Reconnected [Book 3]

4 - Special Potions

(LEO)

Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?"

Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.)

He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face.

"Nothing," he muttered. "We were just cuddling. Um, what's going on?"

Jason didn't tease him. That's one thing Leo appreciated about his friend. Jason's ice-blue eyes were level and serious. The little scar on his mouth twitched like it always did when he had bad news to share.

"We made it through the mountains," he said. "We're almost to Bologna. You should join us in the mess hall. Nico has new information."

Leo had designed the mess hall's walls to show real-time scenes from Camp Half-Blood. At first he had thought that was a pretty awesome idea. Now he wasn't so sure.

The scenes from back home—the campfire sing-alongs, dinners at the pavilion, volleyball games outside the Big House—just seemed to make his friends sad. The farther they got from Long Island, the worse it got. The time zones kept changing, making Leo feel the distance every time he looked at the walls. Here in Italy the sun had just come up. Back at Camp Half-Blood it was the middle of the night. Torches sputtered at the cabin doorways. Moonlight glittered on the waves of Long Island Sound. The beach was covered in footprints, as if a big crowd had just left.

With a start, Leo realized that yesterday—last night, whatever—had been the Fourth of July. They'd missed Camp Half-Blood's annual party at the beach with awesome fireworks prepared by Leo's siblings in Cabin Nine.

He decided not to mention that to the crew, but he hoped their buddies back home had had a good celebration. They needed something to keep their spirits up, too. Adelia had talked about the Fourth of July all the time, she'd loved it at Camp.

He remembered the images he'd seen in his dream—the camp in ruins, littered with bodies; Octavian standing at the volleyball pit, casually talking in Gaea's voice.

He stared down at his eggs and bacon. He wished he could turn off the wall videos. He grabbed a cup of coffee taking a long drink, Adelia had loved coffee. He'd started drinking it for her and he had no clue how she liked it, he held his mouth to avoid spitting it out.

"So," Jason said, "now that we're here..."

He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since they'd lost Adelia, Jason had done his best to act as the group's leader. Having been praetor back at Camp Jupiter, he was probably used to that; but Leo could tell his friend was stressed. His eyes were more sunken than usual. His blond hair was uncharacteristically messy, like he'd forgotten to comb it.

Leo glanced at the others around the table. Hazel was bleary-eyed, too, but of course she'd been up all night guiding the ship through the mountains. Her curly cinnamon-colored hair was tied back in a bandana, which gave her a commando look that Leo found kind of hot—and then immediately felt guilty about.

Next to her sat her boyfriend Frank Zhang, dressed in black workout pants and a Roman tourist T-shirt that said CIAO! (was that even a word?). Frank's old centurion badge was pinned to his shirt, despite the fact that the demigods of the Argo II were now Public Enemies Numbers 1 through 7 back at Camp Jupiter. His grim expression just reinforced his unfortunate resemblance to a sumo wrestler. Then there was Hazel's half brother, Nico di Angelo. Dang, that kid gave Leo the freaky-deakies. He sat back in his leather aviator jacket, his black T-shirt and jeans, that wicked silver skull ring on his finger, and the Stygian sword at his side. His tufts of black hair stuck up in curls like baby bat wings. His eyes were sad and kind of empty, as if he'd stared into the depths of Tartarus—which he had.