Olivia Smith and the Titan's Curse

The Junkyard

Song For This Chapter: Sail - Awolnation

Ch. 19 - The Junkyard

We road into the day on top of the boar, it's steel bristles digging deep into us in the most uncomfortable ways one could imagine. By the time the sun began to set, we had left the mountains long behind and were trekking it through a desert.

No one spoke the whole ride, all of us were too caught up in our own thoughts to talk to each other. I had about a million different problems floating around my brain. 'Where was Annabeth and Artemis' was number one of the list while 'What am I going to do?' ranked a close second next to 'Where the hell is Penny?'

Glancing towards Bianca, I thought about how drastically the Hunters had changed her. She was no longer the intimidated girl we had rescued at the school. She was a huntress. Looking at her, I felt a small rush of something I hadn't felt in a long while. Hope.

Hope that Nico was just as moldable and strong as his sister. Because, if he had the potential energy that Bianca eluded, then I could feel at peace about Penelope. I could let my mind let go of her for just a little while.

As night began to fall, the boar slowed down, coming to a stop at a small creek. Grover decided that this was as far as the creature would take us, so we slowly climbed down as the sky grew darker. But, as I turned my sights to the sky, I realized that the moon wouldn't be showing her face. "What do the mortals see?" I asked, breaking the long silence that had fallen.

Zoë rose a brow at this question, and stretched herself out. "The Mist, as thee would call it, will create a false Moon, so they do not suspect what has taken place." A false moon, huh? Not even when the moon is missing will anything seem out of place.

After we'd gotten a little ways away from the beast, it had it's fill of water and galloped off, leaving us, quite literally, in his dust. "It likes the mountains better." Percy assumed, shrugging his shoulders as we watched it disappear into the distance.

"Can't really blame it..." Thalia spoke up, motioning around us.

Looking around, I realized we where in a junkyard. Large piles of flattened cars and other unwanted items lay discarded all around the area. There was a small town in the distance, but by the looks of it, it had been abandoned a long time ago. "A junkyard?" 'There are many interesting things to be found in a junkyard. Only the godly may take from this place, be sure that no one touches anything...' Hera's voice murmured in my head as I remembered the meeting I had with her.

Thalia furrowed her brow and send Grover a small, forced smile. "I assume you don't have another wild boar up your sleeve?" Grover shook his head, but pulled a hand full of acorns out of his pocket.

Tossing the nuts into the sand, he pulled out his pipe and began playing a whimsical tune while the acorns arranged themselves into a pattern. "Dang it, Olive." Grover muttered, glaring down at the pile in the sand, making my heart sputter with a guilty conscious. Did those nuts tell Grover more than just coordinates?

"What's up, Grov?" I squeaked, catching Zoë and Bianca's attention, but they let it slide.

Grover picked the nuts back up off the ground and spared me a small, apologetic smile. "Could you... could you walk towards the west about twenty paces?" Giving him a confused expression, Grover chuckled a little and explained. "With your presence, the acorns get over powered and cluster together in the center."

"Oh." I nodded, turning on my heel and making sure to get as far away from them as Grover had requested, realizing this was an opportune moment. "Hey!" I called out, while continually walking backwards. "I'm going to look around."