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( Chapter Eighteen ━━━ No One Can Hurt You Now ! )
Once the god disappeared and we gave the helm to the Furies that had been circling above us—so I hadn't been imagining the sound of their wings—the news wrapped up their own version of what had happened.
They thought that the five of us had been kidnapped by a crazy guy (a.k.a. Ares) and he brought us all across the country. Then Percy had been whisked away a bit to talk about his stepfather. He went as far as to drop a phone number, offering free appliances from his stepfathers store. Eventually, police and reporters were so moved and so empathetic, they passed around a hat and raised enough money for five tickets on the next plane to New York.
We had no choice but to fly, I knew. I hoped Zeus would cut us some slack considering the cargo of his we had. Any sort of turbulence had me squeezing the armrests. I did not let go until we touched down safely at LaGuardia, no matter how many times Colton told me I was fine.
We managed to evade reporters due to Annabeth going invisible and tracking them down. At the taxi stand, we split up. Percy and I told Annabeth, Grover, and Colton to go back to camp, to let Chiron know what had happened. Obviously, the protested. I really did want them to come, but Percy and I had to do the last part of this quest ourselves. If the gods didn't believe us and things went wrong, we needed the three of them to survive to tell the truth.
Percy and I hopped in a taxi and headed into Manhattan.
After about thirty minutes, Percy and I walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building. We must have looked like homeless kids our tattered clothes and our scraped up faces. We hadn't slept in twenty-four hours.
"Six hundredth floor," Percy said when we walked up to the front desk.
The man behind it was reading a book with a wizard on the front. I guess the book was good because he took a while to look up. "No such floor, kids."
"We need an audience with Zeus," I told him with a sweet smile. I was surprised I had been able to muster it up.
"Sorry?"
Percy shook his head a bit. "You heard her."
He just stared at us, surveying us both. Maybe he was just a normal mortal and was about to call the police on us. "No appointment, no audience, kids. Lord Zeus doesn't see anyone unannounced."
"I'm sure he'll make an exception this time," I said as Percy slipped off his backpack. He unzipped the pack, holding it so the guard could look inside at the metal cylinder.
