JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣

It was Annabeth's idea.

She loaded everyone into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized them up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."

"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.

He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."

Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card. He looked at it skeptically.

"Swipe it," Annabeth invited.

He did. His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth.

He looked back at them, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter.

Warren scoffed, of course she liked the whole "Your Highness" thing.

"Get us there fast, and you can keep the change," she said.

Maybe Warren shouldn't have told him that, because the cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

While they were on the road, Percy filled everyone in on his dreams. Warren was a bit more tight lipped about her own, especially when Percy said he'd heard a familiar voice speaking to something in the pit.

Warren had a terrible fear that it was her, and that no matter how hard she tried she was going to end up betraying her friends. The evil entity wanted her to escort Percy to the Underworld, afterall, and that's exactly where they were headed.

But the Lotus Hotel seemed to have scrambled their memories. She and Percy were both fuzzy on their details. Something could easily have been misremembered...right?

"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "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."

Annabeth's eyes widened.

"What?" Warren asked.

"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," Annabeth said. "But if this person stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting them, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or lost it somehow. Anyway, they failed to bring it to Hades. 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."