A Camp Half-Blood strawberry van was waiting for us past Thalia's tree with the engine on. Chiron was there, and Argus, the camp guard. Will Solace had also shown up to wish us luck. Since no one else knew what was going on and we wanted to keep it that way, that was the extent of our send-off.
Chiron trotted around, patting each of us on the head. From anyone else it would've been condescending. Coming from him, I think each of us felt a little warm and fuzzy.
"You've packed all you need?" he asked.
"We're big kids now," Clarisse said. "I travel to Arizona four times a year. We can handle it."
Chiron smiled. "I'm sure you can. Just forgive me if I still worry."
"We'll do our best, sir," Lou Ellen said seriously. "You can trust us."
It occurred to me that even though she was a counselor, this was new for her. She'd never gone on anything like a quest before. It was kind of cute how serious she was taking it.
We all loaded in. Unlike the old days, we didn't need Argus to drive us. Annabeth was on directions in the passenger seat while Clarisse took the wheel. I hoped we wouldn't regret that choice as Lou and I piled into the back.
I rolled down my window so Chiron could stick his head in.
"What supplies I could get together on short notice are loaded in the back," he said. I glanced over the seat and spotted what he meant sitting in the open trunk: a big brown duffel bag stuffed to bursting. "Inside you'll find spare funds, food, and train tickets that will take you as far as Denver, should anything happen to the van. Please, though, do not take that as an invitation. These are quite expensive."
"We promise," Lou said at the same time that Annabeth said, "We'll try." Clarisse just laughed.
"On that note, I wish you all the best." Chiron looked at me in particular. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes that I wasn't used to seeing there. "Make sure to hang in there," he whispered.
The centaur cantered to a safe distance away. I rolled my window up and tossed my bag over my shoulder into the back, where it landed on Chiron's supplies with a squeak.
Wait. Squeak?
I strained my ears, listening for anything lse, but caught nothing. Even when Lou placed her bag near where mine landed, it was dead silent.
Sighing long and hard, I rested my head against the uncomfortable car cushion.
"Are you alright?" Lou asked me.
"Yeah," I said. "Just hearing things. I think I haven't been getting enough sleep."
From the driver's seat, Clarisse snickered.
"Boy," she said, "I wonder why."
No one talked much during the drive. Clarisse turned on something that she called music, but sounded closer to a family of howler monkeys put over drums. After five minutes Annabeth turned the volume down. Clarisse turned it back up the second her hand was out of the way. That continued all the way to New York.
Eventually we pulled off for lunch somewhere in Brooklyn, parking beside a busy street. It was late morning when we left, and we'd been driving for a couple of hours already.
When I started to get out, Annabeth and Clarisse each stuck an arm out to block me.
"You're not coming," they said at the same time, in the same pitch and everything. I didn't know whether to be hurt or impressed by the fact I got them to agree on something. Ares and Athena mixed like oil and water.
"I'm hungry too!" I said.
"We'll bring you something," Clarisse said.
"Just wait here a bit," Anabeth said. "Please?"
"But–"
"I'm not dragging a mortal to Hawaii because you met in a deli and she went red in the face swooning for your cock," Clarisse said.
"You'd know about doing that," I muttered.
Clarisse raised a fist. "What was that?"
"Nothing," I said. They were right. I was only mouthing off because of an empty stomach. "Go on ahead. Get me something with pastrami."
They left right after, Lou Ellen waving goodbye as they went. I shut the door and leaned back against my seat, staring at the ceiling.
It was starting to settle in what a brutal trip this could be. Not only did we have to reach Hawaii (trust me, as someone that traveled across the country twice for quests before, it could and would be harder than it sounded) but I even had to watch who I interacted with. Even though we didn't know that mortals could contract the curse, we didn't know that they couldn't, either. Some stuff you just shouldn't gamble with.
Ominous thoughts about imminent challenges aren't much of a mood-lifter. They also don't mix so well with gnawing hunger. Just as I felt like I was going crazy, I remembered Chiron's duffel bag.
He said he packed supplies in there. Stuff like train tickets, sure, but there must've been some really important stuff in there too. Like snacks.
