𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗
the mid season american backpacking tour
——— 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐀!
( BALTIMORE )
THEY DROVE FOR MORE THAN an hour before anybody even said anything. They had left Pennsylvania ages ago, and entered Maryland not so long ago. Connor was still driving — the car was shaky and he would swerve every now and then, but for somebody who had learned to drive in the one week he went to visit his mom with Travis, he was pretty good at it. Fay had fallen asleep in the back seat about half an hour into the drive, after munching on a tin can or two, and Emilia had woken up for a total of ten minutes from her unconscious state to drink some nectar and nibble on a piece of ambrosia — she was basically unconscious again, though Verona thought she just needed a good night's rest. They all did, even if it was only nearing evening as they drove into Maryland.
Connor was rigid in the front seat — his eyes had been glued to the road since they had started driving, and Verona was sure the reason he was driving so cautiously was not so they wouldn't be killed, but so they wouldn't be stopped by the police. Even the mist couldn't solve the issue of Connor and Fay both not owning a legal license, and Connor not even being old enough to get one — Verona was pretty sure Fay's illegal license photo had his horns in the picture. Even Verona had never learned how to drive a car — there was no one to teach her, she had spent her whole life at camp save for the trips out of camp during the winters every now and then to places like Olympus. In all honesty, though she missed the outside world, she didn't mind much. The world was a dangerous place filled with many monsters, and Verona was safe behind the shield of Camp Half—Blood.
Baltimore, 5 miles...Verona read as they passed the bright green sign.
"We should stop for the night," Connor suddenly said. His voice sounded tired, and a little bit sore, probably from screaming at the cyclops as he fired bullet after bullet at it. He looked tired too — he kept rubbing his eyes to stay awake and Verona was pretty sure they were swerving a bit more on the highway.
"Baltimore's close, we can stop there," Verona reassured, picking at a hole that had been created in the knee of her jeans when she had landed onto the ground after the cyclops threw her. Her injuries had healed for the most part, but she could feel a sting still on her cheek from where she had gotten scratched when she hit the hard pavement — Verona was trying to ration the ambrosia and nectar for more serious injuries like Emilia, knowing full well they would need it later. "I think I saw a sign for a motel coming up ahead."
"That's good," Connor paused as he tried merging into the exit lane so they could get off go ahead, he hissed when a car honked at him before eventually merging nervously. He glanced Verona's way before turning back to the road. "Can I ask you a question?" She hummed out a yes. "What's our plan — like, when we get to New Orleans? Do you even know where the girdle is?"
"To be honest," Verona paused, pointing towards the exit, which Connor took without a second thought. She bit her lip, reflecting on the past few hours — a monster attack, a stolen car and an unconscious demigod was one way to start and end the day. She huffed out a breath. "I don't even know what my mother's girdle looks like."
Connor's head swivelled towards her face for a moment, shock encompassing his features before he cursed as a car honked at him when he slightly swerved out of his lane, adjusting the car back into position. "Are you—" His tone started off in a loud hiss before he glanced back in the mirror at Fay and Emilia and bought it down. "Are you kidding me?"
"I—"
"We're on a quest for a girdle that you don't even know the physical description of? What the hell, Blaze?" Connor glared at Verona, turning into the motel six parking lot. He sighed, calming down a little as he finished parking the car and stared at the vivid, colourful sign — the letters e and l were flickering on and off repeatedly so it looked more like mot camont than motel claremont. Baltimore was quiet at night and the motel was encompassed by surrounding trees on a deserted road, not many cars in the parking lot — maybe two or three. Every now and then he could see a car pass by the one way road out of the motel and the sound of the crickets surrounded Verona and Connor as they reached into the back to wake up Fay, telling him to wake Emilia and take her to get some food from the vending machine while they got a room.
Connor paused near the entrance to the small, dingy door of the reception area of the motel, his long steps causing her to have to run to catch up. His face was lit up vividly by the flashing motel sign, his brown eyes stuck on her features for a moment and Verona gulped at the intense look in them. He sighed, placing his hand on the knob to the door, reading to twist it open. "I — I'm sorry. I know this isn't the easiest quest." He opened the door and walked in before she could answer, so Verona followed after him, running a hand through her hair and rubbing her eyes to stay awake — it had been almost eighteen hours since she last slept and her legs were beginning to give out on her.
"Okay, look—" Verona ignored his apology, not really knowing exactly how to answer it. Connor rarely apologized to her, almost never — not that she ever apologized to him. It was like they had a mutual agreement that whatever they did was what it was, and wouldn't be spoken of again. "There's got to be a library somewhere around here with computers we can use — maybe we can go in the morning and try to do some research on this stupid girdle—" The sky echoed with the sound of thunder despite it being completely clear, and Verona flared up at it. "—to figure out what it is. Mythology has to be somewhat accurate even historically online."
