𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑭𝑨𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑵 𝑨𝑵𝑮𝑬𝑳 [ᕼᑭ ᙭ ᑭᒍO]

XXXI || "Not now, Ocean eyes."

✿⁠ ♡ ◍⁠ •⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠ ◍ ✧⁠ * 。♡

"Percy, don't do anything stupid. Let me handle-"

✿⁠ ♡ ◍⁠ •⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠ ◍ ✧⁠ * 。♡

Annabeth loaded the two demigods and a satyr into the back of a Vegas taxi and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized them up, which was irritating Lilith, "That’s three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."

"You accept casino debit cards?" Lilith asked.

He shrugged. "Some of ’em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe ’em through first."

Lilith looked at Annabeth and she handed him her green Lotus Cash card.

He looked at it skeptically.

"Swipe it," Lilith invited.

He did.

His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign.

The cigar fell out of the driver’s mouth. He looked back at them, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles…uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. Lilith snickred and Annabeth gave her a glare, "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

"Maybe you shouldn’t have told him that." Lilith muttered. The cab’s speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

On the road, Percy told them about his dream which made Lilith more and more suspicious. She knew Percy was having trouble remembering his dream. He couldn't remember some special title for the Monster in the pit.

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

"Maybe…" Percy said.

"That throne room sounds like Hades’s," Grover said. "That’s the way it’s usually described."

Percy shook his 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, she immediately looked at Lilith.

"What?" Percy asked.

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

"Like what?"

"I—I don’t know," she said. "But if he stole Zeus’s symbol of power
from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That’s what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."

She rambled nervously, glancing at Lilith who was awfully quite through this whole conversation.

"But if I’d already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"

"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."

Percy whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat."