To Be the Hero || Book 1 ▪️On Hold ▪️

Chapter 14: Clarisse 1.0 pays for our food

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."
"I'm not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared! Leaving the girl to defeat it. She's the one who helped me get down!" Then she saw me. "There she is!," Then spotted Percy. "And that's the boy!"

We turned quickly—me pulling Annabeth and him dragging Grover out of there—only stopping when we disappeared into the crowd.

"What's going on?" Annabeth demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?" He told them the his side of the story while I told mine. Everything. The Chimera, Echidna, his high-dive starfish style act, the underwater lady's message, me stabbing the monster into gold dust, how I helped the mortals get down, everything.

"Whoa," said Grover when Percy recalled his time underwater. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."

Before Annabeth could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and the raven haired boy almost froze in his tracks when someone said, "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago.And the boy is believed to be traveling west. Along the company of the supposedly missing runaway daughter of the CEO of L/N enterprise, Y/N L/N.

For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson and a glimpse of his partner in crime."

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley. "First things first," Percy told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!" I nodded furiously, almost getting whiplash.

By some miracle, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us—the news person's words still ringing in my ears. It got me thinking. What EXACTLY happened during 'my' past? 

————Timeskip to chapter 15 of lightning thief.

The next afternoon,  on June 14, exactly 7 days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas where I broke into a vending machine.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth suggested. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"We can't use phones, right?"
"I'm not talking about phones." We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I was pretty clear on what Annabeth had in mind, I kept my mouth shut. After almost revealing my secret to Percy, I couldn't risk anymore close run-ins.

Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash and my prediction was confirmed.

"What exactly are we doing?" Percy asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"

"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."

They turned to me. "All I have are drachmas but if we're that desperate, I could pickpocket someone?,"

In the end, Percy fished out his last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter and I handed over  a drachma

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

"What are you talking about?" He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."