I stood up, bending my head forward to keep from bumping it on the roof, and reached over the seats into the trunk. The huge bag really was stuffed to bursting. Letting out a giggle so insane someone might've locked me up for it, I grabbed the handle and dragged it into the backseat with me, imagining all the wonderful food that must've been stuffed inside.
I dropped it and reached for the zipper, only to freeze when the bag yelped.
That… wasn't right.
I reached out a hand, hanging it above the bag. I prodded down sharply with a finger.
"Eep!" said the bag.
I poked it from another angle, earning an identical noise. I squeezed a part, getting the same results.
"I wasn't hearing things!" I said. The bag really had squeaked earlier. I continued to poke it, each earning a sharp noise higher pitched than the one before it. "This is kind of fun."
"Stop!" said the bag.
I laughed, wondering if I should do it again, when a horrible thought dawned on me.
If there was a person inside the bag, that meant nothing else was in it. If nothing else was in it, that meant no snacks. No snacks meant no food.
I grabbed the zipper and dragged it open, praying to the Fates that it was a massive talking Doritos back on the other side. Instead, a beautiful girl with brown skin and hair a few shades darker sat up, smiling.
"Surprise, Percy!" she said. Her smile morphed to a pouty frown. "Was all that poking really necessary, though? I know I'm kind of a stowaway, but don't you think that was too far?"
"I recognize you," I said. "You were outside the Hecate cabin!"
When Clarisse, Lou Ellen and I met with Chiron and Mr. D, campers had started to congregate at the scene. Among them was a group of Aphrodite girls. This stowaway had been at the middle of them then. She even winked at me.
"You're a daughter of Aphrodite," I said.
Her pout remained fixed in place. "You don't even know my name."
"I don't think we've ever actually met."
"That doesn't stop me from knowing you!" She sighed, and her cloudy expression melted into a smirk faster than I could blink. "That isn't exactly fair though, is it. I'm not the savior of Olympus, and I'm not a gorgeous hunk of a man every girl at camp drools over."
I thought that was a little pedantic, considering she had a face that could make a supermodel self-conscious, but I held back my comment.
"Valentina Diaz," she introduced herself, crossing her arms. "You know it now, so you better not forget."
"Sure." After this, I would've been more impressed with myself if I managed to not remember the strange girl. "But… Why are you here?"
"Because I'm very sick." She raised a fist to her mouth and gave two of the fakest coughs I'd ever heard. "I desperately need treatment!"
I stared. "So your solution was to tell Chiron, and his solution was to… pack you in a bag and call you supplies?"
She giggled. "Silly. Chiron doesn't know. I pulled out all those silly trinkets and packed myself, instead. Don't worry, it's an amazing trade for you guys. You can't put a price on looks like these."
As she sat there smiling, I felt a headache coming on. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wished demigods could be just slightly normal. Was that too much to ask?
Who was I kidding, of course it was. I'd met the gods before. With parents like that, no way someone could turn out without a few loose screws.
While I was thinking, Valentina extricated herself the rest of the out of the bag. Kicking it off her ankles, she threw the empty fabric back into the trunk. She was wearing a frilly shirt, with short-short jean bottoms cut so high up her dark thighs that I found my eyes drifting to them naturally.
"My eyes are up here."
I jolted, dragging my eyes back up to her face. For some reason, she frowned.
"I didn't tell you to stop looking."
"When you say you're sick," I said, trying to ignore the blush spreading on my cheeks, "what does that—?"
She didn't even give me time to finish my question. Pressing the back of a hand to her forehead, Valentina swooned.
"It's horrible!" she said. "Inexplicable! Impossible! Somehow, I am sure to die without immediate treatment."
"The curse is affecting you?" I asked.
She hesitated for the briefest of seconds. "Of course! Such a terrible curse. And only a single way to solve it, too. I will do what I must!"
With dexterity that would put Hermes to shame her fingers undid the button and zipper on my pants. She pulled both down, revealing my cock to the car while I was still processing what was happening. It was all so fast I wasn't even hard.
Valentina slid down so that her knees were on the floor. She took my cock in her hands and giggled.
"My savior," she said.
She trailed her tongue up my shaft, taking advantage of its softness to twirl and flick it around. Then she went lower and took my testicles in her soft, fluffy lips.
