Seeing the Nevada welcome sign came like a sight for sore eyes for Merri. It meant they were one step closer to completing the quest and Merri was one step closer to being as far away as possible from Annabeth Chase. The two demigoddesses' spent almost half the ride from Nashville to Vegas bickering, and not in a friendly manner.

On a normal occasion, Merri had nothing in particular against the younger girl as they usually stayed out of each other's path, unless it was a game of Capture-the-flag. They simply went on each other's nerves when they were forced to be around one another for a time lapse longer than ten minutes. Annabeth was annoyed by Merri's tomboyish manners and sarcasm while Merri disliked Annabeth because the girl aced like she was a know-it-all and treated Merri like she was not worth her attention because the older girl's godly parent had never claimed her.

After some persuasion from Percy, Merri had taken her casete from the truck's radio but, instead, put in her earplugs and turned on the same mix on her iPod, her lithe fingers thumping the rythm of the song currently playing on the steering wheel while Merri altered between humming and singing the lyrics under her breath. The last thing she needed was for Annabeth to wake up and start annoying the older girl again. Merri was slightly bobbing her head in tune, her ginger hair spilling over her face, shoulders and back. It had started to turn a darker shade the day she met Percy and was now a dark ginger, almost brown, colour. She knew it was only a matter of time before it turned black.

Merri was actually born with blonde hair that had ginger and black streaks. About the time she discovered she was a demigod, it had started to turn red. A year later, Merri's hair was its normal ginger red with blonde and black streaks. Now, it seemed, it was time for it to change colour once again.

'Don't listen what your girlfriend says,
She reads those magazines,
They say you failed the test
You don't have what she needs.
I slither like a viper
and get you by the neck,
I know a thousand ways to help you forget about her!

That bitch can eat her heart out!
Love bites, but so do I, so do I!
Love bites, but so do I, so do I!
Love bites!'

...

When Merri drove into Las Vegas, the younger kids were awestruck. Their youths were wide open, the jaws hanging and their eyes were huge as they stared at the imposing structures of the city's hotels and casinos. Merri shook her head at them and smirked.

"Welcome to Vegas, ankle-biters!" Merri grinned at them but they paid her no mind, they were too busy staring at the buildings. After a minute or two, they seemed to snap out of their trance and turned to their self-designated driver.

"So, how are we supposed to find the Lotus Casino?" Grover wondered.

"Well," Merri started. "Given the fact that it stands out like dog's balls, it shouldn't be hard to find."

"What?!" Annabeth frowned at Merri's words in disgust. Merri sighed in frustration.

"It means: 'It's obvious!'," Merri rolled her eyes before pointing at a large extravagant building with her hand. "See?" Percy peered through the windshield.

"That's it," he said. "The Lotus Casino." Merri drove the truck to the valet at the entrance.

"I've been looking forward to this," Grover told them as they exited the vehicle, taking their bags with them. "Look guys, remember: always place the bets on eights, never the tens, okay?"

"We're not here to gamble, Grover!" Annabeth growled at the satyr who wasn't even listening to her.

"We've got poker, Black Jack..." he kept listing the games but stopped when Annabeth interupted him with a fierce glare.

"We're not here to have fun," she insisted. "We're just here to grab the pearl and go, okay?" Merri pulled her bag onto her back and followed the three younger teens inside.

The interior of the place was done in the same extravagant and flamboyant style as its exterior. There were slot machines, a huge buffet littered with all kinds of food and just so many people buzzing around. Merri spotted Grover's jaw hang open at the sight of food and a little drool escaping the corner of his mouth. A sleek looking black car was spinning on display, the advert below it saying it was the jackpot prize. No matter how cool the car looked, nothing could compare to Merri's Impala back home. They just simply didn't make masterpieces like that anymore, global warming be damned. Merri could breathe under water, anyway.

In their search for the pearl, Merri noticed a lot of waitresses dressed in jade green silk dresses walking around, carrying trays filled with some kind of pink candy shaped like the lotus flower.

"Okay, this place is officially dope!" Grover exclaimed looking around at all the food on the buffets and all the pretty women around him. It seemed that the satyr had found his personal paradise. A man dressed in a suit the same colour as the waitress' dresses came forward.

"Here's your complementary Lotus Casino fun book," he said giving the book to Percy.

"Thanks, but we're not staying," Annabeth rejected. The man continued to follow them, holding the book in his hand the whole time.

"Please, I insist. It's good for everything in the hotel and the casino," the man explained. Although Percy took the book, the group passed the man.

