Haunted || Leo Valdez

43 - Our Heroes Regroup

"Well, that was a disaster," Anne announced.

Leo had to agree with her. It was a disaster. He wished he could invent a time machine. He'd go back two hours and undo what had happened. Either that, or he could invent a Slap-Leo-in-the-Face machine to punish himself.

Forget it. What he needed was Rebecca. She would've been able to get some sense into him.

"One more time," Annabeth said. "Exactly what happened?"

Leo slumped against the mast. His head still throbbed from hitting the deck. All around him, his beautiful new ship was in shambles. The aft crossbows were piles of kindling. The foresail was tattered. The satellite array that powered the onboard Internet and TV was blown to bits, which had really made Coach Hedge mad. Their bronze dragon figurehead, Festus, was coughing up smoke like he had a hairball, and Leo could tell from the groaning sounds on the port side that some of the aerial oars had been knocked out of alignment or broken off completely, which explained why the ship was listing and shuddering as it flew, the engine wheezing like an asthmatic steam train.

He choked back a sob. "I don't know. It's fuzzy."

Too many people were looking at him: Annabeth (Leo hated to make her angry; that girl scared him), Coach Hedge with his furry goat legs, his orange polo shirt, and his baseball bat (did he have to carry that everywhere?), Anne, her green-streaked hair pulled into a messy bun, some redheaded dude that Leo didn't even know, and the newcomer, Frank.

Leo wasn't sure what to make of Frank. He looked like a baby sumo wrestler, though Leo wasn't stupid enough to say that aloud. Leo's memory was hazy, but while he'd been half-conscious, he was pretty sure he'd seen a dragon land on the ship—a dragon that had turned into Frank.

Annabeth crossed her arms. "You mean you don't remember?"

"I..." Leo felt like he was trying to swallow a marble. "I remember, but it's like I was watching myself do things. I couldn't control it."

Coach Hedge tapped his bat against the deck. In his gym clothes, with his cap pulled over his horns, he looked just like he used to at the Wilderness School, where he'd spent a year undercover as Jason, Piper, and Leo's P.E. teacher. The way the old satyr was glowering, Leo almost wondered if the coach was going to order him to do push-ups.

"Look, kid," Hedge said, "you blew up some stuff. You attacked some Romans. Awesome! Excellent! But did you have to knock out the satellite channels? I was right in the middle of watching a cage match."

"Coach," Annabeth said, "why don't you make sure all the fires are out?"

"But I already did that."

"Well, do it again, mate," Anne said.

The satyr trudged off, muttering under his breath. Even Hedge wasn't crazy enough to defy Annabeth.

She knelt next to Leo. Her gray eyes were as steely as ball bearings. Her blond hair fell loose around her shoulders, but Leo didn't find that attractive. He had no idea where the stereotype of dumb giggly blondes came from. Ever since he'd met Annabeth at the Grand Canyon last winter, when she'd marched toward him with that Give-me-Percy-Jackson-or-I'll-kill-you expression, Leo thought of blondes as much too smart and much too dangerous.

Leo's heart wrenched with pain. Rebecca had been there that day, too, fighting the venti and saving him when he'd fallen into the canyon.

His ship was in shambles and his girlfriend was gone. Could it get any worse?

"Leo," Annabeth said calmly, "did Octavian trick you somehow? Did he frame you, or—"

"No." Leo could have lied and blamed that stupid Roman, but he didn't want to make a bad situation worse. "The guy was a jerk, but he didn't fire on the camp. I did."