DISCLAIMER: So we don't really own PJatO or HoO. I know. Shocker. Turns out, this guy named Rick Riordan does.
oOo
I jumped so hard my head rammed itself once again into the too-real headboard.
Thunder clapped outside as my eyes opened on darkened ceiling. For a moment, the howls of the wind were challenged by it, and then it faded and the swirls of snow out the window screamed of their victory. The window banged and barked constantly against the frame.
Shadows had smothered everything. It was still night.
The dare to hope made my adrenalized heart beat even faster as I flung myself out of bed and whipped the door open. I skipped most of the steps on the stairwell and bolted into the kitchen. From there, I ripped open a cabinet, stuffed some cans and water bottles into two spare grocery bags we left lying around, and then pounced on a pen.
I didn't bother to find paper. As I scrawled on the table, I saw the end of the nightmare again – the shattered tree, the broken limbs and squished precious fruit, Nico's look of utter shock. The dragon. Two heads matching the python-shaped noggin of the winged drakon but coated in shimmering copper scales and with equal-sized sharp teeth lining its lips, much like the hydra. Poison dripping from each fang. Yes, yes, I could see it clearly now. The way the sun and moon had both glared off those penny scales and the beady eyes and highlighted the perfect curve of each triangular tooth and glimmered and shone with the glory of empires on the festering drips of poison. Two came at me. Another three at Nico. They sat atop coiling and thrusting necks as long as flagpoles that reached across from wherever the thing had been hiding.
I saw him turn, sword raised to parry, eyes flashing from deadbeat shock to the fury of a predator. Then the dragon head had cut of my view and I'd woken.
Too close to call.
My own blistering rage rose in my throat, my own storm beneath the wails of the Oswego snow. The pen's markings became sharp and dented into the table.
I was sick of this. Sick of war. Of things beyond my control. I'd sat by and waited for Reyna to show up and played games when she did. I'd watched Hunter struggle with thoughts and Brook lie to my face. I'd seen the lightning of smoky angel-looking demons as they took Shay and four innocent people. I'd stared dumbly at the aftermath. I'd seen my brother stumble over some problem he wouldn't admit to me when it was obviously beyond the normal stuff I knew he could handle.
You know what Gaea and the Fates could do with their diseased plans? Shove 'em – I wasn't about to put up with another 'unfortunate event'. Not another capture, not another insult, not another complicated game, not another sadistic trick, not another cruel threat, not another war, and certainly not another death.
The note read in Latin;
Nico's in trouble. No time. I've gone after him.
Don't panic. We'll IM as soon as we get the chance. Don't come after me; anything to be found on Shay and the twins needs to be discovered, and damn us if we don't try. I've taken some food and water in preparation for a few days away, including some of Moon's dried jerky. Sorry.
Do me a favor and let The Patron's next minion live. Let it go bleeding and crying back to her with the message that the rejects are back in the game.
-DoD
As an afterthought, I made sure my iPod was in my pocket and turned on, and shot through the shadows.
oOo
Wise?
No.
Even if I was the only help Nico had right then, and I'd have had to go no matter what, I let my emotions get ahead of me. I was hardly going to save his life at that point – I was merely going to kick some sorry evil butt, and for my own satisfaction.
I could see the time zones tick by as I ran. Shadows slowing giving way to lighter shades and grays as I raced after the sun. Cities soared high above the earth and hid the sunlight from the air and for long strips of earth and even along other buildings; it was impossible to miss the shadows of any such settlement. I could even name a few through sheer memorization.
Not like there were too many. It's not like I had to waste time taking anything but the direct route.
To me, they just didn't fly by fast enough.
Darkness was eaten away beneath me as I rocketed past. I didn't have the will to control myself even once Mount Tam was looming above me. I shot up the eastern side where the shadows were thick and approached the garden from downhill, all but screaming as crimson light pierced through every single cell.
Ahead, there was the mess of darkness where the tree had fallen. Atop it was a writhing mass that resembled spaghetti.
I dropped into the typical realm with a furious cry, Întuneric raised, and a blast of shadows at the dragon.
About five hundred heads stopped picking at the branches and turned to stare at me incredulously.
