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

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“I can’t go any farther,” Rachel gasped, hugging her chest.
Annabeth had been crying the entire time we’d been running. Now she collapsed and put her head
between her knees. Her sobs echoed in the tunnel. Nico and I sat next to each other. He dropped his
sword next to mine and took a shaky breath.
“That sucked,” he said, which I thought summed things up pretty well.
“You saved our lives,” I said.
Nico wiped the dust off his face. “Blame the girls for dragging me along. That’s the only thing they could
agree on. We needed to help you or you’d mess things up.”
“Nice that they trust me so much,” I shined my flashlight across the cavern. Water dripped from the
stalactites like a slow-motion rain. “Nico…you, uh, kind of gave yourself away.”
“What do you mean?”
“That wall of black stone? That was pretty impressive. If Kronos didn’t know who you were before, he
does now—a child of the Underworld.”
Nico frowned.“Big deal.”
I let it drop. I figured he was just trying to hide how scared he was, and I couldn’t blame him.
Annabeth lifted her head. Her eyes were red from crying. “What…what was wrong with Luke? What
did they do to him?”
I told her what I’d seen in the coffin, the way the last piece ofKronos’s spirit had entered Luke’s body
when Ethan Nakamura pledged his service.
“No,” Annabeth said. “That can’t be true. He couldn’t—”
“He gave himself over to Kronos,” I said. “I’m sorry, Annabeth. But Luke is gone.”
“No!” she insisted. “You saw when Rachel hit him.”
I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. “You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic
hairbrush.”
Rachel looked embarrassed. “It was the only thing I had.”
“But yousaw ,” Annabeth insisted. “When it hit him, just for a second, he was dazed. He came back to
his senses.”
“So maybe Kronos wasn’t completely settled in the body, or whatever,” I said. “It doesn’t mean Luke
was in control.”
“Youwant him to be evil, is that it?” Annabeth yelled. “You didn’t know him before, Percy. I did!”
“What is it with you?” I snapped. “Why do you keep defending him?”