I apologize to everyone for being late with the update. Sorry! My dad hauled us all to Florida eleven days ago and I only got back here to Canada yesterday evening. So, please read, hope you enjoy, and please comment on the chapter.

We All Get Carsick

"Uh… Mom?"

She turned from the confused poor woman in a bathrobe to a viper in two seconds flat. "Trey Edwin Sanders what did you do now?"

"Your middle name's Edwin?" I whispered to him.

He looked like he was about to punch me. "Burglar?" he tried, but he sounded uncertain.

His mother started up a rant about how Trey did not appreciate anything about their efforts to make sure he had a happy life and how the damage he caused in the room alone was going to send them into debt. I couldn't believe how long the woman managed to lecture Trey for and nearly fell asleep.

He nudged me awake.

"What?"

"She's asking you why you're here," Trey muttered.

I looked at the woman with her hands on her hips. "I'm here… to help Trey… on a school project."

"To start a party, more likely." She said something about young hooligans and I lost interest almost immediately. "So what kind of project is this?"

Who was she? A police officer? I'd been interrogated by enough people over the past few days. "Art," I blurted out. "We're studying modern art… And we have to take a photo of an example of modern art?"

"So you used my room as a subject?"

Yeah it was a load of shit.

"Yes ma'am," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me… my mom's probably wondering where I am."

She squinted at me. "Aren't you wanted by the police?"

"No!" Trey shouted.

"Not anymore," I said at the same time.

"Maybe a call to the station –"

"No!" we shouted in unison. But she was already reaching for the phone so I did the first thing that came to my mind. I knocked her out with a lamp.

"Are you serious?"

"Sorry…?" I held out my hand. "Okay, pass the dagger." He did. "I have to go now and don't expect to see me around for a while to help. Meaning you shouldn't poke a Cyclops in its eye – or any monster for that matter. Got it?"

"Yeah."

We both looked at his mother on the ground.

"I almost wish she did get eaten by the Cyclopes." But of course, he was joking. "What am I supposed to tell her when she wakes up?"

"Hopefully she'll forget everything. I dunno, I'll help you clean up the house. Then if she remembers just tell her it was a dream. If she doesn't believe you…" I patted his shoulder. "You're on your own."

"You're a great friend," he grumbled.

"Do you want me to skip out on you without helping you clean up the house?"

He didn't, so we started with the master bedroom, running around putting fallen paintings back up on the wall and knocked over furniture upright. Trey got out a bottle of some liquid and began spraying at all stains and rubbing them off.

"Where's the maid when you need her?" I sighed.

"Vacation to Mexico," he answered helpfully.

Finally, I surveyed the room. There were things that we couldn't fix – like the shattered mirror – and covered up instead, and it wasn't the best. Perhaps in half light they wouldn't notice anything but once the lights go on, the damage was apparent in a in your face kind of way. We dumped Mrs. Sanders onto the bed and closed the door gently. Then I turned around and looked at the hallway.

Just the rest of the house and the lawn to go.

By morning, we'd finished with the house. Somehow. We'd rearranged the house so that furniture and paintings covered areas that were damaged – like the giant cut in the wall where my sword had lodged, we put an ugly modern art painting there. Maybe they wouldn't notice how drafty the hallway now was because of the giant hole in the ceiling. Out of ideas, we'd put a bedsheet over the hole. I was fretting about the torn up bushes and flowers outside when I pulled back the curtains and discovered everything had been covered in a blanket of snow.

So we were safe, for now.

Since the Sanders didn't go to work during the holiday season, Trey told me they slept in. I hoped the bump on Mrs. Sanders head was big enough to keep her knocked out long enough for me to finish my hot chocolate and make my escape. Yum, hot chocolate. I wrapped my cold fingers around the hot cup.

"What day is it today?"

"28th," he replied. "I think. It's three days till the New Year."

