stollen things || c. stoll

3.4 ~ The Land Without Rain

By sunset, we'd passed out of the mountains and into desert. At nightfall, we stopped at a creek bed and dismounted. "He won't go any farther. We have to get off before he's done eating."

No one protested. I summoned a couple extra apples for him, then we went as far as we could from the boar before it turned and ran back east.

I watched it go, then turned around to face our next obstacle. A junkyard. Let me rephrase that. A giant junkyard, stretching for miles and miles and miles, full of automobiles and scrap metal.

Lucky for us, climbing through miles of junkyard in the dead of night is my favorite activity. No dirt, no plants, no trees. Just metal. So I wasn't going to be much help.

"Maddy. Any chance you can track what's out there?" Everyone turned to me.

"I can track movement, so let's find out," I squatted down and placed a hand on the dry earth. I shut my eyes and reached out. I could feel my fellow half-bloods (and Zoë), the very few plants that were within the next fifty miles, and lots of very very heavy metal. "It seems deserted. I can't feel any monsters, but this is definitely a godly thing. So there's magic in there, which includes a possible non-living threat."

"Like skeletons?" Percy asked.

"No, more like booby traps. I say, we go around. Far around. We're in the land without rain, and going into a dangerous junkyard doesn't help our luck." I said grimly.

We agreed on camping for the night rather than going in in pitch dark. We set up sleeping bags Bianca and Zoë had brought and started a fire. We talked about the stars and gave Zoë a grammar lesson.

"We should plan our next move," Zoë said. "When we get through here, we continue west. We hitchhike to the nearest city, Las Vegas."

"No!" Bianca cried. "Not there!" She was almost shaking.

"Why?" Zoë frowned. I didn't know much about Las Vegas, but I did know that it's where lots of people go to have fun. Bianca didn't look excited.

"I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then," She scrunched her face. "I can't remember."

I got sad at the thought of Nico. I wondered if he was being accepted at camp.

"Bianca," Percy said warily. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?"

Bianca's eyes widened. "How did you know that?"

"Oh, great," He sighed.

"What's the Lotus Casino?" Thalia and I asked at the same time, then shot each other a look. It wasn't a glare though. Maybe we were getting along better. Maybe.

"A couple of years ago," Percy started. "Grover, Annabeth, and I got trapped there. It's designed so you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour. When we came out, five days had passed. It makes time speed up."

Bianca was actually trembling now. "No. No, that's not possible."

"You said someone came and got you out," Percy said.

"Yes."

"What did he look like? What did he say?"

"I don't remember. Please, I don't want to talk about this." Bianca said.

Zoë leaned forward. "You said that Washington, D.C. had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway being there."

"Yes, but-"

"Bianca?" I knit my eyebrows with concern. "Can you tell us the name of the president of the United States right now?"

"Easy." She told us the correct name.