ENTRAPPED ₂

67

FOR WHAT FELT LIKE A LONG TIME―TOO LONG, MAYBE―PERCY AND MADELEINE SAT AT THAT CAFE TABLE, STARING AT THE SPOT WHERE THE LOVES OF THEIR LIFE HAD JUST BEEN. They only stirred when the waiter appeared with the check.

They paid it with Annabeth's credit card―oh, Annabeth―and then they began to walk the streets of Rome again, a little numbly. Madeleine could feel her heart in her ears, a dull roar, like she was drowning ten feet deep.

Finally, she said, "Nico. Piper knows something in her knife about Nico."

Percy wrapped his fingers around Madeleine's wrist, and they ran.

Madeleine wasn't sure how they made it back to the ship. Neither of them knew where they were going. It was all instinct, harsh breaths and trampling feet.

At one point, Percy pulled Madeleine to such an abrupt stop that she almost fell. His face was pale and pallid in the warm afternoon sunlight.

"What?" Madeleine asked, a little breathless.

"If we're the ones that are meant to be saving Nico..." Percy's chest heaved, like he was on the verge of an anxiety attack. "Then what are Leo and Hazel and Frank doing?"

A sliver of ice made its way down Madeleine's chest. This was the part her brain had been missing.

She forced herself to concentrate. She couldn't think about any of that―not them, not Ethan and Annabeth.

"Percy, Nico needs us," she told him fiercely. She had felt, since the very beginning of this quest, that Percy had been checked out about the Nico thing. Yes, his girlfriend was going on a death quest. Yes, he had lost his memory. Yes, Nico had lied to him. But Madeleine had promised Ethan that she would bring Nico home.

Hazel, Frank, and Leo could manage. They had each other. Madeleine had to believe in that, just as she had to believe in Annabeth and Ethan.

Nico didn't have anyone. They needed to be those people.

Madeleine didn't say any of this, but Percy must have seen it in her eyes. He squared his shoulders, set his jaw. She could see how hard it was for him―he hated it when his friends were in danger and he couldn't do anything about it. She knew that Hazel and Frank were like siblings to him. She knew it would kill him to lose any of them―Hazel or Frank or Annabeth, even Ethan.

But that wasn't the point right now. Madeleine had always been a little more cutthroat than Percy. Now, that needed to be dominant.

This time, she took his hand. They ran.

⎯⎯ ୨ entrapped ୧ ⎯⎯

Jason and Piper were having birthday cake, which would have been a charming scene if Madeleine hadn't been quite so stressed.

They gathered on the deck together. Percy and Madeleine took turns explaining what had happened to Annabeth and Ethan.

When they were done, Piper shook her head. "So Annabeth and Ethan were kidnapped on a motor scooter," she summed up, "by Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn."

"Not kidnapped, exactly," Percy said. "But I've got this bad feeling..." he took a deep breath, and Madeleine could still hear the anxiety attack creeping up on him. "Anyway, they're―they're gone. Maybe we shouldn't have let them, but―"

Madeleine was going to say something lame―she was starting to really wish that she hadn't let them, either, because her heart was hammering brutally against her rib cage and only Ethan knew when she was crumbling into panic, because Drew and Lee and Apollo and Castor and Hermes and anyone else that loved Madeleine wasn't here, it was only Ethan, and he was gone now―but Piper beat her to it.