I yawned for the bazillionth time and decided to get home so I wouldn't fall asleep on the sidewalk.

Like the courteous host he was, he showed me out the door and I sprinted into the snow, wincing at the cold and at the numerous bruises that protested any kind of movement. The sharp cold air definitely woke me up. I ran up the driveway and searched for my keys.

Crap, where are my keys?

If my mom caught me out of bed… well I just didn't want that to happen. I snuck around the back and went in through the back door.

Mom was waiting for me there. I froze. "You could've locked the front door when you left," she said. "The wind blew the front door open."

"Trey needed help," I said. I shook the snowflakes from my hair. "I'm… going to go now."

She gaped at my pajamas. "You could've gotten hypothermia."

"Except I didn't," I said cheerfully. "So…"

She let me go. It wasn't until I reached the stairs that she called out, "Elena, I have an emergency situation at work. I'm going to have to drive up to the office, so I can't take you guys. We can do it tomorrow –"

"No," I said. "It's okay, I'll just call a cab."

Diana was still sleeping when I came in. Quietly, so I wouldn't wake her, I reached into my drawer and pulled out a bag of drachmas I kept for emergency needs. The sun was up, and all I had to hope was that the lawn hose could spew out half frozen water.

I went down to the lawn and hauled out the garden hose, putting the setting at mist. The water had frozen solid, so I rubbed my hands together in the cold, and imagined mist sputtering out of the hose. It took a while, but finally mist was coming out of the hose and I was feeling pretty smug. I took out the drachma with my other hand and recited the O goddess stuff.

Nico, Cailey and Jess stared back. Their faces were huge.

"So, you've survived the night," I said.

Nico scowled. "Yeah, barely, in a garbage dump. Where are you?"

"At home," I said. Jess and Nico looked jealous.

"So while we were freezing our butts off in a garbage dump you guys actually had a warm shelter and a good night's sleep."

"Not really," I said. "Listen, can you come ASAP? It's better that we end this quest quickly."

"Where's your house?"

I gave Nico the address and made him recite it back to me. He told me they would probably arrive in about two hours.

I turned off the hose and went back inside. Mom was already gone, and I could see tire tracks in the snow on our driveway. She left a note on the fridge asking me to shovel the snow.

By now, the snow looked thick enough to go up to my waist. I hauled Diana out of bed and told her to find a thick jacket in my closet and put on some snow pants. While she was a guest at my house, I had no problem getting her to shovel the snow with me.

But by the time we were finished, I was napping on the bench on our porch and Diana had done more than half by herself. She poked me awake.

"Some host I am," I mumbled. "Falling asleep and letting you do all the work."

She shrugged. "Whatever, you didn't come back last night so I figured you didn't get much sleep."

I closed my eyes again and nodded. I slept for another hour when I got poked awake again, this time by Nico, or rather, Nico's branch.

"She's alive," he said.

"What's with the branch?"

"Who sleeps outside in negative weather of their own choice?" he countered. "Where's Diana?"

"Inside, I think."

Cailey helped me up and I knocked on the front door, annoyed that I'd forgotten my keys again. In the next ten minutes, we caught up with each other, transferred all the food in our fridge to our stomachs, and packed while Cailey tried to get a cab by dialling a taxi service's number.

"Dead line," she reported. "The snowstorm must've screwed up the telephone lines."

What snowstorm? It must've happened when Trey and I were cleaning up the house. "Keep trying," I said. "I'm not walking all the way there in freezing cold weather."

"But you do sleep in freezing cold weather," Nico said.

The glare I gave him was so evil he suddenly decided that the calendar hanging on the wall was worth staring at for a whole minute. Then he asked Jess if she wanted to build a snowman with him. They went outside.

A car honked outside the house. I peeked outside the curtains. "Taxi's here," I said. Everyone got their stuff and moved outside. This time, I made sure I took the keys and was about to close the door when I realized Cailey was still inside.