"We don't want presents. We're not checking in," Percy said.

"That guy was persistent," Grover noted. Percy gave the satyr a sarcastic 'yeah!' while Merri gave him a sarcastic look from Percy's side.

"We're here for one thing and one thing only," Percy told them. They were now in a huge room filled with arcade and casino games as well as what seemed to be carnival rides. Percy was about to continue his instructions when he noticed a glowing tower with 'Turbo Life' written on it, standing behind a large fountain and got distracted saying: "That is really awesome!" He quickly recovered and started looking around. "Where would we find a green pearl in this place?" he wondered.

A waitress passed them by, carrying a tray filled with various drinks. Grover's head followed the girl in the tight green dress before starting after her. "Maybe on a cocktail waitress or a show girl. We should start there!" Annabeth and Merri exchanged exasperated sighs and head shakes watching the junior protector limp his way after the waitress. If there was one thing they could both agree on, it was that Grover was hopeless when it came to women and food.

Another waitress, a blonde this time, came to them with a tray of candy lotuses. "Can I get you something?" She spoke in an overly sweet tone that made Merri think she risked getting diabetes just by listening to her. She had always hated people who pretended to be something they're not. "Try one of a lotus flower. They're sooo good! It's our signature dish!" The blonde pushed her tray under their noses. Grover looked at her with a puppy-eye look while another waitress approached and silently offered her tray to Percy and Merri, who stood a couple of feet to the side of Grover.

"Oh? Really, signature?" Grover asked with stupid amazement lacing his voice. "Is it good?" Grover, Percy and Annabeth all picked up a lotus flower while Merri seemed to hesitate a little. She had a feeling deep down that something was wrong here but seeing the looks the others gave her when she didn't take a flower she relented. After all, what damage could one piece of candy do? It's not like she's on some freaky diet she has to uphold! "YO! Do we have to pay for this?!" Grover yelled after the waitresses who went away as soon as Merri took the flower.

"I guess we don't," Percy concluded when the waitresses never came back.

"It's free!" Grover exclaimed in amazement.

Merri gave her lotus a suspicious look; it still gave her an uneasy feeling like something was off with it. The fact that they were free was also quite odd. She sniffed the flower she held between her fingers, it smelled like sugar and vanilla. Giving it one more look, Merri shrugged her shoulders and bit into the pink candy at the same time as the gang. It tasted like toffee and had a faint hint of vanilla. It wasn't the tastiest thing Merri had eaten; nothing was as good as her mum's lemon pie.

All of a sudden, her mind started to go blank and all she could think of was how good the flower tasted and how much she wanted to go and have fun, everything else aside.

"Wow," Grover commented after taking a bite out of his own flower. "This is the most delicious thing I've ever consumed."

The colours of Merri's surroundings were slowly starting to blur before clearing out and seeming more vivid than they did before. The music was pounding in her ears and she had a strong urge to go and dance. The others were looking around them as well and suddenly started giggling like a bunch of school girls. Or was it as if they've breathed too much laughing gas in? Huh, see, that's a really interesting observation.

"Guys, why don't we stay here for a while?" Annabeth proposed, Grover agreeing the second she finished the sentence. Merri felt torn between going on their way and finding the pearl and staying at the casino and probably having the most fun in her life.

"That sounds as an amazing idea," Percy said. Grover was slowly starting to sound more and more like the goat he partly was, the sound making the girls laugh almost hysterically. "But we're on a time sensitive mission, right now," he continued while Annabeth and Merri took one more bite out of their lotus flowers. "Aren't we?" he asked suddenly.

"I can't remember," Grover admitted.

"I totally forgot what I was going to say."

Annabeth got a shit-eating grin spread on her face. "I think I've figured it out," she informed. "I think I know why we're here."

Percy looked at the daughter of Athena with a blank stare, Merri doing the same. It seemed that the lotus flowers had a similar effect on the children of Poseidon. Even the ever focused Merri was having problems concentrating on the quest they had before them and all she could think of was that she wanted to go and have some fun. "Why are we here?" Percy asked.

"To have fun!"

"Okay," he nodded. "Let's never leave! Let's stay here!" Merri grinned at her brother's words and gave an excited 'yeah!' before the four teens started laughing together.

Merri got her arm around the boys' shoulders and with a huge grin that she would never make in public, were she in her normal state of mind, yelled: "Let's party!"

...

