Hey guys,

Because this is a really short chapter I've decided I'm going to bribe you into not shouting at me by giving you two chapters in the same day! (This is good bribery as it does not involve any chocolate, sweets or other treats – although these are good methods)

I hope you enjoy the way Annabeth reacts to Percy's high-dive act (yeah I stole that)

Disclaimer: I think I have to do one sometime…. This is Rick's (the guy with the surname I can't remember how to spell, right now) work and not mine – I just copied and changed!

To Allen r – I think you are my greatest fan… I'm glad you're enjoying it so far and thank you so much for agreeing to make sure I don't lose anything in my writing!

Enjoy xxx

Percy Becomes A Known Fugitive

I couldn't move.

Couldn't speak.

Couldn't think.

Didn't want to think.

I just stayed frozen, with one hand over my mouth and one on Grover's arm.

Then I started trembling.

My knees buckled and I sat down hard, looking towards where he had hit the river with a huge flaboom!

For once I didn't know what to do. He wasn't supposed to die.

"He's the son of the sea god. He's the son of the sea god." Grover kept saying like a mantra, but I knew that hitting the water from that height was like hitting concrete. A painful way to die.

I scrunched my eyes up to stop the tears falling. I had to know. I had to know if he was still alive.

I stood up on shaky legs. "Come on," I told Grover. "We need to find him."

We headed towards the river, leaning on each other heavily. Grover's eyes were still huge, I was numb.

We circled the entire perimeter that the police had set up. We didn't find him.

We stopped near to a news reporter who was talking into a camera. "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

My heart got heavier.

Another nearby reported was also talking to a camera. ". . . an adolescent boy. Channel Five has learned that surveillance camera show an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities. . ."

No, but neither was Percy anywhere to be seen.

Grover's head shot up suddenly. "Percy!" He bleated. My head shot up, searching the crowd for a familiar black head. He started trotting but he lost Percy the second a group of curious onlookers got in his way.

A weight lifted off of my heart the second I knew that Percy was still alive. I felt like jumping for joy, but first, we had to find him.

We kept heading in that direction, keeping our eyes peeled for Percy. Finally Grover spotted him and bleated; "Perrr-cy!"

He turned around just as I saw him and my breath caught in my throat as I struggled not to cry. I hadn't thought I'd see him again.

He got tackled by Grover's bear hug, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!" He exclaimed.

I stood behind him, trying to look angry, but I was just too relieved to see him. Still . . . I had to try. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?" I demanded.

He smiled sheepishly. "I sort of fell."

"Percy!" I exclaimed, exasperated. "Six hundred and thirty feet?" I was glad I hadn't remembered that figure earlier.

Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" All around us the crowd parted and we went with it as a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. It was the mother of the child who'd been on the observation deck. I prayed that she didn't recognise Percy. No such luck.

"And then this huge dog," she was saying, "this huge firebreathing Chihuahua –"

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic interrupted her. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy!" The woman shouted. "This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." She was obviously clear-sighted. She turned her head at the last moment and spotted Percy. "There he is! That's the boy!"

Percy turned around and yanked Grover and I behind him. We disappeared into the crowd, but Percy didn't let go of us until we had safely made it away from the woman.

I pulled on his hand and stopped him. "What's going on?" I demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

He gave us the whole story as quickly as he could, Grover and I listened stunned as he told us about the Chimera, Echidna, his high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message. A nymph had contacted him with a message from his father. Not good.

"Whoa," Grover said. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."

Before I had a chance to respond, we passed by another reported doing a news brake and Percy froze for half-a-second before continuing when he heard;

"Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by the authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be travelling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.

"First things first," Percy told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!" I couldn't have said it better myself.

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.