Rick Riordan
The Last Olympian - 05
"You are not going to die while I owe you a favor," I said. "Why did you take that knife?"
"You would've done the same for me."
It was true. I guess we both knew it. Still, I felt like somebody was poking my heart with a
cold metal rod. "How did you know?"
"Know what?"
I looked around to make sure we were alone. Then I leaned in close and whispered: "My
Achilles spot. If you hadn't taken that knife, I would've died."
She got a faraway look in her eyes. Her breath smelled of grapes, maybe from the nectar. "I
don't know, Percy. I just had this feeling you were in danger. Where . . . where is the spot?"
I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. But this was Annabeth. If I couldn't trust her, I couldn't trust
anyone.
"The small of my back."
She lifted her hand. "Where? Here?"
She put her hand on my spine, and my skin tingled. I moved her fingers to the one spot that
grounded me to my mortal life. A thousand volts of electricity seemed to arc through my body.
"You saved me," I said. "Thanks."
She removed her hand, but I kept holding it.
"So you owe me," she said weakly. "What else is new?"
We watched the sun come up over the city. The traffic should've been heavy by now, but
there were no cars honking, no crowds bustling along the sidewalks.
Far away, I could hear a car alarm echo through the streets. A plume of black smoke curled
into the sky somewhere over Harlem. I wondered how many ovens had been left on when the
Morpheus spell hit; how many people had fallen asleep in the middle of cooking dinner. Pretty soon
there would be more fires. Everyone in New York was in danger—and all those lives depended on
us.
"You asked me why Hermes was mad at me," Annabeth said.
"Hey, you need to rest—"
"No, I want to tell you. It's been bothering me for a long time." She moved her shoulder and
winced. "Last year, Luke came to see me in San Francisco."
"In person?" I felt like she'd just hit me with a hammer. "He came to your house?"
"This was before we went into the Labyrinth, before . . ."