WINGED ₁

39

HERE WAS THE THING ABOUT MADELEINE: SHE HAD ALWAYS LOVED FLYING.

When she had been a little girl, she remembered vividly her father taking her by the waist and flying her around the house. She'd laugh until she hurt, and then laugh some more when he set her down and tickled her. Sometimes, if his job paid well enough, he'd get them plane tickets to Florida just so Madeleine could experience the delight of an airplane.

Luke's flying shoes had been the insult, and she had decided then that she would not let him ruin flying for her. It was one of her greatest pleasures. Madeleine was not much, but she liked the idea of sprouting wings one day and leaving all of this behind. Those shoes were her weapon now, and they had saved her life more than they had tried to end it. 

She hoped Luke knew.

Now, with her feet dangling hundreds of feet in the air, she felt so free she let out an exhilarated laugh. All of the stress and the grief of the last twenty-four hours seemed to melt away. The cold wind battered her face, numbed her cheeks, stung her teeth. And yet, and yet, and yet: she was flying. She was a little girl again, in her father's arms, laughing without a care.

When Madeleine opened her eyes, she saw Zoe looking at her strangely, and she grinned. "What?"

"Nothing," Zoe said, almost smiling. "Nothing at all. You are just... beautiful."

Madeleine didn't blush very often. She wasn't sure if she actually had ever blushed from unnatural factors. But the earnestness in Zoe's voice, the gleam in her eyes, warmed Madeleine down to her toes.

Below them, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. Madeleine stretched out her foot and kicked snow off one of the peaks.

"We are in the Sierras!" Zoe yelled, so their friends could hear. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" the angel carrying Percy, Thalia, and Grover 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!"

Madeleine stopped listening, though, because Zoe had reached out and grabbed her hand. Her fingers were cool, like they had been when she had cleaned Madeleine's poisoned wound. That felt like so long ago, and the world blurred around Madeleine, tucking itself into the space between the taste of Zoe's lips and the hum of her father putting her to bed.

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 started shooting arrows at random billboards. Every time a Target passed below them, she would hit a bullseye. She even let Madeleine try a few times, and to Madeleine's own surprise, she wasn't a bad shot. Not nearly as great as Zoe; but not bad, probably because of all of her practice with throwing her knives.

Madeleine could've stayed in that sky forever. There was no threat, no grief, no worry. All that existed in that moment was Zoe's hands, her half-moon smile, the hair pulled back from her face. If Madeleine had ever wanted to immortalize anything, it was this. It was freedom.

⎯⎯ ୨ winged ୧ ⎯⎯

San Francisco was an imprint in California, a reminder of the home Madeleine was so fond of. It was close to her own city in body and spirit. San Francisco was the city of dreams, but Los Angeles was the city of angels.

It was early morning, and not many people were around. They did, however, land by the docks and scare a homeless guy. He screamed when he saw their transportation and ran off yelling something about metal angels from Mars.