The Titan's Curse Read Free

girls who were roaming the gym.
    “Well?” Annabeth said.
    “Um, who should I ask?”
    She punched me in the gut. “ Me , Seaweed Brain.”
    “Oh. Oh, right.”
    So we went onto the dance floor, and I looked over to see how Thalia and Grover were doing things. I put one hand on Annabeth’s hip, and she clasped my other hand like she was about to judo throw me.
    “I’m not going to bite,” she told me. “Honestly, Percy. Don’t you guys have dances at your school?”
    I didn’t answer. The truth was we did. But I’d never, like, actually danced at one. I was usually one of the guys playing basketball in the corner.
    We shuffled around for a few minutes. I tried to concentrate on little things, like the crepe-paper streamers and the punch bowl—anything but the fact that Annabeth was taller than me, and my hands were sweaty and probably gross, and I kept stepping on her toes.
    “What were you saying earlier?” I asked. “Are you having trouble at school or something?”
    She pursed her lips. “It’s not that. It’s my dad.”
    “Uh-oh.” I knew Annabeth had a rocky relationship with her father. “I thought it was getting better with you two. Is it your stepmom again?”
    Annabeth sighed. “He decided to move. Just when I was getting settled in New York, he took this stupid new job researching for a World War I book. In San Francisco .”
    She said this the same way she might say Fields of Punishment or Hades’s gym shorts .
    “So he wants you to move out there with him?” I asked.
    “To the other side of the country,” she said miserably. “And half-bloods can’t live in San Francisco. He should know that.”
    “What? Why not?”
    Annabeth rolled her eyes. Maybe she thought I was kidding. “You know. It’s right there .”
    “Oh,” I said. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn’t want to sound stupid. “So . . . you’ll go back to living at camp or what?”
    “It’s more serious than that, Percy. I . . . I probably should tell you something.”
    Suddenly she froze. “They’re gone.”
    “What?”
    I followed her gaze. The bleachers. The two half-blood kids, Bianca and Nico, were no longer there. The door next to the bleachers was wide open. Dr. Thorn was nowhere in sight.
    “We have to get Thalia and Grover!” Annabeth looked around frantically. “Oh, where’d they dance off to? Come on!”
    She ran through the crowd. I was about to follow when a mob of girls got in my way. I maneuvered around them to avoid getting the ribbon-and-lipstick treatment, and by the time I was free, Annabeth had disappeared. I turned a full circle, looking for her or Thalia and Grover. Instead, I saw something that chilled my blood.
    About fifty feet away, lying on the gym floor, was a floppy green cap just like the one Bianca di Angelo had been wearing. Near it were a few scattered trading cards. Then I caught a glimpse of Dr. Thorn. He was hurrying out a door at the opposite end of the gym, steering the di Angelo kids by the scruffs of their necks, like kittens.
    I still couldn’t see Annabeth, but I knew she’d be heading the other way, looking for Thalia and Grover.
    I almost ran after her, and then I thought, Wait .
    I remembered what Thalia had said to me in the entry hall, looking at me all puzzled when I asked about the finger-snap trick: Hasn’t Chiron shown you how to do that yet? I thought about the way Grover had turned to her, expecting her to save the day.
    Not that I resented Thalia. She was cool. It wasn’t her fault her dad was Zeus and she got all the attention. . . . Still, I didn’t need to run after her to solve every problem. Besides, there wasn’t time. The di Angelos were in danger. They might be long gone by the time I found my friends. I knew monsters. I could handle this myself.
    I took Riptide out of my pocket and ran after Dr. Thorn.
    * * *
    The door led into a dark hallway. I heard sounds of scuffling up ahead, then a painful grunt. I uncapped