KALANI WAS sitting in the driver seat of a red Chevy Corvette, hands fixated on the steering wheel. The car wasn't actually in motion, since they were on a freight train that was carrying a bunch of automobile carrier trains, with triple decks of cars inside. Nobody argued about who would drive this time, because everyone got their own car for the trip.
Thalia even hot wired the radio in a black Mercedes SLK so she could pick up the alt rock stations from D.C.
Kalani hummed along to it, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel quickly along to the rhythm of the song. The radio was playing the White Stripes. She was so immersed she almost didn't notice the Hunter passing by her car.
"Hey, Bianca," greeted Kalani, dramatically rolling down the windows— even though she didn't have to. She glanced at the young girl, who was standing in front of the car doors.
"I'm just looking at all the cars," Bianca said nervously. "They look so. . . Different."
Kalani patted the leather passenger seat. "Wanna sit with me? Riding out this whole train ride alone would suck."
Bianca smiled. "Sure." She hopped into the car seat and leaned back leisurely.
Kalani crossed her legs and met Bianca's gaze with a small smile. "You must've lived somewhere else, I guess." She gestured around the variety of cars in the freight.
"Yeah." Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. . . Everything seems so much more strange than it was when I lived with Nico, you know? Like the second I stepped out that hotel— everything changed. I don't know if I'll ever adjust."
Kalani frowned sympathetically. "You will, don't worry. Maybe it'll take some time, but you will," she assured the girl.
Bianca smiled. "Thanks, Kalani."
"Hey, of course." Kalani held out her hand. "High five?"
"What's that?" frowned Bianca.
"Like this." Kalani helped Bianca form her hand into a flat palm, fingers laced together, and then she brought it towards hers, gently slapping the two palms together. "Here. Now, this time, we do it from a distance and a little harder. Ready?"
Bianca nodded.
They high fived.
Bianca smiled, staring at her hand in slight confusion. "Cool," she said, eyes sparkling. "I love your bracelet." She nodded at the small homemade woven bracelet with beads in it wrapped around Kalani's wrist.
Kalani grinned. "Thanks. Me and my stepmom used to love making them together. If we survive this, and have some extra time apart from your Hunter duties, maybe I can help you make some of your own?"
"Really? You'd do that?" The Hunter beamed.
"Sure! I'd love to!" Kalani found herself somewhat looking at Bianca like she was her little sister. She'd never had siblings before, aside from Ethan, though they were only related by same godly parent. Kalani had never had siblings in her mortal household. It was just her and her dad.
"That would be so cool! Thanks, Lani—" Bianca stopped. "Is it okay if I call you that?"
Kalani nodded. "Yeah, sure."
"Um, I'm going to go check on Zoë about something— Hunter stuff," she told Kalani with a smile.
"Okay," Kalani said, watching as the younger girl stumbled of the car. She unconsciously felt a fond smile spreading on her face.
—•—
"Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up. We're here," Thalia said, shaking Kalani's shoulders.
Kalani blinked her eyes open and slid out of the car, standing up. The metal curtains were rolled up, and through them, outside were snowy mountains dotted with pine trees— the sun rising between two peaks.
The group climbed their way out of the freight train without detection, and then started their long trek towards the mountains.
Kalani shivered, clutching her arms. The wind whipped her hair back, slapping her in the face like an icy hand. She was definitely not used to cold weather, having lived most of her life in Maui, one of the islands in Hawaii. The temperatures there were always so hot, and while some days there were pretty sweltering, she found herself longing for it.
She hugged herself, and relief flooded her body as she spotted a sign; they'd finally reached the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains.
"Welcome to Cloudcroft," Percy read aloud, but slowly— the font was pretty dyslexic-friendly, but he still had a little trouble reading it at first.
The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the morning was sunny.
They stopped in the middle of town. Pretty much all the buildings were visible from there; a school, several tourist locations, cafes, ski cabins, and a grocery store.
"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."
"There's a coffee shop!" said Grover.
"Yes," Zoë said. "Coffee is good."
"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And was paper."
Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two go get some food. Percy, Bianca, Kalani, and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."
They agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes.
Bianca looked a little uncomfortable going with Percy and Thalia, but Kalani gave her a small smile and she relaxed a little.
In the store, they found a few valuable details regarding Cloudcroft— there wasn't enough snow for skiing, (what was the point of building a bunch of ski cabins, then? Kalani thought) the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there wasn't an easy way out of town unless you had your own car.
"You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo," said the clerk doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars."
The four left the store and stood on the porch.
"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion."
"But the clerk said—"
"I know," she told Percy. "I'm checking anyway."
Kalani thought that was pointless, but she knew Thalia just wanted to feel useful. She too felt pretty restless, like she couldn't stand here and just wait for the rest of the group to get here, only for them to deliver the news that, oh yeah, they're screwed. "I'm coming," she told Thalia. "Maybe there is something." She shrugged.
"Okay." Thalia shrugged and the two set off, leaving Percy and Bianca to a very awkward conversation Kalani was not envious to be left out of.
—•—
There was no way out of the hellhole.
Thalia and Kalani had tried several shops, even knocking on the door of an occupied ski cabin— to a very disgruntled old man who smelled like beer, and also looked like he'd drunken a lot of it. He stumbled around clumsily, eyes bloodshot. "What do you kids want?"
