Disclaimer: I do not own PJO (or any other corporation mentioned in this chapter)

A/N Man, it's been a while! I'm sorry! I was out of town for a while and didn't update and oh well, here it is hope you like it!

On the road again. Percy couldn't help that the song "Highway to Hell" was stuck in his head. It was accurate, right? Something else was stuck in his head too. His dream kept playing repeatedly like a really long infomercial that he couldn't switch off. The scream lingered in his ears deafeningly, long after he had woken up. Her scream.

He decided he was determined to push the dream out of his mind. He focused on the conversation between the other people in the car.

"...Honestly Beckendorf, how can you not see that it's the design and structural supports that make the building so balanced and composed?" Annabeth was arguing.

"It's obviously the metalwork that makes it so sturdy, Annabeth. It has all been forged perfectly and with lots of detail, it has nothing to do with structural supports." Beckendorf said "structural supports" the way he would say "Minotaur's briefs".

"Will you guys please shut up about that?" Silena whined. "Who cares about some stupid building that we passed like, more than an hour ago?" Silena's perfect bottom lip was jutting out. She obviously had different ideas about what they should be doing, other than arguing about architecture. Percy had to agree with her that Beckendorf and Annabeth's argument was stupid, not to mention extremely boring.

"I spy?" Percy suggested, a bit sarcastically. Everybody turned to him in surprise.

"We thought a telekhine had eaten your tongue!"Annabeth laughed, moving closer to him. He slung his arm over her shoulders and she leaned back on his chest.

"Yeah, Perce, you haven't said a word this whole time." Beckendorf agreed. Silena nodded.

Percy noticed Annabeth was looking up at him concernedly. He didn't want her to be suspicious that something was wrong, because he really didn't want her to force him to tell her about his dream. So he tried to act as normal as he could.

"Uh, yeah I was just... tired. So what should we do now?" He asked, turning to Silena. If anyone could drag the attention away from him, it was her.

Silena's eyes lit up as they do when talking about braiding hair, making bracelets, shopping, makeup techniques and many other things you could find in Seventeen magazine.

"Well, there is a huge mall coming up soon. Do you think we could stop there for just a few minutes? Pleease Charlie?" She batted her eyelashes at Beckendorf irresistibly.

Beckendorf sighed. "Fine, fine." He followed the promotional signs saying "Westside Mall: 2nd biggest mall in the US!"

"Um, guys we're kind of on a quest here. We don't really have time to be stopping at a mall for no reason." Annabeth pointed out. Percy was pretty sure she was more afraid of what stores Silena was going to take her to than actually worried about the quest.

Silena pouted. "It's not like we're saving the world on this quest. My mother would definitely not mind us postponing to go shopping!"

It was a pretty good argument, since it was unlikely that Aphrodite would mind anything being postponed for shopping.

So they parked and walked towards the huge mall. Annabeth's fingers intertwined with Percy's as they walked. He grinned at her, to let her know the trauma from the dream was over. Even though it wasn't. Every time he looked into her gray eyes, he remembered the way they had looked when she was in pain, in his dream. He wanted to kill whoever it was that was going to inflict that pain, if only he knew who it was.

Annabeth squeezed his hand and he once again resolved not to think about it anymore.

When they got into the mall, Silena pulled Annabeth towards some makeup store, with Annabeth dragging her feet and shooting Percy helpless looks the whole way.

"So what do you wanna do?" Percy asked Beckendorf once the girls had disappeared.

Beckendorf shrugged. "Looks like there's an amusement park over there. Let's go check it out."

They headed towards the indoor amusement park, which was called Galaxy Land and was all space-themed. Once they had bought some tickets, they looked around at the rides.

"Dude, we have to go on that!" Beckendorf said, pointing to one of the main attractions. It was a huge three-loop rollercoaster that moved so fast the people on it didn't even have time to scream.

"I'm there." Percy agreed.

They rode it 6 times. By the time they left the amusement park, Percy was so dizzy he could swear he was looking at an army of Beckendorfs instead of just one.

"That was awesome." Beckendorf said as he stumbled.

"Yes it was." Percy agreed. "Should we go look for the girls now?"

"In a second." Beckendorf replied as he headed towards a store. Percy followed him and realized when he got closer that it was a liquor store. Beckendorf was already choosing some drinks.

"Dude, you have to drive." Percy reminded him. He wasn't really worried about a crash; a drunken demigod could drive as well as a sober human thanks to their extra-sensory alertness. However, being half god wouldn't hide the alcohol on Beckendorf's breath if they happened to get pulled over.

Beckendorf shrugged. "I won't have too much. Chill, Perce."

Percy decided Beckendorf was right and chose some stuff for himself too. When they went to pay, Beckendorf pulled out his ID proudly. He had just turned 21 a few months ago.

When they met up with Annabeth and Silena they were both carrying lots of shopping bags, and Percy was pretty sure Annabeth had on makeup. He decided not to say anything though, since she was eyeing their bags suspiciously.

"What did you guys buy at The liquor depot?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Percy grinned. "What do you think?" He asked, wrapping his arms around her. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." He whispered into her hair.

She punched his arm and pulled away, but she was grinning. "Are we seriously going to get drunk in the middle of a quest, in an SUV?" She asked, rolling her eyes.

Everybody nodded.

A/N Well there it is, hope you liked this chapter : ) Pleeease let me know what you like and didn't like. Constructive criticism or new ideas really help my story writing so let me know!

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