The smell hit me first. Great gods of Olympus, that thing needed a breath mint. By the slight edge to the rotting stink, there was just the smallest hint of cough drops, perhaps a desperate attempt to salvage itself. But that attempt had failed miserably.
From the branches of the tree, another blast of shadows shot up and hit the demon squarely in the chest. The thing's body was as bigger than like four freaking semi trailers. Yet that blast was enough to make it rear and scream.
Half its heads blasted from the bulk for me, and the other half began tearing at branches once more.
These necks weren't quite as long as the winged drakon's, but long enough.
I slid easily to one side and sliced one head down the middle – slicing through jaw and skull and down the trachea quite a bit – with Întuneric as I did. Shadows spilled from the blade and found their way into the eyes of the other melons. The snakes gave an ear-shattering screech and rose into the air to strike again.
I gagged on its breath and shadow traveled straight through it, slicing off as many reeking heads as I could when I went.
The tree would be too dangerous to travel in – all those intricate little tubes and curved planes of shadows would be deathly hard to navigate, and it'd be disastrous if I materialized with a branch through my stomach – so I settled for attacking the creature above it. More shadows were rocketing from beneath and picking off heads, choking throats, and loosening footing. The dragon bucked and yelled.
I dived behind its hind leg and dug my sword as deeply as I could into its ankle. Hey, when it doubt, remember Achilles's biggest embarrassment.
The demon screamed again and three heads poked out from beneath its belly to snap at me.
I dodged two and shoved Întuneric through the eye of another. The resulting roar was so loud and so near in the monster's chest that I felt like I was going to vibrate like a phone until I slid right off the tree.
Rather, I yelled in time with Adam Gontier – Three Days Grace, kiddos – and ripped Întuneric free. The loyal blade twirled in my hands without so much as a command and sliced off a head approaching from my right.
Light flashed from behind. I whirled and got a face-full of dragon tail.
It felt like getting sucker-punched. I'm lucky I didn't lose any teeth. I crashed into the thinnest branches on the edge of the tree's corpse, wind knocked out of my lungs. Two bloody penny-like blurs flashed overhead.
Shadows blasted them, but no matter how hard I tried, my lungs weren't ready for air yet. I rolled desperately to one side, knowing I was easy prey-
-And something grabbed the back of my shirt collar.
I was yanked to my feet as the dragon gave another tortured scream. Nico dragged me along at a breakneck pace until I finally managed to gasp and then dropped me, leaving me to my own devices. I stumbled once but managed to stay on his heels.
Once, I shot shadows again over my shoulder, just to make our message clear. As I did I saw that the demon had been distracted. Around it stood a total of four skeletons, each brandishing a weapon. Now, I'm sure the thing could've handled all six of us at once, but it was wounded and those suckers sure knew how to get under the thing's scales.
The hard marble path beat at my feet as we raced for the exit.
Luckily, we were going downhill. Bushes and flowers flew by. Behind us, the Hesperides hissed angrily, but we were too far ahead. Air and ground were just swallowed by our pace as we crossed the boundaries, feet slammed down now on the rough mountain surface, and I could see the terrifying drop to oblivion again. Nico pulled ahead and sprinted like he had Tartarus on his heels.
I knew better than to do anything but follow.
Down the mountain we ran, taking the turns and obstacles (aka rocks) with the refusal to slow. Nico cut corners and leapt from boulder to boulder during the rocky parts. I'm sure he'd have tried something a little more daring, but he knew I'd never have managed it, and he wouldn't leave me behind. A thrill went through me at that.
That unity one has with her colleagues. The pure cooperation and teamwork and strength you can find in one another when it's demanded by the darkest of things. Nico and I had that.
I don't think it was in our plans to stop. We just kept running, long after the dragon's cries had faded to echoes, and then into nothing at all.
oOo
Darkness had fallen.
It didn't daunt Nico, though I'll admit it slowed me down a bit. My eyesight isn't too bad and I could make out most things via shadows, but for me, so close to a cliff, it just didn't suffice. Being no longer sure exactly where he'd stepped or how close we were from falling to our deaths was staring to wear on me.
Adrenaline is for fight for flight, correct? Well. I experienced both that day.
