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Disclaimer: I own nothing

WARNINGS: LANGUAGE


The demigods arrived in town in precisely twenty three hours, but there was a problem. None of them knew what to do now.

"How about we split up?" Percy asked. "One goes to the police station, and the others just go door to door asking if anyone's seen him."

"What about the Curtis'?" Harley piped up. "Leo's with their brother. Maybe they know where he is."

"Harley's gotta point," Piper said, "but how do we find out where they live?"

"I've got you covered," Annabeth told her, whipping out her phone (with the celestial bronze chip that Leo made). "What were their names again?"

"Darryl and Ponyboy Curtis," Jason responded.

Percy chuckled. "What kind of name is Ponyboy?"

Nyssa turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "Dude, your name is Perseus, and my little brother is named after a motor cycle. Can you really make fun of this guy's name?"

Percy promptly shut up.

"They live right down the street," Annabeth informed them. "There's a picture of their house."

She showed them a photo of a run down house, but that didn't necessarily mean that it did not look cozy and well lived in.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Jason said. "Let's go."

The nine of them headed down the road, examining houses as they went until they came to the right one.

Annabeth knocked on the door.

No answer.

She rang the doorbell.

No answer.

"They're not home," she said. "They're either working or down at the police station. They may be searching for them."

"Well, what do we do now?" Hazel asked.

"I say we get a hotel room, and go down to the police station tomorrow," Annabeth answered.

"Besides, if the Curtis' don't know where their brother is, they can't help us find Leo," Frank pointed out.

Annabeth nodded. "Let's try to IM him."

"Will it work if we don't have his exact location?" Nyssa questioned.

"Only one way to find out."

She took a drachma from her pocket and headed in the direction of a nearby park and a fountain (it's not where Bob was killed, by the way).

After making sure the coast was clear, she tossed the gold coin into the fountain.

"Oh, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, except my offering. Show me Leo Valdez, wherever he is."

There was a brief flash of an abandoned church before the image frizzled out like static on a TV before shutting down completely.

"Di Immortals!" Percy muttered. "At least it gave us something."

"Let's go get a hotel room, and we'll continue our search tomorrow," Frank said, pointing to the setting sun.


Five days later, their search was getting nowhere.

"This is stupid! Let's just try the Curtis' again," Jason said, cranky from many sleepless nights.

"All right," Nyssa said. "Let's try IMing him one more time, and then, we'll go see the Curtis'."

She stood and while Annabeth held a spray gun and Hazel adjusted a flashlight, she threw the drachma into the rainbow.

"Oh, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me Leo Valdez, wherever he is."

The image was blank for a moment before a fuzzy scene popped up: the image of a hospital.

"The kid gonna be alright?"

"Yeah, but I don't understand how he wasn't burned. I mean, a burning roof caves in on him. You think he'd have a few burns, but no. Nothing except the broken wrist and the concussion."

"Family?"

"As far as I know, he doesn't have one. As soon as he wakes up, we can release him, but I don't know where he's gonna go."

"The Curtis' seem pretty concerned about him. He'll probably stay with them; at least until the trial."

"You think he killed that kid? You think any of them did?"

"I think it was self defense. I knew Bob, and he could get violent, but that Johnny Cade kid? He didn't seem capable of hurting a fly, much less killing someone in cold blood."

"Agreed."

Nyssa swept her hand across the image, and she turned to her friends.

"Hospital," they all said in tandem.


Five days of doing nothing but thinking, playing cards, reading Gone with the Wind, and eating baloney. Leo had never been more bored.

Finally on the fifth day, he woke up from a nightmare, only to butt heads with Dallas Winston.

"Ow!" Dally muttered. "Geesh, kid, you gotta hard nogon."

"Dally! What's going on back home?" Leo said in one big rush.

"Geesh, you three need to slow it down, but just so you know, the cops aren't looking for you so much. Even the chief, who hates Greasers, is 99% sure that it was self defense."

"Well, that's good," Johnny said.

"Now, who wants to go get some food? I'm starved," Dally told them.

"You're starved?" Johnny said, dryly.

If Leo didn't know any better, he would've thought Dally blushed.

"Well, if not for me, you three need to eat. Ya'll look like a bunch of skeletons."


After they visited Dairy Queen, Johnny started to tell Dally about what the three fugitives had been considering for the past two days.

"Dally, we're gonna turn ourselves in," Johnny said, bluntly.

Dally slammed on the brakes so hard, Leo and Ponyboy were thrown into the seats in front of them.

"What?" He demanded. "I give you money, a weapon, and a nice hideout, and you want to turn yourselves in."

"Dally," Leo said. "This is all real nice of you, but face it. This is no way to live."

"Leo's right," Ponyboy agreed. "We should just go back and face the music, and hope for the best."

"And if the best doesn't happen?" Dally growled and he continued driving. "What if you get sent to jail?"

"Dally, trust me," Leo said. "If it comes to the worst, I have friends that can get us out of any situation. Literally. They stopped a turf war; I'm sure they can get us out of jail."

"But what if-"

"Dally," Johnny said, "we're gonna do it anyway. You can't stop us."

"Some of the kids are in there!" Somebody screamed.

The four of them looked up to see the church up in flames.

"Fuck," Dally muttered.

Leo didn't think. Maybe it was some heroism left over from the war, or maybe it was because he didn't want anyone else to die in a fire like his mom did, but nonetheless, he jumped out of the car. Then, he sprinted towards the burning church, Ponyboy and Johnny at his heels.

"You three get back here, you idiots! You're gonna get yourselves killed!" Dally yelled, sounding more distressed than Leo had ever heard him.

Johnny tossed a rock through the window, watching as the wood splintered, before the three of them dove through the opening.

And the world became a fiery ball of orange and red and horror.


Not a bad chapter. It was a bit all over the place, but *shrugs*