Indigo Eyes

Chapter 54

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."

"Maybe there's something special about your knife," Percy suggested.

"It is the same as mine," Zoë said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."

"Maybe you hit a weak spot like with the Nemean Lion," Cressida said and Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.

"Never mind," Zoë told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."

Percy, Cressida and Grover were about to protest after their bad experiences in Vegas when Bianca beat them to it.

"No!" she said. "Not there!" 

She looked really freaked out.

Zoë frowned. "Why?"

Bianca took a shaky breath. "I... I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were travelling. And then, I can't remember..."

Cressida scooted closer to Percy as if the place they were all thinking about was right in front of them. "You don't think..."

"Bianca," Percy asked gently. "The hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?"

Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?"

"Oh, great," Percy sighed as Grover came a little closer to them as well.

"Wait," Thalia said. "What is the Lotus Casino?"

Cressida bit her lips, staring at the floor as she thought about the person she was and the lack of relationships she had when she walked into the Lotus Casino. She was so angry back then. She didn't want to ever be like that again.

Percy seemed to follow her train of thought as he moved to sit on her sleeping bag next to her before he began answering the question because it didn't look like Grover was about to either.

"A couple of years ago," he began as he linked his hand with Cressida's, hiding them between their legs as her breath hitched. "Grover, Annabeth, Grape Girl, and I got trapped there. It's designed to you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour and when we came out....five days had passed. It makes time speed up."

"No," Bianca said. "No, that's not possible."

"That's what we thought too," Cressida said solemnly.

"You said somebody came and got you out," Percy remembered.

"Yes."

"What did he look like? What did he say?"

"I... I don't remember. Please, I really don't want to talk about this."

Zoë sat forward, her eyebrows knitted with concern. "You said that Washington, D.C. had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway being there."

"Yes, but –"

"Bianca," Zoë said, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now?"

"Don't be silly," Bianca said. She said the correct name of the president.

"And who was the president before that?" Zoë asked.

Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt."

Zoë swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin?"

"Franklin," Bianca said. "F.D.R."