CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

They were crossing the Potomac when they spotted the helicopter. It was a sleek, black military model just like the one they'd seen at Westover Hall. And it was coming straight toward them.

"They know the van," Percy said. "We have to ditch it."

Zoë swerved into the fast lane, sending Grover to smack against a window. The helicopter was gaining.

"Maybe the military will shoot it down," Grover said hopefully, rubbing his forehead.

"The military probably thinks it's one of theirs," Percy said. "How can the General use mortals, anyway?"

"Mercenaries," Zoë said bitterly. "It is distasteful, but many mortals will fight for any cause as long as they are paid."

Sylvie shrugged. "Money is money."

"But don't these mortals see who they're working for?" asked Percy. "Don't they notice all the monsters around them?"

Zoë shook her head. "I do not know how much they see through the Mist. I doubt it would matter to them if they knew the truth. Sometimes mortals can be more horrible than monsters."

The helicopter kept coming, making a lot better time than the questers were through D.C. traffic.

Thalia closed her eyes and prayed hard. "Hey, Dad. A lightning bolt would be nice about now. Please?"

But the sky stayed gray and snowy. No sign of a helpful thunderstorm.

"There!" Bianca said. "That parking lot!"

"We'll be trapped," Zoë said.

"Trust me."

Zoë shot across two lanes of traffic and into a mall parking on the south bank of the river. They left the van and followed Bianca down some steps.

"Subway entrance," Bianca said. "Let's go south. Alexandria."

"Anything," Sylvie agreed.

They bought tickets and got through turnstiles, looking behind themselves for any signs of pursuit. A few minutes later, they were safely aboard a southbound train, riding away from D.C. As their train came above ground, they could see the helicopter circling the parking lot, but it didn't come after them.

Grover let out a sigh. "Nice job, Bianca, thinking of the subway."

Bianca looked pleased. "Yeah, well. I saw that station when Nico and I came through last summer. I remember being really surprised to see it, because it wasn't here when we used to live in D.C."

Sylvie frowned. "New? But that station looked really old."

"I guess," Bianca said. "But trust me, when we lived here as little kids, there was no subway."

Thalia sat forward. "Wait a minute. No subway at all?"

Bianca nodded.

Now, Sylvie knew nothing about D.C., but she didn't see how their whole subway system could be less than twelve years old. She also guessed everyone else was thinking the same thing, because they looked pretty confused.

"Bianca," Zoë said. "How long ago..."

Her voice faltered. The sound of the helicopter was getting louder again.

"We need to change trains," Percy said. "Next station."

Over the next half hour, all they thought about was getting away safely. They changed trains twice. Sylvie had no idea where they were going, but after a while they lost the helicopter.

Unfortunately, when they finally got off the train they found themselves at the end of the line, in an industrial area with nothing but warehouses and railway tracks. And snow. Lots of snow. It seemed much colder here. Sylvie's favorite thing.

(Please sense the sarcasm there.)

They wandered through the railway yard, thinking there might be another passenger train somewhere, but there were just rows and rows of freight cars, most of which were covered in snow, like they hadn't moved in years.

A homeless guy was standing at a trash-can fire. The questers must've looked pretty pathetic, because he gave them a toothless grin and said, "Y'all need to get warmed up? Come on over!"

They huddled around his fire. Sylvie wrapped her jacket impossibly tighter around herself. Thalia's teeth were chattering. She said, "Well this is g-g-g-great."

"My hooves are frozen," Grover complained.

"Feet," Percy corrected, for the sake of the homeless guy.

Sylvie told the man, "Thanks for letting us use your fire."

The homeless man smiled at her with his yellowed and missing teeth. "It's no problem, ma'am."

"Maybe we should contact camp," Bianca said. "Chiron—"

"No," Zoë said. "They cannot help us any more. We must finish this quest ourselves."

Sylvie gazed miserably around the rail yard, shivering violently. Somewhere, far to the west, Artemis was in chains. Annabeth was in danger. A doomsday monster was on the loose. And they were stuck on the outskirts of D.C., sharing a homeless person's fire.

"You know," the homeless man said, "you're never completely without friends." His face was grimy and his beard tangled, but his expression seemed kindly. "You kids need a train going west?"

"Yes, sir," Sylvie said. "You know of any?"