A few hours later found Merri on the dance floor with Grover and a bunch of other casino patrons. They were each doing a 'solo' to the casino's upbeat techno music while Percy and Annabeth were back at the bar with their drinks watching their friends having fun. Grover was out of his disguise and was sporting an orange wife-beater and a small hat on the top of his head while Merri was in her ripped jean shorts with ripped black leggings underneath, an indigo blue T-shirt and her red chucks while her hair was let down, falling all the way down to her waist. Whenever she raised her arms while dancing and her shirt would ride up a little, a glimpse of the tattoo she had over her side could be seen.

She was laughing and twirling with a wide grin on her freckled face. For a second, she wondered where her hoodie had disappeared to until she realized it was currently tied around her waist. She must've taken it off when she'd gotten too hot in it. A shot glass filled with whiskey in her hand- she'd snatched it off a tray of a random waitress passing her by- Merri made her way to the bar. Her feet were aching so she decided she would take a break for a while, sit down, and have a drink- or two-before continuing on her merry way. She had to laugh at the unintended pun in her head.

She was a t the completely different end of the bar than Annabeth and Percy due to the crowd. Percy located her with his gaze and she lifted her glass with a smile at her younger half-sibling in a manner of salute to let him know she was fine. Merri was sipping from her glass when another waitress with a tray of lotuses came by her and offered her some. In a trance, Merri grabber one and gave the waitress a grateful smile before the woman continued on her way. Swinging to the rhythm of the booming music, Merri made to take a bite out of the sugary flower when something stopped her.

"Don't eat the flower, Merriall," a familiar male voice whispered in her head. She felt like she'd heard that voice before, like she's supposed to know it but she couldn't remember where she'd heard it before. "It dulls the senses, keeps you prisoner here." She looked around to see if there was really someone talking to her but there was no one. She couldn't even see Percy and Annabeth anymore- they were carried away by the crowd- and Grover was nowhere to be accounted for. Merri put the flower down, finished her glass in one gulp and left the bar without a word.

What got her to believe the voice was its use of her full name and not the nicknames she had or the shorter versions she put on all of her IDs. Not even Jack, her step-dad, knew her name was Merriall. Only her mum and real father knew that.

Merri walked down the casino looking for anything amiss, or strange. Despite the slight buzz her drink was giving her, she could feel the effect of the louts flower slowly becoming weaker. Already the colours around her were starting to look increasingly normal and the music was pounding less in her head. She didn't even know why she was dancing to it in the first place- she never even liked techno and pop, she was more of a rock type of person.

"Would you like another lotus flower, miss?" a passing waitress asked Merri.

The girl shook her head and gave an apologetic smile. "No, thank you. I'm positively full." She side-stepped the blonde waitress and left without turning back. Her instincts were telling her to get the gang together, find the pearl and get the hell out of here as fast as possible. There was just something wrong with this entire place and it was giving her the creeps. It was simply too good to be true. Although, she had won over ten thousand dollars in a game of blackjack earlier.

"Look around you," the voice in her head insisted. "Focus! Focus!" She was in the gaming room with a massive variety of different arcade games, some of them dating even to the 1950s! Passing through, she was faced with an onslaught of blonde Barbie-like waitresses offering her lotus flowers and she kept rejecting each and every one of them. It seemed like they were literary popping out of thin air, they would just appear in front of Merri with a plate in their hands and a fake smile on their painted lips. She was almost knocked down on the floor by one of them appearing like that.

A couple minutes later, Merri finally bumped into a familiar face, Percy, and he looked like he'd seen a ghost or something. "You okay, mate?" she asked worriedly. He did look a little pale.

"You didn't eat any more of those flowers, right?" The frantic look on his face told her that he'd been off the flowers for about as long as she has.

Merri shook her head. "No, a voice told me not to eat any more of those so I didn't. Made me finally notice there's some serious weirdness going on around here," she explained.

Percy nodded at her words. "Yeah, me too." He took a breath before continuing. "I just ran into a guy who thinks it's still 1971!"

"What?!"

"Yeah. Anyhow, we gotta' find Annabeth and Grover. I mean, who knows how long we've been in here. " Merri could practically see the wheels turning in her brother's head as her started thinking of a plan to get out. "We get them, find the pearl and get the hell outta here! What do you say?"

She grinned. "Just what I was thinking. We better stay together, though," Merri said. "If we get separated, then the chances are that one of us will get under the influence of those bloody flowers again! I knew there was a reason I hated pink," she finished muttering to herself but Percy heard her and laughed as they started making their way back to the bar where Percy said her left Annabeth at.

