NEVER BE THE SAME . . . percy jackson

forty nine: the canadians.

BROOKLYN WAS RELIEVED when the wheels fell.

The horse seemed to bend time and space as he ran, blurring the landscape and making her feel like she'd just gotten back from seeing that gray and red world, dizzy and uncoordinated. Ella didn't help matters. She kept muttering: "Seven hundred and fifty miles per hour. Eight hundred. Eight hundred and three. Fast. Very fast." Frank had thrown up twice, and that was not a fun sound to hear.

The horse sped north across Puget Sound, zooming past islands and fishing boats and very surprised pods of whales. He rocketed onto dry land. He followed a highway north, running so fast, the cars seemed to be standing still.

Finally, the chariot wheels began to smoke.

"Hazel!" Frank yelled. "We're breaking up!"

She got the message and pulled the reins. The horse didn't seem happy about it, but he slowed to subsonic as they zipped through the city streets. The chariot started to rattle dangerously as they went over a bridge. At last Arion stopped at the top of a wooded hill. He snorted with satisfaction, as if to say, That's how we run, fools. The smoking chariot collapsed, spilling Brooklyn, Percy, Frank, and Ella onto the wet, mossy ground.

Frank stumbled to his feet, trying to get his bearings. Percy groaned and started unhitching Arion from the ruined chariot. Ella fluttered around in dizzy circles, bonking into the trees and muttering, "Tree. Tree. Tree." Brooklyn stood shakily, breathing in the fresh air as she attempted to get the dirt off of her dress.

Only Hazel seemed unaffected by the ride. Grinning with pleasure, she slid off the horse's back. "That was fun!"

"Yeah." Frank's face was green. "So much fun."

Arion whinnied.

"He says he needs to eat," Percy translated. "No wonder. He probably burned about six million calories."

Hazel studied the ground at her feet and frowned. "I'm not sensing any gold around here . . . don't worry, Arion. I'll find you some. In the meantime, why don't you go graze? We'll meet you—"

The horse zipped off, leaving a trail of steam in his wake.

Hazel knit her eyebrows. "Do you think he'll come back?"

"I don't know," Percy said. "He seems kind of . . . spirited."

Hazel and Percy started salvaging supplies from the chariot wreckage. There had been a few boxes of random Amazon merchandise in the front, and Ella shrieked with delight when she found a shipment of books. She snatched up a copy of The Birds of North America, fluttered to the nearest branch, and began scratching through the pages so fast, Brooklyn was pretty sure she was shredding the pages.

Brooklyn just stood there, trying to get her bearings. Sadly, her body didn't agree, and it made her sink into that stupid black and white world with the red lines that only she noticed. It was useful when fighting monsters, because she could tear apart the lines with her club and the monsters would be dead when she came back, although the point of it? She didn't know.

It's a Hayward thing, her brain supplies. Unsurprisingly, because the only thing she remembers well are instincts. Which is stupid, because they're, you know, instincts.

But it's true. She remembers what it feels like to be around her mother, but not her mother herself. She remembers that she likes the ocean, that she likes Percy, maybe even more than that, but she can't remember why. She remembers the pressure of being the daughter of Z — Jupiter, but she doesn't remember him or Thalia. Not that she probably could, because he's probably never talked to Brooklyn, he's the king of the gods. Why would he want to talk to her?