Chapter Twenty-Six
Annabeth
After Percy slips into the bathroom, the air in the room seems to thicken with all the said and unsaid things floating around. As the steady thud of the water pounding on to the shower floor travels into the main room, Grover turns to me.
"You're missing her." His quiet voice takes me by surprise, and I sigh a little, and rub my road-weary eyes. Grover's words perfectly pinpoint the low ache that's been fluttering around in my stomach. I wrap my arms around myself, as if I could even hope that wound dull the gnawing sensation. I shrug a little in response to his statement; it's not as if I could deny it.
"And you're not?" My voice comes out snappier than I meant for it to, and for a moment, Grover looks a little startled, but then he seems to shrug it off, especially when he sees my expression.
"I miss her a lot, and more than anything… I'm really afraid for her… what happened to her?" The last part is spoken with a tone of frustration so intense, it seems to fill the room, and he grabs at his crazed curls, pulling of his cap in the process.
"What can we do Grover? The cops are useless and those people certainly didn't care and Luke's…" I shake my head, not even able to finish that sentence.
"You've noticed it too then?" He asks, sounding a little less unhinged, to say the least. I nod, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around myself.
"He's withdrawn, the last time I talked to him, he said a lot without ever saying much." I struggle through the words, aching at how distant we've all become. Grover nods, seeming to understand well enough. "We were searching for Thalia, and then this guy showed up at our soccer game, and it was like he couldn't talk to me, not about anything." I've run through it over again and again in mind, why that game was the catalyst, it has to have something to do with that creeper, but I don't know what it all means.
"What guy?" Grover asks sitting up, his eyes alight with energy. I know whats going on in his head, if we know what the problem is, we can fix it! Too bad life doesn't work that way.
"Do you remember the first time we really got caught?" Grover nods immediately, and I know that night's just as stressful for him as it is for me. "Well, I saw this guy, and he just kind of smirked at us, and they we turned a corner and there were the cops." Grover raises an eyebrow as if to ask where this all ties in. "I had seen him before, that night when I was six and I met Thalia and Luke." Grover's eyes widen, catching my train of thought. "They asked me about him, but then they wouldn't talk about it afterwards, and then, I saw him at the last soccer game."
"And that was when Luke closed off." Grover finishes, his head dropping into his hands again. His head picks up for a minute. "What if he snatched her? What if he was planning on getting the rest of us… we were all at that game." I unsteadily stand up, and sit down beside him on the edge of the bed.
"We're all going to be fine, we got the hell out of Remington, and Luke's in Greece, just ,Thalia will show up and tell us how silly we all were for worrying about her." I console him, right as the thud of the bathroom door announces Percy's entrance. He looks a little curious at Grover and me, but doesn't comment. Without a word, Grover gets up and makes his way to the bathroom, nodding at me as he goes.
"Am I on too thin ice to ask?" Percy pipes up a few minutes later. I shake my head but continue reading, hoping he'll just let it go, despite my experiences that say otherwise. "What were you guys talking about? It seemed tense." I shrug my shoulders, hoping I don't look unnaturally stiff and closed off as I speak.
"Just a friend of ours, it's not a big deal." I lie, I know I shouldn't lie to him, especially since he's been so open with us, but this is much too tangled of a web as it is.
"Thalia?" He guesses, and I finally look up at him, surprised that he knows. He shrugs when he sees my expression. "Grover mentioned her… and how she left."
"She didn't leave!" My voice so desperate, and a little crazed, and he holds up his hands beside his head as if in surrender.
"Okay, okay, I didn't know." He assures me, then gets up and sits down beside me, he reaches forward as if he's going to take my hand, but then seems to think better about it, and leans back on his palms. "It'll all work out Annabeth, I'm sure she'll be okay. It'll be fine."
"You can't promise that." I remind him, wrapping my arms around my middle and shaking my head. I hate myself for breaking down like this, but Percy doesn't seem to care. He reaches out a little tentatively and pushes a curl of hair out of my face. His finger tips skim the skin at my hairline, and if I weren't so frazzled, I would've noticed the tenderness of the act.
