Home|| Leo Valdez

5

—"What just happened? What's a satyr? What's a ventus? HOW DID I DESTROY DYLAN? WHY THE HELL DID JASON JUMP OFF THE SIDE?" Alex's voice rose with each question. 

But of course she was met with no response. Leo groaned and sat up so Alex turned her attention to him, deciding to make sense of everything later. 

"Leo, are you okay?" 

"No" he replied, he was still dazed and she was sure he was hurt badly.

In front of her though was an even weirder sight, Jason was floating with Piper in his arms and as soon as they touched down, they ran over to Alex and Leo. 

"You can fly" Alex stated dumbly. 

"We were attacked by wind monsters and that's what you find the strangest?" Piper asked. 

"Where did Coach Hedge go?" Asked Jason. 

Alex pointed upwards, "I know it sounds crazy, but I think I destroyed Dylan the storm spirit, but Coach Hedge disappeared" 

Leo groaned "What happened? The tornado guy, the gold sword... I hit my head. That's it, right? I'm hallucinating?"

Jason walked over to the gold sword and picked it up like he had done it a hundred times. He flipped it and midspin the sword shrank back into coin and landed in his palm, 

"You know.. now that everything's over, can I just say- whatever happened was awesome!" Alex exclaimed, she sat down with a disbelieving smile and replayed the scenes over in her head. Piper gave her a look but Alex couldn't care less. The truth was that Alex was terrified, her heart beat a little too fast for her liking.

Piper shivered in her rain-soaked clothes. "Jason, those things-"

"Venti," he said.

"Like the starbucks drink?" Alex asked with a shit eating grin on her face trying to hide her shaking hands, this time Jason's lips curved upwards a bit. 

 "Storm spirits." He corrected. 

"Okay. You acted like... like you'd seen them before. Who are you?" Piper asked.

He shook his head. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I don't know."

The storm dissipated. The other kids from the Wilderness School were staring out the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working on the locks now, but they didn't seem to be having any luck.

"Coach Hedge said he had to protect four people," Jason remembered. "I think he meant us."

"And that thing Dylan turned into..." Piper shuddered. "God, I can't believe it was hitting on me. He called us... what, demigods?"

Leo lay on his back, staring at the sky. He didn't seem anxious to get up. "Don't know what demi means," he said. "But I'm not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?"

Alex chuckled and nudged him playfully.

There was a brittle sound like dry twigs snapping, and the cracks in the skywalk began to widen.
"We need to get off this thing," Jason said. "Maybe if we-"

"Ohhh-kay," Leo interrupted. "Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses."

At first Alex thought Leo had hit his head too hard. Then she saw a dark shape descending from the east-too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer she could see a pair of winged animals-gray, four-legged, exactly like horses-except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted box with two wheels: a chariot.

"Reinforcements," Jason said. "Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us."

"Extraction squad?" Leo struggled to his feet. "That sounds painful."

"And where are they extracting us to?" Alex asked.

She watched as the chariot landed on the far end of the skywalk. The flying horses tucked in their wings and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot-a tall blond girl maybe a little older than Alex, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. They both wore jeans and orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs. The girl leaped off before the chariot had even finished moving. She pulled a knife and ran toward Jason's group while the bulky dude was reining in the horses.

"Where is he?" the girl demanded. Her gray eyes were fierce and a little startling.

"Where's who?" Jason asked.

She frowned like his answer was unacceptable. Then she turned to Leo, Alex and Piper. "What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?"

Leo cleared his throat. "He got taken by some... tornado things."

"Venti," Alex corrected this time "Storm spirits."

The blond girl arched an eyebrow. Her eyes were freaking Alex out, especially with how she seemed to be staring only at Alex now. "You mean anemoi thuellai? That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"

Jason did his best to explain, though it was hard to meet those intense gray eyes. About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which seemed a little unusual.

Even though Jason was the one narrating (And Leo was adding helpful jokes and background noises), the blonde girl kept staring at Alex like she murdered her dog. 

When Jason had finished his story, the blond girl didn't look satisfied . "No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer."

"Maybe you already have" Piper was thinking out loud. Alex knew that look on her face, she just said random wise stuff like the spirit of an ancient greek philosopher possessed her.

"Annabeth," the bald guy grunted. "Check it out." He pointed at Jason's feet.

He was missing his left shoe, which had been blown off by the lightning. His foot looked like a lump of charcoal.

"The guy with one shoe," said the bald dude. "He's the answer."

"What... the hell?" Alex asked softly to herself. 

"No, Butch," the girl insisted. "He can't be. I was tricked." She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. "What do you want from me?" she screamed. "What have you done with him?"

A couple hours ago Alex would've laughed, but now she wasn't sure. The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.

"Annabeth," said the bald dude, Butch, "we gotta leave. Let's get these four to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."

She fumed for a moment. "Fine." She fixed Jason with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later."
She stared at Alex for a little while longer as if she was familiar, but then turned on her heel and marched toward the chariot.

Piper shook her head. "What's her problem? What's going on?"

"Seriously," Leo agreed.

"We have to get you out of here," Butch said. "I'll explain on the way."

"I'm not going anywhere with her." Jason gestured toward the blonde. "She looks like she wants to kill me."

Butch hesitated. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem."

"What problem?" Piper asked.

"She's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing three days," Butch said. "She's going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he'd be here."

"Who?" Jason asked.

"Her boyfriend," Butch said. "A guy named Percy Jackson."