Solangelo 4

Part 13

NICO

'Are you sure you're okay to drive?' Percy asks, looking me over warily.
'Look,' I say, 'if I weren't, would Will seriously let me?'
'That's a valid point. Okay. Alright. The other teams have had a lot more practice than us. But!'
'But?'
'We have our secret weapon.'
'Which is?' I ask.
'We're way better than them.'
'That's not a secret.' I laugh. Percy reigns the horses in, and tethers them to our new and improved chariot. Percy really pulled it out the bag.
'You ready?' He asks.
'Yeah. Are the horses cool with me?' I ask, edging towards them warily.
'Yeah actually, they don't seem to have as big a problem with you since he whole Hades...thing.'
'But they still don't like me?'
'You're not the most likeable person.' He counters.
'Fair. Okay, let's go.' A bell rings, and we ride our chariot out onto the race track.
Everyone who's not racing watches from the seating. Annoyingly, Percy and I have no siblings in the crowd, so are mainly booed at. Kayla does shoot me a thumbs up though; but she also sits beside Reeve who runs his finger along his neck while staring at me. I don't dwell on it.
Percy and I move up to the starting line. We're on the far left, next to Annabeth.
'Get ready to watch me win, seaweed brain.' She says, staring ahead at the track.
'Your horse says your mums fat.' Percy says, putting as little effort into insulting her as possible, knowing that's how to get on her nerves.
'You realise my mum's Athena, right?' She says, turning to him.
'Hey, I didn't say it, blame the horse.' He says, feigning innocence, 'the horse just really seems to hate you.'
'Shut up.' She says, facing ahead again.
The bell rings again and everyone focuses. Percy holds the reigns, and watches as Chiron waves the flag. We shoot off.
We take an early lead, everyone behind us. I work on shooting vines out of the ground to trip up the other chariots as Percy races neck and neck against Clarisse.
They ram their chariot against ours, knocking a wheel off, but another just pops right on. Percy built some fail safe addition.
'Nice one.' I shout out to him as we take the lead. I grow another vine to go through the Ares chariot, and it spins them round, totalling the entire thing.
'Dude, nice!' Percy shouts.
We keep ahead, so close to winning, when a shout comes from the onlookers. I look up and see someone pointing behind me. Everyone is staring, screaming. I turn. Someone's falling from the sky.
'Percy, get me from the lake.' I shout, before shadow travelling to where the person is falling and fall seconds from hitting the floor, and instead land in the water. It's ice cold and I can barely think straight. The water takes over me.
I open my eyes and try to fight against the current, when I see the person I saved swimming towards me. I can't quite make out who it is. They take hold of me and drag me to shore, and I cough up the water that if inhaled. I look up, finally, and see who it is.
'Heya bud. Thanks for the lift.' Leo says, 'I owe you one.'
'What the hell are you doing here?' I say, as he helps me to stand.
'I...uh.' He looks up at me, sheepish, 'I don't really know.'