Death Girl || Leo Valdez (RTB)

WE SHOP FOR WATERBEDS

17. WE SHOP FOR WATERBEDS

It was Annabeth's idea.

"Thanks Seaweed Brain."

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

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

"You accept casino cards?" Annabeth asked.

He shrugged. "Some of 'me. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe them 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 roller sign.

The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. I could tell she like doing the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Maybe she shouldn't have told him that.

Annabeth winced. "Probably not."

The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

🟠⚫🟠

On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. I told Annabeth, Summer and Grover about my latest dream, but the details got sketchier then more I tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited my memory. I couldn't recall what the invisible servants voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other then "my lord"....some special name or title.

"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich zone? Both of those at nicknames for Hades."

"Maybe...." I said, though neither sounded quite right.

"That throne room sound like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's I usually described."

I shook my 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?" I asked.

"Oh.....nothing. I was just—No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this theif, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"

"So there's no other possible being that could have stole the bolt." Summer cut off angrily. "You're 100% sure my father stole it?"

"I'm just saying that—"

But Summer wasn't finished. Her eyes began to darken, going from grey to black. The air in the taxi turned cold, despite the air being turned on low.

"I bet you and everyone else thinks that I'm the thief that stole the bolt, right? You think that maybe the thief wasn't invisible, and they were just hiding in the shadows, and you all know that only one person can do that, and it's me, so you have an idea that it's me who stole the bolt." Summer said, and shadows began to crawl up her feet from underneath the car seats.

"Summer, I don't think that—"

Summer cut her off once again. "I know how you think, Annabeth. You think of every possible outcome."