──── chapter nine

{ 🔮 }  · love and death are similar things . ݁ ٬٬ ࣪

THE GROUP RODE boar until sunset, which was about as much as Endora's ass could take. Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day. That's about how comfortable boar-riding was. She had no idea how many miles they covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until they were galloping ( do boars gallop? ) across the desert. As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."

Nobody needed convincing. They slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then the group waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores. After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.

"It likes the mountains better," Percy guessed.

"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look."

Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills. . . but then Endora noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Whoa," Percy said.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said.

Endora bit her lip. The energy of this place was giving her off vibes, like they shouldn't step there; like something bad will happen. "I don't like this," she said, "Something is off about this place. . ."

"What?" Zoë asked, raising an eyebrow at the girl.

Death. That's what she is sensing. But she kept it to herself, not wanting to scare any of her friends ( companions? on what term are they? ). Endora shook her head.

Thalia looked at Graver. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes.

"That's us," he said. "Those six nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" Percy asked. 

"The little deformed one," Zoë suggested.

"Oh, shut up."

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."

"A monster?" Endora asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge. . ." he pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.

They decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of them wanted to go Dumpster-diving in the dark. Zoë and Bianca produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. Endora guessed they had extension charm placed on their backpacks, much like she had on most of her bags. The girl provided everyone with comfy pillows and blankets from her backpack. She summoned some jackets too.

"You can summon things and didn't think of summoning jackets earlier?" Thalia gritted her teeth.

"I cannot summon things ─ or at least not now," Endora said, "but, I can summon what is in my bag."

Thalia grumbled, but took the jacket Endora handed her.

The night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. Pretty soon they were about as comfy as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

"The stars are out," Zoë said.

She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."

"This is nothing," Zoë said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said.

Zoë raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you," Thalia corrected. "Not thee"

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you."

Zoë threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."

Zoë nodded sadly. 

"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee. . ."

Endora was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Cloudcroft, but she didn't have the heart to tell Grover. She thought about the rubber rat and the tiny birds that had suddenly come alive when the wind blew.

"Grover, do you really think that was Pan?" Percy asked, "I mean, I know you want it to be."

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close." 

Nobody answered.

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. I get Dora could do it being the child of Hecate and all ─ "

Endora saluted her.

" ─ But, there are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them. We can't always relay on Dora to kill them."

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."

"Maybe there's something special about your knife," Percy said.

"It is the same as mine," Zoë said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."

"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," 

Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.

"Never mind," Zoë told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas." 

Percy and Grover looked like they were about to protest, but Bianca beat them to it. "No!" she said. "Not there!" she looked really freaked out, like she'd just been dropped off the steep end of a rollercoaster.

Zoë frowned. "Why?"

Bianca took a shaky breath. "I. . . I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then, I can't remember. . ." 

Endora saw Percy and Grover exchanging serious looks.

"Bianca," Percy said. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?"

Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?" 

"Oh, great," Percy said.

"Wait," Thalia said. "What is the Lotus Casino?"

"A couple of years ago," Percy said, "Grover, Annabeth, and I got trapped there. It's designed so you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour. When we came out, five days had passed. It makes time speed up."

"No," Bianca said. "No, that's not possible."

"You said somebody came and got you out," Percy remembered.

"Yes."

"What did he look like? What did he say?"

"I. . . I don't remember. Please, I really don't want to talk about this."

Zoë sat forward, her eyebrows knit with concern. "You said that Washington, D.C., had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway being there."

"Yes, but ─ "

"Bianca," Zoë said, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now?" 

"Don't be silly," Bianca said. She told the group the correct name of the president.

"And who was the president before that?" Zoë asked.

Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt."

Zoë swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin?"

"Franklin," Bianca said. "F.D.R."

"Like FDR Drive?" Percy asked. 

"Bianca," Zoë said. "F.D.R. was not the last president. That was about seventy years ago." 

"That's impossible," Bianca said. "I. . . I'm not that old."

She stared at her hands as if to make sure they weren't wrinkled. Thalia's eyes turned sad, and Endora felt bag for Bianca. The girl looked so disoriented and confused and now everything made sense. 

"It's okay, Bianca," Thalia said, "The important thing is you and Nico are safe. You made it out." 

