Would that I ──── Leo Valdez [2]

𝟏𝟒: 𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫-𝐳𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐬

─────𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝, "𝐖𝐨𝐰."

They had landed near the summit of a forested hill. A complex of white buildings, like a museum or a university, nestled in a grove of pines to the left. Below them spread the city of Atlanta—a cluster of brown and silver downtown skyscrapers two miles away, rising from what looked like an endless flat sprawl of highways, railroad tracks, houses, and green swathes of forest.

"Ah, lovely spot." Coach Hedge inhaled the morning air. "Good choice, Valdez."

Leo shrugged. "I just picked a tall hill. That's a presidential library or something over there. At least that's what Festus says."

"I don't know about that!" Hedge barked. "But do you realize what happened on this hill? Frank Zhang, you should know!"

Frank flinched. "I should?"

"A son of Ares stood here!" Hedge cried indignantly.

"I'm Roman... so Mars, actually."

"Whatever! Famous spot in the American Civil War!"

"I'm Canadian, actually."

"I'm bi, actually," Piper giggled next to Vincent. The two of them just snorted and high-fived each other.

"Whatever! General Sherman, Union leader. He stood on this hill watching the city of Atlanta burn. Cut a path of destruction all the way from here to the sea. Burning, looting, pillaging—now there was a demigod!"

Frank inched away from the satyr. "Uh, okay."

Vincent didn't care much about history, but he wondered whether landing here was a bad omen. He'd heard that most human civil wars started as fights between Greek and Roman demigods. Now they were standing on the site of one such battle. The entire city below them had been leveled on orders of a child of Ares. One of his uncles technically.

Vincent could imagine some of the kids at Camp Half-Blood giving such a command. Clarisse La Rue, or Ellis Wakefield for instance, wouldn't hesitate. But he couldn't imagine Frank being so harsh.

"Anyway," Percy said, "let's try not to burn down the city this time."

The coach looked disappointed. "All right. But where to?"

Percy pointed toward downtown. "When in doubt, start in the middle." 

Vincent waited for the three of them to leave on their quest to find salt water and then went below deck to Leo's room to wait for him.

─────"𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞?" Vincent scoffed when Leo entered his room. 

"Why did I bother to make you a whole room if you're going to spend the whole time here?" Leo shut the door behind him. 

"I'm talking about the whole Cas and Nico debacle."

"I know, I know," Leo held up his hands, "I was just raising a concern."

"It's just like Piper's dad again," Vincent said, "And you didn't even hesitate that time. What's different now? Why are you so salty? That's Percy's job. This isn't like you, Leo."

"This isn't like Piper's dad," Leo protested. "That was Piper and this is Hazel and it's not like someone's actively killing them."

"But they will die if we do nothing," Vincent groaned. Why was it so hard to make Leo understand what he was trying to say? "Look, if nothing else, Cas is my friend. Saying he doesn't deserve to be rescued was kind of a dick move."