The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell

“I’m never using magic again,” I said defiantly. I was sitting at the long table back at Hazel’s home. I was next to Annabeth, who sat at one end of the table. Hazel at the opposite side.

We just told the whole group about the encounter with Gabe. Hazel leaned forward on the table and examined me closely. It made me uncomfortable.

“Percy, I understand that magic can be frightening when it gets out of control. But that’s why you must continue your training with me. The more you understand and develop your abilities, you will be able to control it from taking over you like it did tonight.”

I shook my head, “No, I had control, too much of it. I could have stopped, or made his death quick and painless, but I wanted him to suffer. I would have made him suffer more if Annabeth hadn’t been there to pull me back from the brink,” I turned to look at Annabeth. “I don’t want to lose control like that ever again. Not when it puts my friends at risk.”

She looked deep in thought, like she was analyzing what to do. She let out a breath and shook her head, “Percy, you can’t do that. We need you to be at your absolute best to fight Kronos. Hazel will help you, we all will. I know that when the time comes, you will make the right decision.”

“But what if I lose control? What if I’m more of a danger than a savior?”

“Percy,” Frank said sternly. I turned to look at him. He looked me directly in the eye, “You are a good person. We trust you, and we know that you won’t betray us.” He had a look of unwavering confidence.

I looked to Will, Nico, Jason and the others. With each face that I saw, each of them was nodding in agreement with Frank. All with the same confidence that he had. Never in my life had I ever felt a greater sense of belonging than in that moment.

≈

After we left the room, I caught up with Annabeth. “We need to talk. My room, five minutes,” I said coldly and walked away without looking at her. She had some things that she needed to answer for.

When she showed up, I had been rehearsing the conversation numerous times in my head, trying to remember all the points that I had and all the things that I needed answered. But when I saw the look of fear on her face, a lot of the things I had planned on saying went out the window.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked quietly.

“Why did you lie to me about the prophecy?” I said, trying to control the anger in my voice.

She looked down at the floor. “I knew that was coming,” she took a deep breath, bracing herself. “I’m sorry about lying Percy. I was worried that if we told you that, it would influence your choice to help us. It needed to be your decision, not one you felt forced into. You are a good person Percy, with a good soul. I knew you would make the best decision.”

“A good soul? Did you see what I did to Gabe? I’m an animal, a monster! How can you say that I have a good soul?”

She shook her head, “You were provoked, I’m not sure what he showed you, but the look on your face, I could feel the pain you were in. He was torturing you, that’s not your fault.”

I went to my bed and sat down. “He showed me my past. My mom being beat, him hitting me. I could feel all of it, the sting from his hand, the anger and hatred I had toward him. He showed me-” I choked on my words. “He showed me that Kronos has been influencing my life since he sent Gabe to find me back then.”

She came over and sat next to me, rubbing my back. “Percy, I am so sorry.”

I felt some tears roll down my cheek.

“We are going to make Kronos pay for everything Percy, I swear to you that we will.”

“That’s not what bothers me,” I whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“You saw my mother, how kind she is. What if I lose control like that again? She would be ashamed of me. I’m not good enough for her, I’m not good enough for anyone.”

She quickly moved in front of me and held my face in her hands. “Percy, stop. You are a good person. I’ve felt the good in you. We’ve all done bad things, but that doesn’t mean that you are a bad person.”

I shook my head and looked at the floor, “How can you say that? I’m a monster, who would even want me around?”

She pulled my face level with hers again, “I do Percy. I want you around.”

I was dumbstruck, “But, the way you looked at me, you looked at me like you didn’t know who I was.”

She nodded, “I will admit, I was scared, but not of you. I was scared for you. I was afraid that your power would consume you. I didn’t want to lose you to it, but I knew you would come back from the edge.”

I looked into her beautiful gray eyes, and I saw someone who actually cared about me.