The voice in her head had started talking again and from the looks of Percy frowning at thin air and putting his hand on his temples he was hearing the voice too. "Merriall, wake up! You need to escape! Wake up!" The voice was persistent, she'd give it that but she wasn't very fond of its use of her full name. All she missed was for it to start using her middle name as well. Merri felt a small migraine developing behind her eyes. She was definitely going to need a shit load of aspirin to finish this quest by the looks of it. More and more waitressed started bugging them with the bloody flowers and Merri swore that if she never saw another flower it would be too soon for comfort.

Percy suddenly stopped near one of the roulette tables causing Merri, who was walking a step or two behind him, to bump into the younger demi-god. She came to stand by his side with a questioning look.

"What is it?"

He pointed at the table. "Look." And there it was, the thing they were looking for, sitting in plain sight. The pearl was being used as a roulette ball on the table Percy had stopped at.

Merri grinned and patted his shoulder. "You have keen eyes Master Jackson," she said. Percy looked at her in confusion. "What?!" she defensively exclaimed. "Don't tell me you've never read the Hobbit!"

Percy gave her a dead-pan look. "I'm dyslexic."

Merri cringed slightly as she remembered. "Oh yeah, I need to remember that," she muttered to herself. Then another waitress showed up offering them lotus flowers. Merri just gave an exasperated sigh as Percy proceeded to argue with the blonde woman.

"No! I really don't want another lotus flower, so, please, leave me alone!" One of the male workers of the casino popped up out of nowhere next to the siblings.

"Is there a problem Mister Jackson? Miss Rafter?" the man asked turning to Merri. Merri and Percy gave him calculated looks.

Merri shook her head silently as Percy started backing off from the casino employees. "No, thank you." They turned around and weaved their way through the crowd in another attempt of reaching their companions.

They found Annabeth dancing with some more people not far from the bar they left her at. The grey-eyed demi-goddess was doing some slightly awkward dance while holding a half-eaten lotus flower in her hand and laughing like she'd been breathing laughing gas as oxygen. Percy immediately pulled her from the crowd. "What're you doing with that? Gimmie that! Don't eat that!" He threw Annabeth's flower away from her and the girl started protesting.

"What did you do that for?! We were having so much fun!"

Merri came around Annabeth's other side and grabbed Annabeth by her elbow starting to lead her in Grover's general direction. "We have to go," the ginger said in a clip tone that left no room for argument. "And we weren't having fun," she added as an afterthought.

They found Grover sprawled on a couch in the night-club part of the casino, surrounded by women. It seemed like the satyr had finally gotten his wish to come true. Women were over him like flies on manure.

Percy was yelling at the junior protector and waving his arms like a windmill trying to get the latter's attention. When the satyr finally looked away from the girls and to his friends Percy said: "Grover, wake up! We've got to go!"

Grover looked at Percy with a confused and mostly agitated look. "Perce, your timing is terrible, okay?" he said while scooting closer to his friends in his seat. "Dude, we're heading to the chapel, we're getting married!" He excitedly looked at the entire pack of girls surrounding him. Annabeth had a happy excited grin on her face while the siblings just looked at the satyr with a mix of surprise and annoyance.

"How romantic!" Annabeth quipped at what Merri just scoffed and crossed her arms across her chest.

Grover was looking at his 'pack' with confusion. "Hey, which one of you did I propose to?" Every girl in the 'pack' raised their arms excitedly. Merri was getting sick of all this stalling, so she grabbed a glass of what seemed to be water and threw it in Grover's face, completely soaking his head and getting some of the girls in the crossfire as well.

"Wake up!" she practically growled at the satyr.

The satyr just got up from his seat with his face still dripping and patted Merri's cheek. "Girl, you're such a buzz kill." The look that fell over Merri's now blue eyes was enough to make any sane person and monster run for the hills but, alas, it had no effect on the buzzed satyr.

"Percy, what's wrong with you two?" Annabeth turned to Percy. "Why are you doing this?"

"Both of you need to wake up!" Percy caught Grover by the shoulder when the latter started o turn away from him. "We're in a trance! We're trapped! Listen, if you eat the flowers, you'll never want to leave. We'll be stuck her forever!"

Looks of amazement and, seemingly, shock crossed Annabeth and Grover's faces. Merri spotted the man in the suit looking over at them and talking to the security man. She tapped Percy's shoulder and wordlessly pointed at the two men without breaking eye-contact. "Could you have told them in any less conspicuous way?!" Merri harshly whispered.

Percy just ignored her. "Oh, no. We've got to go." They quickly collected their stuff and started going in the direction of the nearest exit. They split up into pairs- Annabeth and Percy, and Grover and Merri. The latter duo ran into the security who tried to stop them from leaving.

