Sky Boy ~~~ Jason Grace

~Chapter 6~

Piper turned Leo over, and he groaned. His army coat was soaked from the rain. His curly hair glittered gold from rolling around in monster dust. But at least he wasn't dead.

"Stupid . . . ugly . . . goat," he muttered.

"Where did he go?" Piper asked.

The twins pointed straight. "Never came down. Please tell me he didn't actually save my life."

"Twice," Jason said.

Leo groaned even louder. "What happened? The tornado guy, the gold sword . . . I hit my head. That's it, right? I'm hallucinating?"

Jason had forgotten about the sword. He walked over to Lily who sheepishly held the sword hilt out to him in an offering. He instead grabbed her hand and pulled her off the ground. Jason looked into her eyes and saw confusion before he took the sword. The blade was well balanced. On a hunch her flipped it. Mid-spin, the sword shrank back into a coin and landed in his palm.

"Yep," Leo said. "Definitely hallucinating."

Piper shivered in her rain-soaked clothes, Jason noticed Lily was also shivering. "Jason, those things-"

"Venti," he said. "Storm spirits."

"Okay. You acted like . . .like you'd seen them before. Who are you?"

He shook his head. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I don't know."

The storm dissipated. The other kids from the Wilderness School were staring out the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working on the locks now, but they didn't seem to be having and luck.

"Coach Hedge said he had to protect four people." Jason remembered. "I think he meant us."

"And that thing Dylan turned into . . ." Piper shuddered. "God, I can't believe it was hitting on me. He called us . . .what, demigods?"

Leo lay on his back, staring at the sky. "Don't know what demi means," he said. "But I'm not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?"

There was a brittle sound like dry twigs snapping, and the cracks in the skywalk began to widen.

"We need to get off this thing," Jason said pulling Lily close. "Maybe if we-"

"Ohhh-kay," Leo interrupted. "Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses."

At first Jason thought Leo had hit his head too hard. Then he saw a dark shape descending from the east- too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer he could see a pair of winged animals-gray, four-legged, exactly like horses- except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted with two wheels: a chariot.

"Reinforcements," he said. "Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us."

"Extraction squad?" Leo struggled to his feet, eyeing Jason and Lily. "That sounds painful."

"And where are they extracting us to?" Piper asked.

Jason watched as the chariot landed on the far end of the skywalk. The flying horses tucked in their winds and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot- a tall blond girl maybe a little older than Jason, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. They both wore jeans and orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs. The girl leaped off before the chariot had even finished moving. She pulled a knife and ran towards Jason's group while the bulky dude was reining in the horses.

"Where is he?" the girl demanded. Her gray eyes were fierce and a little startling.

"Where's who?" Jason asked.

She frowned like his answer was unacceptable. Then she turned to Leo and Piper, her eyes skipping over the girl tucked into Jason trying to keep warm. "What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?"

The coach's first name was Gleeson? Jason might've laughed if the morning hadn't been quite so weird and scary. Gleeson Hedge: football coach, goat man, protector of demigods. Sure. Why not?

Lily cleared her throat, gaining the attention of the gray eyed girl. "He got taken but some . . .tornado things."

"Venti," Jason said. "Storm spirits."

The blond girl arched an eyebrow. "You mean anemoi thuellai? That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"

Jason did his best to explain, though it was hard to meet those intense gray eyes. About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which seemed a little unusual.

When Jason had finished the story, the blond girl didn't look satisfied. "No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer."

"Annabeth," the bald guy grunted. "Check it out." He pointed to Jason's feet.

Jason hadn't thought much about it, but he was still missing his left shoe, which had been blown off by the lightning. His bare foot felt okay, but it looked like a big lump of charcoal, especially compared to Lily's small combat boot feet.

"The guy with one shoe," said the bald dude. "He's the answer."

"No, Butch," the girl insisted. "He can't be. I was tricked."

She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. "What do you want from me?" She screamed. "What have you done with him?"

The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.

"Annabeth," said the bald dude, Butch, "we gotta leave. Let's get these four to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."

She fumed for a moment. "Fine." She fixed Jason with a resentful look, before turning her stare to Lily with sadness. "We'll settle this later."

She turned on her heel and marched toward the chariot.

Piper shook her head. "What's her problem? What's going on?"

"Seriously," Leo agreed.

"We have to get you out of here," Butch said. "I'll explain on the way."

"I'm not going anywhere with her." Jason gestured toward the blond. "She looks like she wants to kill me. And after she gave Lily that look."

Butch hesitated. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem."

"What problem?" Lily asked looking at the blond.

"She's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing three days," Butch said. "She's going out of her mind with worry. She'd hoped he'd be here."

"Who?" Jason asked.

"Her boyfriend," Butch said. "A guy named Percy Jackson."

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I'm so sorry it's so insanley short, and a little later than some of you would have liked. (This chapter was 1095 words.) Next update will be next Saturday if not sooner. Please let me know what you think of Lily as a character and her relationship with Jason so far. I feel like I'm rushing it.