𝕱𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊 - a Leo Valdez slowburn

Chapter eight

Chapter eight. 

[Guys we unlocked Leah's backstory]

"And as we watch a generation slip away, 

we grasp at the remains of it, 

wishing we had done something

before it was too late."

As much as Leah's body could use the sleep, there was still a defiant reason she stayed up every night and chugged coffee until she couldn't. Porphyrion. And as much as she wanted to say that she had gotten out of his clutches, she was still his little puppet to play with. Puppet. That's a fitting nickname, don't you think?

The sleep she got wasn't comforting, either. If it wasn't Porphyrion, she'd get nightmares about him, or about her mother, or about the countless demigods she'd watched die. Or about the people she'd caused the death of. Those nightmares were the worst. 

Glimpses of faces she'd forgotten, but still distinctly remembered. One was a demigod, another daughter of Demeter, turned to Kronos's dark side by Luke. The expression on her face had been one of the most memorable, because she didn't look afraid: she looked triumphant. As if she'd proven a point with her death. The gods didn't want peace. They wanted bloodshed, and they would use their own ignorant children to reach it. Their arrogance would be their downfall, the girl's eyes had said. And you shall go down with them. Leah had killed her without hesitation. And boy did she regret it. 

She'd asked around about the group she'd killed. The triumphant girl had been fourteen at the time, Peggy Hail. Leah had seen her at camp during dinner, and her voice was one of the loudest when they sang at the campfire. 

Another victim had been a man in his thirties, with dark blond hair and round glasses on the bridge of his nose. He'd been an assistant English literature professor at Princeton, Felix Sullivan. He was an innocent man, caught in friendly fire. He had done nothing wrong. He had been asleep when he died, under Morpheus's curse. He had a life that had nothing to do with the war he was a victim of. Or rather, the girl he was a victim of. The monster. The puppet.  

The other innocent bystander had been a woman who reminded Leah of her mother. Her bleached hair was cropped short and curled up around her ears, her bangs covering part of her eyes. Later Leah was to find out she was called Florence Nightingale, and she had known her mom in university. What a small world. It made her death even worse in Leah's eyes. 

There had been eleven people she killed that day. Eight had been active in the war, and two of them she killed in battle. The other seven were an accident. They had posed no threat to Leah, they had even surrendered. The remaining two victims had both never even thought of the Greek gods being real. Because of Leah's ignorance and recklessness, nine people died without purpose that day. And in the back of her mind, their faces replayed on loop. And the worst part was that she didn't even remember most of their faces, too busy with the red haze in front of her eyes and the adrenaline coursing through her veins to occupy herself with puny mortals. She had felt like a god that moment, and since she fell short to even being a girl. 

In her dream, Leah had tilted her head at a cry on her left, where the cement had turned into quicksand by her devices. The voice was that of a boy, about her age, maybe even younger. He died in an instant. He had annoyed Leah, and he would regret it. She regretted her actions the minute his heartbeat stopped. 

Two lives were lost in battle, and Leah supposed she was to wear those lives like medals, but they were only more weight on her shoulders. They were both on Kronos's side, both in their late teens. One was Leah's height and had a jagged scar crossing their nose. The other had a freckled face and an innocent look on it too as they slashed at Leah's face. It was almost as if they thought it was all a game. And in a sense it was. They were all chess pieces in the game of the gods and the titans. And now also the giants. Even those outside of it were brought in. Was there any escape from the gods' clutches?