ONE LAST TIME . . . heroes of olympus

12

AS THEY FLEW to Chicago, Kat was explaining basically her entire life story to Piper, trying not to look at her. Which was pretty hard, considering she was sitting in front of her.

When she was done, she stared at the view below her, her fingers restlessly fidgeting with her necklace. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Kat," Piper briefly reached back to touch her arm, before pulling away to stabilize Jason, "it's literally your job. I understand. It's okay, you don't need to apologize."

Kat rubbed at her face, hearing Silena's voice in her head chiding, don't put your hands on your face so much, which made her sad.

Luckily or unluckily, she was immediately brought out of her sadness by Jason snapping awake and yelling, "Cyclops!"

Kat jumped, nearly falling off the fucking dragon because she was sitting in the back. In front of her, Piper was holding Jason to keep him balanced. Leo sat in front, driving.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

"How did you — the Cyclops—"

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly. "Kat was there too."

"I literally didn't do anything!" Kat argued.

"Both of you, shut up," Piper demanded. "I'm going to tell him. Get over it."

And she did — how Leo defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory. Piper told Jason about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin.

"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I — I know . . . but something Hera said. I was having a dream . . ."

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.

"An exchange?" Kat asked. "What does that mean?"

Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy — that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

Leo cleared his throat. "About that . . . she kind of appeared to me and Kat back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."

"Did you say . . . Porta-Potty?" repeated Jason.

Kat told them about the big face in the factory yard. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," she said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. Which is a shit weapon, Leo . . . no pun intended. She wanted us to betray you guys, as if she literally wasn't weird shit."

"She's trying to divide us." Piper slipped her arms from around Jason's waist. Kat watched as she tensed up.

"Hey, what's up?" Kat asked, placing a hand on her shoulder, which only made her stiffen more.

"I just . . . why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?"

"Enceladus?" Kat swore she'd heard the name before — probably while she had supposedly been studying myths growing up.