Melancholy Kaleidescope | PJO

Ch. 18: One More Pitstop

To his credit, the whole sob story they told the news had been Percy's idea. He was a complete and utter idiot who only used his brain when he wanted to. And when he wanted to, it was a pretty smart kid.

According to the L.A. News, the explosion at 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.

This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted Percy and three other adolescents in New York and brought them across the 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. 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 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 explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his three friends were safely in police custody (cue the brain straining eye roll from Jinora).

The reporters fed them this whole story. They just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard) and played victimized kids for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy said, choking back alligator tears, "is to see my loving 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." The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for three tickets on the next plane to New York.

Jinora was mildly impressed with Percy's acting skills. He could pick up a nice hobby if he decided to do so, maybe land a few side roles–Jinora made sure to tell him he'd never be a main character, to which he just rolled his eyes.

There, unfortunately, was no getting around flying back to New York. Percy had hoped Zeus would cut him some slack, considering he was returning to New York with his master bolt. It was still hard, however, to keep him from running away from the boarding gate.

Percy was already gripping the armrests of his seats while people were still boarding. They were sat in the side aisle. The side aisles had two seats while the middle aisle had three. Jinora took the window seat and looked down at how white his knuckles were turning, trying her best to not crack a joke about his arms becoming one with the seat.

No, instead, she peeled his fingers from the armrest and allowed him to grip her hand for as long as he wanted or needed to on the flight.

"Our flight is five and a half hours, Percy," she reminded him. He let out a quiet cry and squeezed his eyes shut. The plane wasn't even moving yet. "I do not want you coming off of this plane with permanent indents in your hands."

Percy held her hand tightly the whole flight. Jinora kept the shade to the window down from take-off 'til landing, not really interested in seeing how far their death fall would be.

The local press was waiting for them outside security when they landed. Thanks to Annabeth and Jinora putting their two brains together, they managed to evade them. Annabeth used her Yankee cap to lure people in a different direction while Jinora–who was already good at being sneaky and blending in with the crowd even when she stuck out like a sore thumb–led them through the thick crowd of people.