Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Hey y'all, if you didn't realize it already, today was a double update! Go back to the previous chapter if you haven't read it yet. ;)

Hope y'all enjoy, and until next week,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 16: We Spend Some Time Hitchhiking Pt. 2~

Ares was waiting for us in the diner parking lot.

"Well, well, well," he said. "Here comes my two cousins and their friend, safe and sound after all."

I glared at him as best as I could, with an accusing, "You knew it was a trap."

He shrugged and gave me a wicked grin. "So maybe I did, it doesn't matter. You got me my shield and a nice TV skit while you were at it. That takes some style, kid."

"You're a jerk," I said as I rolled my eyes and shoved his shield at him, causing both Silena and Katie to catch their breath. "Now, where's our ride."

Ares snickered. "Bossy, bossy." He grabbed his shield properly then and spun it around in the air like pizza dough. It changed form as he did so, melting into a bulletproof vest, which he slung across his back before he said, "See that truck over there?" He pointed to an eighteen-wheeler parked across the street from the diner. "That's your ride. It'll take you straight to LA, with only one stop in Vegas."

I stared at the eighteen-wheeler warily. The trailer was black with wavy white strips on it, like a zebra, and the text on the back of it was white, too – which was good, because it made it easy to read with my dyslexia. The text read: KINDNESS INTERNATIONAL: HUMANE ZOO TRANSPORT. WARNING: LIVE WILD ANIMALS.

"You're kidding," I said, once I'd finished reading.

Ares snapped his fingers. The back door of the trailer unlatched. "Free ride west, punk," he replied. "Stop complaining. And here's a little something for doing the job."

He slung a blue nylon backpack off of his handlebars and tossed it to me. It was already open at the top, so after I caught it I could easily tell that inside there were more fresh clothes for all of us, along with twenty bucks of cash, a pouch full of golden drachmas, and a bag of Double Stuf Oreos.

Still, I didn't want it. Ares had tricked me and the way he had done it was low, even for a god. So, as I zipped up the bag, I said, "Look, I don't want your stupid – "

Before I could say anything more than that, Katie cut me off. "Thank you, Lord Ares," she said, and gave me her best warning look for good measure. "Thanks a lot."

I gritted my teeth, but nevertheless reluctantly slung the backpack over my shoulder. I mean, I knew my anger was being caused by Ares' presence, but that didn't stop me from wanting to just throw him back his bag of shit and be done with it, even though he just might've turned me into a prairie dog like he'd said for it. Because the war god reminded me of every bully I'd ever faced: Hudson Lake, Smelly Gabe, sarcastic teachers who had never believed in me, and every other jerk who had called me stupid in school or had laughed in my face when I'd gotten expelled. And I didn't need the help of anybody who was like that. Not a single bit of it.

Anxiously, I looked back at the diner, which had only a couple of customers now. The waitress who had served us dinner was watching us nervously through the window, her face pale and her eyes wide, as if she was afraid Ares was going to hurt us or something – if that was the case, then I didn't blame her. Still, I didn't like how she dragged the fry cook out from the kitchen to goggle at us too, or how they seemed to have a short conversation before he fished out a little disposable camera from his apron and snapped a picture of us.

Great, I thought with a grimace. Time for me to make the papers again.

I could just see the headline now: FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY MISSING FROM NEW YORK FOUND TALKING TO BIKER THUG IN COLORADO.

The thought of the headline made me think about the first one, which in turn made me think about my mom. "Hey," I told Ares, trying to keep my voice level because of the picture of my fist in his face that was currently rolling through my brain. "I want one more thing from you."

He sneered. "What? That bag ain't enough for you, punk? You a spoiled brat or something?"

I ignored his jibe. "What do you know about my mom?"

Ares raised an eyebrow. "Your mom? What, do I look like old Death or something?"

"No," I said. "I just...I have a feeling if any of the gods knows something and is willing to share it, it's you."