He pointed one greasy hand.

Suddenly Sylvie noticed a freight train, gleaming and free of snow. It was one of those automobile-carrier trains, with steel mesh curtains and a triple-deck of cars inside. The side of the freight train said SUN WEST LINE

"That's... convenient," Thalia said. "Thanks, uh..."

She turned to the homeless guy, but he was gone. The trash can in front of them was cold and empty, as if he'd taken the flames with him.

╰━━━ ◦ ❀ ◦ ❀◦ ━━━╯

An hour later they were rumbling west. There was no problem about who would drive now, because they all got their own car. Zoë and Bianca were crashed out in a Lexus on the top deck. Grover was playing race car driver behind the wheel of a Lamborghini. Sylvie was in the front of a vintage, two-seater truck trying to hide from the cold. And Thalia had hot-wired the radio in a black Mercedes SLK so she could pick up the altrock stations from D.C.—Percy was in there talking to her.

A part of Sylvie was wishing she'd asked Thalia to hot-wire her vehicle, too. Not because Sylvie was into altrock, but just because she was sort of desperate for the hot air a car could provide. Currently Sylvie was curled up in the passenger's seat, knees to her chin. Sylvie wrapped her jacket around herself as much as she could and kept her hands stuffed in her pockets. Of course she wanted to try sleeping, but she was far too cold to do so. She was also far too afraid to sleep again, in case she got caught up in another nightmare.

So she kind of just shivered there like a neglected, baby deer.

Suddenly the driver's side door was thrown open, hitting Sylvie with another wave of cold air that made her even more miserable. She instinctively glared at the hateful heathen who was rooting on her downfall so horribly.

"I come bearing a gift," Percy greeted as he climbed into the truck.

"Is it spring?" Sylvie groaned pathetically.

Percy snorted in amusement as he shut the door behind him. He was wearing the Nemean Lion's pelt in the form of a brown coat.

"Unfortunately, no," Percy shook his head. He held a lump of fabric out to her. "I know you're, like, miserably freezing, so... here."

Sylvie had to take her hands out of her pockets to grab Percy's "gift." However, it didn't seem much like a present when Sylvie held it up to find that it was his jacket. You know, the one that the Nemean Lion ripped a chunk out of.

"Your zip-up?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yes...?"

"It's ripped."

"It's all I have left!" he said defensively. "I figured you could wear it under your own jacket."

"'All you have left,'" Sylvie echoed in disbelief. "You're wearing the Nemean Lion's coat right now!"

Percy caught onto what she was implying and curled the jacket into himself like he was protecting it. "Hey, I'm cold, too!"

"And chivalrous," Sylvie grumbled.

Regardless, she did accept Percy's hardly-in-tact zip-up with a weary thanks. Sylvie shrugged off her coat, revealing the purple long-sleeve she was wearing underneath. It looked a little stupid, but her golden armband was on top of the shirt—it wasn't a fashion statement, it was just for the convenience of being able to bring out Cereal from its holster.

Trying to find as much warmth as she could, Sylvie hastily put on Percy's ripped jacket then her own coat right after. She was so cold that she couldn't even care to panic about Percy's gesture. She could only find herself surprised at how much heat a slashed zip-up could really provide.

"Thank you," Sylvie told him. "For real this time."

"Oh, so you didn't mean it before?" he teased.

"No."

Percy laughed. Then, annoyingly, "I can't believe how weak you are about the cold, Duvall."

"Hey, I'm from the south!" she defended herself. "And I'm a Demeter kid! I'm not acclimated to these kinds of temperatures!"

"Well, obviously."

Sylvie reached over the console to swat at him, though without much force. She rolled her eyes to try and compensate for the beaming grin that was sneaking its way onto her face.

She was trying to be normal—Sylvie was trying to be the kind of normal girl that had normal conversations with a guy despite how much she liked him. But normal was not something Sylvie had ever been good at.

There was always too much at work in her brain. She'd always been an anomaly; a creature living in a world built for somebody else. Sylvie went to school and she felt like a fraud. She went to camp and she felt like a fraud. She hung out with other people a million times braver than her and she felt like a fraud. She went to these quests and she felt like an adult in a child's body. She went home to her farm and felt like a child in an adult's body.

Ten thousand versions of Sylvie Duvall, and she wasn't sure she liked any of them at all.

