Olivia Smith and the Titan's Curse

Why Santa Never Came

Dedicated to fangirling_books_ for her amazing support of Olive and the series. Her comment really touched me, and if you weren't aware - all of my readers comments really inspire me to keep going, so thank you all. Really.

Song For Chapter: Ribs - Lorde

Ch. 22: Why Santa Never Came

    Zoë furrowed her brow as we shot through the air, flying high over snow covered mountain tops. "We are in the Sierras," At those words, Thalia clamped her, already tightly shut, eye lids closer together; her knuckles turning white due to how tightly she was clutching the statue. "I've hunted here before, at this rate, we should be in San Francisco is a few hours."

    "Are we very high, Olive?" Thalia turned her head towards me, refusing to open her eyes. 

    Percy rose a brow at me, curious to hear what I would tell her as he kicked some snow off the top peak of a mountain we quickly passed over.

    "Not really."

    Percy chuckled a little, but began to talk to Thalia and I about the skeleton attack he had suffered through while we were ordering our Mexican food. "I was actually cornered, but there was this mortal girl - she said her name was Rachel Elizabeth Dare - and she could see through the Mist, I don't know why."

    "Some mortals are like that, but there isn't an explanation," Thalia spoke up, never once opening her eyes, even with my reassuring words. Percy nodded, looking out into the distance as if his mind was in another place.

    As we rocketed through the sky, Grover decided to play a tune on his reed pipes and Zoë challenged me to a shooting competition. She liked to aim at Target stores, hitting bull's-eyes in the dead center from hundreds of miles away. 

    Happy for the distraction from the height, I took her up on her challenge, but in the end, she's beat me by three arrows. "Thou has gotten better," Zoë encouraged me, grinning slightly. 

    Smirking a little, I remembered the days when it was just Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and I on our mission - I was the best archer. I had thought I had learned all I needed to know about archery - but, I was wrong. It was a rude awakening when I'd joined the Hunt. 

    Letting my mind wander for a little while, I had almost drowned out the statue's voice as he asked, "Where you guys want to land?" Glancing down, the mountains and farm land had long ago passed away and now we were flying over a large bay, the Golden Gate Bridge jutting up like a picturesque scene. It was the first time I'd ever been to San Fran - despite the fact I grew up in California.

    Zoë assessed the area quickly, then nodded towards a large building, "By the Embarcadero Building." 

    There wasn't much need to blend in, despite the fact that five humans were flying down in the hold of two massive, bronze statues. It was early morning, and a heavy fog had settled, making people weary of taking early strolls along the streets. We did, however, freak out a single homeless man on the ferry dock - causing his to run for his life, screaming about metal angels from Mars. 

    After our 'guardian angels' left us, we all turned towards each other with the same glances of un-comforting loss. No one had the slightest idea of what to do next. We had made it to the West Coast, and for me, I had made it back to the place where it had all began - where Scarlett had met Apollo.

    Artemis was here somewhere, and, so was Annabeth. The sun was steadily rising and, as I did the math, I realized that tomorrow was the winter solstice. Hopefully there would be a miracle and we would find out what to do.