LUNACY; percy jackson

04.2

[act four; chapter two     -     council of the cloven elders]

Nothing caps off the perfect morning like a long taxi ride with two angry girls.

What was even worse than that was being stuck in a car with a very persistent, awkwardly cute Percy Jackson.

He was constantly trying to talk to Annabeth and herself, but they were both acting like he didn't exist.

It was harder than you think.

All he managed to get out of Annabeth was that she'd had a monster-infested spring in San Francisco; she'd come back to camp twice since Christmas but wouldn't tell him why; and she'd learned nothing about the whereabouts of Nico di Angelo (long story). Andromeda, however, had taken some convincing to even talk to him. She explained that Donnie had quite literally gone missing in the middle of the night a few weeks back. He had been there at night, but when she woke up, he was gone. She told him about her time in Cape Cod and the fact that Beu, her guardian, and kinda stepdad had been recruited for some mission that he refused to tell her or her brother about. She explained that she been at camp on and off all year after being kicked out of a school for starting fights. She somehow managed to avoid explaining the many nightmares and vague dreams that she'd been having since Mt. Tam.

"Any word on Luke?" Percy asked.

"Mount Tam is still overrun with monsters," Annabeth said. "I didn't dare go close, but I don't think Luke is up there. I think I would know if he was."

That didn't make him feel much better. "What about Grover?"

"He's at camp," Andromeda said. "We'll see him today."

"Did he have any luck? I mean, with the search for Pan?"

Annabeth fingered her bead necklace, the way she does when she's worried. "You'll see," she said. But she didn't explain.