𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐒, apollo

𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢𝐢𝐢. i need you to know

WE CAUGHT A CAB and asked to be driven to Los Angeles. The taxi driver was hesitant at first, but when Annabeth swiped her LotusCasino card, he began acting real nice. He even called Cy 'Your Highness'.

Since I sat in the passenger seat, I pretty much slept through the whole 300 miles and before I knew it, sunset came and the taxi dropped us at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfers waiting for the perfect wave.

It happened quite fast; Grover, Annabeth, Percy and I stood at the edge of the surf, looking into the water. Then the next thing I knew, Cy was halfway into the water, with Annabeth yelling about how polluted the surf was. And then he was fully submerged in water.

We didn't know what to do other than wait for him, so we did. After maybe twenty minutes, Percy came back to the shore, completely dry.

I pursed my lips as he finished explaining what had happened. I glanced at the pearls in his hand, it was suspicious to me how he got them from the sea spirit without a price.

Annabeth must have thought the same as she grimaced, "No gift comes without a price."

"They were free," He shrugged.

"No," She shook her head. "There is no such thing as a free lunch. That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait." On that happy note, we turned our backs on the sea.

IT SEEMS WE CAN never have peace, because not even an hour later, the four of us were sprinting away from a gang of white kids with expensive clothes and mean faces like the kids at Yancy Academy: rich brats playing at being bad boys. I wanted to gag.

We pushed two kids out of the way and raced down the street, not knowing where we were going. We turned a sharp corner. "There!" Annabeth shouted. Only one store on the block looked open, its windows glaring with neon. The sign above the door said something like CRSTUY'S WATRE BDE ALPACE.

"Crusty's Water Bed Palace?" Grover translated. It didn't sound like a place I'd ever go except in an emergency, but this definitely qualified. We burst through the doors, ran behind a water bed, and ducked. A split second later, the gang of kids ran past outside.

"I think we lost them," Grover panted. I sighed in relief. But then, a voice behind us boomed, "Lost who?" We all jumped.

Standing behind us was a guy who looked like a raptor in a leisure suit. He was at least seven feet tall, with absolutely no hair. He had gray, leathery skin, thick-lidded eyes, and a cold, reptilian smile. He moved toward us slowly, but I got the feeling he could move fast if he needed to.

"I'm Crusty," He said, with a tartar-yellow smile. I shared a glance with Percy, it seemed that we both wanted to say, Yes, you are.

"Sorry to barge in," Percy told him. "We were just, um, browsing."

"You mean hiding from those no-good kids," He grumbled. "They hang around every night. I get a lot of people in here, thanks to them. Say, you want to look at a water bed?" I was about to interrupt and say 'No, thanks' when he put a huge paw on my shoulder and steered me deeper into the showroom.

There was every kind of water bed you could imagine: different kinds of wood, different patterns of sheets; queen-size, king-size, emperor-of-the universe-size. "This is my most popular model," Crusty spread his hands proudly over a bed covered with black satin sheets, with built-in Lava Lamps on the headboard. The mattress vibrated, so it looked like oil-flavored Jell-O.