You know you love me

Chapter Eight

Leo POV

I know you are wondering, 'Who put Leo in charge of driving the van full of thousands of dollars worth of equipment?', but what you should be wondering is why Frank insists on driving 5 below the speed limit. Like seriously we could be in a car chase and this kid would still stop at 'yield' signs. 

Anyways, we were supposed to meet Jason at the pier 5 minutes ago but someone *cough* Frank Zhang *cough* decided that parking two parking lots down was safer. 

Theoretically, yes it would be if our van was just black and sketchy, but since our van is disguised as a scuba gear delivery van I think we deserve to park as close as possible. You know for the customers' sake. 

By the time we finally made it to the pier, I had 13 missed calls from Jason along with a few "Where the heck are you?" texts. 

We saw Jason standing by the railing nervously tapping his foot while checking his phone. When he finally saw us, his eyes circled from surprise to anger to relief. He frantically walked up to us and tried to scold us but the only words that came out were, 'You...Gosh... What if...Ahhh." 

"Good to see you too, buddy" I said lightly patting him on the shoulder. He only sighed before checking his watch once again. 

He looked up and said, "Percy's date starts in five minutes over by the ice cream shop. Knowing Percy, he is going to be late. Knowing that his date is a female, she is probably already here." 

I saw Jason vision focus in on the area near the ice cream shop as he led us behind a popcorn stand. His eyes popped and he started making frantic hand motions that he knew Frank and I didn't understand even though he has been teaching us the signs for months.

 He finally sighed and whispered, "That's her" as he pointed towards a blond girl leaning on the pier railing. 

Before I even had time to pull one gadget out, Percy came strolling up to Annabeth for their date. Mind you he was perfectly on time, looked awake, and didn't have bed-head. 

Okay, this girl may work for the enemy but I could tell Percy was hopelessly in love. We watched silently as Percy exchanged sassy comments with this Athena girl, who clearly wasn't falling for his charm. 

After somewhere in between two and ten awkward minutes of date-spying, Percy walked away presumably to get some ice cream. 

Fortunately, for him nothing had gone wrong and he was getting ice cream. 

Unfortunately for us, the ice cream shop was right next to the popcorn stand. We frantically tried to blend in, but it was like a cartoon sense where it's all but too obvious that you were watching someone. It didn't help that Percy was very aware of his surroundings from his spy training and his ADHD. The grin vanished from his face as he walked up to us. 

He looked from Frank to me to Jason and said, "Spill". 

Jason being the little angel he is, started lying right to his face while Frank looked like he wanted to throw up. 

While Jason was practicing for his next Hollywood audition, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. Okay, yes this does happen sometimes when Jason comes home with cookies, but this time was different. 

I looked past a fuming Percy to see some weird grandma standing far too close to Annabeth. Like come on, six feet granny. Anyways, I saw Annabeth glance over with a look of worry. Or maybe it was guilt? I don't know, I don't do emotions well. Anyways, Annabeth started walking off the pier with the old lady at her heels. 

At this point, I knew something was wrong because no girl would ditch Percy especially after he learned how to talk to girls from the best (aka me. I am the best.) 

I tapped Jason on the shoulder to which he swatted my hand like a fly. So I did what any normal person would do and tapped him on the shoulder again. He glared at me but continued his conversation. 

By now, I was bored of his speech so I proceeded to push Jason into Frank which caused a full on domino effect, but it got their attention. They were all staring at me wide-eyed and open-mouthed. 

I calmly stated, "Sorry, I just thought you would like to know that Percy's girlfriend just "left" (said with very enthusiastic finger quotes), and that we should probably figure out why. But by all means continue your conversation." 

Jason popped right up as Percy started looking around frantically through the crowds of people. Frank looked like he was going to pass out now, but he's a big boy he'll be fine. I started walking back to the car because I am the only one with common sense. 

Jason looked at me and said, "Where are you going?" 

I responded, "Oh, I thought I would follow her. You know since they couldn't have gotten far with traffic, but we can let her get away. Your choice?" 

Jason and Percy glared at me, but all four of us started running to the parking lot. 

"There's that lady again," I said, pointing to a terrible looking car that made me want to cry from the poor conditions. Percy gave me a weir look that reminded me I hadn't told them about the crazy granny.

I quickly recalled, "She was with your girl when they left and was making her uncomfortable. Blah Blah. Anyways, just follow that car." 

I cringed calling it a car when it was clearly a failed Pinterest DIY. As the car was pulling out the lot, I did what most normal people do when they need a distraction, jumped right in front of the car. 

To my luck it didn't have a bumper so it didn't hit me very hard. 

Unfortunately, the car still hit me. 

I slid on top of the hood of the car and quickly jumped off being sure to be as nonchalant as possible, but when you are Leo you have all the natural charm you need. The old lady just honked and drove faster leaving tire marks in her tracks. For the second time in five minutes, Jason, Frank, and Percy looked at me wide-eyed and open-mouthed. 

I said, "What I needed a way to track the car. Come one we are losing time", and I started running back to the van. 

Percy was the first one to the van and jumped directly into the driver's seat, much to Jason's disapproval, and I jumped in the back to check the tracker's location. I broadcasted the tracker's signal to the van's Gps. 

I told Percy, "Just follow that dot but make sure to not get too close to the car or to crash with any others. We all know how many times you took your driver's test." 

Percy responded, "Four times was just for four times the practice, Leo. Plus this GPS says that the lady is headed towards the middle of nowhere so we should be safe."

"Speaking of that lady. Who was she?" asked Frank who had finally calmed down. 

"While the gang pondered their very existence, Leo was continuing to be awesomer than the rest." I said in a deeper voice. 

"Quit the play by play, what'd you find?" asked Percy who still seemed annoyed that we were at his date. 

I responded, "Her name's Medusa. She used to be some criminal who petrified people in fear and usually attacked with snakes. Athena caught her and set her to jail 10 years ago, but she conveniently broke out of prison two weeks ago. She was some kind of engineer who specialized in stonework. Huh, weird medium but okay. Apparently she used to store all her stuff in an old warehouse named "Aunty Em's Gnome Emporium". 

After a very tight minute of silence, like cut paper clean into eighteenths silence, Percy decided, "Alright boys, let's get ourselves a snake."