Sun kissed - Apollo.

23: i become a Water bed Prisoner.

I felt the presence of Apollo back, it felt like he was rather anxious about something. Maybe because we had been gone for days.

"Little starfish?" His voice rings in my ears.

"Phoebus?" I replied back.

"You're okay!" Cane his voice. "Where gave you been? I couldn't reach you, it's been days and now you just pop up! What happened? I thought you died."

"I was trapped in the lotus casino." I told Apollo.

I felt a sense of relief wash over me, i could tell that he was relieved. "Well, you got not much time. But the lotus casino? How did you end up there?"

"I was dragged in by Percy and the rest. They wanted to rest for a bit but we got stuck in there. There are people in there who are from 1977. Can you imagine that?" I asked Apollo.

He snickered. "Yes i can, i knew that casino existed since its beginning."

"Thanks for the warning." I say amused.

He snickers. "I'll talk to you later."

"Will do." I tell him.

🔱🍓🌻🌞

It was Annabeth's idea.

She loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

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

"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 us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. I could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Maybe she 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, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy told Annabeth and Grover about his latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited our memory. I couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I 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's," 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."