WINGED ₁

61

THEY RAN UNTIL THEY COULDN'T RUN ANYMORE. Rachel steered them away from traps, but they had no destination in mind―only away from that dark mountain and the roar of Kronos.

They stopped in a tunnel of wet white rock. Madeleine couldn't hear anything coming from behind them, but that didn't make her feel safe. She was shaking badly still, caught somewhere between an anxiety attack and a sob.

"I can't go any farther," Rachel gasped, hugging her chest.

Annabeth had been crying the entire time they had been running. Now she collapsed and put her head between her knees. Her sobs echoed in the tunnel.

Nico and Percy dropped their swords and sat down next to them, both exhausted and out of breath. Ethan collapsed and Madeleine barely caught him. She lowered him to the ground slowly, ignoring the throbbing in her face.

"Can't," Ethan gasped. His voice was tight with pain.

"Show me your ankle," she murmured. He obeyed, rolling up his pants.

The cut was, as Madeleine had thought, shallow, but it was turning a dark color and bleeding more than it should've. Madeleine cursed under her breath and dug with shaking hands through her backpack. She came up with ambrosia and shoved it into his hand.

For a minute, he held her hand there, the ambrosia smashed between them. Ethan's forehead was slick with sweat. Madeleine couldn't breathe properly.

"Please," she said. 

He swallowed the ambrosia and lay back while Madeleine applied salve and bandage to his cut. She thanked Lee over and over for providing her medical supplies.

Finally, Madeleine turned to Percy. She wiped the blood from her face as best she could and ate some ambrosia. Her nose, which she thought was broken, stopped throbbing so badly.

"Are you hurt?" she asked Percy.

He shook his head, wincing a little. "Just bruised."

She split her last ambrosia square and gave half to Percy and half to Nico, who looked like he was on the verge of passing out. Then she finally let herself relax, body shaking with adrenaline and guilt.

Nico frowned up at the high ceiling. "That sucked."

"You saved our lives," Percy murmured.

Nico wiped the dust off his face. "Blame the girls for dragging me along. That's the only thing they could agree on. We needed to help you three or you'd mess things up."

"Nice that they trust us so much," Percy remarked. He shined his flashlight across the cavern. Water dripped from the stalactites like a slow-motion rain. "Nico... you, uh, kind of gave yourself away."

"What do you mean?"

"That wall of black stone? That was pretty impressive. If Kronos didn't know who you were before, he does now―a child of the Underworld."

Nico frowned. "Big deal." Madeleine could see the fear in him, though.

Annabeth lifted her head. Her eyes were red from crying. "What... what was wrong with Luke? What did they do to him?"

Percy glanced at Madeleine, and she just barely nodded her head, so he told Annabeth what they had seen: Luke's body in the coffin, the missing piece of him, what had happened when Madeleine had pledged her service, and how he had woken up as Kronos.

Madeleine felt like her guilt was going to choke her. She had already let Annabeth down once, last winter, when she had stabbed Luke and thrown him off a cliff with her anger. Now, she had started a war. And though maybe it would have been inevitable, Madeleine had caused this pain. Whatever happened next, whoever Kronos killed, it would be a little bit of her fault. Luke's immortality was a little bit of her fault. He would never be a person again. It would be better if Annabeth hated Madeleine now. It would make sense.