It's hot out and I don't have any popsicles. Such a shame.
Here's KP!
KP's POV
We left early in the morning to continue driving. We couldn't afford to lose more time. We were in New Mexico now, and I watched the early sunrise cast a rainbow of colors over the mountains. Gazing around the van, I saw Annabeth driving, and Ian, Macy, and Jack sleeping in the backseats. My mind felt like it was going a million miles per hour. Questions kept popping into my head, and I couldn't figure out the answers. They were things like where is Calypso? Where's Percy? Is he still alive? When does Macy have to fight the dragon? Who is Calypso's mystery lover? Sadly, I didn't know the answers to any of these things.
I tore my eyes away from the sunrise and stared at the dashboard. "We're running low on gas," I pointed out.
Annabeth stared the little arrow pointing close to the E. "You're right."
We got off at the nearest exit and pulled into a little town. It seemed like it was half ghost town, but hey, it had a gas station. "You go get snacks," Annabeth told me, handing me a twenty. "The guys will be hungry when they wake up."
I nodded and walked inside. I grabbed Cheetos, Bugles, a couple packs of gum, and two packages of Oreos. The original kind, not the Double-Stuffed. You can never go wrong with the original. I went up to the cashier to pay, handing him the money. His name tag read "Scott". It hung from a black lanyard with little white Z's running up the sides. Z must stand for some team, I thought.
He stared at me with violet eyes. They were quite unusual, and they made me feel uncomfortable. He also had pale skin and dark brown hair. He smiled at me and began scanning my items. I have to say, he was quite cute.
"On a long car ride?" He asked.
I nodded. I suddenly felt somewhat sleepy. It was weird because I got a lot of sleep last night. No nightmares.
He began typing codes into the register. As he did so, he swung his name tag back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…
"Stop," said a voice. The lanyard stopped swinging. I blinked a few times. Suddenly I wasn't so tired anymore.
Annabeth stood in the doorway of the station, clutching a gas receipt in her hands. This must be one of those places where you walk in to pay. Her gray looked furious as she stared at Scott, who gazed back at her, unfazed.
"I know what you're doing," she scolded. There was an expression on her face that said I'm soooo not in the mood to deal with this. "Stop hypnotizing her right now or I'll knock your teeth out."
Two things happened. I realized he must've been trying to get me to fall asleep somehow- that could not be good. At the same time, he shoved the cash register at me, and it hit me in the stomach and knocked me to the floor.
Scott pulled out a sword with a flourish. It was a long blade, and I could see shapes dancing in its reflection. As I concentrated, I saw demons and hellhounds and monsters charging at groups of armed kids…
"No," I gasped closing my eyes. The image burned there and I pushed it out of my mind. Scott was a child of Hypnos. He was trying to hypnotize me and now he was showing me my nightmares. I opened my eyes in a flash and saw Annabeth staring at the blade too- images of spiders reflected in her gray eyes.
For a second, I thought she was frozen, exactly how I was with the hellhound. In a blur, she whipped something out of her pocket- her Yankees hat. She disappeared, but I heard the sound of her taking out her bronze knife.
Scott turned to me casually, as if he didn't care about Annabeth disappearing in front of him at all.
"I recognize you," he said as I pushed the cash register off my stomach and stood up shakily, taking out my silver fans. "Were you one of Kronos's?"
"No," I lied quickly.
Scott smiled. "Yes you were. I can see it in your nightmares…" He started swinging his lanyard again. I forced myself to look away from it. He began to slowly walk toward me, and I backed into a shelf filled with Doritos. "We fought in the same battle, you and I. Too bad you decided to join the gods…"
"Too bad you stayed against them," I spat.
Suddenly, Scott lashed out with his sword- not at me. I heard the clang of metal on metal, and he shoved to his right with his other hand. I saw something shake the shelves and smash bags of chips. Suddenly Annabeth appeared on the ground. Her hat had fallen off.
Scott took this opportunity to attack me. In a heartbeat, I switched on my fans and felt a tug in my gut. His strike missed me as I flew up into the air, over his head.
"Daughter of Aura?" he guessed. "Not bad."
I swung my arm at his face. I lost height, but the blades of my fan caught him in the arm, slicing his sleeve to ribbons. Blood flowed from the cuts and Scott scowled.
"You'll pay for that you little b-"
He was cut off by an invisible shove from Annabeth. His sword was knocked out of his hand. I switched the fans off and dropped to the ground, kicking the sword down the aisle. I reattached the fans to by belt and pulled out a toothpick from my pocket.
Scott, who was being pinned against the refrigerator door by Annabeth, scoffed. "You're going to kill me with a toothpick?" He stared laughing.
I turned the toothpick over in my hand and felt it grow until it was a medium-sized guan dao- a sharp, curved blade with a very long handle. I raised it over my head and began to bring it down when Scott broke free of Annabeth's grasp. I had to twist my body to avoid hitting her. The guan dao smashed into the clear door and shattered it, piercing a Mountain Dew and showing us both with broken glass.
"Sorry," I gasped, off balance from the miss.
"That's OK," Annabeth said, spinning around. Scott stood behind us, grinning. His sword was pointed directly at my face.
Suddenly, I was back in one of my nightmares.
I was in the middle of a battlefield. Monsters of all kinds were surrounding me, and advancing. They laughed and howled with laughter and they stepped forward to kill me. My heart rate sped up and I began taking fast, shallow breaths. This isn't real, I told myself. This isn't-
"REAL!" I screamed. When I opened my eyes, I was back inside the gas station. I was lying in a pile of broken glass, and I could feel it cutting my back. Everything seemed in slow motion- Scott was bringing his sword down on my head. I glanced at Annabeth, who seemed to snap out of her own trance. I could tell by the look on her face that this nightmare was not about spiders. She flung her dagger at Scott's face when, all of a sudden, he disappeared.
Everything was at normal speed again. Annabeth's dagger buried itself in the wall behind the cash register. We both stood, speechless from Scott's disappearance and the visions we had just seen.
"Where'd he go?" I asked dumbly.
"Not far," said a voice. Scott stood by the door of the gas station. He put a hand to his cheek, feeling the long, deep cut there. "This is not the last you'll hear from Scott Summers!" With that, he disappeared again.
"Well, that was dramatic," Annabeth said, breaking the silence.
"Isn't Scott Summers the guy from X-Men?" I asked.
We both laughed. "Grab whatever food you want," Annabeth said, opening the broken cash register and stuffing a fistful of cash into her pocket. "I'm feeling like a child of Hermes today."
I grabbed armfuls of food and brought them to the car. As I opened the door, Jack let out a grunt and opened his eyes.
"Hi, KP," he said. Then he took in my appearance- crazily messed-up hair, cuts and bruises all over, my torn jacket. "What happened to you?"
"Oh, nothing," I said casually, shoving the food in the trunk. I tossed a couple packages of snacks up front. "Want any food?"
Who is Scott Summers, exactly, besides the guy from X-Men? (I didn't actually realize that Scott Summers was an X-men character until one of you guys pointed it out. He's the Cyclops guy with the laser vision.) Why was he trying to kill KP and Annabeth? What did Annabeth see in her vision? And what's your favorite snack food?
Yesss! I got two chapters in today! Woot woot! Maybe I'll get another one in later… idk! New chapter soon!
PLEAAAAASE REVIEW! It makes me a happy writer!