Grim Findings
Chapter One
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan. I do, however,own all of the OCs, minus Walker (he belongs to Star Holder Commander).
Adrienne's POV
Somehow Tristan had managed to talk Uncle Will into letting us borrow one his cars. How he had possibly managed that, I don't know.
Uncle Will had several cars, like at least ten. There were a couple of vintage ones, and then the rest were modern ones that you actually see on the streets. He had let Tristan borrow his dark blue Toyota Groudbreaker. It was the newest car on the market, and apparently the safest. It was pretty roomy too, which was nice.
Sometimes I wondered why Tristan was a grandson of Apollo, rather than Aphrodite. He was always able to talk someone into something, almost like he had charmspeaking powers. It was possible that he had inherited charmspeaking from his mom, Lily, since she's a daughter of Aphrodite.
"Dude, no. We're not listening to that." Tristan says, glancing over at James.
I snap out of my thoughts and start listening to what they're arguing about.
"But Tris, Clockwork Of The Licked is awesome!" James protests.
I sigh, rolling my eyes. This had been going on since we left camp. One of the downers to having two descendants of Apollo in a car at the same time was that it was likely they'd fight over what band to listen to.
"No, we're listening to Others Anxiety,"
"Will you two just decide already! I'm getting sick and tired of hearing you bicker. It's been going on for ten minutes," Jade says.
"Yea, yea. Sorry. How about we meet in the middle and go with Trippy Wish?" Tristan suggests.
"Yea, I guess that'll be alright," James shrugs.
"About time. We only have thirty more minutes in the car before we get to the ferry." Jade grumbles.
James starts up the music and one of the weird melodies starts playing through the speakers. Trippy Wish was one of the bands James listened to every once and a while, and I could always hear the haunting lyrics through my bedroom walls.
Mom liked to listen to them too. She and James have a lot in common when it comes to music. You can tell it's very important to both of them. I guess if someone already loves music, being a descendant of Apollo just adds onto that love.
"So where exactly are we going?" I ask.
James shrugs. "Not sure really. Walker just said to take the ferry from Port Jefferson to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and then go to New Haven. I guess he'll just meet us there and tell us where to go to next,"
"Don't you think it's weird he's not traveling with us? Or better yet, since he's a god, why can't he just zap us to where your parents are?" Jade asks.
"Well, even though he's a god, I think there's probably a limit as to how many people you can "zap" to places. Zeus has all the gods on a tight leash. And even though Walker seems like the kind of god who doesn't really like Zeus, they all still have to abide his wishes to some extent, considering he's the ruler of the gods. He could do anything to them if they don't follow his orders. Make them mortal even, and throw them somewhere in the world to figure everything out on their own," James says.
"Yea, I guess you're right." she sighs.
The car falls silent and Tristan turns up the music a little. I try to follow the lyrics, but it was tricky because the lead singer switched from singing to screaming a lot.
"'Found you in the park
Under the willow
The willow
Where we first met
You had your eyes closed
Relaxed as could be
Just like you were sleepin'
But you weren't sleepin'"
"Can we please listen to something else? This is so depressing." Jade says.
"No," Tristan and James bark simultaneously.
"Fine, fine. Don't bite my head off about it." she says, raising her hands up in defeat.
A few more songs pass, and before I know it, we've reached the ferry.
Tristan pulls into the line with the other cars awaiting one of the ferries to get back. There was a guy in an orange vest with reflective plates attached to it going from car to car. I guess to check and see how many people were in each car and to collect the fare.
Tristan rolls down his window while pulling out his wallet to pay the man.
"Good afternoon, sir," the man says, smiling warmly.
"Good afternoon," Tristan says, nodding at the man.
"How many you got?" he asks, trying to peek into the car.
"Four,"
"Alright, that'll be ten dollars."
Tristan pulls out a ten dollar bill from his wallet and hands it to the man.
"Thank you. The ferry should be here in a few minutes." the man says, nodding and walking away.
Tristan rolls up his window and puts his wallet back into his back pocket.
"That wasn't as expensive as I thought it was going to be," James says.
"Yea, I thought it was going to be at least double that," Jade says.
"Nah. Since they get so many people come through here every day going from either Long Island or Connecticut, they really don't have to charge very much," Tristan says, "I usually take the ferry to get to Long Island in the summer for Camp,"
"You live in Connecticut?" Jade asks.
