JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣

"Tell me when it's over," Thalia said.

Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding on to them so they couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched his arm like it was the most important thing in the world.

"Everything's fine," Warren promised, although she herself refused to look down.

Thalia touched her forehead to the angel's cold metal shoulder. "Are...are we very high?"

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

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

"We are in the Sierras!'" 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!" Warren's angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could 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?" Percy asked.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" the 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, Warren swore Hank did. "Back to flying."

They sped up, so it was clear the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then they were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

Grover played his pipes to pass the time. 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.

Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was praying.

"You did good back there," Warren told her. "Zeus listened."

It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed. "Maybe," she said.

Warren decided to leave her alone, and instead struck up a conversation with Percy.

"How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room?" she asked. "You said they cornered you."

He told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who had assisted him. A strange emotion passed through Warren, hot and bitter.

"I'm glad she was so helpful," she said. Percy didn't seem to notice the edge in her voice.

"It was weird, though. How she could just...see through the Mist."