And here Percy was, looking terribly amused at himself for getting Sylvie to crack. Sometimes it seemed like this was a daily goal for him. That thought made her feel a little light-headed, just like Percy always did.

Sylvie was starting to feel like she truly understood Percy, the more time they spend together.

To his friends, Percy pulled stupid jokes that could make them feel better in spite of who they were. He was dorky, loyal, and kind in a way he didn't even realize. To his enemies, Percy was smart in a way that would have you thinking he was Annabeth's half-brother. He was powerful, witty, and a sarcastic little shit that got himself out of the situations he got himself into.

The Percy that Sylvie liked the most, however, was this kind—the one that gave Sylvie his jacket despite how ripped, that teased her in a way it didn't feel painfully mocking, and knew just the ways to calm Sylvie down from getting so caught up in her head.

The longer Sylvie got to know him, the more she realized that these Percys weren't actually separate, and she felt with growing certainty that Percy was more like Sylvie than she'd originally thought, but with one profound difference:

Ten thousand versions of Percy Jackson, and Sylvie liked every single one of them.

"I give you my jacket, and this is the gratitude I receive?!" Percy kept up his idiotic act. He was even holding where Sylvie hit his arm, dramatically pretending to be in pain.

Yeah. Unfortunately, Sylvie really liked him.

"Your torn jacket!" she pointed out, looking away from him to hide her smile.

"Whatever," he tried hiding his grin too. "The cold makes you cranky."

"Or maybe it's just the doomed quest I was forced to go on," she found herself blurting. The honesty came easy to her here, but it was usually such a foreign thing.

Sylvie could feel Percy's stare back on her now. She failed not to cave and meet his eyes.

"Are you scared?" he asked, suddenly serious.

Did he know who he was talking to?

Still, it felt a little vulnerable to answer, "Terrified."

Sylvie thought of her dream from Kronos. Human hearts can only take so much hurt. A half-blood's heart isn't much different, especially if it's been foolishly given to the wrong people. And she thought about the lines of the prophecy. The child of grain will feel heartbreak's blow.

At the end of the day, Sylvie was still that little kid who always panicked about everything. She had gotten a little better at hiding it recently, but that kind of fear still lingered. Those vines still stayed wrapped around her throat—Sometimes they're idle, but other times, times like now, they squeezed tight on Sylvie's airways.

"It's gonna be fine," Percy tried assuring her.

Sylvie swallowed, and curled in tighter on herself. Suddenly holding Percy's eye contact was too intense for her liking. She stared out the truck's front window.

"I don't know, Percy," Sylvie whispered. "Sometimes... this life... I don't know—Sometimes it just makes me want..."

She couldn't finish.

Percy's reaction or thoughts or facial expression was unknown to her. Sylvie didn't dare pull her amber eyes away from the window before them. There was a small flame of guilt burning in her chest, and she knew it would spread like a wildfire if she saw Percy.

"Hey," Percy's soft and surprisingly unsure voice broke in. "I—actually wanted to ask you about, um... Well, Grover found this bro—"

"Are my favorite children bickering again?" an eager voice asked.

Sylvie and Percy whipped behind themselves in fear.

The homeless guy from the rail yard was sitting in the bed of the truck. He'd opened the back window somehow and was peeking his head through, chin atop his crossed hands like he was a teen awaiting fresh gossip.

His jeans were so worn out they were almost white. His coat was ripped, with stuffing coming out. He looked kind of like a teddy bear that had been run over by a truck.

And because he was near, the cold air wasn't coming into the truck, even though the entire back was open.

"Apollo?" Sylvie guessed, because it just felt right.

He put his finger to his lips. "I'm incognito. Call me Fred."

"A god named Fred?" Percy judged.

"Eh, well... Zeus insists on certain rules. Hands off, when there's a human quest. Even when something really major is wrong. But nobody messes with my baby sister. Nobody."

"Can you help us, then?"

"Shhh. I already have. Haven't you been looking outside?"

"The train," Sylvie realized. "How fast are we moving?"

Apollo chuckled. "Fast enough. Unfortunately, we're running out of time. It's almost sunset. But I imagine we'll get you across a good chunk of America, at least."

"But where is Artemis?" Sylvie wondered.