Grover gave a little girlish scream when the security popped up, but both he and Merri quickly came to. The satyr used his crutches as leverage as he delivered a donkey kick to the security detail that stood behind him and then knocked out the other one by hitting him over the head with them. Merri hastily slammed the heel of her foot into one man's crotch, incapacitating him for a good measure of time. The second man lunged at her but she side-stepped his arm and delivered a brutal slam of her hand to his face, bringing his unconscious.

Grover and Merri nodded at each other's handiwork and ran after Percy and Annabeth. Running past the roulette tables, Merri spotted Percy standing on one and putting the pearl into his pocket. Annabeth and Grover were a little to the front. Still in full charge, Merri grabbed Percy's outstretched arm, pulling him down from the table to her side and using the force to swing herself around her brother and throw an accurate roundhouse kick to the head of a security man that managed to get a little too close for comfort. Regaining her balance, the siblings followed their friends in the direction of the prize car. They huddled together with Grover driving, Percy as shotgun and Annabeth and Merri in the back. Grover made quick work with finding the keys, turned up the car and drove them out of the damn casino, right though the main glass doors and out onto the road.

All pumped up, Grover yelled: "Now that's how you get out of a casino! That's how you drive!" He obviously failed to notice the girls practically rolling all over the back seat from his driving.

Annabeth got a look of understanding and sat up so she was between the front seats. "Of course! Not it all makes sense." she informed them in a way that had them all going for the bloody pronoun game Merri hated playing with Annabeth. It was just one of the things the older demi-goddess didn't like about the daughter of Athena.

Percy took the bait and asked the question. "What?" Merri rolled her eyes and sat back in her seat, pulling her bag from her back to her lap and starting to rummage through it in search for something.

"It was the den of the 'Lotus Eaters'," Annabeth explained. She turned a bit in her seat to see if Merri was listening to her to find the older girl practically waist deep in her backpack. Scoffing, she turned back to the boys. "They've been luring people into their traps since the ancient times."

"Guys," Grover started. "Tomorrow's June 21st," he said pointing to the giant screen with the date on it. The statement caused Merri to abruptly pull her head out of the bag and although she was seeing light spots all around her vision.

"Come again," She demanded while rubbing her fists into her eyes in an attempt of alleviating the amount of the spots in her vision.

"We were in there for five days!" They all exclaimed.

"It felt like hours!" Grover said.

Merris shook her head. "Guys, it doesn't matter. The solstice is tomorrow and we have to get to Hades pronto. Percy," she turned to her brother. "What does the map say? Where to next?"

Percy pulled the map out of his backpack and unfolded it. A new location popped up on the parchment, a little bit to the west from their current location. Annabeth, Merri and Percy stared at the map in wonder for a moment. "Hollywood?" Percy asked.

"Hollywood, huh?" Grover confirmed. "Okay, Hollywood. I can get us there in four hours, maybe three." He gave them a look that said he would try but couldn't promise.

Annabeth and Merri leaned back in their seats in preparation for the drive. Annabeth was probably contemplating what their plan, once they got to Hades, would be. Merri turned her head to the window and was looking at the city lights passing them by at an almost blinding speed due to Grover's speeding.

She felt a little uncomfortable in the back seat. Mind you, it had nothing to do with Annabeth Chase sitting right next to her. Rather, it felt weird to her that she was not the one driving right now. Up to this point, she was the self-appointed designated driver of the group.

In an attempt of drowning out the silence that fell over the car, Merri pulled out her iPod from her bag and put her earplugs, turning the music to a deafening volume. Seconds later, her foot started tapping the rhythm of the song while she closed her eyes and her head bobbed to the beat. She pulled out a granola bar she had left from before and opened it once her stomach decided to treat the gang with its best impression of a blue whale. "Let me know when you're tired so I can take over the wheel," she informed Grover while pausing the song that was playing for the moment. "If there's nothing else you need me for, I'll be turning in. I haven't slept in five days." She continued the song and snuggled deeper into her seat, trying to get comfortable. She was asleep within seconds.

AN: And there it is, ladies and gents! The finished chapter 9. I'm fully aware it's only a small bit longer than the version I had published previously, but I thought that this few parts I added didn't belong in the next chapter, so here they are.

For all informational purposes, this chapter was fully finished on Friday the 3rd of October, at 8 p.m.

Hope you enjoy and please leave me a comment in the reviews and keep your eyes and ears open for the chance of catching the sequel of this story once it's published.

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