"But how?" Percy said. "We were only in there for an hour and we barely escaped. How could you have escaped after being there for so long?"

"I told you." Bianca looked about ready to cry. "A man came and said it was time to leave. And ─ "

"But who? Why did he do it?"

Before she could answer, they were hit with a blazing light from down the road. The headlights of a car appeared out of nowhere. Endora was half hoping it was Apollo, come to give them a ride again, but the engine was way too silent for the sun chariot, and besides, it was nighttime. 

They grabbed their sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of them. The back door of the limo opened right next to Percy. Before the boy could step away, the point of a sword touched his throat. Endora let her hands spark with magic and she heard the sound of Zoë and Bianca drawing their bows.

As the owner of the sword got out of the car, Percy moved back very slowly. He had to, because he was pushing the point under his chin. He smiled cruelly. "Not so fast now, are you, punk?"

He was a big man with a crew cut, a black leather biker's jacket, black jeans, a white muscle shirt, and combat boots. Wraparound shades hid his eyes, but I knew what was behind those glasses ─ hollow sockets filled with flames.

"Ares," Percy growled.

The war god glanced at them all. "At ease, people." he snapped his fingers, and their weapons fell to the ground. "This is a friendly meeting." he dug the point of his blade a little farther under Percy's chin. "Of course I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."

"What lady?" Thalia asked.

Ares looked over at her. "Well, well. I heard you were back." he lowered his sword and pushed Percy away. "Thalia, daughter of Zeus," Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good company."

"What's your business, Ares?" Endora said. "Who's in the car?"

Ares regarded her. "Endora, the cursed child of Hecate, huh?"

Endora rolled her eyes, "I don't really like that title."

"Well, for your information ─ and I'm just being nice because the lady likes you for some odd reason ─ but, I doubt she wants to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them." he jutted his chin toward Zoe and Bianca. "Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? Only take Percy a few minutes."

"We will not leave him alone with thee, Lord Ares," Zoë said.

"Besides," Grover managed, "the taco place is closed."

Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life. The boards flew off the door and the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN.

"You were saying, goatboy?"

"Go on," Percy told them. "I'll handle this." 

Endora narrowed her eyes. She wasn't fooled. Neither was Ares.

"You heard the boy," Ares said. "He's big and strong. He's got things under control."

"Don't do anything stupid." Endora said.

"Me? Never." 

The girl rolled her eyes. She looked though her backpack until she found what she was looking for. Endora handed the boy the necklace - a pendent made of clear quarts. The boy took it without questioning her and put it on.

"Just in case," Endora said and followed the rest of the group over to the taco restaurant.

When Percy saw her, his jaw dropped. He forgot his name. He forgot where he was. He forgot how to speak in complete sentences. She was wearing a red satin dress and her hair was curled in a cascade of ringlets. Her face was the most beautiful the boy'd ever seen: perfect makeup, dazzling eyes, a smile that would've lit up the dark side of the moon.

Her features kept changing. Going from soft chocolate colored skin and golden eyes, with bushy black hair, to perfectly freckled face and red locks that seemed to move on their own. And then she had pale complexion with scars over her face and black eyes that looked like the depths of the ocean. But it changed in a blink of an eye. She had tan skin and blonde curls falling down her back; her eyes stormy gray, holding so much power in them - she reminded him of Annabeth for a second.

Finally, her features relaxed. She had pale skin that could easily be burned under the blazing sun, brown, loose curls that framed her slim face perfectly. Her eyes were doe-like, brown with specks of green mixing in, and her lips graced in a soft smile, almost looking red to the eye. The more Percy thought about it, the more the goddess reminded him of Endora for some reason.

"Ah, there you are, Percy," the goddess said. "I am Aphrodite." 

Percy slipped into the seat across from her and said something like, "Um uh gah."

She smiled. "Aren't you sweet. Hold this, please."

She handed the boy a polished mirror the size of a dinner plate and had him hold it up for her. She leaned forward and dabbed at her lipstick, though Percy couldn't see anything wrong with it.

"Do you know why you're here?" she asked.

Percy wanted to respond. Why couldn't he form a complete sentence? She was only a lady. A seriously beautiful lady. With eyes like pools of spring water. . . Whoa. He pinched his own arm, hard.