His face darkened. "I know a lot, and I see a lot. But even I don't know that. She's... clouded from me. I don't like it."

"And Annabeth?"

He frowned. "Oh, you mean that girl you two lost? Hmm. I don't know."

Sylvie tried not to feel mad. She knew the gods had a hard time taking mortals seriously, even half-bloods. They lived such short lives, compared to the gods.

"What about the monster Artemis was seeking?" Percy asked. "Do you know what it is?"

"No," Apollo said. "But there is one who might. If you haven't yet found your monster when you reach San Francisco, seek out Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. He has a long memory and a sharp eye. He has the gift of knowledge sometimes kept obscure from my Oracle."

"But it's your Oracle," Sylvie protested. "Can't you tell us what the prophecy means?"

Please.

Apollo sighed. "You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear through the search."

"In other words," Percy sounded frustrated, "you don't know."

Apollo checked his watch. "Ah, look at the time! I have to run. I doubt I can risk helping you two again, Sylvie and Percy. But remember what I said! And get some sleep! And when you return, I expect a good haiku about your journeys!"

Sylvie wanted to protest that she wasn't tired and she'd never made up a haiku in her life, but Apollo snapped his fingers, and the next thing Sylvie and Percy knew, they were closing their eyes.

╰━━━ ◦ ❀ ◦ ❀◦ ━━━╯

They'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. The air was cold and thin, also known as, the bane of Sylvie's existence. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the morning was sunny.

Even with two and a half layers, Sylvie was freezing by the time they got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. As they walked, Sylvie and Percy told Grover about their conversation with Apollo the night before—how he'd told them to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.

Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."

Sylvie tried not to get too depressed about their chances. The winter solstice was only four days away, and they needed to save Artemis in time for her council of the gods. That didn't even include Annabeth, who would only be kept alive for who knew how long. They didn't have time or knowledge on their side. Sylvie didn't like the sound of it at all.

They stopped in the middle of town. You could pretty much see everything there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some 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 wax paper."

Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two and Percy go get us some food. Sylvie, Bianca, 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 coming with them, but she did.

Inside the store, they found out a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car.

"You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said 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 clerk looked so lonely, so Sylvie bought a rubber rat. They headed back outside 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 Bianca. "I'm checking anyway."

Sylvie let her go. She knew how it felt to be restless. All half-bloods had attention deficit problems because of their inborn battlefield reflexes.They couldn't stand just waiting around. 

Sylvie and Bianca stood together awkwardly. In Sylvie's defense—she was never very comfortable talking with people anyway, and she'd never been alone with Bianca before. Sylvie wasn't sure what to say. She never was.

"Nice rat," Bianca sat at last.

Sylvie set it on the porch railing. Maybe it would attract more business for the store.

"So—how do you like being a Hunter so far?" Sylvie asked. She couldn't hide the fact she was a little bit curious.

Bianca pursed her lips. "Well, it definitely sucks that Lady Artemis is gone. But being a Hunter is definitely cool. I feel calmer somehow. Everything seems to have slowed down around me. I guess that's the immortality."

Calm, Sylvie noted desperately. Something she never seemed to be.

Sylvie stared at Bianca, trying to see the difference. She did seem more confident than before, more at peace. She didn't hide her face under a green cap anymore. She kept her hair tied back, and she looked Sylvie right in the eyes when she spoke. With a shiver, Sylvie realized that five hundred or a thousand years from now, Bianca di Angelo would look exactly the same as she did today. She would still look twelve years old.

"Nico didn't understand my decision," Bianca murmured. She looked at Sylvie like she wanted assurance it was okay.

"He'll be all right," Sylvie said. "Camp Half-Blood takes in a lot of young kids. They did that for Annabeth. And my brother, Cedar."

Bianca nodded. "I hope we find her. Annabeth, I mean. She's lucky to have a friend like you."

"Lot of good it did her," Sylvie scoffed. "It's the other way around, anyways."

"Don't blame yourself, Sylvie. You risked your life to fight Dr. Thorn for me and my brother like that. I mean, that was seriously brave. And cool. If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't have felt okay about leaving Nico at the camp. I figured if there were people like you and your friends there, Nico would be fine."

The compliment took Sylvie by surprise, as most did. She didn't understand what these members of the Hunt kept seeing in Sylvie—a part of being a Hunter had to be an imaginative mindset, because Sylvie was just Sylvie.

