When You're Gone

Chapter 22

Hazel thought a casual stroll down the Fields of Damnation would be "easy," especially when you have a group of powerful demigods, an ex-immortal and a fire-breathing bronze dragon by your side.

That was before she saw whose spirit it was that was supposed to lead them through it.

"No!" Piper snarked. "Can we get a change? I refuse for him to be our guide!"

Octavian snorted. "As if I wanted to be here, Graecus scum!"

Calypso glanced at Reyna like, Can we kill him already?

"Wait. Come to think about it, it kind of makes sense!" Leo barked. "You're condemned to Tartarus because the Fields of Punishment didn't want you too, huh? HUH?"

Reyna shrugged and nodded. "He's not part of the legion anymore and there are no laws in Tartarus."

"Wait! Let me kill him a little first!" Hazel agreed. "Do you still have a vial of Greek Fire, Leo?"

Leo grinned and handed her an apple-sized glass bottle. "Stuff it in his pants."

Before Hazel could accept it, a pale hand plucked it out of Leo's palm and shoved it back into his Greek Fire packaging.

Hazel was about to curse, but she saw who it was. Celeste.

"Let's not explode before we're down there," she said, slamming the case shut. "Of course, given all of your disputes with Octopus here, that will happen anytime soon."

"Octavian!" Octavian corrected. "Who are you? Another Graecus scum? Begone!"

"Get ready to fall for nine days," Celeste continued. "Don't throw up. It'll end up in the river of misery."

Hazel could already see Leo puking three minutes later. She wished that she could shadow-travel down there, but she hardly had any practice whatsoever. For all she knows, they might wind up in Africa.

Leo swallowed. "So, um, are you sure there isn't any easier way to do it?"

Celeste thrusted her hand towards the exit of the ravine. "Exit's over there."

"Nevermind!"

Next to her, Reyna shot Piper and Hazel a questioning look. Piper responded with a firm gaze that said, I'll explain later.

Hazel wasn't big on falling non-stop for over a week, but it was the only way to get to Percy. They just needed to explode the lands endlessly until they find him.

But, one thing's for sure, Octavian is a chicken even in death when it came to the endless, bottomless abyss that led to their destination.

That's when they found out Octavian could only touch whoever touches him first. They discovered this when Octavian tried to strangle Hazel and Reyna had to drag him away. His hands turned to mist when it phased through Hazel's body but not Reyna's.

And that was also how Leo kicked the scrawny blonde into the pit.

Somewhere inside of Hazel, she knew she should have felt bad for Octavian like everyone else. But thinking back to her personality-change and the sins that Octavian had committed... yeah, she'd gotten less sorry than ever.

"You sure Festus could catch us?" Reyna worried.

"You could put the same amount of belief you put in Octavian's an asshole. Festus won't let you fall," Leo assured her.

Piper shrugged. "Enough for me." She dove into the pit like a diver.

Reyna and Calypso exchanged skeptical looks and followed. Leo and Hazel grinned as Leo boarded Festus, and they fell into the hellish darkness.

* * *

"You owe me three cans of cherry coke," Reyna said to Piper. She turned to Calypso. "And a bag of chips."

Piper muttered angrily under her breath as she scrunched all the cards together. They had lost count of time since they fell and they were playing Poker. Reyna had been dominating every round with Leo whining how bored this game was.

Don't even ask why Reyna had a pack of cards in her pocket. As far as anyone's concerned, they needed to do something.

Hazel had once asked Celeste - who blended in the darkness like a chameleon despite her ghost-like appearance - whether if she wanted to join, she looked up from a phone and denied it.

That's awesome, Hazel thought. We're going to the monsters' cradle and this demigod is bringing a signal flare with her.

"You should keep that," Hazel said. "Monsters will come storming our way."

Celeste barely paid attention as she continued to game on her device.

"This phone is crafted from Void Silver." Celeste waved her phone at her. "Monsters run away from it."

Hazel decided not to question and turned back to her friends in another game of air-Monopoly, where Leo kept turning the pieces into machines. ("Leo! Give me back my hotel!" Calypso barked.)

Before they knew it they were fast asleep. Octavian was still silent as ever, but they caught his presence from time to time as he sent curses and glares up at them from below.

"Seven days," Celeste reminded them as she was still on her phone and they'd just woke up to the roar of the wind.

"That long?" Leo complained. "I want to be on solid ground!"

"Too late, baby boy," Calypso muttered.

"Don't you sleep?" Hazel spat hair out of her mouth, but her frizz keeps ending in her face.

Celeste was upside down, legs crossed as she was transfixed in the screen. "Overrated."

Wherever their journey was taking them, there better be solid ground and a decent place to puke on.