Percy Jackson Betrayal

Chapter 15

I had my eyes clenched shut, gripping onto the arm of the angel as if my life depended on it. And it did. I could feel my throat closing as I started feeling waves of nausea wash over me.

"Tell me when it's over," I hear Thalia say. I barely choke back a scoff.

"I don't know who the fuck you think you're talking to, considering we're in the same boat," I say back, hoping that the girls and Grover couldn't hear us.

"Are... are we very high?"

I cracked a single eye open, gulping loudly as I saw a range of snowy mountains zip by, barely keeping my composure as my foot was able to kick a little bit of snow off of one of the peaks.

"You want the truth?"

There was a pause. "...No."

"We are in the Sierras!" Zoë yells, trying to get her voice to carry to us over the wind. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"A few hours?" I yell back, my eyes shut again.

Zoë never replied, though, as the angels began talking.

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" our angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! Now they know how to party!"

"You guys have been to San Francisco before?" I question.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" our statue responded. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And-"

"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, bro."

"Oh, right." If bronze statues were able to blush, I swear Hank was right now as I looked up at his face. "Back to flying."

Obviously excited at the prospect of getting to San Francisco to party with the marble ladies, the angels sped up. Every once in a while, I would open my eyes and notice the shift in environment, first mountains, then hills, farmlands, and then towns and highways.

Grover played his reed pipes to pass the time. Zoë had gotten bored and began shooting arrows at billboards and the Target department store logo whenever she saw them, nailing them right in the center with multiple arrows while going at a hundred miles per hour. On top of target practice, Zoë was teaching Bianca more about archery, her eye had caught onto Bianca's adeptness while being so new to it, as mine had.

Me and Thalia, however, we were a whole different story. I barely ever opened my eyes and remained nauseous the entire time. While I hadn't yet seen Thalia open here eyes once, though that might not mean much coming from me, and could hear her talking to herself, praying, every now and then.

I swallowed, taking a deep, shaky breath before breathing out. "You did good back there, you know," I told her. "Zeus listened." I opened my eyes, looking toward her form. She didn't do the same.

"Maybe," she responded. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."

I told her about the mortal girl I had nearly killed. Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who had been able to see right through the Mist.

"Some mortals are like that," she said, nodding. "Nobody knows why."

"Well, she was a bit annoying," I said. "But I'm I didn't kill her, you know, all things considered."

Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal."

Her voice conveyed the fact that she'd given that idea a lot of thought. I didn't question her anymore after that, leaving her be.