Sarah
The cabbie took them up a little bit of them mountain before having to stop. For some reason his car couldn't go any further. "It's the Garden of Hesperides," Thalia explained, "we can only enter at sunset which shouldn't be for another 10 minutes."
Sarah paid the cab driver and helped Logan set up camp outside the entrance while Thalia and Daphne scouted the border of the garden. Logan made it easy. He got the whole job done in half a minute.
The problem with getting the job done so fast and being alone was that it gave Sarah and Logan time to talk. Ever since Sarah's fall from the hotel in Pittsburgh, followed by her and Logan's kiss, things between the two of them had become super awkward. Even on the four hour car ride to Cuyahoga Valley they had both tried to avoid talking as much as possible.
Sarah started the conversation off casually. "New quiver?" she asked, gesturing to the empty quiver strapped to his back. "Why does it only have one arrow?"
"It's a gift from Artemis," he explained, "and it's not technically… Well, see for yourself." He reached into it and, somehow, brought out a silver arrow, unlike the wooden one Sarah could see. He loaded it into his bow and shot it into the sky, shooting down a flying sparrow in the process. "Infinite arrows, though if I pull too many out at once it needs to recharge."
Sarah unsheathed Frostbite absentmindedly. The one gift from her dad she had ever gotten. Sarah wondered why her dad didn't just take her curse and zap it off her.
"Hey," Logan said, "why so glum, chum?"
"It's just, um, I'm scared things have become a little, you know, awkward between you and me." She lied.
Logan smiled. Sarah loved that smile. The way it looked slightly sarcastic with still a lot of kindness in it. "Sarah, believe me I'm flattered that you kissed me, but I just don't-" He stopped and Sarah realized she had an especially gloomy look on her face. "Sorry," Logan continued, "I didn't mean to-"
"No, it's fine" Sarah quickly said "That kiss was just a heat-of-the-moment thing, you know. It meant nothing."
It had meant something.
Sarah didn't want to admit it, but she had definitely felt something in that moment. Her thoughts were interrupted by the image of the beautiful landscape spreading out behind her as the sun set. "Woah." Was all Sarah could manage to say. And that pretty much summed it up.
A beautiful garden with blossoming flowers, lush grass and bushes, and, the most impressive plants, giant trees with bright, golden apples. This garden was definitely whoah-worthy.
Sarah wondered where Daphne and Thalia were, and her question was soon answered by them running around the corner. "They're right behind us." Daphne panted. Sarah didn't know what she was talking about. Then she saw them.
Humans. Horribly, horribly disfigured humans, as if they had come out of the oven half-done. Three of the four mutants that came at them had three arms and no necks, and the other one of them had only one arm and just eyes for the face.
The eyes.
None of them had regular eyes, but instead had different precious gems in their place. One had emeralds, another rubies, another had sapphires, and the last one had diamonds.
All of them had a sword in each hand and were coming at Sarah and the others at top speed. "Get to the garden," Thalia said to Sarah, Daphne, and Logan, "I'll hold them as long as I can."
Unfortunately Sarah spoke up. "I'll help," she said, "there's no way you can take them alone." She turned to her friends. "You two go find Percy and get out. Fast."
"You sure you can handle this?" Daphne asked.
All this quest Sarah had been afraid. Afraid of monsters, afraid of failing, and, most of all, afraid of not being able to help hr friends. Now was her chance to face that fear. "I'm sure." She said, and for added effect she summoned the wind and rose a couple feet off the ground.
And as Daphne and Logan ran into the Garden of Hesperides, and the mutants charged her and Thalia, Sarah looked back towards Daphne and Logan, the two she had come to trust like a family, and thought Oh, we are so dead.