SERENDIPITY ~ A. Chase

xi ~ A Free Crusty Dusty Height Adjustment

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chapter eleven ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
011. A Crusty Dusty Height Adjustment

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For once, in Cassie's opinion, Annabeth had a smart idea. She had got them into a Vegas taxi and ordered the driver.

"Los Angeles, please."

The man didn't seem to happy about that. He chewed on his cigar and said. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."

Cassie rolled her eyes and if Percy hadn't grabbed her shoulder she probably would've tackled the guy.

"Yeah, big guy. And what if we don—"

Annabeth covered her mouth.

"You accept casino debit cards?" The blonde offered.

"Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first." The man told.

Annabeth gave him her green LotusCash card and the guy inspected it.

"Go on, swipe it." Cassie stated.

The guy listened, swiping the card. His machine rattled as an infinity symbol appeared.

His mouth fell open in shock, looking back with wide eyes.

"Where to in Los Angeles . . . uh, Your Highness?"

"Don't feed her ego!" Cassie whined in complaint.

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth demanded, sitting up straighter and ignoring the brunette. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Not the best way of wording it. The taxi never went below ninety-five the whole trip across the desert.

There was a lot of time to talk in the car ride. Percy asked about the burning trireme and Cassie brushed it off. Annabeth explained the whole story.

Stories like that were exchange until Percy remembered his dream. He told them about the voice in the pit and the invisible servant. But the dream was getting fuzzier after their stay in the Lotus Casino.

Percy said there was some nickname the servant called the monster. Something special.

"The Silent One? The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades?" Annabeth proposed.

"Maybe . . ." Percy didn't sound too sure.

"That throne room sounds like Hades'. That's the way it's usually described." Grover added.

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

That caught the girls' attention. Annabeth more visibly from her widening eyes.

Cassie thought to herself. 'I mean it could be—there's no way! Forget that. It got to be Hades.'

"What?" Percy asked them.

"Oh . . . nothing. 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?"

"I—I don't know. But if he stole Zeus' 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 lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt." Annabeth explained.