← Back to overview

Runaway

The Neon Pulse of St. Louis

The morning sun didn't rise so much as it bruised the sky, a sickly mix of orange and grey filtering through the grime-streaked window of the Sunset Inn. Annabeth was the first to wake, her internal clock still tuned to the frantic frequency of a house where sleeping late was a punishable offense. She lay still for a moment, her breath hitching as she scanned the room. The peeling wallpaper, the smell of stale Pall Malls, the lumpy mattress—it wasn't a dream.

Beside her, Percy was a sprawling disaster of limbs. He’d managed to kick the thin polyester comforter off his legs, and his mouth was slightly open, a faint whistle of a snore escaping his lips. In the dim light, the dark circles under his eyes seemed a little less pronounced, but the faint, jagged scar near his hairline—a souvenir from a "disagreement" with Gabe over a broken TV remote—stood out starkly against his pale skin.

Annabeth reached out, her fingers hovering just above his blonde curls before she pulled back. She couldn't afford to be soft yet. They were still too close to the East Coast, still within the reach of a determined state trooper or a vengeful father with a cell phone.

She rolled out of bed, her feet hitting the cold, sticky carpet. She dressed quickly in the dark, pulling on a pair of high-waisted denim shorts and a cropped oversized hoodie that hid the sharp angles of her shoulders. She spent ten minutes in front of the cracked bathroom mirror, meticulously re-braiding a few of the boho knotless braids that had come loose during the night. Her reflection looked back at her—brown skin glowing even in the shitty fluorescent light, eyes hard and calculating.

"Wake up, Seaweed Brain," she said, stepping back into the room and nudging Percy’s foot with her sneaker. "We’re burning daylight."

Percy groaned, burying his face in the pillow. "Five more minutes. The bed is actually soft if you ignore the springs stabbing your kidneys."

"We have three hundred miles to cover today if we want to hit Kansas City by dark. Get your ass up, or I’m leaving you here to marry the cigarette lady at the front desk."

Percy bolted upright, his blue eyes wide. "Fuck that. I’m up. I’m up." He rubbed his face, his hair standing up at gravity-defying angles. "God, I feel like I got hit by a freight train."

"That’s just the lack of adrenaline," Annabeth said, tossing him his bag. "Eat a granola bar. We’re checking out in ten."

As they loaded the Corolla, the air was thick with the humidity of a Missouri summer. The parking lot was quiet, save for the distant roar of the I-70. Percy checked the oil with a practiced hand, his fingers stained with old grease that never quite seemed to wash off.

"She’s holding up," Percy muttered, wiping his hands on a rag. "But the tires are bald as hell, Annabeth. If we hit a storm, we’re hydroplaning straight into the afterlife."

"We’ll buy used ones in the next big city," she promised. "Once we’re sure we aren't being followed. For now, we just drive."

They hit the road as the city of St. Louis rose up on the horizon, the Gateway Arch gleaming like a silver rib against the sky. To anyone else, it was a monument; to Annabeth, it was a waypoint on a map of escape.

"We need a new plan for the car," Annabeth said, pulling a crumpled atlas from the seat pocket. She had a laptop in her bag, but she was terrified of turning it on and pinging a Wi-Fi signal. Paper was safer. "The plates are registered to Gabe. If he’s sober enough to realize the car is gone and not just 'borrowed' for a bender, he’ll report it stolen."

Percy gripped the wheel, his knuckles turning white. "He won't report it. That car isn't legal, Annabeth. He bought it off a chop-shop buddy in Queens. If he calls the cops, they’ll start asking questions about the VIN number and his 'business' ventures. He’s more likely to come after us himself."

"Which is worse," Annabeth countered. "My dad is the one who will call the police. He’ll play the worried father. He’ll tell them I’m a runaway under eighteen, which is true, and that you kidnapped me."

Percy let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "Kidnapped? I’m the one who followed you out the window, Wise Girl. You’re the one who did the math on the gas mileage."

"The law doesn't care about the math, Percy. They care about the fact that I’m a ‘minor in danger.’" She looked out the window at the passing cornfields. "We need to ditch the Corolla in Kansas City. We’ll take a bus. It’s harder to track a person on a Greyhound than a silver Toyota with a dent in the bumper."

