ENTRAPPED ₂

75

MADELEINE AND ETHAN WEREN'T INHERENTLY ROMANTIC PEOPLE, SO PERHAPS THAT WAS WHY MADELEINE FOUND IT DEEPLY TOUCHING THAT THEY HELD HANDS AS THEY WALKED THROUGH LITERAL HELL. Maybe, she thought, she should raise her standards a little. Maybe she would take him on a nice date if they ever got back to the mortal world and survived the war with Gaea. Maybe they could get a coffee together, and hold hands over the table, and kiss a few times. Maybe Madeleine was fucking crazy.

The four of them followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices, and hiding behind rocks whenever the vampire girls slowed down 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 Madeleine's skin, which was really saying something, as she used to lay naked with the sun god. Every breath was like inhaling sulfur-scented fiberglass. When they needed a drink, they could sip some refreshing liquid fire.

Madeleine was really yearning for that coffee date. She would order an iced chai. With brown sugar syrup. Extra sweet. Extra cold. Extra ice. They could bring Drew and Lee along.

Oh, Drew and Lee. Madeleine's heart twisted. It had almost been a year since she'd last seen them, and the very concept made her want to throw up.

She needed to focus on better things. For one, Ethan and Annabeth seemed to have healed. Annabeth was hardly limping at all, and Ethan was beginning to flex his bad arm back and forth. Their various cuts and scrapes had faded. Annabeth had tied her hair back in a strip of denim torn from her pants leg, and in the fiery light of the river, her gray eyes flickered. Madeleine envied her ability to make the best of any situation. If anyone here was a survivalist, it was Annabeth Chase.

Madeleine had noticed this for a long time. Not long enough, maybe; but while Luke Castellan was alive, it seemed like everything Annabeth had done had been for either him or Percy, no matter how reckless. Now that he was dead, Annabeth had changed. Madeleine hadn't been around her very long, what with the amnesia and the kidnapping, but she saw a change in the other girl. Annabeth Chase was hellbent on surviving, and she was very hellbent on doing it with Percy Jackson. It was something that made Madeleine ache a little bit. She had never seen anyone love each other the way that those two did. She knew Ethan saw it, too. That was why he made fun of them so often.

Ethan and Madeleine weren't made for unconditional love, not really. Percy had grown up with his mom, and Annabeth had had the other campers to raise her since she was seven. But Madeleine had grown up with a dead father and the faceless crowd of the Lotus Casino as company. Ethan had had it even worse.

Sometimes it made her ache. Oh, she needed to stop with these nasty thoughts. The Tartarus air must be getting to her, infecting her brain.

Time was impossible to judge. They trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. Fortunately the empousai weren't exactly quick. 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. Madeleine didn't understand how someone could want to spend more time than they had to in Tartarus; but to each their own, she supposed.

Once, the demons sped up in excitement and swarmed something that looked like a beached carcass on the riverbank. Madeleine couldn't tell what it was, and she wasn't very keen to fight out as they watched the empousai attack it with relish.

"Hungry?" Ethan murmured. "Maybe they'll leave scraps for us."

Madeleine could have kissed him. Then she realized there was no point in not kissing him, so she pressed her mouth to his very hard.