𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐬'𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 • 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘺 𝘫𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘰𝘯

Olympus & Ugliano

Y/n Pov:

It's funny how humans can wrap their minds around things and fit them into their version of reality. Chiron had told me that long ago. As usual, I didn't appreciate his wisdom until much later. 

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake. 

This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me and two other adolescents inNew York and brought us across the country on a ten-day odyssey of terror. 

Poor little Percy Jackson wasn't an international criminal after all. He'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from his captor (and afterwards, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus-"Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, get a friend to take a photo, and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his three friends were safely in police custody. 

The reporters fed us this whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard), and played victimized kids for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy said, 'choking back his tears', "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him onTV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew ... somehow ... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number." 

Ooh you sly little mother trucker

The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for three tickets on the next plane to New York.

I knew there was no choice but to fly. I hoped Zeus would cut Percy some slack, considering the circumstances. But it was still hard to force him on board the flight.

Percy didn't unclench his hands from the armrests until we touched down safely at La Guardia. The local press was waiting for us outside security, but we managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yoghurt! Come on!" then rejoined us at baggage claim.

We split up at the taxi stand. Percy told Annabeth and Grover to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chironknow what had happened. They protested but agreed. If things went wrong, if the gods didn't believe us ... I wanted Annabeth and Grover to survive to tell Chiron the truth. 

Percy and I hopped in a taxi and headed into Manhattan. 

Thirty minutes later, we walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building. 

We must have looked like homeless kids, with our tattered clothes and my scraped-up face. We hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours. 

Percy went up to the guard at the front desk and said, "Six hundredth floor."

The guard was reading 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' and he must've been on a really interesting part because he took a while to look up.

 "No such floor, kiddos." 

"We need an audience with Zeus." 

He gave us a vacant smile. 

"Sorry?"