I groaned and leaned back, hands mixing into her dark straight hair. It's a sign of how crazy the last couple days had been that I just went with things. In fairness, it isn't easy to pause and ask questions like 'Why aren't you showing symptoms?' when one of the most beautiful girls you've ever met is suckling on your balls.
In under a minute my cock had hardened. There were still traces of the lipstick Annabeth had left on it. We hadn't had time for more than a brief shower, and some of those stains were too caked-on to come off without scrubbing. Valentina giggled.
"Busy morning?" she asked.
"You could say that," I said, picturing the way Annabeth had nearly killed herself on my cock "You have a lot to beat."
"Well, then," Valentina said, "it's a good thing I have some built in advantages."
Before I could ask what that meant, she hurled her head down.
A strange, burbling groan came from somewhere way down in my throat. Speaking of throats, my swollen head was buried multiple inches deep in Valentina's. When Annabeth took me that deep it required everything she had. For Valentina, she didn't even seem to notice. Her tongue played with my glans and slid back and forth across my girth. She wiggled her head side to side, caressing my cock with the soft slippery flesh behind her mouth. Even when she finally unsheathed me from her throat for air, it felt more like a tactical choice than a necessity.
I guess she caught me looking because she giggled and said, "I'm good at breathing through my nose."
"Doesn't doing this hurt?" I asked.
Instead of answering she opened her mouth wide and stuck out her tongue. She reached a hand into her mouth and kept reaching. After the wrist disappeared, she finally reversed and pulled it out. The entire time she held eye contact.
"No gag reflex," Valentina said. "I get it from my mom. Told you I had a few advantages."
I swallowed. "Seems like it."
With one more giggle she went back to work.
She took me just as deep as last time. I felt her lips constrict against my shaft. She was squeezing against the marks Annabeth had left, wringing her own lipstick off on top of them as if to mark she was the last to be there. Her head bobbed at exactly the right speed to turn my lower body to putty.
The hand she'd shoved down her own throat snaked under my shirt, still slick with saliva. Her lithe fingers were each tipped with long sharp nails. She pinched and began playing with my nipple, alternating between moist fingers and razor nails to draw out every possible speck of stimulation.
Her other hand slid underneath me. With a jolt, I realized she was knocking at my backdoor. Whatever my face looked like made her giggle, but the sound was muffled by my member stuffed in her mouth.
I can't really explain what it felt like, shoved up in that backseat, but I'll give it my best shot. I was plastered against the door, head to the hard window. My whole body felt like an instrument. I was a piano, and Valentina was playing every key at the perfect time to belt out a song. Each twist of my nipple, every soft prod against my asshole, even the cadence of her bobbing head— every facet was perfectly optimized to achieve the most pleasure possible. She made a blowjob seem like a work of art.
I wasn't going to last any longer. I could tell that. The pressure built between my ears like an onrushing stampede as I grunted, "I'm cumming."
Valentina pulled her head free and drew back her arms. She opened her mouth as wide as she had when demonstrating her gag reflex, tongue sticking out again and all. Her hands formed a cup shape under her chin. I didn't understand why until my cum fired out.
Some launched straight into her open mouth, but other wads splattered against her cheeks and nose. Trails of semen slid down her face, dripping off her chin onto her palms. She glanced at what collected there, before licking it up with her protruding tongue.
"Main event time," she said.
She pulled my pants all the way down off my ankles, and was just starting on her own clothes when a voice shouted, "Percy!"
I blinked. "Did you hear that?"
"I'm sure it's nothing." Valentina laid a hand on my chest, pushing me further against the door. "Just relax and enjoy the best part."
"Percy!"
There it was again! And this time, the call was accompanied by what sounded like a… moo?
"I really think something's happening out there."
"Something's happening in here, too," Valentina said. "I'm about to take a wonderful cock, and you're going to feel better than you ever have before. I promise."
But I was barely listening. I could hear it now: the sound of something hard hitting asphalt, repeated over and over again. Something was coming, and it was close.
So I reacted on instinct, without thinking things through. I spun, shoving open the door and falling out onto the sidewalk, naked from the waist down. Valentina yelped as I pulled her with me.
We lay on the sidewalk, bundled together, while noticing happened.
Valentina gaped at me— and not in the seductive way I was used to. "What are you—"
The van exploded.