Chapter Five


Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan. I do own all of the OCs mentioned, except for Walker. He belongs to Star Holder Commander.


Adrienne's POV

As soon as the ferry docked, the gate was lowered and people started speeding off and onto the road. I could see the blue and red flash of police lights before I even saw the cars. No doubt the captain had radioed the authorities when the sea serpent attacked. Sometimes I wondered what mortals actually saw when a monster attacked. It definitely wasn't what we saw.

"We have to get out of here." Tristan says.

He was right. There were ferrymen pointing at our car and making gestures as if they were firing a gun.

"Wonderful." James sighs, sliding down in his seat.

As the line of cars in front of us start to pull forward, Tristan's foot is quick to hit the gas. We all wanted to get out of here. If the cops caught us or saw the license plate number on the car, they'd catch us and take us in to question us. We didn't need that right now.

We barrel off the ferry and onto the main road, speeding right past the police officers walking onto the deck.

"Gods, that was close," Jade breathes.

"We're not out of it yet. We won't be until we're back at Camp. My guess is that the closer we get to James and Addie's parents, the more attacks there will be. That's usually the case with a rescue mission,"

"James," Tristan says, glancing over.

"Yea?"

"Where did Walker say to meet him?"

"Uh, New Haven,"

"Perfect. I know a really good burger joint in New Haven."


The burger joint Tristan had been talking about was called Louis' Lunch, and he hadn't been kidding when he said it was good. It was a small building with a bar. You could probably only fit about thirty people inside, and that would be crowded.

We were sitting at the bar chowing down on our burgers when the little bell above the door chimed. All four of us turned around to see a man in his twenties. His hair was blonde and tousled, like he had just rolled out of bed. He was relatively tall and had a swimmer's body.

He comes over and sits next to James, and the bar-tender walks over to take his order. Once he leaves, the man turns to look at James.

"James," he nods. He had a southern accent, like he was from Texas or Alabama.

We all turn to stare at the man. "Walker?" I whisper.

He nods. "Yes, who else?"

"It's just—how did you..?" James stutters.

"Change appearance? I suppose I forgot to mention that I can do that,"

"So you're like a shape shifter?" Jade asks.

"Sort of, but not really. Since I'm the god of imagination, I can just picture myself as someone else and I change into that person, voice and all,"

"Wow," Tristan says, amazed.

The bar-tender places Walker's cheese burger in front of him, and he starts to dig in.

We all stare at him again. He notices and looks up at us. He swallows and gives us a confused look. "What? I used to be mortal. Just because I'm a god and don't have to eat mortal food anymore doesn't mean I don't enjoy it."

I shrug and go back to my food, as do the others. I hadn't realized how hungry I had been until we had walked in. I suppose nearly being suffocated by a sea serpent and then stabbing it three – four if you count the first one – times will do that to you.

Tristan was the first one to finish. He drains the rest of his Pepsi and looks to Walker again.

"So where are we supposed to go now? And why can't you just tell us where Kyra, Nico, and Mike are?" he asks.

"It's a bit complicated. See, the path leading to them is shrouded, so I can only see so far ahead. That's why I can't tell you where they are, because I myself do not know yet. They're up north though, that I can tell you,"

"How far up north are we talking?"

"The farthest I can see right now is New Hampshire, though I have a feeling that they're much farther up,"

"Like in Canada, farther up?"

"No, no. Still in the states, but relatively close the Canadian boarder. As to where you're going next, Boston is the next city you stop at. There's a little town here in Connecticut called Hartford along the way that would be convenient for a rest stop,"

"Boston. Do any of you guys know anyone in Boston?" Tristan asks, turning to look at us.

James and I shake our heads, but Jade nods. "My Aunt Cecil lives in Boston. We could probably stay the night with her,"

"Great! I'll be on my way then. I have some matters to take care of before I meet you four in Boston." He snaps his fingers and forty dollars appears on the bar.

He walks out, leaving just the four of us again.

"You guys ready?" Tristan asks.

We all nod and slide off of the bar stools, thanking the bar-tender on our way out. I had a bad feeling about what we'd find in Hartford.

A/N:

Kind of a filler, but oh well. Did you enjoy Walker's appearance? I figured he should start disguising himself again, considering no one really knows who works for Osiris. There could be eyes all over the states. If one of his minions found out that he's helping Adrienne and the others, that would mean huge trouble for them. The danger scale would explode.

Also, Louis' Lunch is an actual burger joint in New Haven. I looked it up on Google and from what I can tell, it's pretty fucking tiny.

And I apologize for not updating yesterday. My mom wasn't working and we had a lot of errands to run. By the end of the day, I was too exhausted to update.

When you wake up sometimes, do you ever feel like something will happen that day? I mean, obviously things always happen every day, but something besides your everyday happens. Like a serious conversation that changes things or a big event or something like that.

I had that feeling this morning, and it's been torturing me. It's one of those that could go horribly wrong and leave me feeling fucking awful for a week, or come out completely okay and everything would be alright again.

The situation that it involves is something that I've been debating over for nearly three months, and I've been too much of a coward to confront it...I really suck at confrontation.

In other news, I went out to eat with my parents on Sunday night and nearly wanted to throttle them. What happened was, our waiter came over - his name was Charlie - and took our drink orders, and he also asked if we wanted an appetizer. My mom ordered some fried pickles and then he left.

So he comes back a few more times, and one of the last times when he came to check up on us, he smiled at me and said, "I thought you said you were going to eat the pickles!" and I just sorta smirked at him and told him I was full. He then looked at me, a bit bewildered, and I said, "The soup and salad was really good, okay?"

He smiled and shook his head, and then left again. By this point, I was pretty clear on the fact that he was flirting with me. That was clear when he brought the fucking drinks. But my dad just looked at me, and he had this smitten look on his face and I asked him what that was about. And he goes in to explain that our waiter has been flirting with me, big time. Then my mom chimes in and agrees with this, and they go on about it for a few minutes. Meanwhile, I'm on the other side of the booth trying my hardest not to turn fire engine red. It would have been totally and completely fine if they hadn't of mentioned it.

I suppose that's what parents do though, embarrass the hell out of you whether they intentionally did so or not.

M/A:

"'I'll say it straight and plain
I know I've made mistakes
I've always been afraid
I've always been afraid'"

Polaris by Jimmy Eat World.