Her Cowboy

Chapter 26

For all his excitement he had previously shown, Percy was definitely not looking too happy now. In fact, he looked absolutely terrified and sort of... green.

His eyes were wide as he shifted incessantly in his seat. A bell dinged above us, and a ladies voice chimed in over the intercom to let us know we'd be taking off in a few minutes.

"It's not that bad," I tried to reassure him, turning the little knob above me to soften the blow of the air conditioning. "Really. If you don't think about it, it's just like you're in a car."

"A car that's a bajillion feet off the ground and could plummet to the earth and kill everybody or be struck by lightning or hit another plane or—"

"Okay, okay, calm down, Percy," I said, trying to not let the amusement show through my tone. "It's only, like, four hours."

"Anything can happen in just one second. We could die in one second. So four hours is, like, a bajillion possible seconds for us to die."

"Technically four hours only consists of about fourteen and a half thousand seconds. Not a bajillion."

"Not the time to be a smart-alec, Wise Girl."

I bit the inside of my cheek, hiding my grin. "Right. Sorry, Perce."

"Gods, we're gonna die."

I rolled my eyes. "Percy, just relax. We'll be fine."

"We're moving. We're accelerating extremely fast." He reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it to the point where I bet my fingers were blue. I couldn't believe he was actually this scared of planes. His eyes were tightly shut, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. I was surprised he wasn't having a panic attack.

Reaching down with my free hand, I grabbed my small bag and opened up the flap, pulling out a bottle of pills.

"Here," I said, handing them to him. I continued as he looked at them skeptically. "They're heavy sleeping pills. I take them sometimes when my head is so wrapped up with crazy things that I can't even think straight. They really work. Though I might have a hard time waking you up when we land."

As he heard this, he eagerly grabbed the pills, dumping a couple into his palm and tossing them into his mouth. He grabbed the water bottle at his feet and swallowed quickly.

After about five seconds, he looked at me. "Why am I not asleep?"

I snorted. "Percy, give it a few minutes! Gods, you are such an idiot."

He grinned sheepishly, not letting my hand go as he settled down into a more comfortable position.

I watched as the pills worked their magic. The worry lines drawn on his forehead were slowly erased as his eyelids started blinking for longer periods of time. The fright in his bright green eyes slowly dimmed, and they shut fully as he fell asleep.

Still his hand didn't leave mine.

"He was pretty scared, wasn't he?"

I turned to my side, seeing an older man with a kind face and smile wrinkles around his brown eyes. He was watching both Percy and me. I noticed he was in the section of the plane that had the seats pulled up so his wheelchair could fit snugly in, attached to the side of the plane.

"Yeah, I guess he was," I replied quietly so as to not wake up the sleeping black-haired boy. "Beats me why he's so deathly afraid, though."

"Every man has a weakness," he answered. "Even the strongest. Like Achilles."

I smiled. "Considering his name"—I pointed to the boy beside me—"is Perseus, I'd say that's a pretty accurate comparison."

The man copied my smile. "My name's Chiron."