THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.

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made a sarcastic comment, Rachel hardly bothered to answer. She’d burned the tip of a stick in the fire
and was using it to draw ash figures on the floor, images of the monsters we’d seen. With a few strokes,
she caught the likeness of adracaena perfectly.
“We’ll follow the path,” she said.“The brightness on the floor.”
“The brightness that led us straight into a trap?”Annabeth asked.
“Lay off her, Annabeth,” I said. “She’s doing the best she can.”
Annabeth stood. “The fire’s getting low. I’ll go look for some more scraps whileyou guys talk strategy.”
And she marched off into the shadows.
Rachel drew another figure with her stick—an ashy Antaeus dangling from his chains.
“Annabeth’s usually not like this,” I told her. “I don’t know what her problem is.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure you don’t know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Boys,” she muttered.“Totally blind.”
“Hey, don’t you get on my case, too! Look, I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”
“No, you were right,” she said. “I can see the path. I can’t explain it, but it’s really clear.” She pointed
toward the other end of the room, into the darkness. “The workshop is that way.The heart of the maze.
We’re very close now. I don’t know why the path led through that arena. I—I’m sorry about that. I
thought you were going to die.”
She sounded like she was close to crying.
“Hey, I’m usually about to die,” I promised. “Don’t feel bad.”
She studied my face. “So you do this every summer? Fight monsters? Save the world? Don’t you ever
get to do just, you know, normal stuff?”
I’d never really thought about it like that. The last time I’d had something like a normal life had
been…well, never. “Half-bloods get used to it, I guess. Or maybe not used to it, but…” I shifted
uncomfortably. “What about you? What do you do normally?”
Rachel shrugged. “I paint. I read a lot.”
Okay, I thought. So far we are scoring a zero on the similarities chart. “What about your family?”
I could sense her mental shields going up, like this was not a safe subject. “Oh…they’re just, you know,
family.”
“You said they wouldn’t notice if you were gone.”
She set down her drawing stick. “Wow, I’m really tired. I may sleep for a while, okay?”