Out of nowhere, a red '73 Camero swerved, slamming into my mother, pinning her in a ditch. By the legs.

I sprinted down the hill, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs. "Mom!" I screamed, the word ripping out of me like a jagged edge. She was pinned, half in the ditch, the Camaro's wheels grinding into the dirt. Steam hissed from the car's crumpled hood, and the sour stench of burnt oil filled the air.

Her bat was still in her hand, her knuckles white against the dark wood, but her face was twisted in pain. Blood seeped from a deep gash on her forehead, trickling down her cheek like some awful war paint.

"Y/N, stop!" she barked, her voice sharper than I'd ever heard it. But I didn't stop. I couldn't.

I was so close to her, I could almost touch her... no, no, No, NO-

Time seemed to slow down as I saw my mom's body begin to glow. Bright yellow light radiating off her body as she began to float off into the air. Just like that, she was gone...

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Percy Jackson's Pov

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Percy!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay... ."

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell as rain and a strange red liquid poured in.

Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His raised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises.

As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...

"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But..."

"We don't have time, Percy.G—"

Mom was cut off by a loud gut wrenching scream, it shook the ground even causing the bulky fuzzy mass that stalked towards up to stumble slightly.

Before, I wanted to get mad, mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that had been lumbering toward us like a bull. But now, all I felt was terror.

The car shook, as if something was trying to pick it up. Following the shake was the sound of footsteps, slowly and steady, as like a predator stalking its prey.

Then, I saw it. A guy, bright silverish grey eyes with a strange mark over his left eye.

ה

In his hand was a jagged piece of the camero's side mirror, gripping it as though he would spear it through us.

It felt like forever before he spoke, calmly and full of malice as he pointed at the bulky figure.

"Is that what made you swerve?"

I didn't know what to say. His stare felt as though it was boring into my skull. It felt like if I said no, he'd rip my heart from my chest. So I nodded yes.

He blinked, slowly turning towards the fuzzy headed thing, as it continued its march towards us. Slowly, the grey eyed boy reached towards my mom's door and opened it.

"You're going together. Get out." He said before turning towards the beast, blood dripping from his hand as he gripped the car mirror tightly.

"Young man I can't let you—"

The boy swatted my mom's hand away, bloodshot eyes staring down at her as I finally noticed. That wasn't just rain falling down his face, he was crying.

"Move." Was all he said as he continued his way towards the beast.

I wasted no time. I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain.

"Mom, help me with Grover."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But that kid's going to fight the Min-"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.

Clank

A growl of pain escaped my Mom. I turned and saw her foot stuck in the knotted root of a tree. This wasn't good.

I reached down and attempted to free her, accidentally glancing behind me again.

The boy with the silver eyes stood his ground as the Minotaur approached. He wasn't armed with a sword or a spear — just the jagged piece of car mirror that gleamed dully in the rain. My mom gasped, clutching Grover tighter.

"He's going to die," she whispered, half to herself.

But he didn't flinch. He raised the mirror shard, his other hand gripping the broken edge so hard that blood mixed with the rain. His stance was odd — like he'd spent years fighting, but not as a soldier. More like someone who was used to improvising, to surviving by instinct. He looked insane.

The Minotaur charged.

The ground shook under the monster's weight as it barreled forward, snorting steam from its nostrils. The boy didn't move until the last second. Then, in a burst of speed, he sidestepped, the jagged mirror slashing upward. The Minotaur roared as the shard caught the base of one horn, carving a deep gash that oozed black blood.

The boy didn't stop. He dodged another swing of the Minotaur's massive hand and drove the shard into the beast's side. It wasn't a fatal blow — it only seemed to enrage the creature further — but it was enough to make it stagger.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the battlefield. The boy's face was a mask of rage and desperation, tears streaking through the mud on his cheeks. He screamed something, his voice cracking under the weight of whatever drove him.

The Minotaur lunged again, swiping with enough force to send the boy sprawling into the mud. His weapon was knocked from his hand, skidding several feet away. For a terrifying moment, I thought it was over.

But the boy wasn't done. As the Minotaur loomed over him, preparing to strike, he scrambled to his knees and grabbed a chunk of the Camaro's shattered headlight. With a roar of his own, he drove the jagged glass into the Minotaur's knee.

The beast let out an earth-shaking bellow, stumbling backward as ichor poured from the wound. It collapsed onto one knee, clutching its injured leg, but its eyes burned with pure hatred.

The boy staggered to his feet, swaying like he might collapse at any second. He reached for another weapon — anything — but his hands came up empty. The Minotaur began to rise, its fury unchecked.

With a loud bang, its fist slammed into the boy, slamming him into and through a tree. The ground rattled violently, freeing mom from her trapped state:

With that, the Bull man turned back, hunched over our car, looking in the windows — or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away, and the boy he'd just murdered was even closer.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said, a grim look on her face. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.
Oops.

"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But-"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!"

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.

"No!"

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.

I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment. But it didn't happen like that.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.
Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone, and in its place stood the grey eyed boy, jabbing what looked like a bloody rib where the monster would be

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, or lash out like the boy in front of me, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up with the help of the grey eyed boy, the mark on his face seeming to glow as we stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, he was crying. I was calling for my mother, but we held on to Grover —I wasn't going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her black hair braided like a queen's. They both looked down at me and the grey eyed boy, and the girl said, "one of them has to be the one. One of them must be."

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "They're still conscious, and that one's holding his own rib. Bring them inside."

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DGW: Sorry for the chapter being all janky, I'm writing this when I'm supposed to be asleep and the new Wattpad update has made writing on my phone a pain in the butt. If you have any complaints feel free to tell me

Suggested Love Interests: Zoe, Clarisse and Thalia, Clarisse only, Thalia only, Thalia the Muse, Reyna, Artemis?

Suggest Love Interests Here:

Tools Used: FANDOM WIKI app, Grammarly, Theoi.com, Wikipedia, google pdf

Word Count: 3224