Hello, everybody! Sorry I haven't updated in a while.

Rick Riordan owns all rights to most/many of these characters. Kate and her siblings, and most unfamiliar demigods are mine.

The old hobo groaned. "Nah, can't be called Fred anym-" He took a closer look at Nico.

Nico chuckled grimly. "I wasn't there, but Percy told me all about it. So what are you doing here?"

The stranger shook his head, looking out the window as he unwrapped a second bar. "I shouldn't even be here, but as far as I know I'm the only one who's going to help you."

I turned around completely in my seat, looking at the man's surprisingly bright blue eyes. His hair was dirty but looked like it could be blond. I frowned. "Um, with all due respect, who the Hades are you?"

Nico snorted at my attempt towards Camp Half-Blood terminology. "Nice try," he muttered.

The stranger gave me a strange look, studying my face for several seconds. Then he looked at Nico, who took a deep breath and glanced at me. Then, eyes were back the road, he nodded toward our hitchhiker in the back seat. "Kate, this is the Lord Apollo," he introduced in a careful voice.

I stared at the man sitting behind me. "Don't be alarmed," he said with a wink, transforming into a college-age guy with a flash of a smile and shiny blond hair. Everything about him seemed bright, like you could be blinded if you looked at him from the wrong angle.

Then came the thought that the hobo inhaling my energy bars was totally hot, followed quickly by the realization that the hot hobo was probably also my uncle or something. I shuddered.

"So, that's why we've been moving so quickly?" Nico asked. He was still driving, but the car seemed to change lanes and zip past traffic on its own even when Nico wasn't moving the wheel.

Apollo shrugged. "I figured I might help out a little. I've been cooped up in Olympus for too long, and I won't ever turn my nose up at rest stop food."

Nico just nodded, but I couldn't help watching the sun god, suspicious. Not making any attempt to soften my question, I turned to Nico. "Didn't you say any god who found out about me would probably try to haul me back for execution?"

"No, they'd kill you on the spot." He sounded alarmingly calm about the whole thing.

I looked at Apollo. "Then why are you even here? Not to mention that you're helping me run away-"

Apollo gave me the same funny look, then cleared his throat, looking out the window at the passing cars. "You know, you're right, maybe that wasn't my best haiku. I did make it up in five minutes."

I rolled my eyes. "You think? Gods, I wrote haikus when I was ten and they were all better than that one! I mean, 'they are pretty screwed'? You don't even have the syllables right."

The god in our back seat scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I always seem to have a problem with that. Anyway, you should be in Oregon in another day or two. I've gotta go make an appearance back at Olympus, but if you need help just call. I'll be around."

With that, he was gone.

I spent the next five minutes staring at Nico, trying to get him to make eye contact with me. The boy in the driver's seat seemed very focused on the road in front of us, but after a while he sighed and looked at me. "What?"

"What. Just. Happened."

Nico kind of chuckled. "Yeah, he is a bit of a jock type, isn't he?"

I kept staring, trying to avoid making a joke about a hot sun god that would no doubt be nowhere near as good as it sounded in my head. "Not that! He wouldn't tell me why he's helping us."

Nico just kept looking at the road, like he hadn't even heard me. Studying his face, I frowned. "And now there's something you're not telling me."

Nico tightened his fingers around the steering wheel. "Why do you have to be so good at that?"

I just raised my eyebrows, and he gave me an apologetic look. "I can't tell you. I really can't-"

"Don't you think this something it'd be kind of important for me to know?"

"No, I mean that I literally can't. Someone made me swear on the River Styx, Kate," Nico pleaded. "I wish I could tell you, but there's nothing I can do!"

I slumped with a groan back into my seat and glared out the window. "What would happen if you broke that?"

He sighed. "Bad things."

I nodded and opened one of the few peanut butter bars left, stared at it, then carefully tucked it back into the foil wrapper and put it in the cup holder.

I wished I could curse under my breath but couldn't think of something bad enough for what I was feeling. I made a mental note to ask Annabeth about Greek curse words when we got back.

I didn't want to sleep, so I concentrated on the mile markers that whipped by. I remembered a road trip a long time ago with my grandparents, when my brothers and I were fighting over the Bop-It, and finally my grandpa decided we had to take turns, passing it to the next kid every time we saw the mile marker. I hadn't even known what they were, just numbers to label the chorus of groans and a brother handing over a game I didn't really even want to play, just insisted on an equal turn because it was just fair.

Thirty four miles later, Nico switched on the radio, but we were too far from any town. He left it on anyway, the static replacing the silence that had long ago replaced any reason or logic or explanation of what was happening.

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-natalie.