Reconnected [Book 3]

5 - Hand wraps

(PERCY)

Percy had taken his girlfriend on some romantic walks before. This wasn't one of them.

They followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices, and hiding behind rocks whenever the vampire girls slowed in front of them.

It was tricky to stay far enough back to avoid getting spotted but close enough to keep Kelli and her comrades in view through the dark hazy air. The heat from the river baked Percy's skin. Every breath was like inhaling sulfur-scented fiberglass. When they needed a drink, the best they could do was sip some refreshing liquid fire.

Yep. Percy definitely knew how to show a girl a good time.

At least Annabeth's ankle seemed to have healed. She was hardly limping at all. Her various cuts and scrapes had faded.

Adelia's hands were still bleeding but much less now and she seemed to be breathing better than earlier. Her rib must have healed due to the fire. She had pushed her curly hair that he loved to run his hands through, up into a bun using a scrap of fabric from her t-shirt to hold it in place. Her caramel eyes flickered in the light, determined as always. Despite being beat-up, sooty, and dressed like a homeless person, she looked great to Percy. Perfect.

So what if they were in Tartarus? So what if they stood a slim chance of surviving? He was so glad that they were together, he had the ridiculous urge to smile. He didn't like how she said she was angry with him for jumping in with her, what was he meant to do? He would've gone crazy if she'd been down here without him. So he jumped in.

Physically, Percy felt better too, though his clothes looked like he'd been through a hurricane of broken glass. He was thirsty, hungry, and scared out of his mind (though he wasn't going to tell Adelia or Annabeth that), but he'd shaken off the hopeless cold of the River Cocytus. And as nasty as the firewater tasted, it seemed to keep him going.

Time was impossible to judge. They trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. Fortunately the empousai weren't exactly speed walkers. They shuffled on their mismatched bronze and donkey legs, hissing and fighting with each other, apparently in no hurry to reach the Doors of Death.

Once, the demons sped up in excitement and swarmed something that looked like a beached carcass on the riverbank. Percy couldn't tell what it was—a fallen monster? An animal of some kind? The empousai attacked it with relish.

When the demons moved on, Percy, Annabeth and Adelia reached the spot and found nothing left except a few splintered bones and glistening stains drying in the heat of the river. Percy had no doubt the empousai would devour demigods with the same gusto. Adelia vomited next to him. She'd been doing that a lot, mostly from fear or stress and he felt awful every time. He wished he could take some of her worries away. If they were on the ship he would make her some bland toast that she could keep down to keep her strong but there was no food here and he worried about her becoming weaker.

"Come on." He led Adelia gently away from the scene. "We don't want to lose them."

As they walked, Percy thought about the first time he'd fought the empousa Kelli at Goode High School's freshman orientation, when he and Rachel Elizabeth Dare got trapped in the band hall. At the time, it seemed like a hopeless situation. Now, he'd give anything to have a problem that simple. At least he'd been in the mortal world then. Here, there was nowhere to run.

Wow. When he started looking back on the war with Kronos as the good old days—that was sad. He kept hoping things would get better for Adelia and him, but their lives just got more and more dangerous, as if the Three Fates were up there spinning their futures with barbed wire instead of thread just to see how much two demigods could tolerate. Honestly, not much more.