ONE LAST TIME . . . heroes of olympus

33

THE NEXT MORNING, Kat woke up obnoxiously early, got ready ( her under-eye bags conveniently disappeared ), changed into a cute outfit involving a white wool top and high waisted black pants with a matching belt, and she threw a jacket and sunglasses on before grabbing Cortana and getting the hell out of there.

She didn't see her mama anywhere in her house, but she did see her uncle admiring his gun, two pieces of toast still in the toaster. She decided, fuck it, and walked over to take the toast.

Nikita Mikhailov gave her a two-fingered salute. "See ya, Katya," he said, his voice incredibly sober.

"I'm expecting an incredible birthday gift," she said before walking out of the room. He didn't know or care about his stolen toast. She took a bite out of one. It was cold. Oh well.

Kat sat for an hour on the car ride back, eating her breakfast and doing her hair. She got half of it in a ponytail, which would have to do as they were there.

She sighed and thanked the driver before getting out of the car and making the hike up the hill. She stared down at the sights below her and she didn't see Leo, but she saw Jason and Piper sitting on a bench so she decided to go over to them.

Naturally, she ran down the hill with her arms behind her and saying, "weeeeeee!" because she's a child, then she put on her sunglasses and strutted over to Jason and Piper like she was a model. She could be a model, she's probably tall enough.

"Hey," Kat said casually, as Piper turned from dropping something in a nearby eternal fire. She yelped and turned to face her, making her snicker.

"Shut up," grumbled Piper, moving to smack her in the arm when she stopped. "Did you get into another fight or something while you were gone?"

"Huh?" Kat looked down at herself, and she realized she was still injured. "So that's what I was forgetting! I was wondering why I was sitting in the car for twenty minutes doing nothing."

Jason raised an eyebrow at her. "You had nothing to do for twenty minutes and you forgot to heal your injuries?"

Kat sighed. "In my defense, I would've done it sooner, but someone spent the last of our nectar on someone who was dumb enough to keep his eyes open when a goddess explicitly told him not to." She pointedly glared at them.

"And you couldn't have done it at wherever you were last night?" countered Piper. "We looked for you."

Kat grimaced. "I told Leo to tell you two goodnight for me," she said. "Mother dearest called me home."

"What?" They said in unison.

She resisted the urge to laugh. "I know! I got an hour's sleep before I arrived, but I spent two hours telling her and my uncle about our quest just to get called disappointing." She waved off their weird glances. "It's fine, I'm used to it. But my uncle said that he'd give me a big birthday present for bringing him his gun back."

Jason frowned. "Your birthday? Christmas Eve? Wait, that's so—"

"SHIT!" Piper screamed, karate chopping Kat's shoulder. "Your birthday's in two days! Kat, why—"

"Ow, ow, ow," Kat pushed her away. "Still injured, yeah?"

"Fuck you," scoffed Piper, glaring up at her. "I can't believe you let me forget!"

"There wasn't really a good time for it," she said.

"Jason knew about it!" Piper argued.

Kat rolled her eyes. "He forgot too," she said, giving Jason a smile, but he was already looking at them fondly. "And, honestly, I forgot about it too with what went down yesterday. So have fun with that knowledge. Is it time for Leo to show us his special something? And, good gods, I hope it's not his dick."