At first, I thought he was going to kill me right then and there for that comment, but after a moment his sneer turned into a dark grin and he laughed. "Dionysus was right," he remarked. "You are smarter than you look. And just for your smarts, I'll tell you this one thing: your mother isn't dead, punk. She's still alive, and she's being kept by old Death as a hostage, so that he can control you. So if you want her back and all that, your best bet is to find that helm of his before the solstice. Otherwise..." He summoned a steel knife into his hands.

Despite his meddling over my emotions, waves of relief crashed over me as he spoke. I was right. Thank gods I was right. My mom was alive. And that was all that mattered to me at this point. "Thank you," I told him honestly, my shoulders slumping from the release of all of the tension that I had been experiencing ever since I had woken up and discovered that my mom was missing.

Ares' grin widened. "Don't thank me yet, punk," he said. "We'll meet again in the near future. That's when you can thank me."

Then, getting on his motorbike, he revved it and roared off down Delancy Street.

Next to me, Silena groaned. "Only you can piss off the war god and somehow get on his good side because of it, Percy," she told me. I took it as a compliment. "Now, come on. We need to get on that struck before the guys who drive it decide to finish up in the diner – or worse, somehow notice us."

With that, the three of us ran across the street and climbed in the back of the open trailer, before closing the doors behind us.

The trailer was dark inside and it smelled something awful, as if it was the world's biggest pan of kitty litter. With a grimace of disgust, I uncapped Riptide, Anaklusma, for the first time since I had used it to cut off Medusa's head all the way back in New York. The blade casted a faint bronze light in the trailer, and revealed a scene that made my stomach churn in disgust and pity: a scene depicting a zebra, a male albino lion, and an antelope that I didn't know the name for, all filthy-looking and malnourished.

Part of the reason for the malnourishment, I assumed, was because the lion had a sack of turnips in his cage, which he obviously didn't want to eat, and the zebra and the antelope each had gotten a styrofoam tray of hamburger meat, which they also looked disgusted at. The zebra's mane was matted with chewing gum, like somebody had been spitting on it in their spare time, and the antelope had a stupid silver birthday balloon tied to one of its horns that read: OVER THE HILL!

And none of this was even mentioning how all of them were sitting in cages that were way too small for them, with soiled blankets and no water next to their ill-matched food. All of them had all of their ribs showing as well, which was somehow even more sickening than the other signs of malnourishment put together.

Right behind me, Katie let out a low moan that almost sounded like a sob. "This is kindness?" she asked no in particular. "Humane zoo transport?"

"Katie," Silena began softly.

Katie wasn't listening to her, though. In fact, she didn't seem to be capable of listening to anyone in that moment, because there was a dangerous look in her eyes and I could see vines poking out of her skin, growing at a rate that was a lot faster than what I had thought she was capable of.

Suddenly, Luke's words about her being dangerous because she was a child of the eldest gods didn't seem so funny anymore.

I swallowed hard as I tried to figure out what to do. Obviously, Katie wasn't going to let us just sit here and let the animals be abused any longer – no, scratch that, I wasn't going to just sit here and let the animals be abused any longer. But we needed to go west, somehow, someway, and Ares had at least been agreeable enough to give us the truck...

...The truck. He had given us the truck.

But he hadn't given us the people driving it.

"Silena," I said, turning to look at her. "Do you know how to drive?"

She frowned. "My dad gave me practice lessons before I left this summer, since I'd turn fifteen and a half in August. Why would you..." she trailed off as her eyes lit up in recognition. She gave me a hesitant grin. "Are you sure about this, Percy? I haven't had much experience driving, you know. Just a few lessons, and those were in a car, not a semi."

I grinned back. "Well, I haven't had any, so you're already loads better than me," I said. Then, I turned to look at Katie. "Katie, you want to help us get revenge on the douchebags that did this."

