DESTINY ↳ WILL SOLACE

13. I Fight A Fire-Breathing Chihuahua

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I Fight A Fire-Breathing Chihuahua

I don't own Percy Jackson.

They spent two days on the train, zipping past hills, rivers, and golden fields of grain. Percy joked that the wheat looked like Will. He didn't find it as funny as her.

Somehow, they weren't attacked once, but Percy didn't relax. She knew that she was being watched at least from above, especially after that stunt with Medusa she had pulled. Looking back on it now, it had been a dumb move, and might've angered the only god on her side (Medusa, after all, had been her father's lover), but then again, Percy hadn't done it just to shock the gods. She had done it partially for Medusa too—to shove her head in their faces and shout, Look what you did to someone! She wanted them to feel some sort of regret, at least, for what they did.

Still, Percy sometimes kept a wary eye on the ground whenever she paced the length of the train. Between both Hades and that strange voice from the pit, Percy wasn't sure if she trusted the land beneath her either. But it seemed she had enemies everywhere, because one night, she found a discarded newspaper with her face on it—the Trenton Register-News had put her on the front page, a photo of when she had been lugged off the bus by Will and Grover. Her sword was a metallic blur in her hands and there was a wild look in her eyes.

The picture's caption read:

Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of her mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where she accosted several elderly female passengers. The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Jackson fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the girl may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. Her stepfather, GabeUgliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to her capture.

Percy had brought it back into the cabin, hands shaking, only half-conscious of what she was doing. It had taken her almost an hour to read, and Grover had seized it, reading it out loud to Will who had asked what it said. Will assured Percy that mortal police could never find them, but they both knew that wasn't true. After all, Percy was just a girl, even if she were half-god. The police could easily catch them if they wanted.

Percy found herself often staring out windows whenever Will and Grover were sleeping, too paranoid to leave them in case some monster came, but also too bored to simply sit still in her seat. Besides, looking out the window meant that the other passengers couldn't see her face, and that meant less of a chance someone would turn her over to the police.

The reward money they had gotten for returning Gladiola had only been enough to take them to Denver, and Jefferson City if they got the sleeper berths, so they ended up just dozing off in their seats. Nobody ended up sitting next to Grover, so he ended up just curling up on both seats and using the backpack as a pillow as he slept. Will and Percy, on the other hand, were sitting next to each other, and often, they fell asleep on each other.

Once, as Percy gazed out the window, careful not to move too much because Will was napping on her shoulder, she spotted a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready, as they hunted lunch. The little boy centaur, who was the size of a second-grader on a pony, caught her eye and waved. Percy blinked in surprise, and glanced around, but nobody else seemed to notice. The adult riders all had their faces buried in laptop computers or magazines.

Another time, Will had shaken her awake; eyes blurry, Percy barely made out Will's excited face as he pointed out the window. She looked out with bleary eyes. She could've sworn it was a lion, except she was fairly sure there weren't wild lions in America, and this thing was huge, fur glinting gold in the dying sun. Then it leapt through the trees and disappeared.