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It all began on a regular day. Or, at least as regular as things could be for two young demigods constantly running for their lives from monsters. Luke and Thalia had been at their latest safe house in Georgia for a few days now, and they were starting to figure they should get moving soon before the monsters found them again.
"Luke?" Thalia called. "We should probably stock up on food and supplies soon."
"Right," he said. "We'll move out this afternoon, go into the nearest town and steal some stuff."
"Good," Thalia said, wincing. "Because... I kind of think I might be dying."
"What?" he cried. "Why, are you sick? Because we haven't fought a monster since last week."
"I don't know," she said, pulling on her leather jacket. "But I woke up this morning and there was blood on my blankets and my pants."
"Do you know where it's coming from?" he asked. She looked down and mumbled something.
"Huh?" he asked.
"You know... between my legs."
"Oh-" his face turned bright red. "Did you climb over any sharp fences yesterday?" She shook her head.
"And there's no cuts anywhere, I checked. It's like it's coming out of my... you know. I think I might be bleeding internally."
"It's fine," he said. "I always have reserve ambrosia in my bag, maybe that will help whatever's wrong?" She held out her hand. Luke handed her a small square of ambrosia. She gnawed at it a bit, then handed it back to him and stepped out for a bit of privacy. About five minutes later, she peeked her head back in.
"Nothing."
"Maybe you didn't eat enough?" he asked, confused.
"I'd rather not risk having too much," she said, grabbing a spare pair of jeans from her bag, these ones black, so less likely to show stains.
"Well, then what do we do? It's not like we can go to the hospital."
"The library," she said. "When we get into town. They might have a computer we could use to look up what's wrong with me."
"Okay," he said. "And if it's something bad, we can give you more ambrosia." She nodded.
"And if it's something ambrosia can't fix, then drastic times call for drastic measures."
***
"Good news," Luke said, looking up at Thalia from the computer screen. "It's natural."
"Natural? How is this natural?" She sat on a spinning chair with her legs carefully crossed. He grinned at her.
"It means you're becoming a woman."
"Great, what a rite of passage," Thalia said with a roll of her eyes. "If it's part of becoming a woman, you'd think my mom could've bothered to tell me this was going to happen before I ran away, but all she ever cared about was parties and booze." She sighed. "This is only going to happen to me once, though, right?"
"Um..." he squinted at the screen. "Yeah, once-"
"Oh, thank goodness," she breathed.
"-a month," he interjected.
"Once a month? Are you kidding me? Who even wants to be a woman if this is what it means?"
"Sucks to be you, I guess," he teased.
"Oh, shut up." She rolled her eyes. "So, I'm just going to bleed all over my pants every month forever now? Is that what's happening?"
"Until you're, like, fifty, yeah," he said.
"Is there anything I can do to stop it?" she sighed.
"I can't find anything, but there are products you can wear to absorb the blood so it doesn't get all over your pants."
"Good. Add that to the list for our supply run," Thalia said, standing up. "If this is going to happen to me every month until I'm fifty, there's no way I'm letting it stop me from doing what needs to be done. Let's go."
***
About fifteen minutes later, they entered the convenience store. Luckily, it was winding down hours, so there weren't many people perusing the aisles, just a few adults with small children. As usual, Thalia would act as a distraction while Luke swiped everything they needed. There was only one cashier tending the register, so Thalia's work was easy. She walked over and leaned on the counter, trying to make small talk with the cashier about prices with a bored look on her face.
Meanwhile, Luke perused the aisles with his backpack open. He stuffed it full of whatever snacks and toiletries he could find, including what he hoped were about two months' worth of pads and tampons for Thalia, along with some over-the-counter painkillers and a hot water bottle, since he'd read cramps could be brutal. By the time he was done, his backpack was stuffed full, and he'd shoved a few items into his pockets, too. He gave Thalia an it's almost time look and started heading for the door. He was almost there when an older woman standing in the snack aisle seemingly noticed he hadn't stopped to pay for anything he was carrying.
"Stop!" the woman yelled. "Thief!" Luke grabbed Thalia by the arm and they raced out the sliding door, running down the parking lot, looking for a chance to get away.
