Lucia was limping, her face twisted in pain. They hadn’t stopped walking since the harpy attack in Wisconsin, but they were almost to Montana, where they were apparently supposed to talk to Apollo. This had them all pretty excited, especially considering Apollo was Lucia’s father. She knew she should stop and take a bite of ambrosia or a sip of nectar but she hadn’t even told the boys about the wound on her leg. Her leg muscles were throbbing, which couldn’t be good.

“Look,” Drake spoke up, his grey eyes sparkling in the afternoon sun. He was pointing to a sign several more feet in front of them. The sign read “Montana State Line: 5 miles”. Thomas gave a whoop and spun in a circle, laughing. Lucia grinned but when she took another step forward, she groaned and her leg gave out beneath her weight.

Thomas yelped and leaped forward, dropping to his knees by her head. The world was fuzzy and covered in a haze, her body felt like it weighed far more than it should. Drake’s voice was frantic but sounded like it was coming from far away.

Drake pulled her pant leg up over her knee and winced. “Thomas,” he said seriously. “She was hurt. It must have been during the fight with the harpies.” Thomas studied Lucia’s leg. Drake shook his head and clicked his tongue. “It looks bad… she should have said something about it.”

“Couldn’t,” Lucia whimpered weakly. “Were walking too fast…” Drake gave an apologetic smile.

“Sorry Luce,” he said sincerely. “But I don’t know if we have enough ambrosia to fix this… it looks infected.” Thomas snorted at the son of Athena who had no medical knowledge or expertise.

“Tell me what it looks like.” Lucia tried to push herself to sit but a wave of nausea made her groan and fall back to the ground.

Thomas grimaced. “Maybe we should take her to a hospital.”

Drake frowned. “Well,” he proceeded to answer Lucia’s question.

Lucia sighed. “Yeah, sounds infected. Let’s try some ambrosia and nectar first though. Mortal hospitals don’t usually have what demigods need to treat monster injuries.”

Drake nodded, seeing the logic in that, and pulled a square of the godly food out of his pack, following with the canteen of nectar. Lucia ate it gingerly, savoring the taste of her mom’s homemade lasagna that the ambrosia had. It was one of her favorite foods from home. Her nausea faded, and the ache in her leg lessened, but the wound still looked bad.

“Maybe we should wait here for the night,” Thomas suggested gingerly, disappointment lacing in his voice. Drake nodded in agreement, though his face also held the same amount of disappointment. They were so close, and yet they had to stop. Lucia sighed, guilt lurking in the pit of her chest. If only she’d treated her wound sooner, this wouldn’t have happened.

She looked at her friends. “Let’s make camp then,” she said quietly, apologetically. “We’ll press on in the morning.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

Drake gave a gentle smile and patted her hand. “It’s okay,” he promised. “Let’s just get you better and then we can keep going. It’s not a big deal, really.”

Lucia yawned. “Okay.” The three of them settled down, staring at the sign that told them how close they actually were, and realized that nobody (except maybe Lucia) was going to sleep much that night.
  To be continued...