"I hate buses," Percy grumbled, though he didn't disagree. "They smell like piss and sadness. But if it keeps us off the radar, fine. What about the money?"

"We’re at three thousand nine hundred after the motel and gas," she said, her voice dropping. "We need to find work as soon as we hit Denver or Salt Lake. Something under the table. I can tutor, or do freelance drafting if I can find a library with decent privacy. You’re going to have to find another garage."

Percy nodded, his expression darkening. "I can do that. I’m good at fixing things that are broken. It’s the one thing I actually learned from that piece of shit."

The silence that followed was heavy. They didn't talk about their fathers often. It was a silent pact—leave the ghosts in the rearview mirror. But sometimes, the ghosts hitched a ride. Annabeth could still feel the phantom sting of her father’s palm against her cheek, the way he would look at her with such cold disappointment, as if her very existence was an architectural flaw in his perfect, academic life. And Percy... Percy had it worse in the physical sense. Gabe was a beast of a man who used his size to crush anything smaller than him.

"Hey," Percy said, breaking the silence. He reached over and flicked her ponytail. "Stop thinking. You’re doing that thing where you look like you’re trying to solve a physics equation with your brain."

Annabeth managed a small smile. "I am always solving equations, Percy."

"Well, solve the equation of what we’re eating for lunch. I’m starving. And don't say gas station sushi."

"There’s a Taco Bell at the next exit," she said, checking the signs. "We can splurge on the five-dollar box."

"Living the high life," Percy grinned.

They pulled into a cramped parking lot on the outskirts of Columbia. The heat was oppressive now, waves of shimmer rising off the asphalt. Inside the restaurant, the air conditioning was a godsend. They sat in a corner booth, tucked away from the windows.

Percy was halfway through a burrito when he paused, his gaze fixed on a TV hanging in the corner of the dining room. It was tuned to a local news station, the volume muted, but the scrolling ticker at the bottom caught his eye.

Annabeth followed his gaze. Her heart stopped.

*...AMBER ALERT: 16-YEAR-OLD ANNABETH CHASE MISSING FROM BROOKLYN, NY. SUSPECTED KIDNAPPER PERCY JACKSON, 16...*

The screen flashed their school photos. Annabeth looked young, her hair in a neat bun, wearing a forced smile. Percy’s photo was from his sophomore year, his blonde hair messy and his eyes bright with a mischief that felt a lifetime away.

"Fuck," Percy whispered, the word barely audible over the sound of the soda fountain.

Annabeth felt the blood drain from her face. "They didn't wait. My dad... he actually did it. He called the fucking cops."

"They’re calling it a kidnapping," Percy said, his voice shaking with a mix of fear and fury. "Annabeth, they think I took you. If they catch us, I’m going to jail. Not juvie. Jail."

Annabeth grabbed his hand under the table. Her palms were sweating, but her mind was already shifting into high gear. "We have to leave. Now. Don't run, don't look at the TV. Just walk to the car."

They left their half-eaten food on the table, their stomachs churning with a different kind of hunger now—the hunger for survival. Back in the Corolla, the interior felt like an oven, but they both shivered.

"We can't go to Kansas City," Annabeth said, her voice sharp and commanding. "The highways will be crawling with state troopers looking for this car. They have the plates, Percy. They have everything."

Percy started the engine, his hands trembling on the wheel. "Where do we go? We’re in the middle of fucking Missouri. It’s all open road."

"Get off the interstate," she ordered. "Take the state roads. Look for 40 West. It’s slower, it goes through the small towns, but there are fewer cameras and fewer cops."

Percy peeled out of the parking lot, his eyes darting to every white-and-black car he saw. Every time a siren wailed in the distance, Annabeth felt a jolt of pure electricity shoot down her spine.

"We need to change our look," she said, her voice tight. "Your hair—it’s too bright. We need to dye it. And mine... I have to take the braids out."

