LOOK HOW QUICK I UPDATED! WOOHOO! I deserve a prize, no?
So! Eac12897 suggested the name "Riley" and I lovvveddd it! So he shall be named RILEY! That will be all.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything (I'm getting so tired of saying this :P)
By the time I got back to my cabin, all I wanted to do was fall into a deep sleep and remain that way for the rest of my life.
And yet, I knew there were more important things than my sleeping patterns, so I fought the urge to collapse on my bed and instead rummaged through my draws and pockets, searching desperately for a golden coin.
Finally, my hands grasped the cool, shiny item and I walked outside, heading towards the Poseidon cabin.
Percy had stayed after the meeting to discuss something with Chiron and help clean up. I was hoping that meant he would be there for a while, which would mean he wouldn't be interrupting me using his fancy little pond thing. (Which was a totally unfair gift. I get the ability to hear when someone's dying, but he gets to have an unlimited supply of free Iris Messages? Nu-uh, no fair)
Normally he wouldn't care if I used it without asking, but lately I've had a tendency to break various items of his, and now he won't let me touch anything that has any significance to him.
I slowly crept into his cabin, just in case he had already come back and was sleeping. But the beds were empty and I safely made my way over to the small waterfall.
"O Goddess, accept my offering."
Unsure of what to do, I just threw my drachma into the water. It had hit the surface, but disappeared immediately afterwards.
"Show me Hades, Lord of the Underworld."
At first, nothing happened.
I waited, and waited, and waited. But the room remained dark, and there was no change.
Disappointed and embarrassed, I turned to make my way back to my cabin.
It was a stupid idea anyway, I told myself.
Like a god would answer my call.
But, before I could even take a step towards the door, I heard a voice ring out.
"Well? You send me an Iris Message and then just walk away? Don't waste my time, boy." Turning around, I saw my father proudly sitting at his throne.
I barely resisted a smile from popping up on my face, and walked back over towards him.
He looked the same as ever, which wasn't that much of a surprise considering he was immortal and never aged. Faces swarmed around and mixed together on his dark cloak, which had a frightening chill to it.
"Father," I said, "I have a question for you."
He looked almost… amused.
"I don't have time to waste on your foolish questions," he said. I felt my face drop. So, he would answer my message but not answer my question? That seemed hardly fair (and a horrible way to waste a drachma). Maybe he felt bad for me, or maybe he was bored, because he decided to add in "so make it quick!"
"You know all the names of those who have passed, right?" I asked. He nodded.
"Don't be foolish, of course I do."
"Well, has there been a recent death of an, um, Jillian Mistero?"
"Jillian Mistero… Blonde? Grey-eyed? Daughter of that wretched Athena?" I nodded my head, "That girl you love?"
"Ye- What? No! I don't love her!"
He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Don't be foolish, of course you do."
I had the sudden urge to shout out "Nu-uh!", but that would be immature and stupid, which are two things you shouldn't be around the Lord of Death.
So, I just settled for "No I don't."
"Preposterous! Let me tell you, if you lived 3000 years ago, when things actually made sense, you two would already be married with a baby on the way!"
I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure at that moment I had a heart attack.
"A baby!" I managed to get out.
He looked confused at my expression. "Yes, what's so surprising about that?"
"Uh, everything?"
He shook his head, a slight smile playing at his lips. It infuriated me. "I don't love her! I don't even like her!"
He sighed. "Deny it all you want, but that doesn't make it untrue. Now, about that girl of yours-
"She's not that girl of mine; she's just that girl."
He completely ignored my comment, and continued talking, "- the answer is no, she's not in my realm."
Relief flooded through me. "Thank you, father." So she was missing and possibly paralyzed or with a bad case of amnesia, but at least she wasn't dead. But I would be if I didn't get out of the Poseidon cabin before Percy came back. "Now, I have to go before Percy c-"
"Wait," he said, "there's one more thing. You need to be very careful on this quest; tricks are hidden around every corner. And this time you will not have two daughters of Athena to guide you. If you're not careful, one of your friends will be taking a visit to the Underworld very soon."
I gulped nervously at his ominous advice. "Alright, sure. I'll be careful. I promise." And with that, I swiped my hand through the mist, ending the conversation.