She looked up at me with glassy eyes and a frown, but those both quickly gave way to deadly mischievousness. Good, she hadn't been nearly as bad as I'd thought. "What do you have in mind?" she asked.

"You'll see," I told her. I grabbed both her and Silena by the arms and tugged them along. "Come on, guys. Let's go show those assholes what Kindness International really means."

Three hours later, we were driving along I-70 West, with a radio station smoothly playing all of the hits from the '70s and '80s in the background. Katie was sleeping on the bed right behind the two front seats, which I hadn't ever realized existed before but now didn't know why it wouldn't've. Silena was in the driver's seat, her beautiful face showcasing an expression of determination, the kind of which probably could've set a thousand ships to sea if she really wanted them to. And I was sitting in the passenger seat, munching on my portion of the Double Stuf Oreos and watching her drive in case she fucked up somehow in spite of her actually amazing driving skills.

Although, I have to say, her driving skills were no match for her breaking-into-and-hotwiring-a-semi-truck skills, because those were by far some of the best skills I had ever seen in that area, even if the skill set itself was pretty niche.

"Do you think we did the right thing?" Silena suddenly asked me.

I couldn't help but jump in surprise at her words, causing the crumbs from my cookies to go flying. "Shit!" I hissed, and watched as the small, dark brown flecks flew into the area around my seat. "Silena, you just made me spill my crumbs!"

She rolled her eyes. "You don't eat crumbs, Percy. That's why they're called 'crumbs.' Now, answer my question: did we do the right thing?"

"The right thing about what?" I questioned back, confused. "I mean, you know as well as I do that those Kindness International guys had all of this coming to them with the way they treated those animals back there."

"Yeah, they did, but that's not what I'm talking about. I just – " she sighed. "I'm just worried about whether or not we're going to survive this quest, okay? I know we probably will, but I can't help but think about how Drew, Laurel, Mitchell, and Lacy would feel if I didn't come back...how my dad would feel, if I didn't come back. And what would happen if we failed and didn't get the gods their symbols back, if World War III would break loose and if...that would really be such a bad thing."

The last part, she said with her voice barely above a whisper.

I blinked in surprise. That had been the most words I'd heard Silena say at all up until that point, and the truth in them was something that I had silently been wondering myself. I mean, obviously I didn't want to die. Obviously, I didn't want World War III to happen, because that would be bad. But. Back at Yancy, one of the books that Chiron had had us read was Ovid's Metamorphoses in translation, and if even a fraction of it was true in this world of gods and monsters...

The gods were not nice people. Well, maybe some of them were, but as a whole they were not. They'd done the same...things that Gabe did to me to other people, mortals and other gods alike. They turned mortals into animals whenever they got even the slightest bit offended, like Athena with Arachne or how Ares had just threatened to do with me and Silena and Katie earlier. And they didn't interfere with the lives of their kids, not when they'd absolutely needed it like me, not unless they were already dying and about to let out their last breaths like Thalia Grace, the daughter of Zeus.

Why was I on this quest, again? I reminded myself. It wasn't because of the gods, I couldn't give any less of a damn about my father when he could've saved me at any point in the last nine years but hadn't. It was because of my mom, my mom who was very much alive and in need of my help, and my own life. In that order.

Still, these were just my thoughts. I almost couldn't believe that it turned out Silena, who had known she was a demigod since she was a little kid, thought the same.

"We're going to survive this quest," I said, a little resolutely, a little not. "You're not going to end up like your brother."

Abruptly, Silena jerked. She didn't let out a scream, but it was a very near thing as she turned her head to look at me with wide, kaleidoscopic eyes. "How do you know that?" she whispered.

As nonchalantly as I could manage, given that she'd confirmed something I'd only thought was a theory up until now, I shrugged. "When me and Luke were trying to recruit you for this quest, you said that children of A – your mom don't go on quests. Luke corrected you, said that most children don't. I figured there had to be some sort of history there by the way you two acted."

