Learning to Trust (A Leo Valdez Love Story)

Chapter 20

LEO

      At first, Leo thought rocks were pelting the windshield. Then he realized it was sleet. Frost built up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out his view.

      "An ice storm?" Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

      Leo wasn't sure, but something about this storm seemed conscious, malevolent—like it was intentionally slamming them.

      Jason woke up quickly, Kyra following close behind. He crawled forward, grabbing their seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."

      Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly it wasn't so easy to drive the chopper. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude.

      Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.

      "There!" Jason shouted. 

      A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Leo of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.

      He set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. He was about to relax when he heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.

      "Out!" Leo screamed.

      They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Leo off his feet and splattering ice.

      He got up shakily and saw that the world's largest snowball—a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage—had completely flattened the Bell 412, watching Kyra rise slowly to her feet beside him. 

      "You all right?" Jason ran up to Kyra and him, Piper at his side. They both looked fine except for being speckled with snow and mud.

      "Yeah." Leo shivered. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."

      "Kyra?" Jason questioned. 

      "I'm okay," she answered softly. Leo looked her over. She looked shaken, as to be expected for someone nearly thrown out of a helicopter. But other than that, she did look like she wasn't hurt, letting Leo let out a breath of relief he didn't realize he was holding. 

      Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." Then she frowned. "No... it's all around us. "

      She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.

      Behind them loomed Jack London's dream home—a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. Leo could imagine how it had looked before it burned down—a combination log cabin and castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel. Leo could totally believe the ruins were cursed.

      "Jason!" a girl's voice called.

      Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre—one of the Earthborn— burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.