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chapter seventeen. ☄︎. *. ⋆
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THE COAST GUARD picked us up from where our transport bubbles had dropped us—which happened to be the middle of the Santa Monica Bay. Fortunately, they were too busy to wonder how three kids in street clothes had gotten out to the middle of the water, or why one of them was barefoot (since Grover's shoes were in the depths of Tartarus, Percy had offered his own shoes to cover Grover's hooves.)
All of the personnel manning the boat that had picked us up were in chaos-mode; there had been an earthquake while we were in the Underworld, it seemed, and they were running all across the boat trying to mop up messes here and there.
My eyes skimmed the shoreline. Hades was clearly a little pissed that we had escaped, and it was evident he had taken his anger out on the mortal world. There were cop cars and firemen and ambulances swarming all around. When we reached dry land, I lowered my head so they wouldn't recognize me as one of the people that had 'caused' the explosion of the Gateway Arch, but the cops wanted nothing to do with me.
"I don't believe it," Annabeth said glumly. "We went all that way for—"
"It was a trick," Percy said. "A strategy worthy of Athena."
"Hey," Annabeth warned.
Percy looked between the three of us. "You all get it, don't you?"
Annabeth and I both nodded, but Grover screwed his face up and shook his head, saying, "I don't! Would somebody—"
"Percy.." Annabeth said, her brow knit together. "About your mom—"
"You did the right thing," I threw in, unhelpfully. Percy shook his head and turned away from us.
He rolled his jaw, glaring at the sea. "The prophecy was right. 'You shall go west and face the god who has turned.'"
"But it wasn't Hades," I said, nodding. "He didn't want a war. Someone else pulled the theft and stole the helm and the bolt, and they framed you because you're the son of Poseidon."
"Right." Percy looked miserable. "I'm going to be the cause of a war between the gods."
"I have one guess of who would want a war that badly," I said grimly. "Think about who gave you the backpack that had the bolt in it in the first place."
"Gee, I never would've thought," Percy said, his glare moving down the beach. Annabeth, Grover and I followed his line of sight; at the end of the beach, leaning against his motorbike and swinging an aluminum baseball bat over his shoulder, was Ares, and he looked to be pleased to see us.
