ENTRAPPED ₂

39

"YOUR BOW!" HAZEL SHOUTED TO FRANK.

Madeleine watched, as if in slow motion, as Frank dropped his pack and slipped the bow off his shoulder.

"Hold one end," Hazel told Frank. "Don't let go."

She grabbed the other end, took a deep breath, and jumped into the bog. The earth instantly closed over her head.

Madeleine felt like the ground was caving in under her feet. She felt like the sky was going to fall and split her skull open.

For the first time in her life, she understood Ethan's fear of heights. She was being sucked into the earth.

Madeleine was having a panic attack.

During Daedalus's race in the woods, Percy and Annabeth had gone missing for over an hour. They had been in the Labyrinth, but Madeleine had thought they were dead. She remembered collapsing against a tree, her body an uncontrollable mass of fear.

When Kronos in Luke's body had finally made his way to the Empire State Building, and Drew had just lost her sister, she had attacked him. Drew, with her lovely pink axe. Drew, who was thrown down the street, skittering like a fucking rag doll.

Madeleine was losing it. She was absolutely losing it. The world was upside down. The sky was at her feet. She was falling straight up into space. She was suffocating.

Percy. She imagined him now. His lips blue. The mud pressing in on all sides. His eyes wide open. Dead. Dead. Dead dead dead. Zoe all over again. Beckendorf. Luke. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Madeleine had tried so hard to save him. She had done so much to protect him. It had never been enough. This was what happened this was what happened this was what fucking happened―

Beside her, something exploded. She had fallen to her knees on the road. In the mud, a few feet from where Hazel and Percy had disappeared, clods of earth had launched into the air. They rained down, spattering Frank and Madeleine.

Frank was staring at Madeleine, eyes wide. He was gripping his bow.

She must look deranged. She didn't care.

She had no one to pray to. She had no one to hold her up. Percy Jackson was fucking dying and here she was, helpless. It was like Zoe all over again. Bianca di Angelo, the martyr. Fucking Luke. Ethan, curled up, a piece of his own blade embedded in his stomach.

It should have been her.

A few feet away, a tree exploded. Pieces of bark flew at Frank and Madeleine like shrapnel. One cut her cheek open. She relished in it. Feeling. Feeling. Feeling.

"Madeleine," Frank was saying. His eyes were wide with fear. "Madeleine, you need to calm down."

She stared at him. He was speaking English, but his words made absolutely no sense.

Hazel was dead. Percy was dead. There was no point.

Madeleine was on her knees. She stumbled to her feet. She looked around the clearing, doing a full circle, as if somehow, someway, something would change. Percy and Hazel would not be fucking suffocated. Ethan and Drew and Lee would be here, not all the way in New York. She would not have lost eight months of her life. Apollo or Hermes would have followed her. Zoe would be here. Beckendorf would fix everything, like he always did.

There was nothing.

She inhaled, and then she screamed.

The ground trembled. The earth shook.

Percy was dying. Madeleine was helpless. Her morality meant nothing. Her priorities meant nothing. She should have learned sooner.

This was why Hera had taken her memories. There was so much blood on her hands. So many deaths. Everything around her just fucking died.