Olympus Drive Book 3: According to Plan

Chapter 9

Detective Stamos

It's almost evening. It's been a long day. A very long day. And I'm driving out to the old house to have a series of ultimately pointless conversations.

"You sure it's a girl that died?"

"Yes, yes I am positive a girl died, no it was not a gay boy. No, I cannot identify anyone based solely off your description of  'a little gay boy who's gonna die soon'," I growl at the reason it has been a long day.

"Right," Rhea says, still looking at his notebook and not up at me for this conversation he started.

"To clarify, you think you know everything—"

"If I did we wouldn't have issues would we?"

"—shut up and let me finish------you think you know everything that's ever happened and you have—whatever fucking visions of what is going to happen------"

"I can divine, yes," he sighs, "I did tell you all this."

"Yeah and you say shit all the time. Why is it the big deal now that you voluntarily spend the day with me trying to convince me to help you?"

"Because just because I divine it doesn't mean it will come to pass---I mean sometimes it does, but it doesn't always have to go the same way, look at the kids, they've lived 'cause of what we've done," he says.

"But you said that these---"

"Kids."

"----you're trying to protect, that they are mortal or whatever, not one of Basil's kids or anything like that," I say.

"Yeah, they are," he says.

"So why do you care more about, whoever this is—than say the girl who died this morning---because if you can see the future then you could have predicted that—"

"It's not like that, some people, they just are here for a little while, some keep on coming back trying to change their story, but it never does."

"If it never changes and it's all predetermined then---why are you trying to do something? You can't change it, if it's predetermined like that," I say.

"Sometimes, people deserve a happy ending, I want them to have a happy ending, eventually, you know? It shouldn't always be a tragedy," he says, looking up at me, "Don't you think it's worth the try? The kids were supposed to die, they didn't—I changed it. I've changed things before just—not always effectively or the way I'd want or whatever---this time I think we're getting it right. And it's worth a try for these guys too."

"Okay, okay, run it by me again," I say, tiredly. Worth a try.

"One of these kids is going to be killed, I don't know where or by whom, but it's going to bring about terrible bloodshed that could potentially open the gates of the Underworld—and we can't have that happen either."

"So the goal is to stop the kid from dying."

"Exactly."

"We're not identifying who this person is just so you can kidnap them and tie them up someplace that is NOT the most effective way to keep people safe---"

"Okay, you take a tone, but it fucking worked those kids are alive---"

"—with extreme issues due to the fact that you fucking kidnapped them no. We do not kidnap people that some rocks told you might die that is NOT the best course of action here—"

"Fucking is," he mutters, as we turn up Olympus drive.

"It is not. Anyway we don't even know who it is. There are better ways to protect people than kidnapping them and holding them against their will."