I couldn’t hold her gaze for long, it felt like she was looking into my soul. But every time that I looked away I was brought back to hers, and she kept looking at me, totally serious.

Finally, I gave up and lowered my head with a sigh. She did the same and our foreheads rested on each other’s. We sat there like that for a while in silence.

“This is nice,” I said.

“What? Trying to calm each other down after we almost died?” she said with a hint of humor in her voice.

“No,” I chuckle, “just sitting here. No one bothering us, no training or drawing up strategies. Just you and me.”

She smiled, “Yeah, it is. Maybe we should do this more often.”

I nodded, “I like that idea. How about every night? We can talk about anything and everything that comes to our minds,” I said hopefully.

She sat up straight and she made her thinking face. Finally she nodded, “I think we can make that work.”

My heart did a little tap dance. I enjoyed time with Annabeth, and time alone was going to be great.

“But not tonight,” she said. “It’s late and we’ve been through a lot.”

Even though I hated to admit it, she was right. I nodded, “Yeah, I’m pretty tired. Good night.”

She stood up and made her way towards the door. Before she got halfway, she stopped. Turning around quickly, she came up to me and kissed my cheek. Then just as fast, she turned around and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway, she turned back to look at me, red in the face with a big smile, she said, “Good night Percy,” and she disappeared down the hall.

I laid down on my bed, arms behind my head and smile on my face. As I lay there, recalling the events of the day, I just chuckled at the craziness. The last thought that went through my head was how different things had been with Annabeth from our start, and how I liked the new turn of events.

≈

“Percy, I told you, we don’t have to kill Kronos! We are going to try to capture him first!” Annabeth was getting really mad at me. We had been practicing all week and I kept trying to convince her that capturing him was a bad idea. He needed to die.

With a week to go, tensions were high. I’d been training almost non-stop, both with weapons and with magic. I was reluctant at first, after Gabe, but after talking with Annabeth and Hazel again I realized they were right.

“Why are you so set on keeping him alive?” I asked. “You’ve said it yourself that he is the most dangerous devil ever to walk the Earth.”

She looked so angry that it was a little scary. But I wouldn’t back down. I knew in my heart that he couldn’t and would be captured. I had a strong feeling that if we took him alive, he would kill himself in a way that would take as many of us with him.

She got so frustrated that she threw her hands in the air and stormed off. That only made me more frustrated. I used my sword on the dummy in front of me.

Once I was finished, and the dummy lay in pieces, Frank walked up to me. He looked worried, but he came up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on her. Her past has been complicated. Especially when it comes to the person who is hosting Kronos.”

“You mean…” I had to think back to when we saw the devil. “Luke?”

Frank nodded with a solemn look on his face.

“What happened with them?” I asked.

“That’s for her to say,” and with that, he walked away.

I decided to call it a day. I put away my sword and walked to the kitchen. After grabbing an apple, I walked to my room. I opened the door and I saw Annabeth pacing in my room, staring off into space.

“Annabeth, what are you doing here?”

She looked up to me, tears rolling down her face, “We need to talk. You deserve to know why I don’t want you to kill him.”

I nodded and sat down on the bed, she sat down next to me.

“I met Luke when I was seven. We went to Catholic school together. His dad abandoned him and his mom couldn’t take care of him. My parents weren’t ever together and he re-married, she never really liked me. She convinced him to send me to the school so they didn’t have to deal with me. We bonded over the fact that we were both abandoned.

“He hated it there, he hated religion. He used to ask, ‘How can God love us and want us to be happy but then allow all of us to suffer?’ He started to rebel from the curriculum, and I blindly followed him. We hung out with a girl named Thalia, who was just like us. I looked up to them, they were the coolest people I knew.

“Once we turned eighteen and we left the school, Luke got worse. He started drinking, I tried to control him, keep him from going too far, but it never worked.