"What if that's how monsters find—" Connor started.
"We'll do it as quickly as we can," Verona stated, cutting him off. "Besides, we can't really go anywhere until Emilia is fully awake and conscious again and she probably won't be for a while — two of us can go tomorrow morning while one of us stays with her."
"Sounds like a plan," Connor said, approaching the dingy counter of the motel where an elderly woman was sitting on the other side of the counter, her veiny hand holding a lit cigarette limply in it's grasp. The place was creaking with the sound of the wind and Verona was sure that just one strong push from a mighty cyclops or a hellhound and this whole thing would topple right over — the walls were stained with water damage and half the vending machines completely unlit due to lack of power or the ability to work Verona wasn't sure. Connor stopped in front of the counter, his bag still sling across his shoulder as he placed one hand on the counter before picking it off again, shaking his head — Verona assumed it was probably either wet and damaged from water like the rest of the property. He turned it around to show her and she noticed cigarette ash lightly coating his fingers — she scrunched up her features.
"Excuse me," Connor started when the woman didn't look up. He cleared his throat and this time she looked up at him, rolling her eyes.
"Welcome to the Claremont Motel, Baltimore's prized and primed possession," Her voice drawled in a boring tone as she stared at them deadbeat and coldly, pressing the cigarette away from her lips momentarily. "How can I be of service to you today?"
"We'd like two rooms with double beds, if you have them," Connor requested. He watched as the woman flipped through her guestbook, obviously having not moved into the twenty first century like the rest of the world had. Verona impatiently tapped her foot, wondering how the dingy motel could be so booked up that it was taking so long to find two empty rooms — by the looks of it this place was somewhere people only went when they didn't want to be found.
"Two rooms, double beds," The woman drawled back, nodding as she went and grabbed two ashen looking keys from the row of hooks behind her, the cigarette puffing smoke as it left her lips. Verona caught a brief glimpse of the crooked name tag on her top — Eunice, it read. Eunice smacked her teeth idly together, looking expectantly up at Connor. "Name for the booking?"
Connor faltered. "Uh...Con—"
"Colin Stanford," Verona butted in, sparing Connor a glance as if to warn him from giving his name out to Eunice — if they were looking for the girdle, monsters would be too, and more importantly, Luke and his merry band of followers would be as well. It was better that Connor and Verona gave fake names and stayed hidden than ended up the prime suspects in a series of events that took place whenever half bloods ran into the powers that be of Luke Castellan (Verona hoped he wouldn't get his hands on the girdle — even she could tell that would not be good. As if getting Annabeth kidnapped and almost killing Percy thrice wasn't enough for him).
"Right," Eunice didn't even blink at the sudden change in name. "That'll be 25 bucks a night, check out time is at 11 AM," She handed Connor the two dingy and rusted keys. "Rooms 22C and 4B."
Verona raised her eyebrows, realizing the two rooms were not only on separate stories but also on two entirely different sides of the motel. "Sorry, are there any rooms next to each other?"
Eunice shook her head, forcing the keys back into Connor's hands. "Rooms 22C and 4B. Enjoy your stay." She put her cigarette back to her lips, disappearing into a back room before Verona or Connor could protest.
Verona shook her head. "Rooms 22C and 4B it is then."
Connor glanced her way, flashing her a small smile before surveying his surrounding. "C'mon — I think I saw 4B near where we parked."
The two headed outside into the dead of night, hugging their jackets around them as the took in their surroundings cautiously in fear after the recent cyclops encounter they had experienced mere hours ago. Verona spotted Fay sitting in the corner of the motel, the lights that were working shining down on him as he held his crutches that he used to hide his hooves to one side, and Emilia leaning against the wall beside him, munching on what looked like a piece of a cracker to any mortal, but what Verona knew all too well as a piece of ambrosia. She still looked pale and ready to pass out, but her eyes were fully awake now and responsive, which was probably a good thing for the demigods. Fay seemed to have eventually found a vending machine that worked, and had snagged a few bags of chips and granola bars with the money Connor had given him, along with a few bottles of water and cans of soda that Verona knew he would chew on once somebody had drank from them.
Connor gestured the two forward and they got up, Verona grabbing Emilia just as she swayed a little once she stood up, the ambrosia and nectar having not taken full affect quite yet. "You okay?"
"Woozy," Emilia replied in a deadbeat tone, forcing a small smile on her face towards Verona out
of thankfulness. She gripped onto Verona's shoulders tightly as the two followed behind Fay and Connor towards 4B.
