Death Girl || Leo Valdez (RTB)

I SETTLE MY TAB

21. I SETTLE MY TAB

Percy sighed, leaning back into the couch. "Well, this should be nice."

It's funny how humans can wrap their minds around things and fit them into their version of reality. Chiron had told me that long ago. As usual, I didn't appreciate his wisdom until much later.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

The crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me and two other adolescents and a little girl (Summer was offended that someone once again called her a little girl) in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Percy Jackson wasn't an international criminal after all. He'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from his captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—"Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson (I was beginning to like this kid) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosions, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor has fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his three friends were safely in police custody.

"That is some story."

"The mortals made that up?"

The reporters fed us this whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't very hard), and played victimized kids for the camera's.

"All I want," I said, choking back tears. "is to see my love stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew...somehow...we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."

Everyone either laughed, or shook their head.

"You can't deny, Percy can be smart sometimes." Piper said.

"Thank you." Percy said, doing a little bow in his seat, and he ended up falling off the couch.

As everyone laughed, Nico said, "That's why she said sometimes."

The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around a hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

I knew there was no choice but to fly. I hoped Zeus would cut me some slack, considering the circumstances. But it was still hard to force myself to board the flight. I practically had to drag Summer, and then assure people that she was with me and I wasn't kidnapping her.

Takeoff was a nightmare. Every spot of turbulence was scarier than a Greek Monster. I didn't unclench my hands from the armrests until we touched down safely at La Guardia. The local press was waiting for us outside security, but we managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come one!", then rejoined is at baggage claim.

We split up at the taxi stand. I told Annabeth, Summer and Grover to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chiron know what had happened. They protested, and it was hard to let them go after all we'd been through, but I knew I had to do this last part of the quest by myself. If things went wrong, if the gods didn't believe me...I wanted Annabeth, Summer and Grover to survive to tell Chiron the truth.