Home|| Leo Valdez

21

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"Cyclops!"

Alex started when Jason yelled, she would've fallen off Festus if not for Leo.

"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper sat behind him on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced. Alex sat in front, driving with Leo holding onto her waist. They flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought-"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

"How did you-the Cyclops-"

"Leo ripped them apart," Alex said . "He was amazing. He can summon fire-"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."

And she did-how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.

Alex had been impressed. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit? Not bad. It helped that Leo somehow better with grease and dirt smeared on his face and hands. She thought it made him look like a real person with flaws and not like Drew.

"I'm not alone, then," Jason said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I-I know... but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage about an exchange. 

"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"

Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way-"

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy-that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

Leo cleared his throat. "About that... she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."

Alex wasn't sure she'd heard that right. "Did you say... Porta-Potty?"

Leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"

"She appeared to me too." Alex admitted. "She kept saying I was useless and that you guys were all going to leave me or betray me. And then she tried to make me feel bad by showing me some happy moments in Percy's life"

"I've been meaning to ask..." Jason ventured. "You don't have to tell us if you don't, Jackson"

"No it's fine." Alex took a deep breath and started explaining. "My mom... Sally Jackson married this guy called Gabe Ugliano when I was two and Percy was three. So I guess he's sixteen now." 

Leo squeezed her shoulder from behind for reassurance. 

"And Gabe had the worst smell, like imagine the worst thing you've ever smelled and triple it. But that wasn't the worst part, when I was three or four I noticed Gabe used to hit my mom. Percy didn't know anything about it and was shocked when I told him."

"You miss him don't you?" Piper asked as if sensing Alex's feelings. The girl in question nodded and continued.

"I tried to stand up to Gabe once, and from then on he didn't need an excuse to hit me. I'm pretty sure mom knew how I went to sleep every night with many new bruises, but she didn't do anything. Gabe didn't hit Percy everyday like he did to me, which made me angry with Percy. I know it makes no sense." She took a deep breath and felt Leo hug her from behind which made her breath hitch.

"One day when I was nine, I had a big fight with mom and I ran away because.. surprise, surprise, it's not normal to get abused. I eventually ran into trouble and refused to tell the officers my name and my family so they put me in a foster home, where I met this idiot"

Alex chuckled and looked at Leo, she tried to brush it off as a joke but Jason and Piper had conflicted expressions, like they didn't know whether to give her a hug or to go kill Gabe.But they seemed to know that Alex hated pity, so they changed the topic. 

"Why is everyone toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?" Piper cleared her throat.

"Enceladus?" Jason asked. 

"I mean..." Piper's voice quavered. "That's one of the giants. Just one of the names I could remember."

Alex got the feeling there was a lot more bothering her, but she decided he not to press her. She'd had a rough morning.

Leo scratched his head. "Well, I dunno about Enchiladas-"

Which made Alex chuckle.

"Enceladus," Piper corrected.

"Whatever. But Old Potty Face mentioned another name. Porpoise Fear, or something?"

"Porphyrion?" Piper asked. "He was the giant king, I think."

"I'm going to take wild guess," Jason said. "In the old stories, Porphyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot in the war between the giants and the gods."

"I think so," Piper agreed. "But those myths are really garbled and conflicted. It's almost like nobody wanted that story to survive. I just remember there was a war, and the giants were almost impossible to kill."

"Heroes and gods had to work together," Jason said. "That's what Hera told me."

"Kind of hard to do," Leo grumbled, "if the gods won't even talk to us."

They flew west, and Alex became lost in her thoughts-all of them bad. She wasn't sure how much time passed before the dragon dove through a break in the clouds, and below them, glittering in the winter sun, was a city at the edge of a massive lake. A crescent of skyscrapers lined the shore. Behind them, stretching out to the western horizon, was a vast grid of snow-covered neighbourhoods and roads.

"Chicago," Jason said.

"One problem down," Leo said. "We got here alive. Now, how do we find the storm spirits?"

Alex turned and saw Jason follow a spirit with his eyes. The thing spiraled toward the skyscrapers, weaving and changing shape-and, just for a moment it became the smoky figure of a horse.

"How about we follow that one," Jason suggested, "and see where it goes?"