The Unknown (A Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

5. Thalia Steals a Car

Hello! Here is chapter five!

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 5

After scavenging some food and more supplies from a nearby store, they walked around the small town.

"What are we exactly looking for?" I asked. Despite it being only late morning, I felt tired and sore. My shoulder throbbed like an extra heartbeat.

Annabeth and Nico both gave me a concerned look. "Percy, are you okay? You don't look too great." Annabeth said and narrowed her eyes at me, examining.

Thalia stormed ahead, her black hair bellowing out behind her. "I'm looking for a decent car. You'd be surprised how hard that is to do in this shithole." She grumped.

"Language." Nico muttered.

"I'm fine." I told Annabeth, even though I felt like I had been dumped into a bath full of ice-cubes.

She gave me a suspicious look and opened her mouth to protest-

"What about this one, Thals?" Nico shouted. He was a few yards away, visible through the gaps in the buildings. He pointed at a pretty bashed up SUV.

"It's not exactly fast or glamorous." Thalia sighed. "But it's better than nothing." She jogged over to it and pulled at the handle. The door opened with a creak. "And it's unlocked. Great."

Thalia climbed into the driver's seat and fiddled under the dashboard. "I hate doing this." She mumbled to herself.

Nico arched an eyebrow. "You can hot-wire a car?"

She grunted and the two wires sparked together, the car roaring to life.

"Apparently so." I muttered.

Nico went shotgun, leaving Annabeth and I to climb in the back, pushing aside candy wrappers and empty soda bottles. There was a smear of crimson on the rear window, but nothing else that suggested what had happened to the previous owners.

Thalia had her back to us, but her hands were clenched tightly around the steering wheel, her knuckles visible through her pale skin.

Annabeth and I exchanged a glance. Thalia's mother had died in a car accident two years before Thalia was purged from her tree by the Golden Fleece.

"Do you want me to drive?" I asked, despite the fact that I felt like I was going to pass out any minute.

Thalia shook her head. "I'm fine. I've done this before, loads of times." She muttered, almost to herself. She shifted the gear and reserved out of the driveway, before turning onto the road, driving at around thirty miles per hour.

Annabeth shuffled through her backpack, bringing out a huge map. "Well...we're in Southern Oklahoma."

I stared at Nico. "Couldn't you have shadow-travelled somewhere closer to Camp Half-Blood?"

He flushed. "I tried but my powers have been off lately. And I think someone mentioned it on the day we got away from Camp half-Blood. Sorry."

Thalia shifted gear again and drove faster. The town blurred past them. If I hadn't known any better, I would've thought that there was nothing unusual about the place. But I knew that many of the houses had been partly destroyed, or had the windows shattered at the very least.

We passed a few turned over vehicles, but they flashed out of sight so quickly that I couldn't catch any of the details.

Annabeth gave Thalia road directions. I tried to listen for the most part, but the only phrases I caught were, "Head to nearest city", "-find some help" and "Missouri."