"I had a lot of help," Sylvie shrugged. "And it was really just my friends."

Bianca laughed. "Sure," but she didn't sound convinced.

A couple hundred yards away, Percy, Grover, and Zoë came out of the coffee shop loaded down with pastry bags and drinks. Sylvie kind of didn't want them to come back yet. It was weird, but she realized she liked talking to Bianca. She wasn't so bad. A lot easier to hang out with than Zoë, anyway.

"So what's the story with you and Nico?" Sylvie asked her. "Where did you go to school before Westover?"

She frowned. "I think it was a boarding school in D.C. It seems like so long ago."

"You never lived with your parents? I mean, your mortal parent?"

"We were told our parents were dead. There was a bank trust for us. A lot of money, I think. A lawyer would come by once in a while to check on us. Then Nico and I had to leave that school."

"Why?"

She knit her eyebrows. "We had to go somewhere. I remember it was important. We traveled a long way. And we stayed in this hotel for a few weeks. And then... I don't know. One day a different lawyer came to get us out. He said it was time for us to leave. He drove us back east, through D.C. Then up into Maine. And we started going to Westover."

It was a strange story. Then again, Bianca and Nico were half-bloods. Nothing would be normal for them.

"So you've been raising Nico pretty much all your life?" Sylvie asked. "Just the two of you?"

She nodded. "That's why I wanted to join the Hunters so bad. I mean, I know it's selfish, but I wanted my own life and friends. I love Nico—don't get me wrong—I just needed to find out what it would be like not to be a big sister twenty-four hours a day."

Sylvie could relate to what Bianca was saying, in the slightest of senses. She'd been taking care of her dad basically her whole life, and now, this winter, she was taking care of her younger siblings. It wasn't the easiest of tasks, that was for sure.

Sylvie never got to commune with Bianca, though. She was prevented from responding when Percy, Grover, and Zoë arrived with drinks and pastries. Hot chocolate for Sylvie, Percy, and Bianca. Coffee for Grover and Zoë. Percy even got Sylvie her favorite kind of muffin—a chocolate chip one—and it was delicious, by the way.

"We should do the tracking spell," Zoë said. "Grover, do you have any acorns left?"

"Umm," Grover mumbled. He was chewing on a bran muffin, wrapper and all. "I think so. I just need to—"

He froze.

Sylvie was about to ask what was wrong, when a warm breeze rustled past, like a gust of springtime had gotten lost in the middle of winter. Fresh air seasoned with wildflowers and sunshine. And something else—almost like a voice, trying to say something. A warning.

Zoë gasped. "Grover, thy cup."

Grover dropped his coffee cup, which was decorated with pictures of birds. Suddenly the birds peeled off the cup and flew away—a flock of tiny doves. Sylvie's rubber rat squeaked. It scampered off the railing and into the trees—real fur, real whiskers.

Grover collapsed next to his coffee, which steamed against the snow. They gathered around him and tried to wake him up. He groaned, his eyes fluttering.

"Hey!" Thalia said, running up from the street. "I just... What's wrong with Grover?"

"I don't know," Percy said. "He collapsed."

"Uuuuuhhhh," Grover groaned.

"Well, get him up!" Thalia said. She had her spear in her hand. She looked behind her as if she were being followed. "We have to get out of here."

╰━━━ ◦ ❀ ◦ ❀◦ ━━━╯

They made it to the edge of town before the first two skeleton warriors appeared. They stepped from the trees on either side of the road. Instead of gray camouflage, they were now wearing blue New Mexico State Police uniforms, but they had the same transparent gray skin and yellow eyes.

They drew their handguns. Sylvie was, predictably, scared shitless.

Thalia tapped her bracelet. Aegis spiraled to life on her arm, but the warriors didn't flinch. Their glowing yellow eyes bored right into Sylvie.

But Percy nudged Sylvie's shoulder, and their eyes locked. 

Sylvie let out a breath to calm herself and drew her daggers, though she wasn't sure what good they would do against guns. Percy did the same with Riptide.

Zoë and Bianca drew their bows, but Bianca was having trouble because Grover kept swooning and leaning against her.

"Back up," Thalia said.

They started to—but then Sylvie heard a rustling of branches. Three more skeletons appeared on the road behind them. They were surrounded.

