¹𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒 ! - percy jackson

-006

THE FEELING OF REGRET didn't take long to come over her as they drove south.

Zoë was driving like a mad woman with Bianca in the passenger seat. The rest of them had their own row, Stella in the last one. Nobody was talking except for the occasional road rage from Zoë, with Bianca trying to calm her down, and a snarky comment from Thalia now and then.

Stella was staring out the window, aimlessly watching the cars pass by on the other side of the highway. Several different thoughts were racing through her mind, but there was only one constant: Perseus fucking Jackson.

She wished she wasn't so stubborn. She wished she had talked to him after dinner or at least before she left. He was the only one she really confided in to talk about her dream. She could tell Thalia or Grover, but it wasn't the same. She didn't know why. She just felt some other type of trust between herself and the son of Poseidon.

Fuck keeping her distance, all of a sudden, Stella wanted nothing but understanding. It was safe to say she missed his friendship, maybe.

Ew. There was nothing she hated more than dependency.

Here she was, on a quest to save Artemis with only a few days left before the offer to become a Hunter would expire. And where was he? Probably back with his saint of a mother in Manhattan, bored out of his mind.

The last two nights, she had nightmares about Annabeth, and then they would fade into some other kind of dream. They were like glimpses? Or visions? Stella didn't know what to call them, but the only thing she knew was that he was in both of them. She didn't know what they meant, what he was doing in them, anything really.

The car came to a halt at some bleak rest stop, and Zoë said, "Everyone out!"

"Where are we?" Stella asked Thalia as they exited the van.

"Maryland."

"Oh."

Those five hours had passed rather quickly when she was so absorbed in thought. Also, maybe the fact that she had slept from Camp Half-Blood to somewhere in New Jersey.

They all followed Zoë into the convenience store. There were rows of the most unhealthy snacks across America. Stella split away and found the granola bar section, her favorite. She grabbed a few bars and paid at the register.

She rejoined the group, who was waiting at the front of the store. They were all engaged in conversation, and Stella was not quite sure what she had missed.

"Grover, are you sure?" Thalia said as they walked out of the store.

"Well...pretty sure. Ninety-nine percent. Okay, eighty-five percent."

"And you did this with acorns?" Bianca asked like she couldn't believe it.

Grover looked offended. "It's a time-honored tracking spell. I mean, I'm pretty sure I did it right."

"D.C. is about sixty miles from here," Bianca said. "Nico and I..." She frowned. "We used to live there. That's...that's strange. I'd forgotten."

Stella looked over at Bianca, who looked lost in thought. That's not at all weird...

"I dislike this," Zoë said. "We should go straight west. The prophecy said west."

"Oh, like your tracking skills are better?" Thalia growled.

Zoë stepped toward her. "You challenge my skills, you scullion? You know nothing of being a Hunter!"

"Oh, scullion? You're calling me a scullion? What the heck is a scullion?"