"No, I live in Massachusetts. My mom or dad just drive me down to Connecticut then I take the ferry to Port Jefferson and get a taxi to Camp,"
"How long have you been doing that?" she asks.
"Since I was about fourteen I think,"
"Oh."
The ferry pulls into the dock right at that moment, and soon we're pulling forward again and getting onto the ferry. Tristan turns the car off once he'd parked and pulls up the emergency brake.
"You guys wanna get out?" Tristan asks.
"Yea, why not?" James says, unbuckling his seat belt and opening his door.
Jade and I unbuckle ours as well and follow James and Tristan.
"I'm surprised, there haven't been any attacks yet. Usually one comes after us right after we cross the boarder at Camp," I say.
"Don't tempt them, Addie," Tristan says.
"Do you seriously think one heard me?" I ask, giving him a sarcastic look.
"Well, you never know." he shrugs.
Thirty minutes later and we were almost to Connecticut. Everyone had started getting back into their cars, and that's where we were heading when the captain spoke up over the loud speaker.
"We're experiencing some technical difficulties, so we might have to stop transportation for a few moments while we fix the problem." he says.
"Joy, technical difficulties. I bet that means we'll be stuck out here for another hour before they start up the engines again," James says, smacking the back of his head against the head rest.
"Dude, it'll be fine. Usually it's only a stall in the engine. It happens all the time." Tristan says.
There's a rumbling and the boat starts to shake.
"Uh, does that happen all the time?" I ask.
Tristan had gone slightly pale. "No, it doesn't,"
"C'mon, let's go see what it is," I say, getting out of the car.
"Adrienne, no!" Jade yells.
But it was too late. I had already opened my door and stepped into a cloud of green mist. My vision goes black and I fall to the ferry deck.
A/N:
I'm back, baby! Miss me? I know, I know, the wait was longer than two weeks, but I've been busy and have had a lack of motivation to write. Also, before I get into talking about the chapter, I want to discuss the update schedule.
Okay, since I've started working, my schedule is kinda wack. I know that I almost always work on Fridays, but sometimes I have to be up there on Tuesdays or Wednesdays all day. By the time I get home, I'm pretty exhausted. My life in general is just kinda wack right now, and I don't have all the time in the world to write, even though I'd rather it be that way. I suppose that's growing up, not having much time to do things. Let me tell you, it fucking sucks.
Anyway, I've decided that I'll only be updating once a week now, on Mondays. It'll give me more time to write and prepare the chapters, and it'll also be less stress on me. During A New Beginning I felt rushed to write and I don't think it came out quite as good as my previous stories. I've been told that it was really good and interesting to read - and that made me feel a little better about it - but that doesn't change the fact that I know I could have done better on it. It was also becoming a chore to write instead of a fun hobby, and that's when you know something's wrong. That was also another reason why I took a longer break.
So, now that that's over with, on to the chapter!
This time around we'll be switching back and forth between Adrienne and Nico's POVs. I think it'll be interesting. It's proving a bit tricky writing in Nico's POV, since he's not one of my own characters and the only other time I've written in his POV was in Broken. But I'm determined to do it.
Obviously, the "Toyota Groudbreaker" does not exist. I made it up as a futuristic Toyota, because I'm pretty sure they won't be driving cars we have now, since this is placed about ten years after the epilogue in Salvation.
And the bands Tristan and James were talking about are completely made up. There aren't any bands named "Clockwork of the Licked" or "Others Anxiety" or "Trippy Wish" as far as I know. If there are, that's fucking rad. And I made up the lyrics to the "Trippy Wish" song, by the way.
What do you think happened there at the end of the chapter? What was that green mist and why was the ferry shaking?
Oh, and I forgot to add this to the beginning of the AN. If you're new to my stories, I strongly suggest that you go back and read my series The Shadows of Revolution - the first one is The Adventure - and then once you finish the five in the series, go and read the first part of the epilogue trilogy, A New Beginning. Then you may come back and read this one. That way you won't be confused as to what's going on.
And for my old readers, thank you so much for returning with me, and I hope you enjoy the ride!
Oh! So I started learning guitar! It's fun, but it's a bit hard. I suppose learning how to play any instrument is difficult. I just learned how to read guitar tabs the other day, and also how to play Amazing Grace!
I must go now, but I'll talk to you guys again on Monday!
M/A:
Online Songs by Blink-182.
XOXO,
Mrs-diAngelo25