He glanced at all four of them before sighing as if it pained him. "Okay..." He hesitantly moved his hand forward and handed Fay a key to 4B, pointing at Emilia. "She obviously won't make it up the stairs to the other room, and neither will you without the risk of someone seeing your hooves, so you two stay here. Blaze and I will go to 22C."
Fay nodded tiredly, agreeing before he handed them a bag of what looked like candy and some chips. "Snagged these off of the vending machine — if anybody asks, we did pay for them."
Emilia and Verona both giggled, shaking their heads before the daughter of Demeter and the satyr disappeared in the room, closing the door behind them. Verona hugged her arms around herself, glancing into the bag and pulling a pack of push pops out as her and Connor made their way towards the third floor of the motel, climbing up the rickety steps two at a time. "Holy shit, I can't believe they still make these."
"Thought they discontinued those years ago," Connor noted, catching one as Verona threw it at him — it was apple flavoured. "This place gives me the creeps."
"I think it gives everyone the creeps," Verona reassured, glancing at door after door as they passed each on the third floor. It seemed that they had taken the wrong side of the stairs to get up as the first door they had found had been 2C, and so they had to travel across the vicinity of what was essentially the parking lot to get to 22C. "Wait...here it is."
Connor fished out the key from his pocket as Verona pointed at the door, placing it in and turning. The door opened with a screeching noise like most of the doors in the motel did, revealing a small room with two double beds that had pale pink and green fitted sheets on them, a chipping white door that Verona assumed led to the bathroom, a small mahogany desk in the corner and two lamps on the nightstand that stood between the two beds. In the corner there was a small coffee maker beside a tiny closet, though Verona assumed it, like much of the other items in the motel, did not work. The lights flickered slightly as Verona and Connor stepped in, before it adjusted.
"25 per a night is way too much for this," Connor stated.
Verona chuckled. "This is making me miss cabin ten, oddly enough." At least the Aphrodite cabin normally smelt nice, with a mix of Drew's flowery perfume that she always over-sprayed and Hart's designer lipgloss that smelled like cherries. This room however smelt like leftover cigarette smoke and Verona was sure once she got out of this motel, she would have inhaled enough second hand smoke to develop a sully case of lung cancer in the future.
Verona sat down on one of the beds and stared at the map as Connor went into the shower, claiming he needed to get whatever was left of the cyclops off of himself. The long winding roads of Maryland stared back at her and she mapped out a path through Baltimore to the nearest library, which was about fifteen minutes away from the dingy hotel that sat in the middle of nowhere. Verona had to say that sometimes being a demigod wasn't all that great — not only did she get a midseason backpacking trip around America dealing with various kinds of monsters that no mortal would ever believe existed if they fell flat upon the concrete ground in front of them, she was also restricted from any sort of technology use to as little as possible so as to not alarm the monsters of said presence (there was also the small detail of the dyslexia and the ADHD, but that had never been quite as big a problem to Verona as much as it had to other demigods — she had come to camp young, with her ADHD and dyslexia not fully diagnosed yet, and within days of being exposed to ancient Greek and beginning training, she had easily learnt how to cope before it became a problem for her).
Baltimore...42 hours and a solid coast between her and San Quentin State Prison, where her father was — Verona wondered how he was doing. Chiron had given her permission years ago to leave the camp if she so pleased and go to see her father — she had declined, mostly for the reason that she was pretty sure there was a missing person's report out for her even after all these years, seeing as she had run away from her foster home, never to be found again (that or the authorities just thought she was dead — dead was better, nobody ever recognizes the dead).
Clang.
Verona stood upright as she heard a loud banging noise from outside, like metal upon metal. She hissed at the sound, glancing back to where Connor was behind the closed door of the bathroom, the sound of the water still running. She called out his name before reaching for her dagger, securing it into her hand as she slowly approached the door and pulled it open, glancing from one side to the other. Outside, it was still pitch black and the lights of the motel flickered rapidly, the wind picking up heavily and blowing Verona's hair back as she moved farther towards the railing. She glanced down at the parking lot three stories below, which was empty except for the odd car every hear or there — she could vaguely spot the car they had stolen from the car dealership parked near Fay and Emilia's room.
The wind picked up, flourishing with each moment before suddenly, out of nowhere her dagger disappeared from her hand, and Verona watched as it clanked on the ground three stories below in the middle of the parking lot — she knew she hadn't dropped it, her grip had been too tight.
"What the—"
And just like that, the impact of something metallic hit her head from one side and suddenly she was out, the world completely dark.