(this is a pretty nice line, eh?)
Waking up the next morning, I started to reconsider the whole quest thing.
Maybe I should just stay in bed, and hope they won't notice I'm missing until they're far, far away.
Of course, I don't think that would happen considering I was the leader of the quest and they couldn't leave without me.
But unfortunately, we all know how rare it is for me to actually get a decent night's sleep.
So just as the blinking red letters of my alarm clock flashed "6:30", I was torn out of bed by an overexcited daughter of Athena.
"Come on! You should be ecstatic! Leading your first quest, how exciting!" gushed Annabeth as she randomly threw items of clothing into my backpack. I groaned, wondering how anybody could be so awake when the sun had barely risen.
When I asked her, she just replied "The early bird catches the worm."
Well guess what? I'm not a bird and I don't want any damn worms.
"You just have to make sure you stay safe, and make sure to manage your money! There's nothing worse than going to order a cheeseburger and then realizing you only have ten cents. Believe me, I know from experience. And be careful around strangers, and… and…"
"Annabeth!"
"What?" she momentarily stopped throwing random things into my bag long enough to look at me.
"I really don't think I need a winter coat…"
Confused, she looked down in my backpack and then took out the big parka that she most recently packed. "Oh… yeah… Sorry."
I sighed, knowing something was wrong. "What's up, Annabeth? You're not acting, well, normal."
"I know, I know. But these are my baby sisters! They were kidnapped! Stolen! Gods, Jill's only 15! And Isabella is 9!"
"Uh, when you were fifteen hadn't you gone on three quests and put your life in danger dozens of times?"
She gaped at me. "That's totally different!"
It totally wasn't.
"It'll be fine, Annabeth. I'm not a little kid, I can take care of myself and so can she. I'm sure Jill will look out for Elizabella."
She glared at me. "It's Isabella! And how can you be so sure? What if they're hurt? What if they're still paralyzed? Gods, what's gonna happen to them!"
"Nothing. Nothing will happen to them, because we're gonna find them and bring them back before anything does." I really had no idea if we were, but lying to her seemed like a much better idea than dealing with a paranoid older sister.
"You promise you'll bring them back to camp safely?" she asked. Her eyes were wide, and she resembled a little girl asking her mother for a new toy.
I sighed. Promising always made things more difficult. But, I felt obliged. "Yes, Annabeth. I promise to bring them back safely."
Content with this, she wished me good luck and then slipped out of my cabin.
I sighed, dreading how much more work she just provided for me. I unpacked the backpack, put the dozen pairs of socks, the boomerang, the beach towel, the pajamas Annabeth got me for my birthday (thanks Annabeth, because I really want blue plaid pajamas to match those green slippers you got me for Christmas) and the candy I bought from the Hermes cabin back into my draws.
I re-packed (much lighter this time) and then ran out of the door, realizing just how late I was.
When I reached Half-Blood Hill, Chiron, Hailey, and Riley (which I had learned was the name of the Demeter boy) were already waiting there.
"Way to be 20 minutes late, Nico." commented Hailey, but it wasn't said angrily. She was dressed in normal clothes, as oppose to the orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. Denim shorts and a shirt for some band I didn't recognize seemed pretty normal to me; but since I was very uneducated on the modern pop culture, I couldn't be sure.
Riley was dressed the same. Shorts and a plain t-shirt. Getting a look at him when it wasn't four in the morning, I noticed had very Demeter-ish looks – shaggy brown hair and tanned skin, from spending all day working in the strawberry fields.
"Sorry, I was talking to Annabeth. She's just worried about her sisters." I explained. They nodded, showing they understood.
Considering I was so late, the money and drachmas had already been given out, the goodbyes had been said, and the van had been packed. All they were waiting for was me.
Getting into the camp vans, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu from last summer.
As we drove off, Argus tried to start casual conversation. But unfortunately, he failed miserably. It was extremely awkward and quite boring.
I watched as we left the rural land and headed into the suburbs. We passed tons of little kids outside, enjoying the hot summer weather and playing in the sprinklers. Some families were outside setting up for a party or some event. We even passed a block party, and I became extremely jealous that while we were going to be risking our lives and trying to find some cure to and two missing girls, there were people who would be barbequing and going swimming in their heated pools. So not fair.
