Learning to Trust (A Leo Valdez Love Story)

Chapter 32

JASON

    The council was nothing like Jason imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage.

    Jason looked around the room and tried to remember everyone's name. Thankfully, Kyra and Piper were sitting next to him with Leo on Kyra's other side—it was their first meeting as senior counselors and Kyra looked like she was going to cry. 

    She looked so stressed that Jason just wanted to give her a hug and tell her to go lay down and get some rest, but he thought better of it. One for her fear of touch: although that didn't seem to apply to Leo as much. And two, she deserved to be here. The girl had clearly been through hell and was apparently destined to go through some more, she deserved to at least be a part of the conversation for their next quest. 

    Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis's nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo, the one who had helped heal Kyra, was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counselor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing "got-your-nose" with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda's nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back. 

    Jason watched as Kyra observed the interactions around them and seemed to shrink back in the chair she was sitting on. He saw Leo slowly offer her his hand underneath the table and watched with interest as she grabbed it quickly, her breathing seeming to slow and her eyes becoming slightly less panicked. 

    Jason found the dynamic the two had interesting. Kyra was clearly traumatized, it had seemed that she was even more fearful around guys, but Leo seemed to be the only one of them who could truly calm her down. Jason was more surprised than anyone when Leo grabbed her wrist as Kyra and Annabeth had gone to leave Bunker 9. He truly expected Kyra to run away or break down again, but she didn't. Jason expected her to at least have some sort of trauma response to being touched in a way that may have come across as threatening, yet she simply looked at Leo and waited for him to speak. 

    He wondered why Leo had done that. The group of demigods knew very well that Kyra had gone through some horrible, unspeakable things. Hell, Leo was even the one to rescue her from being chained to a wall by her wrists, Jason would have thought that Leo would have had the common sense not to grab her so suddenly. But when he asked Leo why he had done that, Leo couldn't answer him. Leo was the closest thing Jason had to a best friend here, he wished Leo would confide in him, but it seemed that whatever he was dealing with or whatever was going on between him and Kyra, if anything, was going to be kept private. 

    Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She'd promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried. He figured that she would want to know that Artemis had a daughter, but he was fairly sure she already knew that once she had met Kyra. Something she had mentioned on the bridge to Aeolus' palace made him think that she had figured it out even before Kyra had herself. 

    Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed odd, but she smiled at Jason. She regarded Kyra curiously, not unkindly, but her focus seemed to make Kyra nervous once more. Kyra returned her gaze to the table, avoiding the eyes of the redhead. The oracle frowned in thought before looking away from Kyra and Leo.