Percy had mentioned there being a lot more skeletons, and Sylvie wondered where they were. But then one of the warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it.

Except he wasn't speaking. He made a clattering, clicking sound, like dry teeth on bone. Suddenly Sylvie understood what was going on. The skeletons had split to look for them. These skeletons were now calling their brethren. Soon they'd have a full party on their hands.

"It's near," Grover groaned.

"It's here," Percy said.

"No," he insisted. "The gift. The gift from the Wild."

Sylvie didn't know what he was talking about, but she was worried about his condition. He was in no shape to walk, much less fight.

"We'll have to go one-on-one," Thalia said. "Five of them. Five of us. Maybe they'll ignore Grover that way."

"Agreed," said Zoë.

"The Wild!" Grover groaned.

A warm wind blew through the canyon, rustling the trees, but Sylvie kept her eyes on the skeletons.

Percy charged, and the first skeleton fired.

Somehow Percy deflected the bullet off the edge of his blade and kept charging. The skeleton drew a baton and Percy sliced off its arms at the elbows. Then he swung Riptide through its waist and cut it in half.

Its bones unknit and clattered to the asphalt in a heap. Almost immediately, they began to move, reassembling themselves. The second skeleton clattered its teeth at him and tried to fire, but he knocked its gun into the snow.

Sylvie was amazed with how good he was doing, until the other three skeletons shot him in the back.

"Percy!" Sylvie screamed.

She rushed forward as Percy landed facedown in the street. Sylvie slid to her knees to check on him, but... he wasn't dead. The impact of the bullets hadn't hurt him. The Nemean Lion's fur was bulletproof.

"Don't scare me like that," she hissed, hitting him as she simultaneously helped him stand.

Percy tilted his head at her with that stupid smirk of his. "You were worried."

He ran back into his battle with the first skeleton. Thalia charged the second. Zoë and Bianca started firing arrows a the third and fourth. Sylvie let out a flustered grunt before growing vines around the fifth, holding it in place, and slicing off its head. Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them.

There was a crashing sound in the forest to their left, like a bulldozer. Maybe the skeletons' reinforcements were arriving. Sylvie jolted back as the beheaded skeleton swatted a police baton at her blindly. Although, it's head reformed pretty quickly before her eyes.

There was no way to stop them. Zoë and Bianca fired at their heads point-bank, but the arrows just whistled through their empty skulls. One lunged at Bianca, and Sylvie thought she was a goner, but she whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed the warrior in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a little pile of ashes and a police badge.

"How did you do that?" Sylvie asked.

"I don't know," Bianca said nervously. "Lucky stab?"

"Well, do it again!"

Bianca tried, but the remaining four skeletons were wary of her now. And Sylvie, because of the ability she had to keep them grounded. They pressed back, keeping the quest group at baton's length and making sure they weren't standing over plants.

"Plan?" Percy asked as they retreated.

Nobody answered. The trees behind the skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.

"A gift," Grover muttered.

And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig Sylvie had ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, 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.

"REEEEEEEEET!" it squealed, and raked the four skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed to pieces, thigh bones and arm bones twirling everywhere.

Then the pig turned on the questers.

Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, "Don't kill it!"

The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.

"That's the Erymanthian Boar," Zoë said, trying to stay calm. "I don't think we can kill it."

"It's a gift," Grover said. "A blessing from the Wild!"

The boar said "REEEEEET!" and swung its tusk. Zoë and Bianca dived out of the way. Sylvie had to push Grover so he wouldn't get launched into the mountain on the Boar Tusk Express.

"Yeah, I feel real fucking blessed!" said Percy. "Scatter!"

They rain in different directions, and for a moment the boar was confused.

"It wants to kill us!" Sylvie said.

"Of course," Grover said. "It's wild!"

"So how is that a blessing?" Bianca asked.

The pig got offended and charged her. She was faster than Sylvie had realized. Bianca rolled out of the way of its hooves and came up behind the beast. It lashed out with its tusks and pulverized the WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT sign.

