Melancholy Kaleidescope | PJO

Ch. 12: Sleep In The Funky Transport

They were forced to ignore the smell, heat, and flies zipping around the large metal box, try to get as comfortable as possible on the feed sacks, and get some sleep.

Annabeth and Grover had already laid down and fallen asleep. Jinora was trying to, but Percy being poisoned, falling from the Arch, and turning into a gold statue in just a matter of a few days was keeping her up. It seemed like the gods were toying with them, like they wanted war to break out and level ravish the country and the world once again. None of them had any idea what to expect next.

And what did Ares mean by, "When you see your daddy, tell him I said hi?"

Finally, Jinora gave up on trying to get to sleep and sat up, leaning against the lion's cage after asking in a whisper if it was okay. The lion had made a noise and hadn't tried to bite a chunk of her flesh off, so she assumed the poor guy was okay with it. She figured the fact that they had refilled the animals' waters and moved the food around to the appropriate animal had something to do with it.

Jinora leaned her head back against the bars of the cage and tried to focus on the bouncing of the wheels. She guessed there weren't as many potholes on whatever road they were on because the bounce wasn't nearly as bad as a few hours before.

She was about to shut her eyes and try to go to sleep when she heard someone moving to her right. She opened her eyes and looked over to see Percy sitting up. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and looked at her through his squinted eyes as he continued to wake up.

"Hey," she said quietly, crossing her legs.

"Hey," he replied quietly, tiredness from his sleep still saturating his words. "Have you slept at all?"

Jinora sighed and shook her head. "I can't sleep."

To be completely honest, she was exhausted, or bone tired as she'd heard Monty say before. Her body was begging for rest, but her mind wasn't ready to slow down. It was driving her nuts.

Percy looked at her for a moment before moving to sit next to her. He tried to be as quiet as possible, so as to not wake up Annabeth or Grover. He glanced nervously at the lion as he sat with his back against the metal bars.

"Do you want to talk about it," he asked. Jinora shook her head again, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Okay."

There wasn't much conversation for a bit after that. They sat beside each other as the eighteen-wheeler continued down the road. The lion stood up and circled a couple times before settling back down again, giving Percy a good scare and making Jinora snicker.

After a while, Percy spoke again. "What do you think Ares meant when he told you to say hi to your dad for him?"

Jinora shrugged. "I don't even know what we'd hang around in Vegas for. We gotta get to L.A. and we're starting to get a little tight on time."

Percy shrugged. "I think we'll be okay. I mean, we still got six days to get back."

Jinora looked over at him. "Percy, we still haven't made it to L.A., much less the Underworld. Who's to say we'll have six, or five, or even four days to get back once we get the bolt from Hades?"

Percy hadn't really thought about that. Surely, if monsters were interfering on their way to get the bolt, they would be interfering on the way back.

He decided to change the subject. "You don't have a good relationship with your dad, do you?"

Jinora sighed, feeling deflated. She was too exhausted to get upset at him for that. "Not really, no. Most demigods don't have good relationships with their godly parent. Being a deadbeat kinda ruins the vibe, you know?"