Mr Fire hazard (Leo Valdez x reader)

9. Eavesdropping

Nico's POV

Given a choice between death and the Buford Zippy Mart, Nico would've had a tough time deciding. At least he knew his way around the Land of the Dead. Plus the food was fresher.

'I still don't get it,' Coach Hedge muttered as they roamed the centre aisle. 'They named a whole town after Leo's table?'

'I think the town was here first, Coach,' Nico said.

'Huh.' The coach picked up a box of powdered doughnuts. 'Maybe you're right. These look at least a hundred years old. I miss those Portuguese farturas.'

Nico couldn't think about Portugal without his arms hurting. Across his biceps, the werewolf claw marks were still swollen and red. The store clerk had asked Nico if he'd picked a fight with a bobcat.

They bought a first-aid kit, a pad of paper (so Coach Hedge could write more paper aeroplane messages to his wife), some junk food and soda (since the banquet table in Reyna's new magic tent only provided healthy food and fresh water) and some miscellaneous camping supplies for Coach Hedge's useless but impressively complicated monster traps. 

Y/n just got a keychain to remember this quest and materialise it. She was constantly trying to seem not anxious. But ever since Kinzie, one of the Amazons death she had gotten more alert. She was unrecognisable her eyes were constantly moving. Her eyes didn't have the warmth and support they used to they became cold and calculating. Hazel had described it to me but seeing her scared him, the son of the god of underworld. So ironic. 

He wasn't exactly a sunshine person, but for once he welcomed the warmth. It made him feel more substantial – anchored to the mortal world. With every shadow-jump, coming back got harder and harder. Even in broad daylight his hand passed through solid objects. His belt and sword kept falling around his ankles for no apparent reason. Once, when he wasn't looking where he was going, he walked straight through a tree.

Nico remembered something Jason Grace had told him in the palace of Notus: Maybe it's time you come out of the shadows.

If only I could, he thought. For the first time in his life, he had begun to fear the dark, because he might melt into it permanently.

Nico and Hedge had no trouble finding their way back to camp. The Athena Parthenos was the

tallest landmark for miles around. In its new camouflage netting, it glittered silver like an extremely flashy forty-foot-tall ghost.

Apparently, the Athena Parthenos had wanted them to visit a place with educational value, because she'd landed right next to a historical marker that read MASSACRE OF BUFORD, on a gravel layby at the intersection of Nowhere and Nothing.

Reyna's tent sat in a grove of trees about thirty yards back from the road. Nearby lay a rectangular cairn – hundreds of stones piled in the shape of an oversized grave with a granite obelisk for a headstone. Scattered around it were faded wreathes and crushed bouquets of plastic flowers, which made the place seem even sadder.

Aurum and Argentum were playing keep-away in the woods with one of the coach's handballs. Ever since getting repaired by the Amazons, the metal dogs had been frisky and full of energy – unlike their owner.

Y/n POV 

Reyna glanced up as they approached. 'I figured it out.'

'What historical site this is?' Hedge asked. 'Good, 'cause it's been driving me crazy.'

'The Battle of Waxhaws,' she said.

'Ah, right ...' Hedge nodded sagely. 'That was a vicious little smackdown.'