“One night, he got really drunk and got behind the wheel. I couldn’t convince him to not drive, so I climbed into the car with Thalia in the back, hoping that I could convince him to not do anything stupid. But he wanted to go faster, Thalia and I were both terrified, but he wouldn’t stop.” She stopped talking because her tears were coming back now. I wrapped an arm around her, trying to comfort her.

“The semi-truck came out of nowhere, there was no way that we could stop in time. I blacked out and when I woke up, we were upside down in a ditch. The last thing I saw before I died was Luke as he closed his eyes, and they didn’t open. I watched him die, then I died.

“I woke up in heaven where they offered me this job. I felt like I had failed Luke, so maybe I could make amends with this job.”

We sat in silence for a minute. Finally I said, “Annabeth, I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Another tear rolled down her cheek, “It’s alright; you just needed to understand why I want to save him.”

I reached up and wiped the tear away. “Still, I didn’t know you had feelings for him.”

She shook her head, then looked at me. “It’s not like that, at least, not anymore. When I was younger he was the best. He was always there for me, I thought we could have our own little family, since our real ones sucked. But he changed. After I died, I thought about it, and I realized that I only idolized him. I just want to have the chance to save him.”

I nodded, “We will try to save him Annabeth.”

She smiled, “Thanks, I should go. We have a busy couple of days coming up.”

“Yeah, goodnight,” I said as she left.

≈

“Alright, everyone knows what they are going to do?” Annabeth looked around to everyone. The whole group was standing around the war table. A map of Kronos’ camp was spread out over the table. With the latest intelligence from angel flyovers, we could tell that number of devils and monsters had grown considerably. It was a small army.

No one around the table looked too excited, but we knew what we had to do. Rachel was the only one who was not going. If she was captured, the enemy would use her for horrible reasons.

When no one had any objections, Annabeth looked to me, “I know this looks grim, but we can do this, we have to.”

People made sounds of agreement, but they still looked terrified. I needed to inspire them, needed to inspire my friends.

“Look, everyone,” they all turned to look at me. “I know this seems like an impossible task, but we can do this. You all are some of the bravest people I’ve met. I don’t see anyone else standing up to take care of this threat. I’m proud to know all of you, and call you friends. If we work together and use our training, we will win the day!”

The seemed to perk up, determined looks and nods let me know they felt a little better. We grabbed our weapons and headed to face the enemy.

≈

We got to the compound as the sun was going down. Annabeth took Frank, Jason and Nico to sneak into the basement through a hidden escape tunnel. I would be going with Hazel, Will, Leo, Piper and Reyna through the camp, planting spells, traps and explosives to take out large amounts of enemies.

It was tough to sneak through all of those devils, but eventually we got through and made it to the gate of the mansion. When we were set to try and break the bars of the fence, Hazel and I set off the magical traps while Leo and Reyna set off the explosives they planted.

It was chaos; sirens were blaring, people were running around and shouting orders. It was the perfect distraction to use magic to cut the bars and the other team to sneak through the house.

Reyna and Piper guarded our backs while we cut. It wasn’t really need because no one was paying attention to us. The hardest part of the task was getting through the magic that protected the bars.

I’d hoped the other team was having better luck. They weren’t expected to run into any problems. They were supposed to get close to Kronos while we distract him with the explosives and storming the mansion.

Finally, we cut through the bars. One-by-one we crawled through the hole in the fence. Most of the guards that were in the yard had left to the safety the mansion offered. The couple that didn’t hide stood firm to fight. I looked over to Reyna, the only other person through the fence who wasn’t helping the others. We charged the guards and quickly destroyed them.

My sword was like an extension of my arm. We worked together as a team, Piper would distract one while Reyna came up behind him and cut him down. Hazel would shoot a spell at the next which caused the demon to become off balanced while I cut her down with my sword.

When we were all through, we walked up to the double doors into the home. The doors were wooden, and carved ornately. I looked back to the group, “shall we knock?” Piper walked up next to me and we kicked with all our power at the doors. They flew open, revealing a large entry room into the house.

