Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan.

James' POV

"Holy shit." I whisper, closing my eyes and running my fingers through my hair.

How in the world was I supposed to do this? And what lunatic would build a skyscraper in the middle of the woods? I guess someone who didn't want to be found, but needed a really big place to stay.

I sling my bow behind me and head out of the archery range. I needed to find a drachma.

Finding a drachma was easier said than done. I had to practically dump everything out of my trunk, dig around in my backpack, and tear up the whole cabin and even then I still couldn't find one.

Eventually, I give up. I quickly put everything back in its place and leave the cabin, heading down to the Hades cabin, where I hoped Adrienne would be.

I go up the obsidian steps and bang on the door.

"Come in." someone calls.

I open the door to find Adrienne and Jade sitting on the floor, painting their nails.

"Is this what you do with your free time?" I ask.

"Well, yea. We're girls." Jade says, rolling her eyes.

"I uh—never mind. Addie, I need a drachma." I say, remembering why I was here in the first place.

"Why?" she asks.

"I'll tell you later." I say.

"Why can't you just tell me now?" she asks.

I sigh and shake my head. Of course she chose now to be difficult. "I'll tell you later. It's really important. I need to make a call and I can't find a drachma, do you have one or not?" I ask, getting irritated.

"Why can't you just tell me why you need one?" she asks.

"Gods, Adrienne! Do you have any or not?!" I yell.

"Geez, okay. Yea, I've got one. Go check in my wallet, it's in my backpack." she says, nodding her head over to her bed where her pack was.

I hurry over and rip open the bag. I rifle through it, pulling out her wallet, and unzip the coin pocket. There were at least ten drachmas in there.

"How in Hades did you get all these?" I ask, turning to look at her.

"Allowance from mom and dad. You'd have that much too if you didn't spend all of yours." she says, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, fine. I don't have time for this." I say, grabbing one and them walking out of the cabin.

I quickly make my way to the Iris cabin. They had little rainbows all over the place. It was almost as if the cabin were built out of them.

Just as I'm about to throw in the drachma, someone lays a hand on my shoulder. I turn around to find Jade.

"What do you want, Jade? I'm kinda busy here." I say.

"You know, there really wasn't a reason to snap at Adrienne back there." she says.

"I'm sorry. I just really need to make a call, then you can scream at me all you want." I say, turning away from her.

"Okay, you know what? You're being a total prick." she says.

"Excuse me?" I ask, looking at her again.

"You heard me." she says, placing her hands on her hips.

I sigh. "Okay, listen. I really don't have time for this. I've got an emergency on my hands and I really need to call my uncle for help." I say.

"Maybe I can help." she says.

"I really doubt that. Can I please just make this call?" I ask.

She glares at me, then waves her hand, motioning for me to go ahead.

"Thank the gods." I mumble, throwing the drachma in.

Within a minute, Uncle Mo appears in the rainbow. He was sitting on the patio at his house, playing on his phone.

"Uncle Mo." I say.

He looks up and smiles. "Hey, James." he says.

"Listen, mom and dad just called me." I say.

He must of sensed the panic in my voice, because he leans closer to the rainbow, eyebrows raised.

"I'm listening." he says.

I quickly tell him all mom had told me when we had talked, about being taken from the safe house and to some skyscraper in the woods.

"A skyscraper in the woods? What in Hades is that about?" he asks when I finish.

"I don't know. But you or someone else needs to try and find them, please." I say, hearing the desperation in my own voice.

"Of course. I'll get right on it. Don't worry, James, we'll find them and get them back." he says.

"Thanks, Uncle Mo." I say.

"No problem, kiddo. I've been keeping your mom safe since we were a teenager, it's kinda my job." he says, smirking, "I'll message you later if I find anything."

"Alright, talk to you then." I say.

The image dissipates and it's just Jade and me again. I turn around, ready for the lecture I was about to get from her. Instead, I see her looking almost shocked.

"I'm sorry James, I had no idea." she says.

"It's alright. You were right when you said there hadn't been a reason to snap at Adrienne." I say.

"You gonna tell her about this?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

I shake my head. "No, not yet. I'll wait a couple of days, and if he still hasn't found anything, I'll tell her. Any chance of her getting comfortable here would be wrecked if I did. If I told her, she'd just want to go and find them herself. Please don't say anything to her." I say.

She gives me a hard look, then nods. "Okay, I won't tell her." she says.

"Thank you." I sigh.

"You might want to go back and apologize though. She was nearly in tears after you left. Kinda freaked her out." she says.

"Ah man." I say, running my fingers through my hair.

I walk away from the cabin, Jade beside me, and we go back to the Hades cabin. I was going to have to come up with a believable explanation.

"You have a girlfriend?!" Adrienne says, shocked.

"I—yea." I sigh.

Jade was sitting on the bed, trying to contain her laughter. My explanation had been that I had a girlfriend from last summer, but her parents had moved to Russia, so I was going to call her, but couldn't find a drachma. I had been surprised that she had believed me.

"Oh my gods! James has a girlfriend! What does she look like?" she asks.

"Uh, she has long blonde hair and her eyes are a mixture of gray, sky blue, and green." I say.

"Really?" she asks, smirking at me and glancing at Jade.

I give her a look and shake my head. She was thinking that I was talking about Jade. Truth be told, when I made up this "girlfriend," I thought about Jade. I didn't like her like that though, I just thought she was pretty.

"Sure, James. Alright." Addie says.

A horn blows outside and I realize that it's been at least an hour since free time started. Time sure did fly.

A/N:

Aha, Uncle Mo to the rescue! I have to admit, when I wrote the last part of this where James has made up that he was trying to contact this "girlfriend" of his, I was snickering a bit. And I really dunno why. I guess just because imaging the scene in my head and the smug look on Adrienne's face made me giggle.

Sorry for the bit of a delayed update today, btw. I was going to update a few hours ago, I was finished editing the chapter and all, but my mom came home and wanted me to come with her to run some errands, so I didn't have enough time to write the A/N.

And today I forced my parents to write down Christmas lists. We were at the hardware store and I was getting my brother his present and then they started sorta bickering because my dad needs a new air compressor. Well, they had a couple of really nice ones and my mom was trying to talk my dad into letting her get it and then she'd just wrap it and put it under the tree for one of his presents. He kept saying no, because it was too expensive and they argued back and forth for a few more minutes before I stepped between them and told them to shut up. I said, "When we get home, I'm giving each of you a pen and a piece of paper and you're going to write down ten things you would like for Christmas. I get so sick and tired of having the two of you come to me and ask what the other wants, because really, I don't know either!"

And I was serious too. When we got home a few minutes ago, I got the paper and two pens and forced them to do it. So now, not only will they both have something to look at and see who wants what, but my brother and his wife will also know what they want.

Do you ever have those days where you're just in a really good mood and then all of a sudden you just get really pissed off at everyone and if anything happens at all, good or bad or just neutral, you get angry about it? That's pretty much what happened today. I really dunno what set it off, but I just got ticked off over the most stupid things that don't matter one way or another.

M/A:

"'Hey it's just me, set yourself free, why don't you let me know what's going on
Hey it's just me, set yourself free'"

~ Jet Pack by Eve 6.