²Olden Crown, heroes of olympus

020.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter twenty

━━ LEO WAS NOT ready to beat stuff up. He didn't tell Coach Hedge that. He knew the satyr would be disappointed ( and then start on some tirade about nature and the cycle of life ). And if he was honest, Leo didn't want to hear about that, not with the amount of anxiety in his stomach. If he heard Hedge talk about nature and big things killing and eating little things, Leo would actually puke.

And if there was anything to get on Aprhodite's wrong side, it would be puking all over the lovely, fresh outfits she had picked out for the questers—Leo figured as much, at least. He knows if he spent time perfecting something and someone's regurgitated lunch ruined it, he'd be pissed.

The nausea wasn't helped by the fact they were currently traveling towards a mountain called Mount Diablo. Anything with the name devil in it was a bad sign. A sign clear as day to avoid. But they didn't have that luxury—not if they didn't want to world to end in flames.

Leo only hoped if it did, that if they did fail in stopping the giants from rising, he wasn't the cause.

He got a better look at the mountain as their taxi climbed. Mount Diablo didn't look very large, and for the dead of winter, there wasn't much snow either. It looked almost ... peaceful—especially considering its name, Devil Mountain.

But their taxi was struggling to get along. The cab made lurching, grinding sounds as it climbed the mountain road. Leo cringed at each lurch, stuck between Elisa and Jason ( don't ask how they fit them all back there, it was most definitely illegal and required bribery with Charmspeak from Piper ).

Elisa's face was as passive as it could be for someone about to fight for life or death. Her eyebrows were pinched, her purple eyes swirled like a storm cloud, but she kept fiddling with the gold bracelet on her wrist.

"Where'd you get the bracelet?" Leo blurted ( it was his anxiety talking ).

She glanced at him. "Dionysus."

"Oh—yeah. You said that before." Leo wiped the sweat building on the palms of his hands off his pants. "When we fought the, um," —He glanced at the cabbie, who was pretending horribly not to eavesdrop— "you know. Back in Detroit."

Delaney glanced over. "And she threatened them, saying it could curse them." She rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you said that."

"I was put on the spot!" Elisa snapped. "I didn't know what else to say."

Jason frowned, as if this was all new information. "What did you say to them?"

"That if I broke the bracelet, it would unleash madness." She rolled her eyes, as if the idea was ridiculous—even to her. "It was a bunch of bullshit. I just said it in hopes they'd believe me."

"But you can," Piper leaned around Leo," you know ... control madness?" She whispered it, low enough to be overpowered by Hedge's ramblings to the cabbie about—whatever Hedge was rambling about. ( Probably something about nature, if Leo knew Coach Hedge well enough—which he did. )

"Kind of." Elisa frowned. "It's hard to control it. It's like, uh, a surge of emotions more than anything. I've gotten better at controlling it, but ..."