𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 ✦ JACKSON

𝐯. 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲

"What happened to you?" Annabeth questioned.

"Long story. Short version, we need to go to Santa Monica." What!? That would take ages to get there, and why was he switching up all of a sudden.

"Are you serious!?" Grover sounded as shocked as I was thinking.

"My father's gonna meet me there. He's gonna help us." He is so clueless. Why would the Sea God want us to meet up with him?

"Okay. Uh, just on problem with this plan. The police think that we crashed an Amtrak train and then did that," Grover gestured to the arch behind him.

"Th-The cops are after us?" Yeah, no way Percy. Grover just nodded in response. It could be sooo much worse.

"Isn't that gonna make it hard for us to get on a train? Or a bus? Or really anything you need tickets for?" Nobody answered him. We all just looked down. He was right. The quest just got 10 times harder.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

It felt like we had been walking for days. In this heat it wouldn't be long until we got sun stroke.

"Hey guys," Percy interrupted the silence, "I think this quest might be harder than we thought. I've been thinking," wow, he's been thinking for once.

"I didn't steal the master bolt. You guys didn't steal the master bolt. We're pretty sure Hades has the master bolt, but he couldn't have stolen it himself." Yeah, we figured that out ages ago.
 
"I mean, we don't even know who actually stole the thing, or why, or how deep this goes." He added, nobody said anything we all just stared at him.

"I'm the last person to realise this, aren't I?" Grover nodded in Percy's direction. I mean what did he think? That Hades would be able to casually slip away and steal the bolt unnoticed without any help?

"Yeah." Annabeth sounded so done with Percy.

"Okay, so... maybe when we started, my head wasn't fully in this, but since the river," he paused, "it all feels different somehow. He saved me. My dad. I guess I just never really thought that's something he'd do for me." A low murmur came from behind us, I could barely hear anything but Grover heard it clearly.

  "Car." We will never make it to the underworld in time if we have to stop and hide at every car passing by.

"That's not a car, it's a bike. Just let it pass. Come on." I uttered out. Still, we all hid behind some concrete traffic barriers.

"I'm saying, we're not just trying to retrieve a thing. I think we might need to be detectives here, too." Percy was still going on and on about the quest.

"Yeah.." I was shifting uncomfortably on the floor, seems like Percy noticed.

  "Why are you being weird with me again? I thought we weren't doing that anymore." Was it really that obvious?
 
"I'm not being weird." I snapped back rather defensively.

"Yes, you are. You've been weird since we left the Arch." A moment of realisation washed over his face.

"Oh... I get it. It doesn't have to be a thing you know, that you hugged me." Oh. My. Gods. How dumb could he really get. I even heard Annabeth sigh.