We rushed inside the mansion, blades drawn, ready to fight. I expected devils every few feet, all trying to kill me. But instead the room was empty.

I heard clapping from above me. Looking up, I saw Kronos standing with multiple devils on each side. He had a smile on his face that set a chill down my spine.

“Percy Jackson, so glad that you could join us. We have a whole party waiting for you.”

He snapped his fingers and some devils brought forth the other group. Annabeth, Frank, Jason and Nico were all bound and gagged. They didn’t look hurt, just roughed up, but it still set my anger ablaze.

“Let them go Kronos! Or I swear to God that you will regret it.”

He smiled, “I doubt that, because I can feel the darkness in your heart. Even now, it is growing. You are trying to suppress it, but I hold the key to unlocking it. When I do, you will join me.”

“I will never join you!” I yelled. “Not after all the pain you’ve caused me.” I was trying to keep a level head, I didn’t want to let my anger cloud my mind.

“We will see, you Percy. We will see,” he said.

He drew a blade, it was shaped like s scythe, silver and looked so sharp it could cut air. He examined it then looked at my friends. “Tell me, which of your friends can you live without?” He looked at me with an eyebrow raised. “Which ones are you willing to sacrifice?”

Immediately, I knew what he was going to do. He was going to hurt them, to try and make me angry but that’s what he wanted, I had to stay strong, “I won’t play your games Kronos!”

He walked to Nico, and put the knife to his throat.

“Stop it, while you still have a chance” I said, trying to stay calm.

“Guess you can live without this one,” he said. He removed the knife and moved toward Jason. He put the tip against his throat, I heard Piper whimper behind me. Jason looked at me with a mean face, I could almost hear him in my head telling me to not give in.

When I didn’t say anything, Kronos shook his head. “Wrong again I guess. How about big boy over here?” he held the point of the blade over Frank’s heart. I could see Frank’s face twinge in pain. The blade was probably digging into his chest.

“Kronos, I said stop!” I said a little louder than before. I could see Hazel tense out of the corner of my vision. I wanted to attack and save them all, but it was too risky.

“You’re stronger than I thought Percy Jackson. Not to worry, the best is yet to come.” He walked slowly to Annabeth. He put his hand on her cheek and she winced away from him.

A fire started in my gut, I clenched my fists. “Kronos, if you don’t stop, you will regret it for the rest of your short life,” my voice sounded like a growl.

He looked intrigued, “I like this reaction, let’s keep going.” He put the knife to her neck and cut lightly. The fire turned to an inferno, but I held onto the small shred of self-control I had left.

“You’re sick Kronos. I will destroy you with my bare hands. Now let her go!” I yelled.

“Hmm, you are good, you’ve improved your self-control. I can tell you are struggling. However, I have insurance. Nakamura!”

From behind the mass of devils, the one-eyed man from our first trip here came out. He was leading a woman who was bound. My heart dropped to the floor.

“Mom…”

An evil smile spread across the face of Kronos. “You know, the only reason I knew about your mother was because of you. I had spirits follow you, and when you two found each other, her fate was sealed.”

“Stop, please Kronos, this doesn’t involve her.” My voice quivered. I didn’t care that I sounded desperate, because I was.

He took out a different blade. This one was black as night and had a lot of jagged edges, it looked like pure evil. He placed the tip directly under her sternum. She looked down at me with tears in her eyes.

Kronos’s smile grew, “I told you that I would break you Percy Jackson. I told you that I would make your heart dark and you would give into me. You could’ve saved all those you love, but you chose to defy me. Let this be a lesson that you shall never forget!”

I shook my head, tears springing up in my eyes and flowing like a river. When I looked up at her, she didn’t look scared. She looked like she accepted what was going to happen. She smiled and mouthed “I love you.”

As soon as she did, Kronos shoved his blade into her all the way to the handle.

I felt my world fall from underneath me, and I felt the fire consume me.

Notes