𝔗𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔨𝔢𝔯𝔶 - 𝔉𝔢𝔪𝔒ℭ𝔵𝔏𝔢𝔬 𝔙𝔞𝔩𝔡𝔢𝔷

10. My Pookie Bear

"Thermos!" Percy screamed as we hurtled toward the water.

"What?"  Annabeth must've thought he'd lost his mind. She was holding on to the boat straps for dear life, her hair flying straight up like a torch.

Mine probably would've too, if I didn't have it in a low bun.

Tyson understood. He managed to open Percy's duffel bag and take out Hermes's magical thermos without losing his grip on it or the boat.

Arrows and javelins whistled past us, and every once and a while, I'd have to cut one down with Nightfall so we wouldn't get turned into kebabs.

Percy grabbed the thermos and yelled, "Hang on!"

"We are  hanging on!" I screamed.

"Tighter!"

I hooked my feet under the boat's inflatable bench, and Tyson grabbed Annabeth, Percy and I by the backs of our shirts, then Percy turned the thermos cap a quarter turn.

Instantly, a white sheet of wind jetted out of the thermos and propelled us sideways, turning our downward plummet into a forty-five-degree crash landing.

I latched my energy to the winds speeding out, and forced it to become more controlled. The wind seemed to laugh as it shot from the thermos, like it was glad to be free. As we hit the ocean, we bumped once, twice, skipping like a stone, then we were whizzing along like a speed boat, sale spray in our faces and nothing but sea ahead.

I heard a wail of outrage from the ship behind us, but we were already out of weapon range. I freed one hand and stuck my middle finger out, screaming, "Bye, fother muckers!"

"Kiera!"

"What!? I said fother muckers!"

The Princess Andromeda  faded to the size of a white toy boat in the distance, and then it was gone.

𓇼     𓇼     𓇼     𓇼     𓇼     𓇼     𓇼     𓇼     𓇼   𓇼 

As we raced over the sea, Annabeth, Percy, and I tried to send an IM to Chiron. We figured it was important we let someone know what Luke was doing, and we didn't know who else to trust.

The wind from the thermos stirred up a nice sea spray that made a rainbow in the sunlight—perfect for an IM—but our connection was still poor. When Annie threw a gold drachma into the mist and prayed for the rainbow goddess to show us Chiron, his face appeared all right, but there was some kind of weird strobe light flashing in the background and rock music blaring, like he was at a club.

We told him abut sneaking away from camp, and Luke and the  Princess Andromeda  and the golden box for that creepy ass reincarnated Titans, but between the noise on his end and the bad connection on our end—I secured a nice little wind bubble around us so there was no noise around us other than what was in it—, I'm not sure how much he heard.

"Percy, Kiera," Chiron yelled, "you have to watch out for—"

His voice was drowned out by loud shouting behind him—a  bunch of voices whooping it up like warriors.

"What?" I asked.

"Curse my relatives!" Chiron ducked as a plate flew over his head and shattered out of sight. "Annabeth, you shouldn't have let the twins leave camp! But if you  do  get the Fleece—"

"Yeah, baby!" Somebody behind Chiron yelled. "Woo-hoooooo!"

The music got cranked up, subwoofers so loud it gave me a migraine.

"—Miami," Chiron was yelling. "I'll try to keep watch—"

Our misty screen smashed apart like someone on the other side had thrown a bottle at hit, and Chiron was gone.