I woke up to Grover knocking on the door of the car, a little sore from sleeping in such an awkward position, but I could live with that thanks to the fact that my hand was still in Annabeths
"My turn to watch?" I asked, opening the door a little.
"Nah, man, the trains stopped. This is as far as it's going."
"Annie, wake up. We gotta get some food and coffee, " I mumbled, remembering the words my father had painstakingly written down under a pen name. People across the world thought his adventures were fiction, but I knew better.
Once we'd gotten everyone up and our things ready, we found ourselves in a ski town, quiet and peaceful. Seems the tourists weren't flocking here this year. It would be perfect if my hoodie wasn't on Annabeth and the cold air wasn't blowing so hard.
"Welcome to Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Home of nothing, but that's okay. We only have a few minutes before a giant pig and some skeletons up anyway. Can't remember which show up first, though." I mumbled, a wind that felt like a warm breeze in the cold winter air, fresh air and sunshine and flowers. It also didn't help that Grover passed out because of it.
As I looked at the small town, I remembered that tomorrow, one of us would be dead.
"As much as i try to alter fate, and we're still here?! Damn it." I complained, the sounds of the skeletons interrupting my pity party.
"A"Bianca, command them to leave us alone. You're the only one who can stop them." I told her, putting up aegis to protect the two of us.
"How? I don't know anything about magic skeletons." She protested, and I remembered that tragedy struck before she could ever find out the truth.
"You are the daughter of Hades, God of the dead, and ruler of the underworld. You can stop them because the dead are your domain." I told her quietly, hoping to keep it between us for now.
Whatever doubts she had, she put them behind her, walking out and staring down the skeletons, who were armed with guns. I had to admit, she looked cool.
"Leave us alone!" She told them, a fury in her normally quiet and peaceful voice. I wasn't even sure I'd heard her really be angry before, and watching the ground crack and swallow the skeletons whole, I didn't I want to again.
"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen." Percy spoke, squealing ruining the moment as a giant boar ran into town. It's weird that this happened so suddenly, but I guess originally it was to put distance between them and the skeletons.
"Okay, I'll take the boar, I know where to take it. You guys follow us." I told them, shaking the nerves off. This was the first really dangerous thing I'd be doing.
"Don't die, you stupid eel." Annabeth told me, getting a thumbs up before I raised aegis and ran out, getting the boars attention before heading up a hill, ducking and dodging the trees.
"Dear whichever God of whatever pantheon, please don't let me die!" I yelled, running alongside trains tracks half buried in the snow, leading the animal onto a trestle bridge, waiting a few seconds for the pig to catch before jumping over the side, sliding on my shield like a snowboard before hitting a rock, tumbling down and feeling pain shoot through my arm as I skidded to a stop.
The boar, on the other hand, couldn't stop landing in the snowbank below and getting stuck.
"Are you dead?" Bianca asked, calling from atop the hill.
"I dunno. Probably not." I called back, waiting until the others had climbed down before I had Percy check my arm.
"I don't think it's broken, but you definitely got lucky." He told me, poking the bruise a little.
"Then I know my prayer reaches someone upstairs." I mumbled, slapping his hand away.
"A blessing of the wild." Grover muttered, looking at the boar.
"What makes this thing so blessed?" Thalia asked, Zoë looking over.
"Did you not feel it? I thought I'd never feel that presence again."
"We all felt the presence of Pan." I muttered, thinking about it. I got to feel the power of a god who was dead in my time. as they spoke about what to do before hopping on the back of the boar with the others.
We rode until sundown, sneaking off while it drank dirty water and ate a few cacti before running back to the mountains.
Once we'd gotten got camp set up, we had to face an ugly truth. One they'd forgotten the first time around.
"We're in a land without rain. Despite everything, one of you might die." I told them, poking the fire Thalia had gotten going with a stick, the silence telling me all I needed to know.
"Las Vegas, the Lotus Hotel and Casino. Raise your hands if you've ever been there." I finally asked, watching four hands go up.
"Really. Wow. And uh, who's the current president?" I asked, everyone answering correctly.
"This one's for Bianca now. Who was the president before that?"
She thought about it for a moment before answering.
"Roosevelt." She answered, Zoë looking a bit unnerved.
"Franklin or Theodore?" She asked Bianca, who answered immediately
"Franklin."
"So, the Lotus Hotel and Casino actually makes time slow around you. You've been there for roughly like..." Percy muttered, trying to do the math in his head.
"Seventy years." Annabeth told her.
"We were there an hour and five days passed, and we barely got out. How'd you manage to escape after so long?" Percy pressed, Bianca needing a few seconds to put it together.
"A man came and told us it was time to leave." She sputtered out, still a bit in shock about it all.
"Probably Hades. After hiding you and Nico so Zeus couldn't kill you both, it makes sense to wait until both his brothers break their pact before retrieving you. And since you were both born before the prophecy, Hades, often seen as a bad guy, is the only one of the big three not to break their word." I filled them in before a white limo coming for us before we moved out the way, the door opening as I pushed Percy out the way. It was a needless gesture, the sword planted firmly at my throat instead.
"Lord Ares. It's so good to see you committing adultery. Such a good example for us lowly mortsls. Gotta make sure i tell my pal Clarisse about her dad." I told him, my finger on the button to release my scythe, my friends gathering their wits and their weapons before Ares forced them to drop it.
"Why don't your pals here get some tacos?" He asked, snapping his fingers and bringing the deserted shop to life. I wondered who was in there.
"Don't worry about me. I think I know what this is about. Can you get me some chicken tacos, though?" I asked, getting thrown in the backseat of the limo.
"I'm not even gonna try to be polite. What do you want, Aphrodite?" I asked, crossing my arms and ignoring the fact she looked like Annabeth, Will, Bianca, and finally people I couldn't remember or didn't know the names of, but I'd crushed on or thought were beautiful. You get the idea. She was an ever-changing personification of attraction.
"Why, I help you out, and you can't even be a little polite?" She asked, trying to put a mirror in my hands so she could do her makeup.
"No. Because you want to pretend that I'm doing this for love, when in reality, I want to save the people I never got to meet." I replied, setting the mirror in the seat next to me.
"But isn't that part of why you're here? So you can make sure one of the things that changes doesn't become Annabeth dying?" She asked, laughing at the redness on my cheeks.
"It doesn't matter. Once i cross the border, I'll cast off this Greek curse and go home. It doesn't matter how I feel once I walk into new Rome." I told her, gripping the door handle, ready to leave.
"I care about Annie, which is why I have to leave as soon as I can." I told her, opening to the limo door.
"Send in, Percy, would you dear?" She asked, and I went to find him, sending him to her next as I was questioned.
"What did she want?" Bianca asked, my cheeks flushing red as I thought about it.
"She's in love with a romantic storyline. Maybe two." I told them, thinking about her words over and over again, finally sccepting them as the truth.
As soon as Percy was done talking to the goddess, we were transported right in the middle of the giant junkyard.