"Yes I can, because it's you, Annabeth, if anybody's going to accomplish the impossible, it's you." He sounds so sincere, and I almost let myself believe it.
"I've never even left the Remington area before this, how am I supposed to do this?" I ask him, even though I doubt he'll know the answer.
"You're not alone, I'll help you, Grover we'll help you, we'll finish this" He gestures around the hotel room, "and then we'll find her."
Percy
Annabeth's sitting beside me as we cruise along the highway and she seems more composed since her moment in the motel room. I guess I'd be a little freaked too if one of my best friends disappeared without a trace. I still can't believe that she chose to be here, helping me and taking on all this stress when there's already so much spiraling around her right now. Instead she chose to take all these risks and drive cross-country with me.
Whenever I see a cop around I slow down exponentially, hoping to avoid their wandering eye, as I'm not technically a legal driver yet. Annabeth seemed a little doubtful that I could drive, but I've pretty much proven her wrong at this point. I mean, there's only been one near-death-experience at this point. I'm sorry I didn't want to hit that squirrel, the guys shouldn't have been that close to my rear bumper!
It's almost nine now, and getting darker by the minute, but we haven't found a place we could really stop at, there's supposed to be a truck stop coming up, in another three hours. Not to mention, we haven't eaten since five when Annabeth said "It's just a little farther." I would make jokes about Annabeth's growling stomach, if mine wasn't groaning twice as loud. The only one who isn't complaining about it is Grover, whose passed out in the backseat, muttering about tin cans and juniper trees.
I almost hear the Hallelujah Chorus when I see the "Westminster Grill and Lounge" come up in front of me, and immediately turn off into the parking lot. Annabeth makes a face at first but seems to think again about looking a gift horse in the mouth. After leaving a note for Grover, promising we'll bring him a veggie burger, we make our way across the parking lot.
Annabeth
The atmosphere is suffocating, and the lack of bouncers make me out of my mind nervous as we slide into the room. Huge guys in leather jackets crowd the bar, and I think the ratios of men to women is about 40-1, real comforting, that statistic. With Grover still practically comatose in the car, I shove down my pride and anxiously take Percy hand, in an attempt to squash my nerves. He gently squeezes my hand, probably sensing my discomfort. The leers from the men closest to us aren't making me feel better.
The place advertised to be a lounge and grill, but seems much too much like a trashy dive bar for my tastes. Hurriedly, we make our way to a booth and the high benches provide a sense of security, almost allowing me to forget the surroundings and relax enough to eat.
Percy
I almost had a heart attack when Annabeth took my hand, and then I felt her racing pulse, she was scared out of her mind. I felt like a jerk, especially since this was my idea and tried to calm her down by squeezing her hand, and she almost seemed to relax. When we sat down, he I had asked if she wanted to leave and she had said no, claiming she was too hungry to keep looking.
The booth seems to lull us both into false a sense of security as we eat, and Annabeth seems determined to prove that she's not nervous, even though she probably should finishing and leaving cash to pay the bill, she gets up to use the bathroom, and rolls her eyes when I insist on accompanying her.
As she briskly cuts along the dance floor, I follow the bouncy blonde curls meandering through the crowd. About halfway across, she turns around and grins at me, as if to say, "See nothing happened", when large arms snake around her middle and yank her backwards. I'm frozen, completely unbelieving as I watch Annabeth's slim form go sprawling backwards until she slams into some creep with something in his teeth. She squirms, her eyes wide and petrified as he runs his fingers down her cheek and along her neck. Her feet lift off the floor as she tries to kick him, her arms pinned to her sides. The scent of alcohol wafts towards me, burning the back of my throat. Like a slap in the face, the smell serves to jerk me out of my daze, and anger alights in my veins, coursing all the way through me. No one gets away with crap like that around me.
"Let her go." I snarl, shoving his shoulder, hoping to give her enough room to wiggle her way out. It doesn't work. He leers at me, and I realize he's much, much taller than I am and about eight times as wide. There is no way a human being can get that big without steroids. OH CRAP.
A/N: Here's the deal, if this story gets to 115 reviews in the next few days, my next chapter will be double the average word count per chapter for the story overall. I think that's pretty fair. Also, my sneak peek offer is officially closed.