"Never mind," Kalani said hesitantly, and pulled Thalia along with her.
"Idiot," Thalia told Kalani. "Who do you think would want to come on vacation here?" She gestured around the miserable town and Kalani shrugged.
"I don't think he was on vacation. Probably lives here. I mean, I don't see why you would, but then again, this isn't exactly a top vacation destination location."
Thalia sighed. "True." She glanced around and nodded. "We should probably get back to the group. It's been a lot more than fifteen minutes."
"And Grover's probably gonna eat all the pastries," agreed Kalani.
"He probably ate them all already," Thalia told her. "And the wax paper, too."
"I hope not. If he did, I'm going to kill him," Kalani said. "I'm really craving some cookies right now."
"Me too," Thalia commented. "Race you back?"
"You're on." Kalani grinned.
Thalia ran up the street with Kalani shoving into her to get ahead, and Thalia trying to push her back equally as hard.
"I win," Kalani said triumphantly. "You—" she cut herself off, frowning at the scene that had unfolded. Grover was lying face down in the snow, coffee steaming in a puddle of dark water around him. "What happened?"
"What's wrong with Grover?" Thalia asked.
"I don't know," Percy said. "He collapsed."
"Uuuuuuhhh," Grover groaned.
"Well, get him up!" Thalia said, drawing her spear and glancing behind her cautiously. "We have to get out of here."
—•—
The first two skeleton warriors showed up after the group managed to make it to the edge of town. They stepped from the trees on either side of the road. Instead of grey camouflage, the skeletons were wearing blue New Mexico State Police uniforms, but they had the same transparent grey skin and yellow eyes that glowed like flashlights boring through their brains.
They drew their handguns.
Kalani brought out her hand axe— she knew it was useless against the zombie warriors that had guns, but nonetheless she felt she needed the comfort of having a weapon in her hands.
Thalia tapped her bracelet to summon Aegis. The shield spiraled to life on her arm.
Percy drew Riptide, and the two Hunters drew their bows— though Bianca was having some trouble because Grover kept swooning and leaning against her.
"Back up," said Thalia.
They started to back up, but then a rustle behind Kalani forced her to turn around; two more skeleton warriors appeared on the road behind them. They were surrounded.
One of the skeleton warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it.
Or— not really speaking.
Kalani winced at the sound like metal scraping against bones. The sound grated unpleasantly out of his mouth.
Either way, she knew they were in trouble. The skeleton clearly had some buddies he was calling now, and soon they would have an army to deal with.
"It's near," Grover moaned.
"It's here," Percy said.
"No," Grover insisted. "The gift. The gift from the Wild." Kalani was getting seriously concerned about Grover's state of being right now, but they had bigger fish to fry.
"We'll have to go one-on-one," Thalia said. "We outnumber them right now. There's four of them and five of us. Maybe they'll ignore Grover that way."
"Agreed," said Zoë.
"The Wild!" Grover moaned.
The group backed against each other, and then fought.
Kalani took care of a gangly skeleton, dodging the bullets he shot at her and slowly getting closer until she was able to get in range to use her weapon. She kicked the handgun out of the skeleton's bony hands, and picked it up. She put the gun away for safekeeping, to prevent the skeleton from using it on her.
She backed away from the skeleton, who was practically naked without his weapon. He tried some attacks with his bare hands, but Kalani was able to effortlessly dodge each one of them. She kept this charade up until Thalia ran to her and sliced the skeleton's head cleanly off, the bones clattering to the ground.
"Percy!" Thalia's shout brought Kalani's attention to Jackson, who was lying face down on the ground, two smoking bullets rolling away from his body. Her eyes widened. She never liked him, but she didn't wish him dead.
But luckily, he hadn't died. Percy pulled himself up to duck another skeleton's hit.
Kalani realized the Nemean Lion's fur was bulletproof, which protected him. She let out a breath of relief, and continued helping out Thalia, backing her up in the fight.
Zoë and Bianca were firing their arrows at the skeletons' heads, but the arrows blew through their empty skulls. A warrior lunged at Bianca, and it happened so quickly Kalani couldn't have possibly ran over to protect her— but Bianca whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed him in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a small pile of ashes and a police badge.
"How did you do that?" Zoë asked.
"I don't know," Bianca said nervously. "Lucky stab?"
Really lucky stab, thought Kalani. If Bianca wasn't lucky, she would've died. She shivered at the thought.
"Well, do it again!" Zoë cried.
Bianca tried, but now the remaining three skeleton's were wary of her. They pressed the demigods and Hunters back, keeping them at batons' length.
"Plan?" Percy asked.
Nobody answered. The trees behind the skeleton's were shivering. Branches were cracking.
"A gift," Grover muttered.
And then, a massive pig thundered down the road, accompanied with a mighty battle roar. It was a wild boar, about thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair and its eyes were wild and angry.
"REEEEEEEEE!" it squealed, and raked the three skeleton's aside with its tusks. Its force was so powerful, they flew over the trees and hit the side of the mountain, smashing into tiny pieces.
Then the pig turned to the questers.
Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, "Don't kill it!"
Kalani nodded slowly, eyes widening at the giant pig.
They were in danger.