"But how did you know he was my brother?"

"Lucky guess?" I countered. When she fixed me with a penetrating glare in between looking back at the road, I took my bottom lip into my mouth, before admitting, "Luke told me about his quest. Well, he didn't really say anything about it, just said that it ended...badly, but Katie also told me before that that it'd been a while since anyone had been interested in Luke. I'm not stupid, I put two and two together. And I'm not wrong, am I?"

Silena let out a low moan, briefly closing her eyes. "No, Percy. You're not wrong."

Well, shit, I thought.

Here was something I had never wanted to be right about.

Carefully, I chose my next words. "What...what can you tell me about him?"

"Not much," she replied, shaking her head. "It's not...my story to tell, Percy. It's Luke's, and I really want you two together, and that means he's got to be the one to tell you when he's ready for it. But, he was my brother, and he was a son of my mom. His name was Alan, Alan Bolloré."

I turned the name over inside my mind. It didn't sound familiar to me, but then again, why would it? It's not like I had ever met Silena's half-brother before.

After a few minutes of silence, she spoke up again. "Promise me you won't mention that I told you this to Luke, okay, Percy? At least, not until he's ready. Because he really should be the one to tell you about all this stuff and I don't want him to kill me – or preferably not until I've had my first kiss with Ally, anyways."

I sighed. "Okay, I promise. Whatever you think is best, since you figured out Luke and I liked each other before we did..." I trailed off as the rest of what she'd just said hit me. "Wait. You like Ally? As in Alabaster, the son of Hecate?"

Silena blushed. Hard. Which as an impressive sight, all things considered, because I'd never seen her blush before. I hadn't even known children of Aphrodite were capable of blushing, although now that I thought about it, I didn't know why they wouldn't be. Capable, I mean. "Shut up," she hissed at me, drawing me out of my short-circuited train of thought.

But I couldn't just let this go. "Μὰ θεούς," I said, stunned. "You like Alabaster. Alabaster likes you. How have you two not managed to kiss each other yet? Or kill each other. I mean, no offense, but he seems pretty predisposed to doing both when it comes to you."

"Gee, none taken." Silena rolled her eyes. "I tried asking him out at the beginning of summer, before you arrived. He said no."

"He said 'no?'" I cried out. "But Silena, you're – "

"A daughter of Aphrodite," she finished smoothly. No, not smoothly. Angrily. "Apparently because most children of Aphrodite don't go on quests, we're not womanly – or manly – enough for him. Like any of that matters. Nobody's been on a quest for two years."

"Until now, you mean," I countered. "You agreed to go on this quest. Was it because of that?"

She blushed again. "No!"

"If you did, I don't blame you," I said honestly. With her going on the quest it meant that I didn't have to deal with Annabeth, and I was incredibly thankful for that. No bratty children of Athena for me to put up with.

"I didn't!" she insisted, huffing.

"Okay, okay," I replied, shrugging. "It doesn't really matter, anyways. I'm almost certain that Alabaster just said that because he was scared. I mean, did he tell you that you weren't womanly enough for him, or was that just something you thought he meant?"

Her silence was an answer in of itself. With a grin, I shook my head and stretched out my arms. "Tell you what," I said. "Once we get back to camp after this quest, because we will survive this quest, I'll help you out with Alabaster like you helped me out with Luke. It'll be my thanks for both coming on this quest with me and and helping me realize that Luke has feelings for me, too."

Silena glanced over at me with wide, nervous eyes. "Really? You'd do that?"

"Of course." I didn't mention how I had no idea how I was going to help her, a daughter of the love goddess, ask out the guy she liked. It was more than just a little paradoxical – not that I was going to tell her that. "That's what friends do, right?"

She smiled. "Yeah, that's what friends do."

And with that, we continued on into the dark desert night.

Word Count: 3,344

Next Chapter Title: The Lotus Hotel & Casino Pt. 1