sleeping pedestrians there out of their cars and out of the way, when she checks one of the cars dashes, she sees it's 3 am on August 18th. The end is finally here. She should probably be feeling more. It’s a bit underwhelming, actually. She takes comfort in the knowledge that if the world ends today, Percy’s gonna take Olympus down with it.
“So, is there a plan?” Thalia calls from where she’s directing her wolf (whom, Clarisse was told by Thalia with a faraway look in her eye, is named Jason) to dispose of a potbellied business man. “Or, are we wingin’ it? I’m good with either, I just need to know.”
“I am not good with either.” Grover pipes up from her left. “Not that it’ll have any impact on what ends up happening, just letting you know.”
The waver in Grover's voice almost makes her laugh, but then she peers over at Percy. He is standing a few feet ahead of her, sword in one hand, photo of Annabeth in the other, and eyes straight ahead, looking like vengeance personified. Any laughter dies in her throat.
Clarisse coughs an ‘ahem’—as if that was gonna get rid of the ball of guilt that lives at the base of her neck—and says, “Sure there's a plan, Goat boy. Wait until the army gets here.”
“Then what?”
“Try not to die.”
Grover mutters something along the lines of ‘hate that plan’, when they feel the ground beneath them tremble. Thalia’s brow furrows and calls, “Uh, Percy?”
“Not me.” He points to the other end of the bridge.
Holy mother of shit.
Horde isn’t a big enough word to describe what's steadily marching toward them right now. There's so many, it’s as if the spirit of this army made from demigods nightmares is one giant, living, breathing, gnarly thing, rearing its head and craving blood. And the head of this horror show is none other than the Minotaur. When the bull headed creature roars, what truly scares her is the echo of the sleeping city in response. There is no backup.
“Didn’t you kill him already?” Thalia asks, fingers visibly tight on her bow.
“That brand of evil doesn’t stay dead long.” Grover answers, hooves positively quaking. “How are we gonna…..”
And the goat might’ve kept talking, but Clarisse doesn’t hear it, can't hear anything other than the ringing in her ear because Percy is slipping Annabeth's picture in his pocket and turning around and their eyes are locking and she realizes two things at once.
First, when Percy runs headfirst into the biggest army Clarisse has ever seen, and he’s prepared to do it alone.
Second, that everything that’s happened since she lied to him on the docks has been a prologue, a fucked-up overature leading this moment. Before she knows what she’s doing Clarisse cries out, “Wait!”
Percy turns back, brows questioning.
Clarisse pulls Annabeth's dagger out of her bag and hands it to him. And her throat is clogged up and she can’t speak, but she doesn’t have to. Something about the reverence he holds for the weapon, scares her more than his earthquakes ever did. He looks at the knife like it’s judgment day, and every single monster in the crowd will have a reckoning with it. With him.
He looks her heavy in the eye. Nods. Turns.
Then he charges.
If you ask Clarisse after, she’d have no way of explaining to you what Percy did next.
The destruction he caused, the havoc he reeked was indescribable. He relished in creative ways to kill. He called water from the Hudson and shaped it like tendrils, lifting three empousa and slamming them into the ground turning them to dust instantly. He shook chunks of gravel until sinkholes the size of cars were created, leaving monsters scrambling for ground that wasn’t there. He brought the river to them, submerging monsters' heads in floating pools of water, drowning them on land. He was toying with them, killing for sport. He slashed and stabbed and laughed—an inhumane, ugly thing. The kind of laugh that made Clarisse forget whose side he was on.
She never understood how merciful Percy was, until he wasn’t anymore.
“Should we….try to stop him?” Grover asks with uncertainty.
We couldn’t if we tried, Clarisse thinks.
Then, Clarisse thinks about that day on the dock, how bright Percy’s eyes had been at the prospect of seeing Annabeth. Thinks about the stillness of water all night long. Thinks about his nightmares and cracks in the earth. Thinks about his half-drunk confession of a sober promise.
She thinks about the time he found her sobbing on a ratty old couch in the basement Big House. Thinks about how he sat on the floor below her, and took her hand. She thinks about how he didn’t let go all night, not even when she fell asleep. How he was there for her, steady and gentle and kind when she couldn't bear the consequences of her own inaction.
She thinks about how much better he deserves.
About how much they’ve taken from him.
Percy stabs the Minotaur in the heart with the creature's own severed horn.
She waves Grover off.
Time passes and Clarisse witnesses a massacre. She squints at Percy and realizes he’s barely broken a sweat. He slits the throats of the last standing telkhines, and when he’s done he kicks at monster dust as if unsatisfied with how quickly they died. He’s still got that maniacal glint in his eye but his muscles are taunt, as if he’s holding back.
