18 (Annabeth)
Everything's bigger in Texas, right?
Right. Including the architecture. But then again, I can find architecture just about anywhere.
I've visited the Alamo a thousand times, so I decided to do something different. Percy and I were headed for San Antonio, Texas, so that I could see the San Antonio Public Library. However the drive was fourteen hours and Percy needed more sleep than he'd gotten, so, at 6:00 AM, I began driving us to San Antonio. He fell asleep in the back seat and promised that he'd start driving whenever he woke up, and told me to wake him up in no more than 4 hours and we would each take 4 hour shifts, him taking the longest shift at the end. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he was already asleep. I resolved to wake him up in five hours… maybe five and a half.
It was raining and I was listening to a playlist of slightly quieter alternative songs on my iPod. Currently, it was "Satellite Heart" by Anya Marina-one of my favorite songs to listen to in the rain. I don't know why.
I felt better about sneaking my iPod and all my music when I found a bag of seashells in Percy's bag, and a box of random little things that I knew were good memories for him. I had something like that too. My box had things like my silver owl earrings (when I wasn't wearing them), my old iPod (even though it was broken. It was the first thing my step mom gave me after she realized I wasn't a horrible person sent from Hades.), a piece of chalk that Thalia, Luke and I had used to make hopscotch on our insane journey to Camp Half-Blood… it was a random box. Percy's was, too. But I could tell you the memories behind most of his box, if you asked.
I looked out the windows at the rain coming down as the song changed to "When I Go Down" by Relient K. Another good song.
I felt like any minute a car was going to slam into us. I could see it happening. I could see the car crashing into us, the black of being knocked out, the white of waking up in a hospital bed. I could smell the exhaust and sudden exposure to the rain and outside air, the nothingness, and the antiseptic-y smell. Yeah, I've been in car crashes.
I glanced up at the mirror to see Percy, totally out in the back seat, drooling in his sleep. Same old Seaweed Brain.
I looked at the clock. It was 11. I was getting hungry, and it was Percy's turn to drive soon. I'd just have to hope he didn't think too much about the time, and actually woke me up when he was supposed to. I started keeping watch for somewhere good to eat. As the song changed to "Hey There, Delilah" I spotted a KFC, pulled over, and woke Percy up.
"Hey, Seaweed Brain. Rise and shine," I said, giggling and wiping the drool off his face as he sat up slowly and yawned.
"Good morning… noon… whatever time," he said with a smile and a stretch, looking up at me and around at the fact that it was raining but finally daytime. I suddenly realized I was tired and super hungry and needed to go to the bathroom.
And into KFC we went.
19 (Percy)
The rest of the drive was okay. Annabeth slept in the back and looked adorable. We took turns driving one more time. Finally, we made it to San Antonio and slept a few more hours and ate a lot more. We woke up the next morning and it was sunny. I suddenly realized I had no idea what day it was.
"June something, I think," was Annabeth's reply. We didn't really feel like checking either.
The next morning we woke up and headed out to the San Antonio Public Library. I saw a Cyclops on the street who stopped to high five me, tell me he was a big fan, and then left without another word. We shrugged and laughed at the fact that I was a celebrity among mythical creatures. But we did just get all the Cyclops' of San Antonio as bodyguards, secretly, so I decided it was pretty cool.
Annabeth was like a kid in a candy store every time we went somewhere that was new to her. She could stare at architecture and tell me a thousand things about it for hours. We weren't staying four hours, of course, but she was having fun. I now know that the San Antonio Public Library was built by Ricardo Legorreta. Woohoo. But I love her, so it was still fun.
20 (Annabeth)
I was on a computer on the second floor of the library when it happened.
I was searching random books, with no particular goal in sight. Another girl about my age started talking to me. She was totally human, so I wasn't worried, and I let her talk. She seemed to need someone to just listen. Maybe I didn't listen the whole time, but I tried. I found out a lot about her. She was pretty-straight brunette hair and striking blue eyes. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt from a high school I hadn't heard of. I finally found out her name was Cassidy. She mostly just rambled about things she must have thought I'd be interested in. I guess I looked like someone who was antisocial and needed to be talked to. But she was funny, and I did actually talk some. She was definitely a good distraction from the less fun parts of our little road trip, and the books themselves were boring me, but I wanted to give Percy a break from the architecture.
Something she said caught me off guard, and then things started going wrong.
She started talking about Greek mythology. She said that she had a friend who was really interested in it, a couple friends actually, and that she knew a bit about it because of them. She asked if I was interested and I knew I couldn't lie, because if she said something wrong I would start correcting her. So I said yes, I knew a lot about it. And then I saw a Cyclops about 30 feet behind her trying to get my attention and warn me of something.
Suddenly Cassidy was standing completely still and looking up at something behind me.
"Oh, styx." And then I realized, as I was spinning around and bringing out my knife to attack the…whatever it was…that if she was seeing this, she could see through the mist. Cassidy was not normal: she was almost one of us. But she was still human. She didn't know. So I told her to run to the elevator and, in shock, she listened to me and left.
And I faced the giant behind me.
"Percy! Time to go!" I screamed through the library.