𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 (𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨'𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐎𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐬)

NINE ; a free sky-diving lesson

     Eileen felt like she could have slept for 100 years - or maybe that was frostbite on her brain talking.

     Quebec City was nothing but a glowing speck far behind them. It was almost impossible to see further than a few feet in front of them, but Festus must've had some sort of built-in GPS, because he kept on a steady flight path through the night. Piper and Jason muttered their own quiet conversation behind Eileen. She was fighting off sleep, trying to cover her yawn. They had already explained to Leo their Antarctic expedition, but Eileen couldn't get it out of her head.

     Boreas changing forms. Jason's strange link to Romans. His tattoos. How Boreas had been so certain that they were jumping head-first into the murky depths of their deaths. Whoever Jason was, Roman or Greek, something was different about him - the problem with his existence in Camp Half-Blood.

     Eileen's head hurt. Her stomach rumbled, and she realised with a start that they hadn't eaten anything since yesterday.

     Thankfully, Leo seemed to have heard it, and fished some sandwiches from his pack. As they chewed, conversation was sparse.

     "I still can't believe Khione," Leo said. "She looked so nice."

     "Are you sure we were all looking at the same person?" Eileen couldn't help but ask. Khione may have been attractive, but she had a gaze as harsh as the freezing winter.

     "Trust me, man," Jason said. "Snow may be pretty, but up close it's cold and nasty. We'll find you a better prom date."

     Leo went quite again, a displeased look on his face. Ever since the Boreads had called him out for smelling like fire, he had been quieter, more reserved. Obviously, he was hiding something, Eileen just didn't know what it could be. And whatever it was, Festus was clearly picking up on Leo's dampened mood. He grumbled and steamed, trying to keep himself and his passengers warm in the cold Canadian air.

     Nobody talked for a while after that. Eileen's eyelashes were starting to hurt. The only thing she would have changed about Festus was adding some fold out beds. The lack of adrenaline was catching up.

     Eileen found herself thinking about the Wilderness School. She wondered if they were worried about them - whether they had even noticed they were gone. In the confusion of the freak storm and Coach Hedge disappearing, would it really be so crazy to assume that four missing students had slipped under the radar?

     If her dad knew that she had gone missing... Eileen didn't know what he would do. Would he care? He had been absent for a lot of her home life, but he still worried about her. He just had a harder time showing it. Instead, he would try and communicate his affection in the small gifts he would sometimes give to her. When she was younger, at least. Since her step-mum, Lucinda, had started complaining about the money he was spending, Peter Thomas had stopped trying to act like he cared about his daughter.

     Eileen gave in to the temptation of sleep. She leant back against Piper, who wrapped her arms around Eileen almost absent mindedly. She, too, seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. It was a weird position to fall asleep in, but Eileen found that she was too tired to care.

     First, she dreamed of Coach Hedge back at the Wilderness School. It was gym class, and he had lined them up in the school's gym. It was cold that morning, and the coach was barking orders through his megaphone.

     "Twelve laps of the gym for all of you, cupcakes!" He shouted. "I don't want anybody claiming they're cold when they're not moving! Pick up those feet, Thomas, you're ruining my floors!"

     Eileen grumbled to herself and picked up the pace. Leo jogged beside her, mimicking a ridiculous high step so it almost looked like he was doing an Irish jig.