SAFE . . . reyna ramirez-arellano

43 - the suspense

BRIAR STARED INTO the horizon, dread trickling down her throat.

Every second she spent here, she was one step closer to her home. One step closer to a quest that would surely end her life.

One step closer to Reyna.

The thought of being able to see her made Briar want to throw up, right down to the ground. Maybe if she was lucky, her vomit would make it through the clouds.

The warship descended through the clouds, and Briar quickly scrapped that idea. Her puke would not, in fact, go through the clouds. Therefore, she would not throw up.

The Argo II definitely did not look friendly, and it wouldn't look any friendlier with Briar's puke on it. Two hundred feet long, with a bronze-plated hull, mounted repeating crossbows fore and aft, a flaming metal dragon for a figurehead, and two rotating ballistae amidships that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete . . . well, it wasn't the most appropriate ride for a long awaited reunion with the people in Briar's home.

She wished that she'd gotten to prepare herself more. She'd interrupted Leo's message with a holographic scroll that he'd invented to alert their friends inside the camp, to try and steel herself for what was coming.

"Hey!" Leo said. Gods, his voice was loud. "Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the . . ." He looked at Briar and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or—"

"Repair boy," Briar drawled, debating on which sunglasses she should wear. She was wearing the red dress that she'd had when she first arrived at Camp Half-Blood along with Reyna's jacket. On one hand, she could wear her new red sunglasses. On the other hand, wouldn't that be tacky? Briar shook her head and stowed her sunglasses rack away as she put her favorite pair of sunglasses on her head.

"Very funny, Briar," she heard Leo grumble.

"What would you rather I have said?" Briar asked, puckering her lips in the mirror. She looked decent enough. "Gay disaster?"

"Says you," Leo quipped. "Sleeping Beauty."

"The one time I wanted to take a nap, your boyfriend woke me up because you nearly blew us up—"

"Doesn't matter!" Leo looked back at the piece of parchment in his hands. "So yeah, I'm . . . ah . . . supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing toward you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We'd appreciate it if you'd not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out."

"Wait!" Briar yelped, running over before he could do whatever he did to hang up on the message or whatever. "You're a horrible diplomat, Leo."

Leo glared at her. "Aren't you the one who, instead of doing something useful, told Medea that you're a lesbian when she explained her life story to you?"

"We made it out alive," Briar rolled her eyes. "I just don't see the appeal in ancient-times Jason, thank you very much. Now . . ."

She looked at the piece of parchment and she felt as ridiculous as she did when she talked tree roots into going to sleep.  "To my favorite people. Hazel, I love you and I miss you. I hope you didn't go crazy without me here. Piper, you owe me 5 denarii, you fucker. But I still miss you and love you. And, Reyna . . ."

Briar's smile, which had just appeared, faded. Her teeth gripped at her bottom lip tightly and she looked down. Leo grabbed her hand and she sent him a small smile before looking at the paper again.