Hurricane ~ L. Valdez

1.12- Piper Should Be An Actress

      Leo and I stopped at the door of the factory, as he tried to control his breathing. I squeezed his hand. "She's just trying to get in your head." I said softly, and he nodded, squeezing my hand back.

      We peeked into the factory, and I knew for a fact that there was something off about it. We definitely weren't the only one's there, and I could tell you for a fact that whatever else was there was'nt human.

      "Leo, Lara, Help!!" Piper's voice echoed throughout the factory. Leo and I turned to each other. There was no way that Piper was alone. We slipped inside, ducking behind a storage crate.

      "Leo?" Piper called out again, sounding sort of unsure.

      Leo and I peeked around the machinery. Hanging directly above the assembly line, suspended by a chain from a crane on the opposite side, was a massive truck engine— dangling thirty feet up, as if it had been left there when the factory was abandoned. Below it on a conveyor belt was a truck chassis, and around it were three dark shapes that had to be the size of forklifts.

      Nearby, dangling from chains on two other robotic arms, were two smaller shapes— they had to be Jason and Piper. Then one of the forklift shapes rose... that's when I knew it had to be a monster.

      "Told you it was nothing," the monster rumbled.

      One of the other monsters shifted, and called out in a high-pitched voice, mocking Piper's: "Leo, Lara, help me! Help—" Then the voice changed, shifting to a masculine snarl. "Bah, there's nobody out there. No demigods could be that quiet, eh?"

      The first monster chuckled. "Probably ran away, if they knows what's good for them. Or the girl was lying about a third and fourth demigod. Let's get cooking." Snap. A bright orange emergency flare lit up, and Leo and I were temporarily blinded. We ducked behind the crane until the spots cleared from his eyes. My foot hurt from the sudden movement, but in the heat of the moment, that couldn't bother me.

      Leo and I took another look and saw a nightmare scene that Hera herself couldn't have dreamed up. The two smaller things dangling from crane arms were in fact Jason and Piper. Both of them were hung upside down, tied by their ankles and cocooned with chains up to their necks. Piper was flailing around, trying to free herself. Her mouth was gagged, but at least she was alive.

      My brother didn't look so good. He hung limply, his eyes rolled back in his head. A giant red welt the size of an apple had swollen over his left eyebrow. On the conveyor belt, the bed of an unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire pit. A big metal pole was suspended over the flames, acting as a spit, which as I realized, meant this was a cooking fire.

      But most terrifying of all were the cooks. Monocle Motors: that single red eye logo. I don't know how we didn't realize it. Three massive Cyclopes gathered around the fire. Two were standing, stoking the flames. The largest one crouched with it's back to us. The two facing us were each ten feet tall, with hairy muscular bodies and skin that looked red in the firelight.

      One of the monsters wore a chain mail loincloth that made me cringe. The other wore a ragged fuzzy toga made of fiberglass insulation, which also would not have been top ten during Fashion Week. Other than that, the two monsters could've been twins. Each had the same brutish face with a single eye in the center of his forehead. I noticed Leo's legs had started quaking.

      Oh. This was his first monster incident.

      Leo slipped off his backpack and quietly started to unzip it. The Cyclops in the chain mail loincloth walked over to Piper, who squirmed and tried to head-butt him in the eye. I love her. "Can I take her gag off now?" He questioned. "I like it when they scream." The question was asked to the third Cyclops, who I'm guessing was the leader.