¹Royal Cries, p. jackson

005.

ROYAL CRIES
━━ chapter five

━━ THE GOOD NEWS? The left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. But there was always bad news: it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred yards, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path. Behind them, the sound of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—that was definitely not human—was on their asses.

"Tyson," said Percy, "can you—?"

"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling.

"Hurry!" Grover urged. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!"

The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room, and they dashed through behind it.

"Close the entrance!" said Annabeth.

They all got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.

"We trapped it," Percy said, placing his hands on his knees.

"Or trapped ourselves," said Grover.

Elisa glared at the satyr, brushing hair out of her face. "Really? You have to be all gloomy?"

Annabeth smacked her shoulder. Elisa turned around, ready to tell the girl off. But that's when she got a good look at where they were. They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room, and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They tunneled straight into a cell.

"What the fuck?" The blonde tugged on the bars; they didn't budge. Through the bars, they could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard—at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.

"A prison?" Elisa asked, craning her neck to get a better look. "Hey, Tyson, could you break—?"

"Shh!" Grover said. "Listen."

Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a raspy voice muttering something that Elisa couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler.

"What's that language?" Percy whispered.

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be."

"What?"

He grabbed two bars on their cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through.

"Wait!" Grover called.

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. They ran after him. The prison was dark, with only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above.

"I know this place," Annabeth was saying. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean that island near San Francisco?" Percy asked.

"The one that's in California?" Elisa then asked.

Annabeth nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."

From New York to California, in less than a day, possibly done in four hours at most. It didn't seem possible. They popped out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country. But Annabeth knew what she was talking about, she had lived in San Francisco all year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamalpais, which was just across the bay.