Percy Jackson x male oc the lightning thief

12. Stretching isn't always good for you

Annabeth's brains came in for the win once again.

She forced us into a Vegas Taxi like we had the funds to be in it.

"Los Angeles please," she told the cabbie as she sat in the front.

"This isn't gonna work," Grover said nervously.

I sighed leaning back and getting comfortable. "Relax, everything works out when smarty pants takes care of stuff."

The guy looked us up and down taking a puff of his cigar. "That's three hundred miles, for that you gotta pay upfront."

"You accept casino debt cards?" Annabeth asked.

The cabbie shrugged, "some of 'em, like credit cards I gotta swipe 'em first."

Annabeth forked over her green lotus card.

He looked at it with suspicion but took it nonetheless.

"Swipe it," Annabeth challenged.

Begrudgingly he did and after doing so I'm sure he didn't regret it. His meter machine started rattling, the lights flashed as an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar signs.

The cigar fell out of the cabbies mouth and he looked at Annabeth his eyes wide with disbelief. "Where to in Los Angeles.... Uh, your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier," Annabeth said with a small smirk, she was no doubt basking in the your highness thing. "Get us there fast and you can keep the change."

From how he went over ninety-five the whole way through the desert you'd think we were being chased by cops.

Through the ride we had a lot of downtime to talk. Percy told us about his dream which rubbed me a bad way the same way my own dream did.

"The silent one?" Annabeth suggested.

"The rich one could work as well, both are nicknames for Hades."

"Maybe...." Percy said not sounding so sure.

"The throne room sounded like Hades's," Grover said. "That's how it's usually described."

Percy shook his head, "no the throne room wasn't the main part of the dream, and that voice from the pit.... I don't know, it didn't feel like a God's voice."

My eyes widened and I looked over at Annabeth who looked at me with a mirrored expression.

"It can't be," I said shaking my head.

"No," Annabeth tried to reason, "it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent a thief, this invisible person , to get the master bolt and something went wrong-"

"Like what" Percy said.

"A lot could go wrong," I said thinking about it, "I mean it's Zeus's symbol of power we're talking about. People like Artemis and Ares would be hunting him down to try and get it back, maybe he had to hide it or lost it and failed to bring it back to Hades."

"That would explain why the furies were searching for it when they came on the bus. They must've thought we retrieved the bolt."

"But if we had gotten it already why would we be going to the underworld?"

"To Threaten Hades," Grover offered "to bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."

"You have evil thoughts for a goat," Percy said.

"Thanks."

"You'd think the tree loving goat wouldn't be so dark." I said rolling my eyes. For a split second though a thought crossed my mind.