2. Explosion
The daughter of Zeus's arrow rang true and hit the mechanical bull in the thin groove right between its neck plates. Percy, the distraction hovering dangerously close to the machine's fire spewing mouth, gave a whoop of joy – that lasted the brief moment it took for the bull to self-destruct. Percy had enough time to throw his arms up, shielding his preciously vulnerable face, before the blast sent him topping head over heels down Half-Blood Hill. He was unconscious before he finally stopped tumbling, his clothes singed and the scream of his cousin bouncing unheard off his ears.
Thalia all but flew down the hill after him, throwing herself on her knees next to Percy. Her bow was hastily discarded as her fingers abandoned it in favor of helping the son of Poseidon, the beautiful silver relic coming to land a foot away from Percy's feet but Thalia didn't time to worry about it. Her hands desperately reached out to put out the fledging cinders at the edge of his shirt and hair, quelling the embers before they could grow into actual flames.
"Kelp Brain!" she shouted, ears ringing from the force of the bull's explosion. "Kelp Brain, wake up. Annabeth will kill me if you don't wake up."
He didn't rouse at her frantic babbling, head lobbing to the side as she turned him over onto his back. Her fingers, not quite steady, took two tries to find a pulse and she gasped, a great hiccupped inhale of air that made her feel lightheaded when she finally found a beat.
"Okay, okay, good, good," she gasped, leaning protectively over his crumpled frame. She shook his shoulders a few times, slapping his soot-covered cheeks.
"Get me some ambrosia!" she screamed over her shoulder before turning her attention back to the son of Poseidon.
"Come on, come on, wake up," she repeated forcefully, pawing at his person for injuries.
Her quick fingers found several cuts from the exploded metal, long nasty gashes but nothing too serious, nothing bleeding too much. What if he was bleeding internally, what if he had a concussion—gods couldn't the brain swell and cause irreversible damage, who could check for that sort of thing, where were the Apollo campers—
"Wake up, wake up," she muttered furiously, heart pounding sickeningly in her throat as she pulled his head onto her lap, unsure what to do, what to touch, what not to touch—
Then suddenly he lurched half off her lap, gasping for air like a drowning man. He tried to lurch into an upright position but Thalia, head full of horrifying images of his ribs broken inside his chest or brain swelling, shoved him right back down, hands splayed across his heaving chest.
"Stay down," she commanded in her no-nonsense lieutenant's voice.
Percy, for what had to be the first time in his life, complied. He stayed where he was, still gasping for breath, eyes wildly flickering around them.
"You're safe," Thalia told him firmly, one hand coming up to hold his head still as she took a quick look over her shoulder. Sure enough, she could see the outline of Chiron galloping over, undoubtedly bringing aide with him.
"How do you feel, what hurts?" Thalia demanded, turning her attention back to Percy. "Does your chest feel funny, can you breath okay, is anything restricting your breathing, can you see, do things look fuzzy, how is—"
"It exploded," Percy said in a very dazed voice that cut off Thalia's rapid fire questions. He blinked up at Thalia, looking so utterly bewildered it gave her a pause. "Thalia, did you know they exploded?"
"No." She wouldn't have sent Percy in so close if she had known.
Percy blinked up at her.
"What the actual Hades?" he whined and the surrealism cracked a grin out of the elder cousin.
"Thalia, it exploded," Percy repeated in disbelief. Thalia couldn't help it; she burst into utter hysteria at the dumbfounded look on his soot-covered face, half indignant half amazed, laughing uncontrollably as she bent over Percy, shoulders shaking violently.
"I know, I know," Thalia laughed, one hand cradling Percy's head (she was pretty sure he had a concussion at the least), the other reaching up to hold her own head up as she continued to laugh until her side hurt.
If there was an edge of panicked hysteria to her laugh, well, nobody was around to call her out on it and Percy was probably too concussed to remember.
Up next: Guilt