UNFORGIVEN¹ PERCY JACKSON

007

"They're looking at us," Grover whispered, the three of them were just standing around while firemen and police officers checked out the arch.

"Yeah," Annabeth responded. Evelyn wasn't paying attention as she watched the thread from a yarn being cut off from the three old ladies. Evelyn didn't have a good feeling about them, as they were the three fates,

"So we should probably get outta here, don't you think?" Grover asked, hiding his face. "Dude, they're looking right at us."

"Who?" Evelyn jumped, finally coming out of her thoughts, and Grover pointed to the police officers.

"What are we doing just standing here?" Evelyn pulled the two by their arms, "We need to find Percy."

"Eve," Grover sighed. 

"He's alive," Evelyn assured, she could feel it. "I know it. He has to be."

"Percy!" The three called out, checking out every imaginable place.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled, suddenly they saw the boy coming out of the water, jumping over the barricade.

"Hi," Percy waved, the three just stood there in shock, and then they started to walk over, Evelyn in front. "Look I'm sorry about shoving you in the stairwell. Even hearing myself say that sounds really bad," Evelyn felt the tears brimming her eyes as her vision blurred.

"But I just- I knew you'd never agree and there wasn't enough time-" Evelyn cut him off as she hugged him tightly.

It took a minute for Percy to register what was happening before he slowly hugged her back and chuckled slightly.

"So you're not as dead as we thought you'd be," Grover said, stunned as Evelyn backed away, a little embarrassed. 

"Surprise," Percy said with a smile on his face. 

"What happened?" Annabeth asked

"Short version, we need to go to Santa Monica" The three looked at him, stunned at the sudden detour. 

"What? Like now?" Grover exclaimed. 

Percy nodded "My father's going to meet me there. He's gonna help us"

Grover spoke up, "Okay, uh. Just one problem with this plan, the police think that we crashed a train and did that" He pointed to the smoking top of the arches.

Percy furrowed his eyebrows, "The- the cops are after us"

Annabeth nodded, "Yeah, so we should get out of here. Like, right now"

"Isn't that gonna make it hard for us to get on a train?" Percy asked, "Or a bus? Or really anything you need tickets for?"

Evelyn looked at Annabeth, "What do you think wise-girl?"

Annabeth shook her head at the nickname, "You guys hungry?"

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"Hey guys," Percy said, the four were now walking on a road. Annabeth was on Evelyn's left, Percy on her right and Grover on the other side of Percy.

"I think this quest might be harder than we thought. I've been thinking, I didn't steal the master bolt, you guys didn't steal the master bolt. We're pretty sure Hades has the master bolt but he couldn't have stolen it himself. I mean we don't even know who stole the thing. or why, or how deep this goes."

Evelyn, Annabeth and Grover all exchanged knowing glances, they had figured this out at the start of the quest. "I'm the last person to realize this, aren't I?"