"I. . . I don't know," 

"Oh, dear," Aphrodite said. "New to this whole thing? Heartbreak is hard, I know, but it only gets harder unfortunately."

Outside the car, Percy could hear Ares chuckling. The boy had a feeling he could hear every word we said. The idea of him being out there made Percy angry, and that helped clear his mind.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Percy said. "Well then, why are you on this quest?" 

"Artemis has been captured!"

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "Oh, Artemis. Please. Talk about a hopeless case. I mean, if they were going to kidnap a goddess, she should be breathtakingly beautiful, don't you think? I pity the poor dears who have to imprison Artemis. Bo-ring!"

"But she was chasing a monster," Percy protested. "A really, really bad monster. We have to find it!"

Aphrodite made the boy hold the mirror a little higher. She seemed to have found a microscopic problem at the corner of her eye and dabbed at her mascara. "Always some monster. But my dear Percy, that is why the others are on this quest. Well, Dora too, but also other reason. However, I'm more interested in you. Didn't I make love an interesting game for you. Heartbreak and now love! It's just so exciting!" 

Percy's heart pounded. "Annabeth is in trouble." he said, "And. . ." he couldn't say the rest.

Aphrodite looked at him, a little bit disappointed. "Denial is hard, my boy, but not saying the truth is even harder. Heartbreak is a hard thing, but you must move on. Don't dwell on the past. Find something, or someone, to fill that void that appeared in your heart."

"What?" Percy asked confused.

"So young and so in love," Aphrodite said, "But your love story is only beginning."

"My what?"

"Love story! Oh, I just love everything about it! The hardships, the pain, the love that will blossom soon. It's just so magical and totally my style! You're gonna love it, Percy, I'm telling you!"

Percy stared blankly at the woman. He somewhat knew what the goddess in front of him was talking about. He, in fact, had a crush on Annabeth till a bit ago. How couldn't he. It was Annabeth we're talking about. But those feelings, that crush was short lived. Annabeth had eyes for someone else and her heart still ached for Luke. Percy could do nothing.

"Now listen, Percy," Aphrodite said. "The Hunters are your enemies. Forget them and Artemis and the monster. That's not important. You just concentrate on making sure the girl does not join those Hunters. Her story only begun."

"Do you know where Annabeth is?"

Aphrodite waved her hand irritably. "No, no, she has her own love story, don't worry about that. I leave the details to you. But it's been ages since we've had a good tragic love story."

"Whoa, first of all, I never said anything about love. And second, what's up with tragic!"

"Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"

"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?"

"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart."

"But. . . I don't know where it's going. My heart, I mean."

She smiled sympathetically. She really was beautiful. And not just because she had a pretty face or anything. She believed in love so much, it was impossible not to feel giddy when she talked about it.

"Not knowing is half the fun," Aphrodite said. "Exquisitely painful, isn't it? Not being sure who you love and who loves you? Oh, you kids! It's so cute I'm going to cry."

"No, no," Percy said. "Don't do that."

"And don't worry," she said. "I'm not going to let this be easy and boring for you. No, I have some wonderful surprises in store. Anguish. Indecision. Oh, you just wait."

"That's really okay," Percy told her. "Don't go to any trouble."

"You're so cute. I wish all my daughters could break the heart of a boy as nice as you." Aphrodite's eyes were tearing up. "Now, you'd better go. And do be careful in my husband's territory, Percy. Don't take anything. He is awfully fussy about his trinkets and trash."

"What?" Percy asked. "You mean Hephaestus?"

But the car door opened and Ares grabbed the boy's shoulder, pulling him out of the car and back into the desert night. His audience with the goddess of love was over. 

"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked, once Percy'd told them about Aphrodite.

"Oh, uh, not sure," Percy said, his voice full on uncertainty. Endora narrowed her eyes at him. "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. She said not to pick anything up."

Zoë narrowed her eyes. "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."

Grover was looking at Percy funny. 

"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?"

"Ursa Major is in the north," Zoe 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."

Both Zoë and Endora looked offended.

"Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent." Zoë said.

"You act like it was real."

"Do I even want to comment or not?" Endora muttered.

"Guys," Grover broke in. "Look!" 

They'd 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." 

Endora had a bad feeling about this.

Endora hates when her gut feeling is right. She hates it. Death. The feeling of death was following them as they walked though the junk of things the girl thought she would never see ─ now come, why were spellbooks and cauldrons scattered around? But the girl couldn't shake of that eerie feeling she felt as they stepped foot onto the junkyard. She looked over her friends. Everyone looked fine; their energies were the same since the beginning of the quest, maybe a bit dull now, but still the same, except for one.

After several minutes of walking, the group 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, Endora heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal. She whirled around. Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and the girl 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 Endora 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.

They boy shook his head. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."

Bianca didn't say anything. Endora could swear she looked guilty, and her heart stopped for a second. 

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'd 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 powerlines, 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. Endora shot up jinxes and hexes towards the creature, doing no damage to it. She, Bianca and Percy ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot.

"You took something," Percy said to Bianca. "That bow."

"No!" she said, but her voice was quivering.

"Give it back!" Percy said. "Throw it down!"

"I. . . I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late."

"What did you take?" Endora asked, looking at Bianca's figure. The black surrounding her was getting stronger and stronger, like mist enveloped her.

Before the younger girl could answer, Endora heard a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky.

"Move!"

Percy grabbed Endora's hand and tore down the hill, Bianca right behind them, as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where they'd been hiding. 

"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at Endora, Bianca and Percy. Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed powerlines began to dance. The girl 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!" Endora told them.

But Bianca stayed frozen. From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a statue of a god. "It. . . it was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have."

"How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?" Percy said.

There were tears in her eyes.

"Throw it down. Maybe the giant will leave us alone."

She dropped it reluctantly, but nothing happened. The giant kept coming after 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 Endora 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 Endora got the sense that it was about as ticked off as a twenty-story-tall metal warrior could be.

"Crazy-idea time," Percy said.

"I don't think I like your ideas." Endora said.

Bianca looked at the boy nervously. "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."

"How? You'll have to stand under its foot! You'll be crushed" Endora asked.

"Distract it," Percy said. "I'll just have to time it right."

Bianca's jaw tightened. "No. I'll go."

"You can't. You're new at this! You'll die."

"It's my fault the monster came after us," she said. "It's my responsibility. Here." she picked up the little god statue and pressed it into Percy's hand. "If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him. . . tell him I'm sorry."

"Bianca, no!"

Percy reached for Bianca , but Endora pulled him back. The black mist surrounding the young girl's body was almost covering her whole figure. Too strong to fight it. And Bianca knew that. She knew what is going to happen.

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!" Bianca said. 

Zoë shot an arrow toward the monster's face and it flew straight into one nostril. The giant straightened and shook its head.

"Hey, Junk Boy!" Percy yelled. "Down here."

The boy 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 the boy and raised his foot to squash him like a bug. Endora didn't see what Bianca was doing. The foot came down about two inches behind Percy and he was knocked into the air. Endora trusted her hand up, catching the boy before he could hit an Olympus-Air refrigerator.

The monster was about to finish Percy off, but Grover somehow 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!"

Endora, Thalia and Percy all ran toward him, but she knew they'd 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, and then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.

"Go, Bianca!" Percy yelled.

Zoë looked horrified. "She is inside?"

The monster staggered around, and Endora realized they were still in danger. Endora held up her hand and levitated Grover up and ran with him toward the highway with Thalia and Percy following them.

Zoë was already ahead. 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. Endora 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 yelled. 

They ran after him, but there was no way they could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in our way. Endora, with her free hand, made sure to not let anything hit them by creating a shield of magic to protect them. The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed.

When they reached the wreckage the group searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. They searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck. Zoë sat down and wept. Endora produced a pack of wipes from her bag for the Huntress and herself as tears started to roll down her cheeks. Percy was stunned to see her cry. Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.

"We can keep searching," Percy said. "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No we won't," Grover said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?" Percy demanded.

He looked up at the boy with big watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall he lost in the land without rain." 

The black mist finally got to the young girl's heart, taking her with it. And Endora could only pray that Bianca di Angelo reached Elysium peacefully.

niki speaks!

why when i have time, i don't write??
like, you're on summer break,
write bitch.
anyways, it's been quite boring as my best
friend is on vacation and i'm stuck back home, but i do have a bday later
in july so i'll see my classmates.

this is a longer chapter, which i love
percy with aphrodite. . . suspicious :)

have a nice day/night!
bye!