They rode the boar until sunset, which was about as much as Bianca's back could take.

She had no idea how many miles they covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until they were galloping (do boars gallop?) across the desert.

As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."

Nobody needed convincing. They slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then everyone waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores.

After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.

"It likes the mountains better," Percy guessed.

"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look."

Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoë was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills... but then Bianca noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Whoa," Sasha said.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Graver. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned.

"That's us," he said. "Those six nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" Percy asked.

"The little deformed one," Zoë suggested.

"Oh, shut up."

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."

"A monster?" Thalia asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge..."

He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.

⚰️💀

We decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of us wanted to go Dumpster-diving in the dark.

Zoë and Bianca produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks.

The night got chilly fast, so Grover and I collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. Pretty soon we were about as comfy as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

"The stars are out," Zoë said.

She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."

"This is nothing," Zoë said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said.

Zoë raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you," Thalia corrected. "Not thee."

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you."

Zoë threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"

Sasha stifled a laugh.

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."

Zoë nodded sadly.

"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee..."

Bianca was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Cloudcroft, but she didn't have the heart to tell Grover.

"Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be," Percy said.

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close."

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them."

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."

"Maybe there's something special about your knife," Percy said.

"It is the same as mine," Zoë said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."

"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," Percy suggested.

Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.

Sasha stayed silent.

"Never mind," Zoë told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."

"No!" Bianca blurted. "Not there!"

Zoë frowned. "Why?"

She took a shaky breath. "I... I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then, I can't remember..."

"Bianca," Sasha said slowly. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?"

Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?"

"Oh, great," Percy said.

"Wait," Thalia said. "What is the Lotus Casino?"

"A couple of years ago," Percy said, "Grover, Annabeth, Sasha, 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."

"Slow down," Sasha corrected.

"No," Bianca said. "No, that's not possible."

"You said somebody came and got you out," Sasha remembered.

"Yes."

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

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

Zoë sat forward, her eyebrows knit with concern. "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," Zoë said, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now?"

"Don't be silly," Bianca said. She told them the correct name of the president.

"And who was the president before that?" Zoe asked.

Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt."

Zoe swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin'?"

"Franklin," Bianca said. "F.D.R."

"Like FDR Drive?" Percy asked.

"Bianca," Zoë said. "F.D.R. was not the last president. That was about seventy years ago."

"That's impossible," Bianca said. "I... I'm not that old."

She stared at her hands as if to make sure they weren't wrinkled.

Thalia's eyes turned sad. "It's okay, Bianca, The important thing is you and Nico are safe. You made it out."

"But how?" Percy said. "We were only in there for an hour and we barely escaped. How could you have escaped after being there for so long?"

"I told you." Bianca felt about ready to cry. "A man came and said it was time to leave. And—"

"But who? Why did he do it?"

Before she could answer, we were hit with a blazing light from down the road. The headlights of a car appeared out of nowhere. Everyone grabbed their sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of them.

⚰️💀

Bianca is about to be ✨traumatized✨ so prepare yourselves.