Indigo Eyes

Chapter 12

Percy may as well have stayed in the Hermes cabin, he may as well have been a son of Hermes, because his plan to get them enough money to fly back to New York was one worthy of the trickster god.

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 Percy and three other adolescents in New York and brought them 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 the 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, gotten 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, with tips from the daughter of the god of theatre of course.

"All I want," Percy said, choking back tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew... somehow... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number." The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

Cressida was also comfortable in saying that getting Percy onto that plane was the hardest part of their quest so far. Take off was a literal nightmare with Percy seeming as if he was going to cry or wet himself the entire time and it was after he flinched for the third time and made that face that Cressida turned to him, yanking her headphones out of her ears.

"Do you trust me?" she asked, and his clenched eyes opened to meet hers.

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yeah. I do," he said honestly. Though it was nice to hear that someone trusted her, Percy was pissing her off and she was going to do this either way as she offered him her palm.

"Then give me your hand."

He hesitated for a moment before surrendering his hand and she covered it with her other hand before closing her eyes. "Calm," she whispered as her hands glowed purple and though Percy was still anxious, it was like Cressida pulled all the tension from his body as a wave of calm washed over him. He liked waves. Waves meant the ocean and the ocean was nice.

"Wow. Whoa. That feels nice."

"That's the point, Fish Face," she snapped. "Here," she said as she offered him an earbud.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. It'll help calm you down and stop being a pain in my ass, hopefully until we land."

He scowled at her but accepted the earbud anyway, sticking it in as a soft song about a guy pining for a girl when there was an ocean between them. He had a feeling that she chose it deliberately, but it was good, and she was right. It did keep him calm until they landed, and Percy was never more thankful for being on solid ground.