JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣

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) had abducted his daughter after custody issues with Warren's mother. He'd shown up at Warren's boarding school in New York and ended up taking Percy, Annabeth, and Grover since they'd been witnesses to the abduction. From there he'd brought them across the country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Percy and Warren weren't international criminals after all. They'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from their captor (and afterward, 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, Warren Walker, and their two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed them this whole story. The kids just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard), and played victim for the cameras.

"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 a hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

Warren knew there was no choice but to fly, and hoped Zeus would cut Percy some slack, considering the circumstances. But she still couldn't stop herself from messing with him a little.

She'd leaned over and whispered in Percy's ear, who was white knuckling the armrests.
"Okay, Jackson. When the plane first takes off it's gonna do a loop de loop in the air, so you need to hang on."

He'd frantically looked out the window every few minutes for the first half-hour of the flight, waiting for the plane to do a flip. Warren could barely contain her laughter, and when Percy realized she'd lied to him he flipped her off and sulked until they landed safely at La Guardia.

The local press was waiting for them outside security, but they managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured the paps away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!" then rejoined her friends at baggage claim.