"Keep moving!" Zoë yelled. She and Bianca ran in opposite directions. Sylvie and Grover darted around the boar, Sylvie trying to tangle it with plants and Grover playing his pipes while the boar snorted and tried to gouge them. But Percy and Thalia won the prize for bad luck. When the boar turned on them, Thalia made the mistake of raising Aegis in defense. The sight of the Medusa head made the boar squeal in outrage. Maybe it looked too much like one of his relatives. The boar charged them.

Sylvie whipped her head in a panic to watch as her friends ran uphill. Luckily, they were keeping ahead, because they could dodge in and out of trees while the boar had to plow through them.

Then, Percy, Thalia, and the boar were out of sight.

"Shit!" Sylvie cursed. "We have to go find them!"

"That thing will kill us!" Bianca protested.

"Yeah, and them," she argued right back.

Sylvie didn't let anyone else disagree, she started sprinting off into the direction Percy and Thalia had gone.

The group of four ran uphill the same way their friends did. Luckily they had Grover's scent on their side, but also, the path that the boar had made by plowing down all the trees. They ended up at the other side of the mini mountain, panting heavily at which the speed they ran.

"The trail ends here," Zoë analyzed. "Where are they?"

The three girls looked at Grover, expecting him to know.

Grover shrugged. Then, he belted, "HELLOOOOOO?"

From far away, but close enough for them to faintly hear it, a voice called back.

"Down here!"

Percy.

A few minutes later, Sylvie, Grover, Zoë, and Bianca found them at the bottom of the larger mountain that had been next to the previous one. Percy and Thalia were located on the other side, having fallen from the top out of a tunnel. Somehow, the boar had been wedged in the snow like Styrofoam packing. It didn't seem to be hurt, but it wasn't going anywhere, either. The reunited group stood watching the wild boar struggle in the snow.

"A blessing of the Wild," Grover said, though he now looked agitated.

"I agree," Zoë said. "We must use it."

"Hold up," Thalia said irritable. She looked like she'd just lost a fight with a Christmas tree. "Explain to me why you're so sure this pig is a blessing."

Grover looked over, distracted. "It's our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?"

"Fun," Sylvie said.

"Aw, Applejack, you could be like a pig cowgirl," grinned Percy.

Sylvie pretended to be shocked when thick blades of grass wrapped around Percy's ankle and yanked him smacking against the snow and dirt. Whoever had done that was quite unknown to her.

"We need to get aboard," Grover said while Percy stood up, wet from snow and spitting out grass. "I wish... I wish I had more time to look around. But it's gone now."

"What's gone?"

Grover didn't seem to hear Sylvie. He walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back. Already the boar was starting to make some headway through the drift. Once it broke free, there'd be no stopping it. Grover took out his pipes. He started playing a snappy tune and tossed an apple in front of the boar. The apple floated and spun right above the boar's nose. The boar went nuts, straining to get it.

"Automatic steering," Thalia murmured. "Great."

She trudged over and jumped on behind Grover, which still left plenty of room for the rest of them.

Zoë and Bianca walked toward the boar.

"Wait a second," Percy said. "Do you two know what Grover is talking about—this wild blessing?"

"Of course," Zoë said. "Did you not feel it in the wind? It was so strong... I never thought I would sense that presence again."

"What presence?"

Zoë stared at Percy like he was an idiot. "The Lord of the Wild, of course. Just for a moment, in the arrival of the boar, I felt the presence of Pan."

╰━━━ ◦ ❀ ◦ ❀◦ ━━━╯

BAILEY YAPS...

Me personally I think it'd be hilarious if in pjo season 3 Apollo's disguise was just him with a cheap elastic-attached beard and costume pieces from Party City

And I'm still over here praying it's Ross Lynch. I need him so badly. I need him so badly...

Persylv is just growing up. So much. My heart can't take it.

"It's a shame that I memorized your outline. You were straight up with me, you were so kind, but I knew what you knew, honey, great minds" Lalalala hi Gracie...

EVERY PAGE THAT I WROTE YOU WERE ON IT FEEL YOU DEEP IN MY BONES YOU'RE THE CURRENT AND I SHOWED NO RESTRAIN IT WAS SOMETHING I WAS SCARED OF TIL YOU MADE ME LOVE IT!!!

If you find yourself out... If there is a right time... Chances are I'll be here... We could share a lifeline... If you feel like falling... catch me on the way down... Never been less empty... all I feel is free now...

Anyways stream Free Now by Gracie Abrams and think of this book