ENTRAPPED ₂

42

A FEW HOURS AFTER MADELEINE HAD HELD HER GIRLFRIEND WHILE SHE DIED, NICO DI ANGELO OPENED THE EARTH BENEATH HER FEET. He had banished four immortal skeleton warriors, like the one Frank had, by sheer willpower. He had saved Percy's and Madeleine's lives in the process.

After this, he had run off into the woods. Madeleine and Percy gave chase, but their hearts weren't in it. Madeleine did not see him again for months. She did not see anyone for months, except for the god Apollo.

The only person Nico had seen for those long, lonely months had been a murderous, manipulative ghost.

They had parallel losses. Nico's lovely mother, murdered by Zeus. Madeleine's lovely father, murdered by Zeus. Nico would lose Bianca. Two years later, Madeleine would watch her own brother stab himself until his eyes were only whites.

Here was what they did not have in common: Nico had never lost a lover, and Madeleine had never opened the earth.

When Percy went over the side, she didn't worry about it. When Frank and Hazel tied Alcyoneus to their makeshift sled, Madeleine didn't worry about it. When Thanatos looked at her and gave her that same two-fingered salute, his smile Luke's, she didn't worry about it.

Her focus narrowed. Her muscles coiled.

This was the fight.

The gryphons were not worried about the others. They did not care about Percy, who had disappeared. They did not care about Frank and Hazel, because they were by Thanatos, and the god's aura threatened the monsters.

They cared about Madeleine most of all, because she had been the one that killed Prometheus. They liked her especially because she was vicious. Her only moral code was keeping her friends alive, and that wasn't a very solid moral code at all.

Prometheus had smashed against the pavement, his scarred body a ruin. Madeleine hadn't even flinched.

She flew through the air, faster than she had ever gone. The icy clouds stung her eyes. Her hair whipped behind her, a bronze coil. She had her knives in her hands, and if a gryphon strayed from the pack and went to attack her, she would twist in midair and put a knife through it. Eye, gut, throat―it never mattered. Curse of Achilles or not, Madeleine Aetos never missed.

They flew over glaciers and the icy, deadened towns of Alaska. They flew over Hyperborean giants wading through lakes, mortals eating at cafes, and Hazel's old house. They flew until Madeleine saw what she needed: a forest.

It was a small forest. Madeleine had seen a lion in it on the train ride. She had somehow kept this piece of information registered in her brain, as if she knew she would need it.

It wasn't the lion that mattered.

Madeleine was very angry. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this furious, but she felt like she had finally collected all of her memories. There were no more missing pieces. This was her.

If she thought about it too much, she would crumple. Anger was a careful balance, though, and a great instrument. She was so angry she could kill anything. Kill now, think later.

She landed hard in the forest, rolling over a few times. There was no ice or snow on the hard-packed dirt. There were no lions or other animals. The forest seemed unnaturally silent, as if it had been waiting for her. The trees seemed to lean toward her, the leaves soulless and quiet.

When the gryphons swooped down toward her, a writhing black mass, Madeleine did not run. She put her rings firmly on her fingers and thought of Drew's voice on the phone, a promise. Ethan's jacket was still wrapped firmly around her shoulders. She thought of Apollo's hand in hers, resting on the glovebox. He had looked so sad.