[1] 𝐼𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑢𝑠 - 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑦 𝐽𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑜𝑛

1.12

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AT THE END OF THE DUMP, they found a tow truck so old it might've been thrown away itself. But the engine started, and it had a full tank of gas, so they decided to borrow it.

Thalia drove. She didn't seem as caught up as Katniss, Zoë, Grover or Percy. Cassiopeia didn't know how to drive, but she shared Thalia's determination. She had a way of hiding her emotions with passing it over with a joke, but Katniss supposed she could tell this was not the time for humor.

"The skeletons are still out there," Thalia reminded them. "We need to keep moving."

She navigated through the desert, under clear blue skies, the sand so bright it hurt to look at. Zoë sat up front with Thalia. Katniss, Cassiopeia, Grover and Percy sat in the pickup bed, leaning against the tow wench. The air was cool and dry, but the nice weather just seemed like an insult after losing Bianca.

Katniss took a deep breath. What would she tell Nico? She couldn't bear to see the energetic kid she loved have to deal with the harsh reality of grief.

She had already lost her own siblings many times, but she had been a thousand years old by then. Nico was a child. He shouldn't have to deal with this. It felt needlessly cruel that he had lost his mother to Zeus's lightning then his sister yet again to the electricity of Hephaestus' giant.

But her thoughts stopped temporarily as the tow truck ran out of gas at the edge of a river canyon. That was just as well, because the road dead-ended.

Thalia got out and slammed the door. Immediately, one of the tires blew. "Great. What now?"

Katniss scanned the horizon. There wasn't much to see. Desert in all directions, occasional clumps of barren mountains plopped here and there. The canyon was the only thing interesting. The river itself wasn't very big, maybe fifty yards across, green water with a few rapids, but it carved a huge scar out of the desert. The rock cliffs dropped away below them.

"There's a path," Grover said. "We could get to the river."

Katniss tried to see what he was talking about, and finally noticed a tiny ledge winding down the cliff face.

"That's a goat path," Percy said.

"So?" he asked.

"The rest of us aren't goats," Cassiopeia pouted out.

"We can make it," Grover said. "I think."

Katniss had done cliffs before, but she didn't like them. Then she looked over at Thalia and saw how pale she'd gotten. Her problem with heights... she'd never be able to do it.

"No," She said. "We should go farther upstream."

Grover said, "But—"

"Come on," Percy said. "A walk won't hurt us."