We'd both begun to pant. Heavily. A stitch the size of a certain social-studies textbook I can recall had gathered on both of my sides. Ahead, I could hear Nico gasp each time there was a sharp twist and knew he wasn't much better.
Little sounds like that, in the night. I'd have found it oddly peaceful if there weren't the threat of falling.
We were on what might have been – but wasn't, with my luck – the home stretch. A long road that was level and at just the right angle that we could gain speed but not strain ourselves with each step. My legs had gone numb to pain anyway, by that point. The cold air couldn't touch the heat I felt gathering.
Not four feet in front of me, Nico pitched forward.
I tried to catch him, honestly. But we both had momentum and I was tired and I didn't achieve anything but breaking his fall. We crashed onto the asphalt as one, and once we were there, every inch of me turned to lead. I couldn't have moved even if I'd wanted to.
I groaned and stared up at the stars. The cans in the two bags slung over my shoulders were digging into my back, but I didn't care. Was too tired to give a crap for any of it.
Nico, who'd landed across my torso, let his head fall back against the rock and didn't make a sound. Only the shaking expansion and contraction of his back told me he was alive.
Alive.
Didn't care who exactly he was right then. We were both alive. Two people had just survived shadow travel, the crazy dragon of morning breath, a marathon sprint down a mountain, Gaea's latest tricks, Atlas's cuss words, each step and the setting of the sun and each star that had appeared in the sky as we'd run and every last breath – great gods, we had survived!
I laughed.
Take that, Fates. Suck it, Gaea. We're still breathing.
In that moment, I couldn't have been happier. Lovely Adam was even still singing to me through the ear buds. For just the shortest bit, in a body that felt like it was dying, under the night sky without a roof, lying on cold and painful rock, Ethan dead, with my sisters a whole nation away, things were freaking perfect.
Perfect.
"The stars are pretty tonight," I rasped, thinking of the maps he and I had drawn. Of the nights spent in LA training and lying in the backyard, pretending we could see the stars through the smog and talking about nonsense. Just complete randomness and pointless joy with him. Yet Nico had no comment.
I had a Kronos moment. The blip in my perfection was irritating. Knowing he had to see this – had to know, had to truly breathe for the first time, to feel and revel in this bliss surely caused only by oxygen deprivation that things were so dang wonderful – I poked him angrily.
He grunted in protest. That was enough. I laughed hysterically, a bubbly, giggly thing, and let my cheek rest on the cool rock. My eyes were so near closing. I was next to sleep, to perfect rest in a perfect world…
…But before I could shut my eyes, I saw something horribly familiar.
Reality came crushing down on me again, adding to his weight, and I'd have been happy to die right there.
"Nico, get up. Now. By the Styx, now!" I writhed desperately, yelling when it dug my food supply into my back. But I shoved through the pain and managed to wriggle free of him. Cool breeze greeted me – he had been hot.
I rolled to my knees, groaning as I set down the bags, and turned to face him. Sure enough, my eyes had not lied. Unfortunately.
His arm, which had been lying next to my face, was marked with thick teeth marks from wrist to elbow. Out of the marks oozed a glimmering, slick liquid that gleamed like mercury in the moonlight.
Another moan slid through my lips. "Nico! What… Why in Hades…"
"…It's… fine…" he gasped, eyelids fluttering and still out of breath.
"No, it's not!" I howled, tempted to slap him. "That's venom from Ladon! That… It can kill…"
"…I's just a scratch…"
"It is not! Nico, movement makes poison worse! Are you trying to get yourself killed?! Like there wasn't too much in you already; we just had to sprint down this gods-forsaken mountain, too?! Huh?! Oh, and look at that – I packed food! Food, food, food, more water… You can't call me in last-minute and expect me to remember medical supplies! There's not… I… I can't…"
I can't help…
"Didn't… Tell you… to come…"
I was too worn and shocked and devastated to be angry again. But the resolution came back just as strong, a rock of bullheadedness in my throat. I still wasn't willing to watch a child die.
Even if the child in Nico had been slaughtered and left scattered in pieces in a plain as wide as the country and left to rot a long time ago.
My fingers fumbled with the bottle of nectar attached to my belt loop. "Hold on," I rasped as I struggled, "just hold on. We can figure something out."
