ENTRAPPED ₂

6

ETHAN HAD GROWN UP STARVED ON LOVE. His mother was the goddess of revenge and his father was a killer. He knew survival, not affection.

At first, Madeleine had just been a toy, an amusing dip in the equation. Luke's little sister. Ethan was going to use her to whatever end.

It hadn't been the plan to become fond of her, but she was much stronger than he had anticipated. She matched him, blow for blow. When she came back the winter after she'd lost Zoe, he saw something in her eyes that he had only ever seen in himself.

"If you don't mind me asking," Jason said, "what made you decide to come with us?"

Ethan glanced back. Strangely, the blonde seemed to be the least scared of Ethan of the trio, which was interesting considering that Ethan had almost killed him upon meeting him. There was something unnerving about Jason's honesty. It set Ethan's teeth on edge.

"It wasn't for you," he replied. "Believe me, the sooner we get this done, the better. I just believe the three of you are incompetent, amnesiac; and if your girlfriend is correct and this is a lead on my girlfriend, then I'm not privy that it's you three following it."

Jason flushed and looked away as Piper looked back at him. Ah. Sore spot. That was interesting.

"Your girlfriend," Piper repeated, her eyes sliding to Ethan. "Madeleine Aetos."

"Look at you, remembering names," Ethan told her. "I'm so impressed, sweetheart. How's your wrist?"

Piper was undeterred, which bothered Ethan. "Annabeth showed me pictures. She seemed really nice. How did you pull her?"

"Of course Annabeth showed you pictures," Ethan snarled. He couldn't help being annoyed. "Let me guess: Annabeth also told you to treat me like a person? I know how to kill you in five different ways, and none of them involve throwing you off this dragon."

"Shut up, me," Leo interrupted loudly. All three of them looked at him.

"What?" Piper asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Long night. I think I'm hallucinating."

"And you're the one driving our dragon," Ethan said dryly. "That's great. I'm really happy about that."

"Just joking," Leo assured Ethan, who knew that he was not just joking. "So what's the plan, guys? Jason, you said something about catching wind, or breaking wind, or something?"

As they flew over New England, Jason mapped out his shitty plan, with Leo interrupting every so often with comments that he thought were clever, such as: "His name is Boreas? What is he, the God of Boring?" "Can we just call them storm spirits? Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks."

"Do you ever shut the fuck up?" Ethan asked, his fingers twitching. Maybe it was good that Piper had sat between him and Leo, because he really wanted to wring the kid's neck.

Leo got the message and didn't speak again until Jason was done. He cast a hasty look back at Ethan, then said, "So you want to look for Dylan, the nasty storm dude, on purpose. The guy who threw me off the skywalk and sucked Coach Hedge into the clouds."

"I wish he had done a better job," Ethan said.

Ethan felt more than saw Jason wince. "That's about it," the blonde said. "Well... there may be a wolf involved, too. But I think she's friendly. She probably won't eat us, unless we show weakness." Jason proceeded to describe a dream he had had the night before that Ethan didn't care about at all.

"Uh-huh," Leo said. "But you don't know where this place is."

"Nope," Jason admitted.

"There's also giants," Piper added. "The prophecy said the giants' revenge."