"Hey," I shouted. "Get out. We don't have all day."

She shook her head. "I didn't reach anyone on the phone. Why's the cab here? I don't know about getting into the cab…"

I responded by yanking her out. "Nico and Jess were outside. They probably waved him down."

"Oh. Forgive me for being cautious," she muttered.

The cab was too small to fit all five of us, especially since there was a driver and a guy sitting next to him. So we were stuck with five people sitting in three seats.

"Anyone volunteering to take the trunk?" Nico grimaced. He muttered something about the Cash Cab.

Before I could get my – our since I had to share with Jess – seatbelt on, the car made a U turn and slammed everyone toward my side of the cab.

"Okay, this won't work," Cailey grunted.

We all agreed and decided that two people would have to sit on somebody's lap. I looked to the driver, who seemed to be chatting animatedly to his friend, with no clue that five people were dying in the back row.

"Who's the lightest two people?" Cailey tried being helpful.

"Not Lena," Nico offered. "Did you see how much she ate at the Christmas feast?"

I slugged him. "Do you want to sit Cailey's lap like a toddler? No? Then shut up."

Finally, Jess and Diana decided to sit on the floor, meaning on our shoes. My feet were going to hurt after this ride. Hades, my whole body was probably going to hurt after his ride. Was the cab driver drunk?

"'Scuse me," I called up to the front. "I don't even think I told you where we're going."

He turned to look at us. His sunglasses were so dark, I couldn't even see the outline of his eyes. I wondered why he needed sunglasses. "Where to, miss?"

I read out the address from the slip of paper. The cab driver made another U turn and lucky me, I got squashed again. Yep, he was definitely drunk. By now, he'd rolled down the window and was whooping loudly with his friend.

This was even worse than the Gray Sisters.

"Nico!" Cailey shouted. "You can't even pick a good taxi driver!"

"Me? When was I part of finding a taxi?"

Silence.

"Wait," Cailey said. "Are you saying you and Jess didn't wave down this taxi?"

"Nope."

"Then that means –"

"Ready to jump ship?" Nico offered.

Okay, maybe death boy was ready to hurtle out of a car going twice the speed limit, but I wasn't risking my neck. "No way!"

There was a chuckle from the front. Not from the driver, but from his friend. "They finally figured it out. Jeez, this group is stupider than that Jackson boy."

Oh great. "You mean my brother?"

"He has a sister?" The driver asked, as if this was news to him.

"Yeah, he does," I huffed. "Now if you don't mind…" Now if you are nice monsters… "Can you please drop us of at this corner here?"

They shook their heads in sync. "Nope, sorry, no can do. We've got to drive you to your destination, remember?"

Oh right. The very reason why we came on this stupid quest.

"Three guesses who we are."

Nico muttered something about the Cash Cab again. "Do we get money?"

"Nope," the driver said cheerfully. "We will spare you from the scare of your lives, though."

"Hmm, scare… You're the ugliest monster to ever exist…" Nico said. And he wasn't joking. They had solid ugly faces, alright, just not the monster kind. They looked quite human, actually.

The driver made the sound of a buzzer. "Two guesses left or you'll be in for a ride."

"Too late," I grumbled.

"Second guess?" Was this some sort of a game show to him?

"Complete assholes," Jess said.

The buzzer sounded again. "Now, darlings…" the driver said. "And, um, boy." Nico scowled his famous scowl. "Let's be serious now."

I closed my eyes and wondered who Percy had to cross and didn't kill. Yeah, thanks big bro, for making my experience hell today. We will spare you from the scare of your lives. "You're the fear gods," I said.

"Names?"

"Phoebe and Dei… something…"

"Phoebe's my mom," Diana corrected. Oh right.

"Phobos and Deimos," Cailey said. "Gods of fear and terror. Sons of Ares."

"Oh great." Just what I needed.

Whoop. I was watching the Cash Cab the other day if you guys wonder why I'm being so random...