The Thief // pjo

Chapter Eight // We Take a Dip in the Santa Monica and Take a Crusty Yoga Class

    I was still snorting and rolling my eyes at Annabeth, who was sitting like the queen the taxi-cab driver just called her.

    We had hitched a ride and, using Annabeth's LotusCash card, paid for an entire three hundred-mile trip to Los Angeles.

    When the driver had swiped the card and spotted the infinity symbol on his meter machine, he had called the blonde "Your Highness," which boosted Annabeth's ego by like tenfold. She had told him to get us to our destination as quickly as possible, and he could keep the card.

    So now we were driving at an inhumane speed across the Mojave Desert, while talking about Percy and I's shared dream, giving them as many details as we could remember.

    "The Silent One?" Annabeth furrowed her brows when we couldn't remember the nickname the voice in the pit had given the servant. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."

    Percy and I looked at one another, neither of the names feeling right.

    "Maybe ..." My brother muttered.

    "That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover offered up, scratching his neck. "That's the way it's usually described."

    Percy shook his head, "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit ... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."

    I nodded, "Yeah, it was like...it was like our skin was crawling off our bodies, and everything was cold."

    Annabeth stared at us with huge eyes.

    "What?" I asked her.

    "Oh ... nothing," She shook her head as if she were trying to convince herself. "I was just-No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"

    "Like what?" Percy interrupted.

    "I-I don't know," She fiddled with her camp necklace. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right?" At me and Percy's nod, she continued, "The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus, besides sensing Sally. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."

    Her face was dreadfully pale, not at all like her normal sunkissed parlor turning into the coloring of a ghost.

    I pinched my lips before turning my head to a confused Percy as he asked, "But if I'd already retrieved the bolt, why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"

    "To threaten Hades," Grover shrugged, scrambling to come up with ideas. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."

    I smirked, "You have evil thoughts for a goat."

    He grinned at me, "Why, thank you."

    "But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," Percy brought the conversation back on track. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?"

    I looked at Annabeth, assuming she might have an idea about the whole situation, and when her eyes locked with mine, I could tell she wanted me to not ask my question, but I did anyways, "You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you? I mean, if it isn't Hades?"

    Annabeth shuffled uncomfortably beside me, "Sally, let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades...No. It has to be Hades."