madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-Leo on the cob-

After the campers had forgotten about the creepy girl that no one really knew with the dead brothers that may or may not doom all of them, Teqi crept away, leaving Pollux and Brandon to take Ginny to bed. She ran to the woods, hoping to see Leo, but he must have gone in already. She was tempted to reach out to look for his mind with hers, but she dismissed it and strode into the dark trees. 

She had never read the curly haired boys mind, and she wasn't planning to, she didn't like intruding in people's minds.  

Obviously, that didn't stop her. 

It came naturally so she often forgot that it was bad and creepy and other people couldn't do it. Especially when she had been with her siblings before the war, they could all do it to some extent so they had lots of conversations, slipping between thoughts and speech. They hadn't even realised until Selena had brought it up once.         

She couldn't read their thoughts exactly, she could project certain ones of hers into people's minds, and get responses. Of course, if she really wanted to, she could think herself all the way in and find out everything.                                                                                                                                                            The last time that had happened was either when she scared people into giving her stuff [strangers, when she was on the run] and when she was thirteen, and Ollie wasn't telling her who he had a crush on.

It had been different with Tony though, it was like a hive mind sometimes, she accidently sent him thoughts so many times. They often got their own thoughts and ideas mixed up, and their siblings said their minds felt so much the same they forgot the difference sometimes. 

Pollux and Castor had the same sort of thing, before Castor was killed by Ethan Nakamura when Luke's army invaded camp.

Teqi finally spotted Leo. He was facing off with Beck's Dragon. For fucks sake, she leaves this boy alone for less than twenty minutes and he nearly gets turned into a Leo-on-the-cob. 

She was gonna have to put a bloody microchip in him. "It's a trap, bronze brain," Leo said, not noticing Teqi. "They're trying to catch you."

The giant metal dragon opened its mouth and blew fire. A column of white-hot flames billowed over Leo, who heard a yelp and was then pulled back out of the fire.                                                                                 The dragon stared at them. Its face didn't actually change, being made of metal and all, but it had the classic 'Jason the lost and confused puppy' look, down pat. A spark flew out of its neck like it was about to short-circuit. 

Leo turned around from where he had been pulled to hearing a hissing sound, which he realised was actually a demigod, not a snake. Then he realised it was a hiss of pain.

"Shit! Carino, you got burned why did you do that you idiot how do I fix it fuck shit shit shit!" he ranted, pulling up her now melted jumper, revealing a burn along her right forearm, it was blistering red, and bubbling.

Teqi blinked furiously, trying to stop tears. "I should probably throw out this jumper now" was all she said. Leo laid her down on the ground cautiously, not wanting to ignite more pain. She reached into the pockets of the jeans she had borrowed from Brandon earlier, pulling out some lolly wrappers, lip balm, a hair tie, and some little gum squares.                                                                                                  She tried to unwrap the squares, but her able hand was shaking too much. A very confused Leo had grabbed them and revealed that they were shiny and gold, she tipped them back like pills into her mouth.