The Complicated Life of Emily Jones - Based off of Percy Jackson

Chapter Sixteen - Beginning the Journey

The five of us ventured out to the edge of camp to meet Argus. He didn't say anything, but I swear, three of his eyes narrowed when he saw me, as if he knew I wasn't supposed to be there.

We all climbed into the back of his truck that was covered in strawberries and smiles all over it. It was quite happy for a van driven by a man with hundreds of eyes, chauffeuring demigods and other things to and from CHB. That's about as normal as having snakes for hair.

Noel wanted to sit shotgun, but Argus gave him a look that ordered otherwise. Gavin and Rebecca sat in the back, Noel sat on the floor - without a seatbelt, might I add - and Nick and I sat in the middle. He kept staring out the window, as if he was trying to look beyond what he saw. Gavin was just listening to Rebecca babble on about useless subjects with the greatest intensity in his eyes. Noel was looking into his pocket knife, probably daydreaming about being off somewhere else. I was just admiring the whole situation. Why would they pick me in addition to Rebecca? Was I really that important?

***

It took almost three hours to reach Manhattan, where Argus let us off. The five of us tried to figure out exactly what we got ourselves into, but somehow, Noel knew exactly where he was going, or at least, he thought he dd. He was holding a map out in front of him, leading us down the streets of the Big Apple. We followed him for several blocks, but then he just stopped.

He just stopped.

We were in the middle of the street, the blinking crosswalk thing was about to turn red again, but he just stopped, not caring if we were to be run over by a truck or something.

Nick grabbed Noel's map out of his hand and I pushed him onto the other side of the street. Rebecca and Gavin followed.

"What the Hellhound?" Noel scolded. He was about to go back where he stopped, but Nick grabbed his wrist.

"You can't just stop in the middle of the street, especially in New York City! You'll be killed!" Nick yelled.

"At least that wouldn't have been the most painful death I'd have experienced." Noel said, then snatched his map from Nick and began walking down the street again. I guess being a child of Hades means knowing how you've died in your past life.

Rebecca just sat down on the curb and waited for a minute, thinking. She then stood up, and stuck her hand out, waving it like a madman. "TAXI!" she screamed as loudly as she could.

"Rebecca, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Getting us a cab. What else? TAXI!"

She screamed TAXI! for the next minute, and sure enough, a cab stopped by her feet. By then, Nick made sure Noel turned around and met back up with us. We all entered the taxi and acted like we knew what we were doing, you know, being five young demigods alone in the city wasn't strange enough.

"Where'll yous guys be headin'?" the taxi man asked with a thick NY accent.

"The Upper East Side, please." Rebecca handed him a ten dollar bill, and let him drive.

"Um...are you sure you know what you're doing, kid?" Noel asked her.

"I know more than you do!" Dam, she was feisty.

***

Rebecca hollered for the taxi man to stop at the corner when nearing the Upper East Side. "Thank you!" she said.

"Have a nice day," the taxi man replied.

We all exited the cab, and had no idea where we were, except for Rebecca of course.

"Follow me," she said.

Rebecca led us down the street, and around another corner to an old apartment building. The door leading in looked as though it was slammed several times, and the driveway had old skid marks in it, but there were two cars. One was one of those beat-up blue Chevy pick-up trucks, while the other was a little beige Nissan. The dynamics of people living in this apartment could not have been greater.

Rebecca ran up to the door and just walked right in without knocking. Either she lived here, knew people that lived here, or was incredibly rude.

After a minute or so of the four of us standing awkwardly at the end of the driveway, a tall man came outside of the door. He had black hair, his face was scruffy-looking, his eyes were young and bright, colored sea green...could this be who I thought it was?

"Come on in, everyone. I'm Rebecca's father, Percy Jackson."