Ah, but I guess being this good-looking and all-in-all amazing comes with a price to pay.
After a little while, Hailey started mumbling some song about vines and flowers. Then, Riley added in with light whispering that I couldn't decipher. Something in ancient Greek, or maybe Latin. Maybe it was a song too?
But soon enough, I heard shuffling from below me. Looking down, I saw vines bursting from under the mat on the car floor. Thick, green, and powerful, they grew at a rapid rate and quickly wrapped around my feet.
"Holy -! What are you doing!" I exclaimed. More vines erupted from the ground and wove themselves up my legs.
Riley stopped whispering. "Wha- Oh! Sorry! Sometimes they get a little excited." He snapped his fingers, "Hey! Get down!"
The plants had a striking resemblance to a group of dogs disciplined by their leader, as they hung down and slowly slid back under the mats. If they could whimper, I'm sure they would've. I turned and glared at Riley, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Why did you do that?" I asked him. What would possibly possess him to do something as stupid as to grow vicious vines in the camp van?
"Hey, it's her fault! She was singing about plants, and I went into auto drive!" he defended himself. Hailey, who looked sheepish, apologized and then decided the best way to spend the trip to New York City (and change the topic) was to tell stories about the girls we were going to find.
"So this one time," she started, "when we were eleven, I decided it would be a good idea to get back at the Stolls for pranking the Apollo cabin."
"What'd they do?" asked Riley.
"They filled all of our instruments with peanut butter. Peanut butter! It took us weeks to get it out of the flutes. And the tuba? Ha! Ruined! Anyways, the rest of the cabin wouldn't help me. So who did I go to? Jill, of course. Unfortunately, she said it was a stupid idea. She totally refused to help me! You wouldn't believe how mad I was at her. I mean, my best friend was just abandoning me? Nu-uh, no way. Not gonna happen."
"What'd you do?"
"Well, that's where things start to get good. Furiated, I snuck into her cabin in the dead of night. I grabbed her, ran her out of the Athena cabin, and tied her to a chair."
"You kidnapped her and tied her to a chair!"
"Shut up! I'm telling a story! But, yes, yes I did. So anyways, just as I was about to lecture her on what being a good friend was-"
"Wait," I said, "you were going to tell her that she wasn't being a good friend, when you had just kidnapped her and tied her to a chair…?"
"Yeah, it was kinda a spur of the moment thing. So, as I was saying before Nico oh so rudely interrupted me, just as I was about to yell at her, I saw that she was crying. Crying! And this was Jill. Confused, I took a closer examination of her. And it totally wasn't Jill."
"You kidnapped the wrong girl!"
"Shut up! I was eleven and it was dark! Plus, they all look the same! It's just plain freaky! So, this girl was sobbing and begging me to let her go and not to hurt her. But if I let her go, she would tell everybody! How embarrassing would that be? I couldn't possibly live with that kind of humiliation!"
"So what did you do?"
"Simple. I gave her twenty dollars and told her it was our little secret."
Silence.
Riley and I just stared at her.
"Wow. I kinda wish I had chosen that creepy daughter of Hecate to come instead of you…" I said.
"Hey! She would've turned you into a toad by now!" I would've argued with her, but I knew it was true.
We continued telling stories about the missing girls (more like girl, considering none of us had even seen Isabella before) for the rest of the car ride. I even got to talk about Billy the pedophile from the previous summer.
"So there we were, an angry son of Ares to my left, Jill to my right, my blind grandma in front of us, and three water nymphs behind us. So my grandma shouts out 'Hailey, w-'"
Argus turned around and pointed to the doors. We had reached the city, and he couldn't take us any farther.
Sighing, we all thanked him, and slid out of the van one by one.
He waved to us (exposing the eye on the palm of his hand) and then drove off, leaving us on the sidewalks of a busy New York street.
Commuters in suits and ties shoved past us, talking quickly on their cell phones. People were waving over taxis, going down to the subway, and boarding trains in every direction. Other teenagers walked past us, sipping iced coffees and talking to their friends. Some stared at us, most likely wondering why we were just standing at the side of the road.
As the bus disappeared from our view, Hailey asked what we were all thinking.
"Well, what now?"
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