"There!" Thalia yelled, pointing to a silver car parked at the end of the lot. "Get in, get in, get in!" The doors were unlocked. Luke flung the driver's side on open and scrambled in and Thalia climbed into the passenger's seat. They slammed the doors behind them and Luke grabbed a set of keys from the dashboard, fumbling for the ignition.
"Buckle up," he told Thalia as he did himself while inserting the key to the ignition. A police car was already whooping down the street.
"Do you even know how to drive?" she asked him as her seatbelt clicked and the vehicle started to rev to life.
"I'm fourteen and I ran away from home when I was nine, what do you think?" he said as he tried to back up, ultimately slamming into the side of a black pickup, sending a jolt through them both.
"Oh my gods," Thalia said, putting her hands on the dashboard. "We're gonna die."
"Hey, at least if we do, you won't have to deal with periods anymore," Luke teased, then attempted to back up again. This time, the car shot out of the parking spot at a speed that had to be illegal and screeched onto the street, roaring past the police cars and down the freeway.
"How did you get that on the second try?" Thalia asked, shocked. He shrugged.
"My dad's the god of theives. Maybe I'm just good with getaway cars." That statement was immediately proven wrong as the car turned into the wrong lane, almost colliding with a forest green van that had a small family inside.
"Luke, brake!" Thalia screamed. He went to step on the brake, but swerved instead, bumping up over the curb and smashing through a storefront. Customers ran around screaming as they zoomed through the shop and smashed out on the other side. Thalia groaned. "I swear, we're going to kill someone if we don't kill ourselves first."
The sun was setting over an apartment complex as they zoomed through the downtown area- if it could even be called that. Two police cars were still on their tail. Luke swerved just in time to avoid crashing into a hot dog vendor's cart. The vendor, a short, squat man with a bald head, round glasses, and a handlebar moustache, shook his fist at them and shouted what Luke, being the son of the god of languages, could tell were obscenities in Spanish.
"Lo siento!" Luke yelled out the open window, then rolled it back up. Thalia rolled her eyes.
"This has been one of our most chaotic days in a while and there hasn't even been a single monster."
"Hey, sometimes it's a relief to take part in the mundane, mortal type of chaos," Luke shrugged as they careened through a tunnel.
"Where are we even going?" Thalia asked.
"Wherever we end up once we've shaken them off, I guess," he said. "Minor detour. Though I suppose it's not a detour if we didn't know where we were going to go in the first place."
"I suppose not." She rubbed her temples, then started digging through Luke's bag for food. She pulled out a chocolate bar. "I'm taking this."
"No, by all means, go ahead," he said. "I need to focus on driving anyway. Especially since I've never done it before." She sighed.
"Seriously, if we get caught we're going to be in trouble for theft, reckless driving, underage driving, and driving without a license."
"Thals, we never get caught," he said. "We'll shake them off."
"Before or after we total the car?"
"Oh, shush."
"Oh, yeah, and I forgot grand theft auto." She broke off a square of chocolate.
"I think that falls under the purview of theft, which you already mentioned."
"Yes, but when I said theft, I was referring to us stealing from the store." Luke swerved around another corner, the tires shrieking on the asphalt, nearly missing another car.
"Stop distracting me unless you want to get killed."
"You know," she said, "my mother would have never wanted me to be a criminal."
"So what you're saying is...?" he asked, confused. She grinned.
"Gun it."
"I'm already gunning it as much as I can." They shot through another tunnel, scraping up against a stone wall and probably ruining the paint job on that side of the car.
"Okay," Thalia said, glancing out the back at the police cars behind them. "I've gotta admit, this is pretty cool. We're in an actual, real live car chase."
"Thank you." He tapped the wheel. "I try."
"Well," she said, "then try harder, because they're gaining on us." Luke nodded and slammed his foot onto the gas. The car shot through another storefront, this one empty and boarded up. "Oh, yeah, and property damage," she said, adding to their invisible rap sheet.
"Well, the joke's on them," he said, zooming down the highway, which lead towards Atlanta. "They can't say we did anything wrong if they never catch us."
"Okay, quit saying that," Thalia said. "You'll jinx it, you cocky bastard."
"All right, all right." He nodded behind them. "Look back, are they further behind now?"
"Out of sight," Thalia said, glancing back. "But I wouldn't celebrate just yet." The wail of sirens still pierced the air.
"Hope you don't get carsick," Luke said as they rumbled over a speed bump, going up in the air a little bit.
