𝑪𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔－ 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝑭𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒏.

I 014. I

𝑪𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔

❝ please ❞

SHE COULDN'T LOOK DOWN. Soaring through the air wasn't her thing, not one bit. She hated the feeling of wind in her hair as she let her mouth shut in case any bugs tried to fly in. It was a lot colder up there than on the ground, and her black sweatshirt was surprisingly warm.

"Tell me when it's over," Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding on to them die they couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched his arm like it was the most important thing in the world.

"Everything's fine," Percy promised.

Even if Ariadne trudged him with her life, that didn't meant she wasn't nervous. "Are... are we very high?" she asked.

Percy looked down. Below them, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. He stretched his foot out and kicked snow off one of the peaks.

"Nah," he said. "Not that high,"

Percy was surprised to see the worried look in Ariadne's eyes. In all the time they had been friends, and since their first quest, she hadn't ever shown fear. Yet, being that high up was fearful for her, and he was surprised. If he could, he would've taken her into a big hug to calm her down.

"We are in Sierra's." Zoe yelled. She and Grover were hanging from the arms of the other statue. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" their angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We should visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"

"Oh, man," the other angel said. "I am so there!"

"You guys have visited San Francisco before?" Percy asked.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" their statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And—"

"Hank!" the other statue, Chuck, cut in. "They're kids, man."

"Oh, right." if bronze statues could blush, Ariadne swore Hank did. "Back yo flying."

They sped up, so Ariadne could tell the angels were excited. She tried not to feel the need to throw up and squeezed her eyes shut. First, Blackjack's flying was purposefully terrible to make her want to get off, and second, everything was moving too quickly and down below was the hard ground that she could be squashed against.

The mountains fell away into hills, and they were sipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

Grover played his pipes to pass the turn. Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as they flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and they passed dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.

Ariadne decided she would try and clear her mind of nerves by singing a few songs in her head, that usually helped her before a big test at school. As she got into it, she hadn't even realized she has started humming until Chuck spoke up.

"Man," he said, "you've got some pipes on you!"

Grover, thinking he was talking about his Reed pipes, smiled. "Thanks! I've been really practicing—" he stopped once he saw Percy, Zoe and the two statues staring at him. "You weren't talking about me, were you?"