What is he still waiting for?
The answer to her unspoken question rides upon a skeletal horse in golden armor. The air fills with foreboding and Clarisse smells ozone. Nausea washes over her as Luke/Kronos approaches leisurely, like he has all the time in the world. She remembers what he patrons and supposes he does. His decaying horse wanders through the wreckage and piles of dust, stomping on the only evidence Percy left behind that anything had been there at all.
Thalia crackles with electricity.
Grover raises his reed pipes.
Clarisse pops her knuckles.
Percy’s stoneface cracks. And he grins.
Fucking. Grins.
It’s an nasty thing. Charged with danger. And Clarisse thinks Annabeth was wrong.
The only dead man walking is Luke.
“Perseus Jackson.” Kronos speaks with Lukes voice. She’s never seen a titans puppet before. It’s unsettling, the way Luke’s mouth curls around a syllable half a second too late, the body tripping to keep up with the mind's demands. That same mouth twists into a facetious sort of pout. “I take it you didn’t appreciate my welcome party.”
Percy snarls.
Not-Luke waves him off. “No matter. Monsters are a restorative resource. I cannot, however, say the same about demigods. And I see you’ve brought some along with you.” His eyes flick around the makeshift defensive formation they found themselves in behind Percy. “Thalia Grace. I must say how disappointed I was when you made your….choice. The boy was so convinced he could get you onside.”
“‘The boy’ was profoundly mistaken.” Thalia retorts with a seemingly unconscious clap of thunder. “About a lot of things.”
Kronos remains unphased. “You’ve brought your pet to battle?” It takes a minute to realize he’s talking about Grover, who seethes with shaky hands. Kronos’s eyes wander and land on Clarisse. “Daughter of Ares. I must say I’m surprised to see you. Thought you’d be busy tending to a broken thing. What was his name? Chris?” Clarisse blazes but before she can respond, Percy interrupts.
“Enough.” He raises Riptide in his right hand and tightens his left hand's grip on Annabeth's dagger. He stares at the thing Kronos rode in on and it occurs to Clarisse that Annabeth wasn’t messing around when she said Percy could talk to horses, because seemingly out of nowhere, the creature of bones bucks on its hind legs, throwing Kronos off it’s back, and gallops away at full speed.
Kronos scrambles to his feet, yellow eyes narrowing at Percy as he approaches. “Cheap trick, demigod. I must say I expected more from the savior of Olympus.”
Percy lets out a low primal sound, and Clarisse doesn’t think he looks like a savior. He looks like vengeance.
Percy raises Annabeth's dagger to strike. As Kronos’s scythe rises to meet it, it transforms into Backbiter—a weapon that's become infamous these past years. Their weapons cross and the impact creates a shock wave that shakes what's left of the bridge. Percy wastes no time, using Riptide to slash at Kronos’s middle while Backbiter is occupied with so much force, half his armor is cut clean off.
Kronos stumbles back, and for the first time Clarisse sees fear in those horrible golden eyes.
Just as he shakes it off Grover begins playing his reed pipes, and vines pop through concrete, tugging at the titans legs and tripping him. Before he can fall all the way, Thalia calls a lightning bolt to deflect off of Maimer and hit Kronos in the chest.
“Stop!” The titan commands, and suddenly Clarisse can’t move. A quick look around and it seems Thalia and Grover are in the same boat. “I'm tired of your tricks. I’ll kill you one at a time.” He points at Percy. “You first, Jackson.”
This time Kronos attacks first, but Percy is far from on the defensive. Kronos fights like a demon, all heavy strikes and sheer force. Pure strength and no fear—reckless the way you can afford to be when you’re immortal.
Percy is graceful, delivering crushing blows that are just as powerful as Kronos, but he's so light on his feet he’s almost dancing. He flips, and kicks and turns and slashes up a storm—literally. He stretches a hand out and the river rises and swirls around him, creating a living barrier made of water vapor that swirled around him, winds so powerful they buffeted all the titans' hits. Percy jumps, water pushing him up over the titan before slashing at his back mid-air and landing in a roll a few feet away. The storm follows his path—leaving Kronos soaking.
If Kronos fights like a demon, Percy raises hell itself.
He uses the hilt of Riptide to knock Kronos on the head, then spins and slashes in the same spot on his forehead. The titan snarls in frustration and raises his sword to strike—
Then he freezes in place.
Clarisse feels her own muscles loosening and she’s no longer stuck under the titans hold.
“Wh-what is this?” Kronos’s voice waivers.
Percy lifts an arm and points at Lukes face, which suddenly flushes an unnatural shade of red.
“Stop this at once!” Kronos demands. His answer comes in the form of a flick of Percy’s wrist which makes the titan double over.
