I woke up sweating. I had a dream that a black robed man was telling a giant to go find a girl named Bianca. I realized that Bianca was the Bianca whose body we had to bring to Zeus. The black robed man saw me and ordered skeleton warriors to throw me in a pit, where a deep voice was laughing. I was trying to fend them off with Seawall, which is what I had named my sword, which was laced with leather grips and celestial bronze and Stygian iron. I heard a girl's voice, sounding like Thalia's, saying "Sam!" over and over.

Thalia was staring at me intently, sitting beside me on the seat. It was still dark out, and according to my phone, it was 11:00 at night.

"Sam, the bus is going to drop us off in Santa Fe, instead of Phoenix. Get your stuff ready!"

I grumbled, and gathered my things. I made sure Seawall was on my wrist, and the bus lurched to a stop, throwing Grover and I into the back of the seats in front of us. I peeled my face off the seat, and got up. We got out of the bus, and walked off into the New Mexico night.

We found a hotel, which spewed air conditioning into the hot New Mexican air. The hotel was an Embassy Suites. We walked inside, and requested two rooms. The man behind the counter looked annoyed, and led us to our rooms. He gave us some type of card, to use in a casino of sorts. We trudged upstairs to the six-bedroom-six-bathroom suite, and collapsed on the couch. Thalia cleared her throat, and spoke:

"Okay, guys. We need to take showers, eat and sleep, then we can do games, okay?"

We groaned and reluctantly agreed. I dragged my feet to the nearest bedroom, and flounced onto the bed. I stood up, and totally space out for ten minutes. Thalia, hair wet, knocked on the door.

"Sam, why haven't you taken a shower yet? Everyone else has, and is settling in."

I snapped out of my freaky state, and shooed Thalia. I took a long hot shower, and got dressed in clean clothes from my bag. I threw myself on the extremely comfortable bed, and slept for five hours.

When I woke up, Thalia, Grover, Percy and Annabeth were already gone. They left a note, and said I could join them if I wanted to. I shook my head, even though no one was there, and curled up on the patent leather couch, and watched the news. I hadn't seen anything of the mortal world in three days. There wasn't much news, only something about an escaped gorilla and a massive robbery in Phoenix. They broke for a commercial break, and I saw an ad for the Embassy Suites we were staying in. It was weird though, because the people on the commercial would flicker between normal people and monsters. I bolted up, and ran to the arcade to find Thalia.