How Do You Say Gods- Titan's Curse

11: GROVER GETS A LAMBORGHINI

"Did Grover win the lottery?" Percy asked swiftly this time when Rachel read the new one, getting his guess in first. At least if this was a game he wasn't getting out of he might as well play, and for once it wasn't about him.

"And buy a gas guzzling vehicle that's destroying his precious environment?" Alex looked at him blankly. "You really are the worst at these Perce."

"The obvious answer is he gets a magic lamb and names it Genie," Magnus nodded sagely.

Thalia busted out laughing, not having trusted herself to offer up a solution this time since she vividly remembered what led them all into those cars. It was hard to even pretend be mad at Apollo when he flirted with the rest of the hunters when she remembered him in that grimy look.

..."We have to ditch the van."

"And walk the whole way?" Jason asked dubiously.

"I was going to stop and ask them for directions," Percy said with the pen in his hand. He still remembered from the last book something about Annabeth and a helicopter. That horrible premonition had come to pass, but it still lingered in his mind. If he had to get kidnapped to get to her faster-

Thalia socked him on the shoulder however to show how she felt about that plan, so he instead sighed and tried another answer. "I vote train again," he said wistfully, remembering Annabeth falling asleep on her bag, her fair hair falling into her face. Nothing bad had happened to him on one of those yet.

Then he grunted in pain and pressed a hand to his temple, glaring at his nose in betrayal. How did everything come back to smite him?!

Rachel started reading very fast to help alleviate that look away.

..."Don't those higherd guns notice all the monsters around them?"

"Exactly how do you think the Mist works?" Rachel asked in confusion, rather than trying to call Percy an idiot. She really didn't know, she'd never been fooled by it.

He had been called that enough times he insisted, "they'd see strange things they couldn't explain and ask questions!" He'd heard the implied part of her question too and couldn't figure out why he was the only one ever concerned with that when it could fool half-blood's as easily as mortals about what was going on. Tyson had been under the Mist for a whole school year, half his child hood was filled with unexplainable things the Mist had disguised, but he'd always seen just enough to make him scared of the monsters until his mother brushed his tears away with a too understanding smile.

"If you pay a man enough he'll walk barefoot into hell,"* Will quoted from one of his favorite shows with one of those sad smiles that never quite reached his eyes.

Nico watched him critically for a moment, and Will whispered at once, "show on an old VHS tape hidden in the break room behind the orientation film."

Nobody had ever shared a secret like that at camp with him before, and Nico found an easy smile come out erasing entirely his unease that wasn't a crack at him.

It was the only answer Percy was going to get, and he didn't think much of it.

... A lightning bolt would be nice about now. Please?"... No sign of a helpful thunderstorm.

"Did you expect anything else?" Percy asked harshly. His ire stemmed from a sudden certainty that lightning bolt was delivered, that Zeus favored his daughter when his dad couldn't bother to send him more than a stupid two word letter for communication.

Thalia gritted her teeth and forced herself not to say anything back. It would come out all wrong. That she still wasn't sure some days if it had been Zeus to try and strike her out of the sky and grant her prayer days later on Mount Tam. Percy had no idea how lucky he was his dad had ignored him instead.