“YOU CANNOT KILL ME BOY!” Kronos bellows. “I AM A TITAN!”
Percy's face twists up in a chilling sneer.
“Even titans bleed.”
Percy curls his hand into a fist, and Kronos screams in agony. Clarisse hears a sickening pop.
One of Luke's arms hangs out at an awkward angle.
Thalia gasps. Grover vomits.
Percy grins.
Clarisse watches with horror as pale skin is stretched by burst vessels, and veins crawl out of place. Clarisse can only imagine what’s going on inside Lukes body, but from the outside it looks like torture. She can hear the sloshing of all the liquid in Luke's body responding to Percy’s unforgiving hands. Kronos groans in pain and squirms as if trying to put himself back the way he was.
Then Percy opens his palm and Kronos begins to cough and sputter. He’s choking. Percy is choking him with his own blood.
Grover retches, and cries out, “Percy, that’s enough.”
Percy ignores him. There’s another pop. Luke’s left leg spasms and he collapses.
Thalia shudders, closing her eyes and yells, “Percy, stop!
Kronos coughs up more blood.
Clarisse shakes out of her stupor and inches forward, reaching out to touch Percy’s forearm. He grabs her wrist with unforgiving force, but Clarisse doesn’t flinch.
“Why?” Percy asks, his voice shaking with rage. “Why should I stop? Why should I show him any mercy? He is the reason Annabeth is dead!”
“Annabeth?” A broken voice croaks.
Faster than she can think, Percy drops her wrist and grabs the owner of the voice by the throat. “Don’t ever say her name.”
The broken body looks up with desperation in his wild blue eyes.
Blue eyes.
“Percy, his eyes!”
Percy gazes at Luke with more scrutiny and is so shocked by what he sees, he drops him like a ragdoll.
“Is this real?” Percy asks, suspicion coating his voice
“I can hold him back—but not for long.” Luke groans as he attempts to look up at Percy. “Is Anna—is she really…did I really…” He trails off. Percy nods tightly.
They look at each other for a long time.
Luke undoes a strap in his armour, points at the skin exposed, and closes his eyes. “Do it.”
Percy drops Riptide and lifts Annabeth's dagger above his head with both of his hands.
Clarisse doesn’t see exactly where the dagger lands, but based on the agonizing scream, it hits the mark. Luke begins to glow, so she makes sure to turn Percy’s eyes away at the last second. There’s a buzzing in her ear that gets louder as the light gets brighter.
And then silence.
Silence, a sunrise, and the broken body of Luke Castellan.
Grover and Thalia inch toward them, as Percy looks down at Luke with thinly veiled disgust and says something that gives Clarisse whiplash.
“I can fix you, if you want. Put everything back in place.”
Luke looks up at him, expression unreadable. “Why? Isn’t my death what you wanted?”
“Not necessarily. I wanted you to suffer.” Percy says matter of factly. “But she didn’t.”
Oh.
“I could fix you. For her.”
Thalia’s already shaking her head when Luke says, “No. Thank you, but I couldn’t live with it. Any of it.”
Percy nods, but doesn’t say anything.
Luke looks at Thalia and Grover. “I’m sorry.”
Thalia looks at him with a strange sort of pity. “Maybe one day, that will mean something to me.”
Luke smiles, resigned, and takes a deep breath. Then another.
Then his breathing gets shallow and high pitched.
And then he stops breathing at all.
And they stand there over his body for a long time, mourning a boy and resenting the monster he became.
Clarisse put a hesitant hand on Percy’s shoulder.
He rests his head on her hand and closes his eyes for a moment.
Or three moments.
“Let’s go home.”
They all start to leave when Clarisse hears a voice—so faint she thinks she’s hearing things until Percy freezes next to her.
“Annabeth?”
She thinks it’s another hallucination like the one in the Underworld, and she’s grabbing Percy's arm and trying to turn him around. “It’s not real, Percy, it’s not her.”
He shakes her off, “No, that’s her, I know her voice.”
He takes another stem and she’s about to get Thalia to grab his other arm, when she sees a figure in the distance.
Then she hears it.
“Percy!”
Annabeth’s voice is crying out. Annabeth is crying out.
Then she’s yelling with Percy and Grover and Thalia have joined them and they’re walking toward her in disbelief. They’re in so much disbelief in fact, they don’t realize she’s limping until it’s too late.
“Annabeth? Annabeth! Annabeth, it’s me, it’s us! Annabeth!”
They’re close enough to see her face and for the first time in weeks, she sees Percy smile. A real smile, not a sneer or something hollow, a perfect genuine smile.
Annabeth stops to smile back.
Then she collapses.
