WORLDS BEYOND ( pjo )

𝐱𝐢𝐯: we are built on ruins

Grover had just left with Bessie (after prying Kia off of him; she wouldn't stop smothering him and saying stuff like 'stay safe' and 'be sure to finish all your tin cans') and Kia immediately collapsed onto Percy.

It was weird because Kia wasn't usually a very touchy-feely person, at least, as far as Percy knew (bar that one time with Thalia), but Kia seemed more yearning of physical contact ever since the whole thing with the manticore. Percy didn't mind, though. He adjusted her in his arms to make it so he was hugging her back while she was attached to him like a koala.

"I miss Grover," she muttered into his shoulder half-heartedly. It had been, like, two seconds since Grover left. Percy patted her back in sympathy.

Zoë threw him a bewildered look, to which he shrugged—he had no idea what was going on either (that was becoming a common feeling for him).

Zoë shook her head. "Well, that is one problem addressed. But how can we get to my sisters' garden?"

"Thalia's right," Percy said. "We need a car. But there's nobody to help us here. Unless we, uh, borrowed one."

It went unsaid, but by 'borrowed,' he meant stealing, which, despite the harrowing feeling of imminent danger, seemed morally wrong. Plus, it'd draw attention to them that they didn't need.

"Wait," Thalia said, rifling through her backpack looking for something. "There is somebody in San Francisco who can help us. I've got the address here somewhere."

"Who?"

Thalia pulled out a crumpled and messy piece of notebook paper and held it up. "Professor Chase. Annabeth's dad."

Kia's head shot up like a dog's at the mention of treats. "Chase? As in Per—" she coughed, "—I mean, Annabeth's dad?"

She'd almost forgotten that she'd been referring to Annabeth as Percy's-not-girlfriend in her head all this time.

Thalia nodded, the ghost of a smirk on her face. "Yep."

Even after all the life-threatening experiences and monsters they've met, Thalia thought with her eyebrow twitching in annoyance, they still bicker about dumb things like this.

Percy and Kia were currently repeatedly shoving each other to ring the doorbell of the Chase residence.

"I let you latch onto me like an overgrown koala, didn't I?"

Kia let out an irritated puff of air. "And? You act like it's the biggest virtue in the book!"

"Why don't one of you just ring the damn bell?" Thalia said irritatedly.

"Oh, be our guest," Percy said sarcastically, sweeping his arms in a gesture to the doorway.

Woah, now. Thalia never said she wanted to do it either. There was no way in hell she'd be the one to willingly bring them-self face to face with the literal devil first. Annabeth had definitely told her enough about Dr. Chase to know what to expect.

A indignant sound of protest grew out of her throat. "Not a chance in Hades—"

Zoë shoved passed the three well-thought out band of idiots and calmly rang the doorbell herself.

"Imbeciles," she muttered to herself.

The door in front of them opened shortly after, and a man appeared wearing an old aviator-style cap and goggles and a white shirt (or at least, used to be a white shirt since it looked closer to beige) that was buttoned incorrectly with a pair of ragged blue jeans. His eyes looked like the one's you'd see in cartoons of mad scientists—bugged out like they were absorbing all the information they could through their eyes alone. They were all so startled that they took a step back on the porch.