LABYRINTH ↬ leo valdez x reader, book three

13. I KNOW IT WON'T WORK

"Leo's right." I said finally after being silent for so long. "Let's take one last trip together as a crew. Time to get slapped to get Long Island."

The last I saw of the king of the gods, he was a hundred feet tall, holding the Argo II by its prow. He boomed, "HOLD ON!"
Then he tossed the ship up and spiked it overhand like a volleyball.

I think I fainted, or the slap across the world actually was so fast that we were there in a millisecond. Buford the table saved us. He clattered across the deck with his holographic Hedge blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"

Then his tabletop split into helicopter blades and Buford buzzed away.
Frank changed form. Instead of a dazed demigod, he was now a dazed grey dragon. Hazel climbed onto his neck. Frank grabbed Percy and Annabeth in his front claws, me wrapped into his tail, then he spread his wings and soared away.

I couldn't help but look back at Leo. I wished I hadn't. Echo the Asclepius snake clung around me for dear life. I winced as I realised that I had left my compact in the Argo II. In the room where it was just me and Leo most nights, talking about nothing. With his journal that, if I had stolen and read, I would've discovered that he had written out a full confession that he never got to say. Well, he never said it successfully.

The Argo II had been my home for so long. A third home, that is. Now we were abandoning it for good – and leaving Leo behind. The ground wasn't much less chaotic.

Across the hills of my second home were a range of creatures– cynocephali, two-headed men, wild centaurs, ogres and others I couldn't even name – surrounding two tiny islands of demigods.

At the crest of Half- Blood Hill, gathered at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, was the main force of Camp Half-Blood along with the First and Fifth Cohorts, rallied around the golden eagle of the legion. Three other Roman cohorts were in a defensive formation several hundred yards away and seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack.

"Hazel!" Jason yelled. "Those three cohorts are in trouble! If they don't merge with the rest of the demigods –"

"On it!" Hazel said. "Go, Frank!"
Dragon Frank dipped down to drop me near the Big House to visit the infirmary, before veering to the left with Annabeth in one claw yelling, "Let's get 'em!" and Percy in the other claw screaming, "I hate flying!"

I ran into the infirmary and gulped at the sight before me — frantic rushing of healers shoving ambrosia into the mouths of the injured, before ushering them out to allow the next rounds in.

"What's going on?" I asked, detaching my medkit and slamming it onto a side table, observing the wounds of the unnamed Roman who was pale and sweaty in pain.
"Some kind of poison, we think." Said a healer whom I could not name by only a voice.

I flipped open the leatherbound book that had become so familiar to me. In it, scribed in very rushed handwriting that was hardly readable, read 'lemon juice, charcoal, strawberries and Echo.' I bolted to find the ingredients. Obscure enough, I managed to collect them without leaving too far. Echo's mouth was open at the ready so I fed them to her and she began to excrete a liquid from her fangs.

The person who was poisoned did not seem eager with the possibility of being poisoned once again, this time by a premature snake, but he let it happen. His face began to have colour very quickly, so we sent him out and allowed the other wave in. I handed the book to Austin Lake and jogged outside, clutching my dagger close to my side.

I watched the sky as I ran over to where I could see Will Solace was also heading. The Argo II streaked across the sky in a ball of fire, shedding burning chunks of mast, hull and armament.
"Will? Are you okay?" I asked, noticing his disturbed expression.
"Octavian.. We need Nico."