"No," Thalia said, though her face looked kind of green. "If I got carsick, I would have done that a long time ago now."
"True," he said. "If we survive this, remind me to get actual driving lessons once I'm old enough."
"I mean, I think you could start next year if you wanted to," she shrugged. "But I really wouldn't advise it."
"Hey!" She playfully punched him in the arm. "What did I say about distracting the driver?" he asked.
"You're no fun," she said with a grin. "Hey, I have an idea." She leaned over and turned on the radio to the local news station.
"...a car chase on the highway to Atlanta. The perpatrators seem to be a fourteen-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old girl, who robbed a convenience store in a nearby small town and then, upon being noticed by customers, proceeded to hijack a customer's parked car as a getaway vehicle."
"Smart," Luke said. "We can hear how it's going from their end of things."
"And this is why I'm the brains," she said with a grin, her electric blue eyes sparkling. He rolled his eyes and scoffed.
"Yeah, right."
"I am!"
"The police had fallen behind the perpatrators, but are reportedly starting to gain on them again."
"Okay, no time for arguing." He floored the gas again and shot off, slamming into several other cars and veering off the highway onto an exit that led to another city.
"Can they technically chase us into another city?" Thalia asked. "Is that legal?"
"I don't think so, but neither is this," Luke said as they shot through the streets.
"I'm pretty sure we're leaving permanent skid marks," Thalia said as they smashed through another store front, zooming past more screaming people. "And we better not get caught, because we do not have money to pay for all the damage we've caused."
"Definitely not," Luke said.
"And if we get caught, you know it's gonna be your fault, right?" she asked.
"How? You were the one who had the idea to steal the car."
"I said we should get in the car. I didn't say we should drive it."
"Then how else were we going to get away?" he asked pointedly.
"Touché." The car wove in and out of some scaffolding. Thalia was really starting to look like she was about to be sick, her face was a pale green and her cheeks were puffed out like she was trying to keep from barfing. And Luke wasn't sure he could go on any longer. It had been a crazy day and he was dead tired. He just wanted to lean his head on the steering wheel and go to sleep, but that would be stupid. His eyelids were heavy, but he turned the car radio from the news to a station that played loud, aggressive music, the kind Thalia liked, in hopes of keeping himself from nodding off.
Thalia looked pretty tired herself, her bag sat in her lap and she was hugging it like one might a stuffed animal.
"You go ahead, sleep," he said, yawning. "I have to stay awake and keep driving."
"No, I need to keep an eye out for- LUKE, WATCH OUT!" He had let his eyes close for a little too long and had swerved into the wrong lane. He swerved again, narrowly avoiding being hit by a semi, but this time the car smashed into the brick side of a factory with a loud crunch. The hood was smashed open and started steaming, the doors fell off and the roof had caved in, trapping them. The car was totaled. The whooping of the police sirens grew closer.
"Lay low," Luke whispered, slumping onto the dashboard as best as he could. "Maybe they'll think we were killed in the crash. Thalia nodded and slumped as well. She let her eyes roll back in her head, her head loll, and her tongue hang out. Her version of "playing dead" was disturbingly realistic. The dashboard was hard and uncomfortable, but he kept stone still, holding his breath. Then, the sirens stopped and voices and footsteps grew closer.
"Totaled," a young female police officer said. "Perps probably fled the scene."
"No, it looks like they're still in there," another officer, an older man, said. "But they're likely either dead or unconscious, or else they'd be crying for help or trying to fight their way out of there. Let's dig them out, and bring them in if they're still alive."
Luke and Thalia were scratched up when the police officers cut them out of the wreckage of the stolen car, however they still tried their best to pretend they were dead.
"They've both got pulses," the young female officer said as she held her thumb to Luke's wrist.
"Put 'em in the back then," the male officer said. Luke's eyes snapped open and Thalia's rolled back into place, and they started to fight their way free. Luke looked at Thalia's face, which was covered in bloody scratches and bruises. He knew she'd been hurt worse, but seeing her like that still upset him. He managed to wrench free from the officer's grip and pull her as well, and they started to run, but before long their tired legs gave out and they were herded into the back of a police car.
