An: I want to give a shout out to the person who inspired this chapter and well the entire story they have an awesome story that i read that got me motivated to write this one so sunriseangel333 thank you guys please read True love it's sooooooo good.

As always i do not own Percy J Rick does thanks

Percy POV

At ten past two that afternoon the town hall meeting was still going on.

Percy sat next to Annabeth and wished he was anywhere but there he was getting hungry, for one thing, and figured the rest of the crowd had to be hungry too. The big multipurpose room was packed. They had a generator for the lights, but there was no air conditioning. As a rule, it never got hot in town, but with all the bodies packed in that room, it was hot now.

Tired, frightened, stressed out townspeople had taken every chair. More people stood at the back or along the side walls. There were children, too. People didn't want to let their kids out of their sight at a time like this. And kids got restless when forced to sit or stand in one place for too long.

Babies were wailing and small voice kept asking "Dad, when can we go?" and " Mom, is this over yet?"

There were a lot of big talkers in town and every one of them was insisting on being heard. Plus, that jerk Luke sat up there on the hall stage with the other useless members of the council and kept banging the mayor's big hand carved oak gavel for order.

All right, it was true. A lot of people thought the world of Luke. And maybe, if Percy were being fair about it, he'd admit that Luke had a few good qualities. However, when it came to most Castellans, and Luke in particular, Percy just plain didn't feel like being fair.

Luke had the council in his pocket, naturally. They all looked at him like he was wearing a damn halo or something, like he was the one sent down from heaven to single handedly fix everything that had gone completely wrong since the day before.

"Everyone, your attention!" Luke boomed in that smooth tone that made people think he knew what he was talking about. "We all have to work together here. As I've said before, though phone, internet and TV are temporarily out of commission we have the radio system at the sheriff's office and we are in communication with the state office of Disaster and Emergency Services. They are well aware of what is going on in town and the valley, and, unfortunately, in far too many other communities in the area. The good news is that everything is under control and moving along."

Somebody in the crowd made a rude noise.

Luke banged the gavel some more. "If we could all just be patient for a little bit longer, we will get these teams firmed up, so we can all get going on the cleanup right away/"

Percy knew he should keep his mouth shut. His plan had been to get through the meeting, help Annabeth deal with the probable ruin of her home and then pitch in wherever he was needed, but Luke and the council had their priorities turned around. And while there were plenty of people willing to on and on about the difficulty of the situation and how much they wanted to help, nobody else seemed ready to tell the council they were putting the cart before the horse.

He got to his feet. Beside him, Annabeth was startled and looked up at him, wide eyed. She did amuse him, the way she always looked so worried about what he might do next. He sent her a glance that he meant to be reassuring. Her eyes only got wider. So much for soothing her. He faced fronat and waded in.

"I'm sorry, nobody's speaking up about the real issue here and so I suppose I'm going to have to be the one. Luke, cleanup is not the issue yet," he said good and loud. "First, we need to get teams into the flooded areas and see who needs help there. We need search and rescue and we needed it hours ago."

A chorus of agreement rose from the crowd, apparently others though there should be a rescue effort as well. It was only that no one had been willing to stand up and say it out loud.

Luke banged his gavel and looked at Percy with disgust, and anger. "Order, please, everyone. I already explained. We have the volunteer firefighters out searching for trapped or injured survivors."

"One team, you're saying? With how many men on it?"

Luke didn't answer either question. Instead, he went right on with his argument. "Those men are trained for this and know what they're doing. We don't think it's a big problem. No one has reported anyone missing."

"And how are you going to know if someone's missing?" Percy demanded. "People can't call. The phones are out. There can't be more than a third of the people in the valley here at this meeting or hanging around Main Street. Where are the rest of them? Trying to clean up what's theirs? Or trapped on the upper floors of their houses, wondering why no one's com looking for them?"

"But we are looking, and I honestly do not believe. . ."

Percy didn't even let him get started. "And you didn't answer my first question. How many men are out on search and rescue, Luke?"

Others spoke up then. "Yeah! How many?" someone demanded

"Not enough, that's how many!" answered another.

Luke's face had gone a deep shade of red. "People, please. Order!"

Percy stuck his hands into the pockets of his overalls and waited for Luke to stop pounding the gavel. Once he did, Percy answered the question himself. "I'm guessing about nine, nine men to cover the whole of this town and the valley. Have I got that right?"

"Nine strong, able men who are trained in effective search and rescue," Luke insisted, his face even redder than before.

Percy kept after him "It doesn't matter how good they are. Nine men are not enough. We need to put every able bodied adult on the search until we've made a circuit of all the homes and ranches in town and in the valley. I shouldn't take more than the rest of today and tomorrow, if we get a move on. After that, we can change our focus to salvage and cleanup."

Down the row from him and Annabeth, on of the Castellan men called out, "Sit down and shut up, why don't you, Jackson? Let them that knows what they're doing make the decisions here."

"Yeah," said another voice. "We don't need the likes of you tellin' us what to do first."

And that was when Annabeth shot to her feet beside him. At first, Percy thought she would grab his arm and big him to stay out of it.

But it turned out he'd misjudged her. "I feel I must add my voice to Percy's," she said in that prim schoolmarm way of hers that never failed to get him kind of hot. "We have no idea how many people might be trapped in their homes or their barns. There are bound to be collapsed buildings. People could be buried in the rubble, praying they'll be rescued before it's too late. We've already lost the mayor."

"Bless his soul," said a woman's voice.

"Amen," said another.

Annabeth wasn't finished. "Search and rescue is the first job. And we need to give it everything. We can't afford to lose one more precious life.

And Percy added his voice to hers. "We've got to save our people before we worry about your property."

The room erupted in whistles and applause. People shouted, "By golly, he's right!" and "Search and rescue!" and "Percy's said it!" and "Listen to the schoolteacher!"

By the time the clapping finally stopped, even Luke had seen the writing on the wall. He did what he had to do and went along. "The council, as always, seeks to understand and take action according to the wishes of our citizens. We will call in the nine trained men and reassign them as team leaders."

Luke was still talking. "For today and tomorrow and as long as is needed those nice leaders will head the teams in our search and rescue efforts. Volunteers, seek out a leader. Hestia?"

Hestia, the council member to Luke's right, stood, picked up a pointer and smacked it against the map of the county that hung behind the council table. The map had already been divided into sections for the proposed cleanup teams. "Team one, section one and so on," Artemis announced. "We've been fortunate in that rubber boots, heavy rubber gloves and necessary tools have already been trucked in and will be provided to each of you. Please wear the boots and gloves at all times when searching in mud or standing water. Be on careful lookout, everyone, for vermin of all persuasions. Floods bring out the rats and displace the snakes. Thank you, Luke." With a nod, she set down the pointer and took her seat again.

Luke wrapped it up. "Getting around in flood areas isn't easy, but we are able to truck in supplies from other towns for those in need. The Ladies of Artemis of the Community Church has set out a meal on the church lawn while we've been busy with our meeting here. If everyone will file outside in an orderly manner, Sister Artemis will lead us in a prayer, after which we will share a late lunch. By then, your team leaders will have returned and the search for missing survivors can commence."

An: I hope this chapter wasn't too bad for you guys but yea thanks all reviews are welcome i love reading them and they get me to want to write more.