Percy glanced at her, his heart sinking. He knew how much she loved those braids. They were a connection to the woman she used to be, the girl whose mother had spent hours teaching her how to care for her hair before the cancer took her.

"Annabeth, you don't have to—"

"I do," she snapped, though her eyes were shining with unshed tears. "If they’re looking for a girl with light brown braids and a blonde boy, we can't be a girl with light brown braids and a blonde boy. We have to be someone else."

They found a Walmart two towns over. It was a risky move, but they needed supplies. Annabeth stayed in the car, hunched down in the passenger seat, while Percy went in. He wore a heavy hoodie despite the heat, the hood pulled low over his face.

He came back twenty minutes later with a plastic bag containing two boxes of cheap black hair dye, a pair of scissors, and a pack of generic baseball caps.

"I got the darkest shit they had," he said, climbing back in. "And some clippers. Just in case."

They drove until they found a secluded rest area tucked behind a grove of thirsty-looking oak trees. The sun was starting to dip, casting long, jagged shadows across the grass.

Annabeth sat on the bumper of the car, a small hand mirror propped up on the trunk. She took a deep breath and reached for the scissors.

"Let me help," Percy whispered, standing behind her.

"No," she said, her voice cracking. "I have to do it."

One by one, she snipped the extensions of her braids, the light brown synthetic hair falling to the dirt like dead leaves. When the braids were gone, she was left with her natural, short, curly hair. She looked different—older, harder.

Then came the dye. They did it in the cramped confines of the car, using bottled water to rinse. The chemical smell was overwhelming, stinging their nostrils. Percy’s golden-blonde curls turned a flat, midnight black. It made his blue eyes look startlingly bright, almost haunting. Annabeth’s hair became a deep, bottomless ebony that made her brown skin look like polished mahogany.

When they were finished, they stared at each other in the fading light.

"You look like a different person," Percy said, reaching out to touch her damp hair.

"Good," she said, though her voice was hollow. "That’s the point."

They spent the next hour scrubbing the black stains off their foreheads with wet wipes. Percy took the scissors to his own hair, hacking at the length until it was short and jagged, a far cry from the surfer-boy look he’d sported in New York.

"We need to ditch the car tonight," Annabeth said, looking at the map. "There’s a long-term parking lot at the airport in Kansas City. We’ll leave it there. It might take them a few days to flag it. By then, we’ll be on a bus to Denver under different names."

"How are we getting names?" Percy asked.

"I have my mom’s old social security card," she said quietly. "And yours. We’ll use them to buy the tickets online at a library. We’ll say we’re nineteen. We just need to look the part."

Percy sat back against the car, looking up at the first few stars peeking through the smog. "Do you think they’ll ever stop looking?"

Annabeth leaned her head against his shoulder. The black dye was still damp, staining the collar of her hoodie, but she didn't care. "My dad won't. He hates losing more than he loves me. He’ll keep looking until he finds something else to obsess over."

"Then we’ll just stay one step ahead," Percy said, his grip on her hand tightening. "Forever, right?"

"Forever," she echoed.

They got back in the car, the engine turning over with a tired groan. As they pulled back onto the road, the silhouette of the St. Louis skyline fading behind them, they weren't just runaways anymore. They were ghosts, fading into the vast, indifferent heart of America.

The road ahead was dark, and the money was dwindling, and the law was at their heels. But as Percy shifted into fourth gear and Annabeth navigated by the stars and a crumpled map, they felt a strange, terrifying sense of peace.

They were free. And for the first time, the price of that freedom—the loss of their names, their hair, their pasts—felt like a bargain.

"Hey, Annabeth?" Percy said as they crossed the border into the next county.

"Yeah?"

"The black hair suits you. Makes you look like a spy."

Annabeth laughed, a sharp, jagged sound that cut through the tension. "And you look like a punk who’s about to get kicked out of a basement show."

"Perfect," Percy grinned, his blue eyes reflecting the dashboard lights. "That’s exactly the vibe I was going for."

They drove on into the night, two shadows in a silver car, chasing a horizon that promised nothing but the chance to keep moving. And in that moment, moving was all that mattered. Moving was living. Everything else was just noise.