Warriors || Leo Valdez [2]

35

Leo and Jason had to quite literally drag Alex away from the crumbling cavern because she refused to be separated from Percy again. But she finally calmed down enough to stop screaming and thrashing, only sobbing. 

Dazed with grief, Leo and the others carefully loaded the Athena Parthenos into the hold, using the ship's hydraulic winches with an assist from Frank Zhang, part-time elephant. The statue just fit, though what they were going to do with it, Alex had no idea.She hated the statue, hated that it made Percy and Annabeth fall. 

Alex needed something to blame and it was the perfect object. She wiped her tears when she realised Percy would want her to be strong, but refused to think of him as dead. 

Coach Hedge was too miserable to help. He kept pacing the deck with tears in his eyes, pulling at his goatee and slapping the side of his head, muttering, "I should have saved them! I should have blown up more stuff!"

Everyone tried to assure him that there was nothing he could've done, while keeping their own guilt at bay. 

Finally Leo told the satyr to go below decks and secure everything for departure. He wasn't doing any good beating himself up.

The seven demigods gathered on the quarterdeck and gazed at the distant column of dust still rising from the site of the implosion.

"It's my fault," Leo said miserably, he couldn't even bring himself to look at Alex. But Alex wrapped her arms around him. Alex buried her face in Leo's shoulder as he held her. All that she could think was that she needed him, now more than ever. She needed his arms around her, needed him to hold her and whisper that everything would be okay.

She understood, she figured he had opened the fortune cookie and he blamed himself because Nemesis had warned him about the price.

The others stared at him. Only Hazel seemed to understand. She'd been with him at the Great Salt Lake.

"No," Alex insisted. "No, this is Gaea and the giants' fault. It had nothing to do with you."

Leo wanted to believe that, but he couldn't. They'd started this voyage with Leo messing up, firing on New Rome. They'd ended in old Rome with Leo breaking a cookie and paying a price much worse than an eye.

"Leo, listen to me." Hazel gripped his hand. "I won't allow you to take the blame. I couldn't bear that after-after Sammy... "

Alex didn't know what that meant, but she was glad no one was blaming Leo because she was ready to defend him. 

Nico di Angelo shuffled over, leaning on his black sword. "Alexandra, they're not dead. If they were, I could feel it."

"How can you be sure?" Alex snapped, she really couldn't care less that Nico called her Alexandra.  "If that pit really led to... you know... how could you sense them so far away?"

Nico and Hazel shared a look, maybe comparing notes on their Hades/Pluto death radar. 

"We can't be one hundred percent sure," Hazel admitted. "But I think Nico is right. Percy and Annabeth are still alive... at least, so far."

"No thanks to you di Angelo" Alex grumbled. 

"What does that mean?" Nico asked. 

"I mean, if you hadn't tried to hold me back, I would've helped them up" Alex groaned. "And you Violet, you could've used your- your vines.. or something"

Violet looked devastated though, just as much as Alex, they didn't even try to argue.

"I was saving your life, and don't bring Vi into this" Nico fumed.