JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣

The group ran until they were exhausted. Rachel steered them away from traps, but they had no destination in mind— only away from that dark mountain and the roar of Kronos.

They stopped in a tunnel of wet white rock, like part of a natural cave. Warren couldn't hear anything behind them, but she didn't feel any safer. She could still remember those unnatural golden eyes staring out of Luke's face, and the feeling that her limbs were slowly turning to stone.

"I can't go any farther," Rachel gasped, hugging her chest.

Annabeth had been crying the entire time they'd been running. Now she collapsed and put her head between her knees. Her sobs echoed in the tunnel.

Nico came to sit with Warren and Percy. He dropped his sword next to Ravager and took a shaky breath.

"That sucked," he said, which Warren thought summed things up pretty well.

"You saved our lives," she said.

Nico wiped the dust off his face. "Blame the others for dragging me along. That's the only thing they could agree on. We needed to help you or you'd mess things up."

"Nice that you all trust me so much." Warren shined her flashlight across the cavern. Water dripped from the stalactites like a slow-motion rain. "Nico...you, uh, kind of gave yourself away."

"What do you mean?"

"That wall of black stone? That was pretty impressive. If Kronos didn't know who you were before, he does now— a child of the Underworld."

Nico frowned. "Big deal."

Warren let it drop. She figured he was just trying to hide how scared he was, and she couldn't blame him.

Annabeth lifted her head. Her eyes were red from crying. "What...what was wrong with Luke? What did they do to him?"

Warren told her what she'd seen in the coffin, the way the last piece of Kronos's spirit had entered Luke's body when Ethan Nakamura pledged his service.

"No," Annabeth said. "That can't be true. He couldn't—"

"He gave himself over to Kronos," Warren said. "I'm sorry, Abs. But Luke is gone."

"No!" she insisted. "You saw when Rachel hit him."

Warren nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. "You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush."

Rachel looked embarrassed. "It was the only thing I had."

"But you saw," Annabeth insisted. "When it hit him, just for a second, he was dazed. He came back to his senses."

"Maybe Kronos wasn't completely settled in the body," Warren said. "It doesn't mean Luke was in control."

"You want him to be evil, is that it?" Annabeth yelled. "You didn't—"