𝐗𝐈𝐈𝐈

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✦ 𝐋𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐘 𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐘 ✦

✦ 𝐋𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐘 𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐘 ✦

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IT WAS ANNABETH'S IDEA. She loaded them into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

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

"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.

He shrugged. "Some of' em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em 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 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, Aurora chuckling from her seat. Percy could tell she liked the 'Your Highness' thing.

"Get us there fast, and you can keep the change." Maybe Annabeth shouldn't have told him that.

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

On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy and Aurora told Annabeth and Grover about their latest shared dream, but the details got sketchier the more they tried to remember them.

The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited their memory.

Percy and Aurora couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though they were sure it was somebody they knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than 'my lord'... some special name or title...

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

"Maybe..." Percy said though neither sounded quite right.

"That throne room sounds like Hades'," 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, right, Rory?"

"Yeah, it's weird. We're in trouble if it's not Hades." Aurora voiced out.

Annabeth's eyes widened.

"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 –"

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