Uniting As The Ten- Part Two Of The Conclusion To The United Series

Chapter Twenty One

^^^I saw these somewhere and this is almost exactly how I picture Finnian. So, here you go, I guess.

Max's POV:

I hate Octavian.

Ten seconds have passed after he's leading me to the car we're going to use to drive to New York (yes, drive, hours with Octavian nonstop) and I already want to shoot myself.

"Look, I hate this, too, but we're just going to have to roll with it." Octavian tells me and I almost gag. Gods, why? Why him? Why not Finn or some other nice Mogadorian?

Octavian leads me out the doors, into the desert, and to a black van holding two backpacks in the back seats. He climbs into the driver's seat and pulls out the car keys from his Mogadorian trench coat pocket. He turns to me and sees me just standing outside the door. He raises an eyebrow at me and I roll my eyes at him before jumping into the passenger seat. Octavian starts the car and immediately starts driving away. I look into the rearview mirror at Dulce Base until it's just a black blur in the distance. I'll be coming back here in about a week, and when I do, I'm going to be forced to call that place home.

Octavian is silent the whole time, which is perfectly fine with me. He stares ahead at the road and doesn't say a word. He's not a bad driver, I'll give him that, though I doubt he has a driver's license. Then again, nor do I, so whatever.

Octavian glances at me staring out the window and looks down at my hands, which I realize are constantly moving like tapping my knees and fiddling with the hem of my t-shirt. He sighs and takes one hand off the wheel, digging through his trench coat pocket and pulling out something small and gray with black on it. He places it on my lap and automatically focuses on the road again.

I look down at what he gave me and pick it up. It's a small gray cube with a bunch of small black buttons and a silver ball to fiddle with on all the sides. I so badly want to press all the buttons already. I'm sorry, I just really like pressing buttons.

"What is this?" I ask Octavian, holding the cube away from me a bit.

"A fidget cube. Your tapping is annoying." Octavian replies and that gets me wondering. I know Octavian physically, and I know that he isn't nearly as ADHD as other demigods like Leo. He definitely doesn't need a fidget cube, so why is he carrying this thing around?

"Thanks." I mutter, playing around with the fidget cube. Within mintues I'm fidgeting with it subconciously while I stare out the window again. Octavian glances at me multiple times as I play with the fidget cube, which kind of makes me want to punch him even more.

Only twenty-nine hours of this bull to go.

---

Hours pass until it's dark outside, and gods deserts are cold at night.

Octavian the Slightly Less Jerky Jerk in a Coat parked the car in a parking lot of a small town we passed by. He told me to stay in the car while he gets something from the town. He didn't tell me what he was getting- probably cause I didn't ask.

And gods forbid if government-issued cars have working heat.

So I curl myself into a little ball on the seat and try my best to stay warm. I feel like falling asleep but I'm interrupted by the driver seat door opening. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Octavian climbing into the car with two cups of whatever it is he's holding.

"Here." He calls to me, handing me one of the cups. I slowly take it from him and realize that it's coffee. A nice, hot cup of coffee.

I take the lid off the cup and sniff around for anything other than caffeine.

"What are you doing?" Octavian asks me, staring at me sniffing my coffee with a confused expression.

"Just checking if you drugged it." I answer bluntly. Octavian's silent for seconds until I place the lid back on, now sure that it's just regular coffee.

"What?" He sounds surprised. I take a sip of the hot drink and almost smile at the burst of warmth it provides.

"It's happened before, I just want to make sure it never happens again." I reply, and that's true. Remo once gave me a glass of water when I was at the West Virginia base. I knew that it smelled a bit funny, but I let it slide and drank it anyways. Turns out it was heavily drugged and I woke up strapped to a hospital bed. I'm pretty sure you know what happened after that.

Octavian stares at me for seconds before pulling himself out of his shock and placing his coffee in the cup holder and driving out of the parking lot. He continues down the road until we're back on driving in the sand. I look down at the coffee cup in my hand, then glance at Octavian, who's biting his lip for whatever reason, and slightly smile.

"Thank you." I thank him. He stops biting his lip and glances at me. He coughs once- almost nervously- before responding.

"You're welcome."

He's silent for only a few more seconds before speaking up again.

"I want you to know that I would never drug you, Max." Octavian tells me. 'Max', not 'Jackson' for once.

"I-I don't do that." He adds in.

"Uh...thank you?"

"And Remo, I swear I'm nothing like him." But that sentence raises a huge question.

"How did you know it was Remo?" I ask him. He freezes for a second before relaxing again.

"Wh-What?"

"How did you know it was Remo who drugged me?" I repeat. Octavian takes a deep breath before biting his lip nervously again.

"Uh, I can um...read minds."

Oh.

"You read my mind?" I ask him, my anger slowly rising again.

"I couldn't control it. I only got it this morning." He replies quickly. My anger quickly fades again as I stare ahead at the sand.

"And uh...one more thing. Setràkus Ra, he uh...wants me to..." Octavian trails off, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"What?" I ask him, taking more sips from the coffee.

"You might want to put the drink down if you don't want to choke." Octavian warns me.

"I think I'll be fine." I reply, lifting the cup to my lips again. Octavian takes a deep breath before speaking again.

"He wants me to court you."

Whoops :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)