***
They spent the rest of the night in a holding cell, which was only slightly more comfortable than a car wreck. Despite how exhausted he was, Luke barely slept. He didn't do well locked up. It always reminded him of when he was a kid, when he would lock himself in his room to hide from his mom and her episodes, those fits she would have where her eyes would turn green and she would shake him and say strange things about his fate. It was terrifying. With stuff like that going on at home every day, it was no wonder he'd known he was a demigod for as long as he could remember.
They remained in the same holding cell for the next few days. The female guards were kind enough to provide Thalia with menstrual products, though the raging hormones made her even more moody than normal, so Luke couldn't exactly say he was glad to be locked in with her.
Finally, one day the guards decided to transfer them to a bigger cell, and they figured it was their chance to escape.
"You kids ready to go?" the guard, a tall bald man with dark skin, said when he arrived to get them from their cell. Luke nodded, as did Thalia.
"Now, we're going to try and get you kids a court date soon," the man said, as he took each of them by the arm with one of his massive, baseball mitt-sized hands. "There's a lot of charges to press."
"Oh, if only you knew some of the other stuff we'd done," Thalia said under her breath, just loud enough for Luke to hear.
"Huh?" The guard asked, and that was when Thalia took her chance. She twisted around, raised her right leg, and slammed her spiky combat boot right into the man's crotch. Luke winced in sympathy, but took his chance. When the man let go of him and Thalia to hold where he'd been kicked, he grabbed Thalia by the wrist and ran, pulling him along. Being extremely fast was another Hermes power Luke had inherited, and years of running from monsters and the authorities had made Thalia quite the speedster too, though Luke was still faster.
"Come on." He pulled her around the corner into the room where they kept the confiscated property and found the safe that matched the number on the tag he and Thalia had been given. "Help me shove that table over so I can stand on it to reach the safe," he said.
"Can do," Thalia said. "But first, can you lock the door?"
"Yeah," Luke said. He kicked the door to the room shut, then put his hand on the knob and willed it to lock with his powers. "I'll get the stuff, then give you a boost out the window, and then climb out myself."
"Sounds like a plan." Together, they pushed the table over, and Luke climbed on top, just able to reach the safe. It was a combination lock, so all he had to do was give the knob a little tap with his finger and it spun and solved itself. The knob to the door leading outside turned. Someone was trying to get in, to no avail.
"Got it," Luke said, pulling the safe open. Thalia hopped up on the table and he tossed her her bag. She took his too and slung them both over her shoulder.
"All right," she said. "I'm ready." They walked over to where the window was. Luke cupped his hands and Thalia stepped into them, the spiky treads at the bottom of her combat boots cutting into his hands, but he pushed up, just enough for Thalia to be able to scramble out the window and jump, landing with a thud. "I'm okay!" she called. Luke had no doubt about that. Thalia was like a cat- she always landed on her feet. As did he.
"Okay," he breathed. "Now comes the hard part." He took a deep breath and backed up to the edge of the long table, getting as much of a running start as he could, and then he jumped. His body slammed into the cement wall, which hurt a lot. But he had a grip on the windowsill. It was a shaky hold, but enough for him to pull himself up and jump out. He landed on his feet right next to Thalia, albeit turning his ankle.
"Okay." She tossed him his bag. "Now we need to go."
"Ya think?" he laughed.
***
That evening, they were back at the old safe house where everything had started. Thalia was gathering kindling for their fire, and Luke was gnawing on a little ambrosia for his ankle.
"Well," Thalia said, "that was a hectic couple of days."
"Certainly," Luke said. "And to think that it all started because you needed period products."
"Oh, so it's my fault now?" Thalia teased, rolling her eyes.
"I didn't say that," he laughed. "You can't exactly control that."
"Right," she said. "I still wish my mom had explained this whole bleeding every month thing to me when I was younger so I wouldn't think I was dying the first time it happened."
"Well, now you know." Luke put away his ambrosia and took a bag of potato chips out of his pack. "Want some?" She walked over, sat down next to him, and grabbed a handful.
"You know, I'd never want to steal a car with anyone but you." She kissed his cheek, causing him to turn a bright tomato red.
"I feel the same way," he grinned once the blush had faded. "You're the best partner in crime ever."
"To us," she said, raising a potato chip like she was giving a toast at a fancy party. He laughed and tapped one of his against it.
"To us." And for the rest of the night, they didn't have a care in the world.