Chapter Text
The Poker Player.
Sally Jackson, Artist.
Stone. 2006.
There were few things Percy hated more than his late stepfather.
Tartarus, of course. Kronos, for sure. But other than that? Not much. It took a special sort of evil for someone to hit a child, and another extra type of evil to hit an innocent young mother. But Gabriel Ugliano, asshole at large, possessed that evil. Owned it. Relished in it.
Percy was glad he was dead.
Maybe he should’ve felt some level of guilt over his hand in the murder, but he just didn’t. Gabe, of all people, deserved it. Every day he wasn’t on earth was a day someone else was safe. Gods knew what he would’ve done had his mother divorced him or pursued domestic violence charges.
No, Percy didn’t feel a single ounce of guilt as he gazed upon the statue of his ex-stepfather’s corpse.
“Saved the world again, Gabe,” Percy said, arms crossed. The statue didn’t move. “You used to tell me I wouldn’t amount to anything. Looks like you were wrong.”
The statue, of course, didn’t react. It stared into nothing, eyes wide in realization, captured in the moment before his death.
This was Percy’s ritual. Every so often, he travelled to this little museum to look at the statue. He would give it a once over, tell it all the things he accomplished, insult it, and leave. It was cathartic, in a way. Gabe no longer had power over him. Never would again. Percy knew that, even if the disgusting man was still alive, he could beat the shit out of him.
With only a small amount of guilt for the museum owners, he spat at the foot of the statue. It landed square on Gabe’s shoe. “Rest in piss, asshole.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left the museum behind.
It was too bad, really, that he didn’t see the crack running up the statue’s side.