"Hm," he mused.
"Okay. Okay. Here it is." I grabbed him by the shoulders and tugged. "Come on, Nico. Sit up." Together, we managed to get him there, and I held the nectar to his lips. "Drink."
Adam's voice had taken on a new song now. A somber one, hopelessly defiant.
I don't need your condescending
Words about me looking lonely,
I don't need your arms to hold me…
He pushed against me but swallowed anyway, licking his lips. Then a bigger gulp. A stronger shove. "I mean it," he mumbled around the canteen. "…I'm fine…"
'Cause misery is waiting on me!
I paused the iPod and shoved the ear buds in my pocket. "Quit saying that. You know you're not. You haven't slept enough in days and there's dragon poison… Gods, Nico…"
How had things seemed so perfect before?
I laughed again, but bitterly. I'd run straight into another sick setup by the Fates in the very act in which I'd tried to avoid it.
He took one last swallow and set the canteen between us, black eyes boring into me. "Why are you here?"
"I saw the dragon," I mumbled miserably. "I saw it in my dream and knew you needed help."
"But I didn't."
"You were running around hiding in the branches beneath the tree, Nico. You needed help. And I… I wasn't enough to stop this." I flinched as my voice cracked.
"Bree…" He trailed off and sighed. "No. You shouldn't have come. Your sisters need your help and it's dangerous out here. Now that there's two of us, we'll attract more… monsters…"
He blinked and ran a hand through his hair, trying – and failing – to conceal the way he was holding his head. "Get my bag. I have some stuff in there."
I breathed a sigh of relief and opened the small pack, which had landed not far from us. "Thank the gods. An antidote, I hope?"
He scowled at me, and the disapproval hurt. Badly. "No. Just bandages and a salve."
That was painfully little. My shaking hands gave him the supplies and together we worked on bandaging the wound the best we could. It took a while, because we weren't anywhere near medics, and we were spending a lot of time cleaning it. But I could see the green tint to his skin. I knew it was too late.
"It's risky," he went on as we worked. "I…"
"Nico, I wasn't going to let you die."
"But I wasn't-"
"Even if you weren't," I snapped, jabbing at one of the puncture wounds a little too forcefully, "it was impossible for me to tell. Alright? So it's fair game I'm here."
"If I needed help, I'd have asked-"
"You won't be able to ask when you're dead!" I yelled. "Or battling a dragon like a thousand times your size! I'm sorry, but I wasn't going to sit by and let my sibling get killed, either!"
I hadn't meant to use the guilt card. It just slipped out. He snapped his mouth shut and stared at his arm silently until it was fully bandaged.
When it was, I gently laid it in his lap, and slowly backed away. He stared at it dully.
"…Stay still," I said. "I'm gonna set up camp. We'll have to sleep here tonight."
He gave me no sign that he'd heard. I swallowed thickly and turned to shuffle through his bag.
As I wrestled to get the rolled cot out – holy Hera, the way he packed, he'd be a wizard at Tetris – my mind also grappled with my pessimistic nature. I hoped, I prayed, that Ethan would bless me with just a few stolen and quiet moments of realism. The world owed me that much. A moment or so of clarity when things weren't too calm or too there or mistakenly perfect or crushingly horrible. A moment to just see things for what they were. The moments he had felt and thrived in when it came time to have that bullet made, time to draw that gun again, time to make a final stand…
But the cliffs soared above us coldly and the stars were as lofty as ever, as if we'd never done them a favor, and the world was silent in a harsh and mocking way, and the rock had become hard and completely immovable beneath me as if it were just waiting for me to trip and fall, and the wind made the leaves of the dried and dead brush on either side rustle warnings, and the biting wind had grown too cold despite the sweat still on my skin, and that night, the once-perfect world did not care.
It didn't owe me anything. Nor did a ghost. There were no guardian angels in the Greek myths – any guidance you got from the dead, it was because you were suicidal and nearly killed yourself to see them, and even then, you had to go to their home. Ghosts sat in their afterlife, whatever judgment they'd received, and went on in eternity.
No. Any angels you had, you crafted out of memory and your own strength. They were nothing but personified memories and lessons. Ethan wasn't here and he wouldn't ever be again. The empty air to my right would remain that way.
