Borrowing the helicopter is easy. After the charmspeak I used on the giant, a mortal is a walk in the park. The hard part is getting Piper's dad in. He keeps muttering about monsters as Leo, Jason, and Piper all lift him in while Hedge and I gather our supplies. Fortunately, Gleeson had put his pants and shoes back on, so I don't have to explain that to the ranger pilot.
"What's wrong with him?" She asks me when she sees the state Mr. McLean is in.
"Smoke inhalation. Or heat exhaustion." Jason offers.
"We should get him to a hospital." The pilot suggests.
"It's okay. The airport is good." I tell her.
"Yeah, the airport is good." She agrees, before frowning. "Isn't that Tristan McLean, the movie star?"
"No." I say immediately. "He only looks like him. Forget it."
"Yeah," She agrees again. "Only looks like him. I-" She blinks, confused. "I forgot what I was saying. Let's get going."
Piper shoots me a thank you look before going back to her father. He's in terrible shape. Sickly and nervous, muttering about giants and monsters. I feel bad tricking this poor woman, but we're on a time crunch, and we need to get out of here.
Piper talks quietly with her dad while the rest of us try not to listen. I look out the door instead. I've never flown in a helicopter before. It feels different than I thought it would. But I love the view. Across from me, Leo is fiddling with a lug nut. He did fantastic today. The machine he built to take over the construction equipment? Genius! And the way he stood over what I think was his own modified version of the tree cutter after it launched that enormous axe blade into Enceladus? I mean, wow. I am a little disappointed though. I want to know what would have happened if I had launched that ball of pure energy at the giant. I didn't even know I could do that. Maybe it would have just bounced off and done nothing. Or maybe that would have been our solution right then and there. If giants can only be killed by gods and demigods working together, what do I count as? I'm not a god, but I'm not a demigod either. Can I even kill giants? We destroyed Enceladus by summoning Zeus's lightning. Yeah, I made it stronger, but that was Jason and Zeus working together too. I really want to know, but I also really don't want to fight another giant.
Also. Hearing a giant ugly lizard man call me sister? I'm going to have nightmares about that forever. I hate how we had similar features. Our skin. Our hair. His eyes are pure white, but mine are that pale honey-green color. From a distance they might look white. I shudder. Let's push that thought right out of my head, shall we?
As we pass over the hills into the East Bay, Jason tenses suddenly. He leans so far out the doorway it looks like he might fall out. "What's that?"
I peer over to look, but don't see much. Hills, woods, houses, little roads.
"Where?" Piper asks him.
"That road." Jason says. "The one that goes through the hills."
I pick up the com helmet the pilot had given me and ask her.
"She says it's Highway 24." I report. "That's the Caldecott Tunnel. Why?"
Jason says nothing, but as we pass over it, I get a very unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. The same feeling I got when Boreas turned into Aquilon. Like something is wrong.
I shake it off and look back out the window.
Air traffic control does not want to let us land. That is, until I get on the radio. Then it's no problem. We all unload from the helicopter and look at Piper. This is her thing now. We've got her dad. What's next?