The small amount of realism I managed to scrape out of my newborn angel was blunt and bland. Ladon's poison wasn't the deadliest of things. There were plants more toxic, for crying out loud. In fact, it wouldn't be much of a problem, if there weren't so much… and we hadn't made it worse on that hell-bound sprint…
Just a few hours. Three to sleep and just moments more to find help. Please, if anybody out there is listening, just a few hours. It's all we need.
But my angel fell. Pessimism won out. I knew better than to honestly expect so much as thirty more minutes.
I gathered some kindling from the dead grass lining the street and huddled it between Nico and I in the road. There wasn't much in terms of real firewood, so we'd just have to keep this going as long as we could with a few meager sticks. Looks like the fire was going to starve tonight. In his bag I found a box of matches and began to strike them.
It was a sad little thing. Starving and the size of my hands but just bright enough to shine light on that cold rock. Perhaps so I would not trip, or so that it could prove it wasn't pointless. I don't know. It held its own for the time being in a bold defiance of the world. Sadness sank through me, and I didn't have the heart to tell it that this was in vain. There was too little wood, and even if we'd had enough, there was no stopping the end. The defiance would die and the fire would follow and be lost in the complicated timeline that the Fates were always weaving.
I sighed and put the matches away. Nobody would ever know the fire, nobody would ever know the matches that'd made it. The bag was zipped firmly over those forgotten little sticks and, taking the bag with me, I made my way back to Nico.
He didn't look at me as I sat beside him and the bag next to us. He had closed his eyes and was swaying slightly, as if to a song I couldn't hear. The sight was unnerving. "…Nico?"
He did not answer me.
Not that Nico was in the mood to listen, but the thought that he hadn't heard was forefront in my mind. The green tint to his skin had worked its way well past his elbow by now. The cold wind blew and the fire gave a half-hearted crackle and I gave in. I considered it for the first time. He could – probably would – die out here. After I'd said that to him.
I looked away just in case he would notice the wetness gathering and said, "You should lie down. Here, I set up your cot. Get situated and try not to move, 'kay?"
When I still got no reaction, I laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Nico, look… I…"
Slowly, one arm raised and grabbed my wrist. Then he leaned gently into me. There was a moment of panicked silence before he said, "I'm sorry. I just… I'm glad you're here."
His voice resembled sandpaper, but it made me smile. "Great lot I did, anyway."
"S'not so bad. For a Roman."
"Hey, I'm not the one that actually walked into the place," I chuckled. It wasn't convincing. Heat was coming off his skin in waves, and the honesty was laid in a slurred voice that sounded somewhat stoned. In fact, the only reason he'd dropped the lie might've been because he knew…
I shook my head and let go, allowing him to lay down on the cot. My hands guided his shoulders to keep him from shifting too much.
The words burst out of me. "I'm so sorry. For what I said."
"Don' worry 'bout it," he muttered. "Wouldn't ask you to lie."
I looked up at the sky for a distraction and pointed. "Look. We can actually see the stars tonight. The fox looks mad at us."
"It does," he agreed, and was stifled by a yawn.
The next time I looked at him, he had fallen asleep. Curled on his side, eyes closed, fingers twitching against the cot. A nightmare.
I was too tired to fight any of it. I let myself feel the hopelessness freely as I crawled into my own blankets beneath that cold world and before the gasping fire and tried to force my mind into sleep once more. Nothing could move what I felt that night.
Not even my angel whispering, At least you came. You can't ever say you didn't try.
oOo
Nyx: So, y'all like?
Nic: Another cliffy. Sort of.
Nyx: Okay, so there's a small problem with the next chapter. It's not that I was overloaded – the new schedule actually works great – but that I had to rewrite this last scene about like ten times before I was anywhere near satisfied. That's what's put me behind. Give me a few hours, and it'll be up.
Good news: if you've been to our profile, you've seen An Eye for an Eye Makes the World Blind on our coming soon list for a long while. It is going to stay there for much longer. Don't fear; we won't abandon it, not by a long shot, but it will begin work this month. It should be the equivalent of 150 pages and will be released once this series is finished. And it shall be amazing.
Well. I'll get to writing now. Y'all enjoy your day.