𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

xx ━━ i'll build you a fort on some planet where they can all understand it

01. chapter twenty

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

"FIRE," I SAID IN A MERE WHISPER, my eyes fluttering open.

"hey, sleepyhead," said a voice in front of me. i could feel the vibrations of the sound travel through my soul. "i'm right here."

i sat up. leo sat in front of me, driving. we flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had just happened.

"d-detroit," i stammered. "didn't we crash-land? i thought—"

"it's okay," leo said. "we got away, but you and jason both got nasty concussions. how you feeling, mils?"

my head throbbed. i remembered the truck door flying at my face—black—fire—everything went black again.

"how did you—the cyclops—"

"leo ripped them apart," piper said. "he was amazing. he can summon fire—"

"she already knows," leo said quickly. "and it was nothing."

piper laughed. "shut up, valdez— wait... you said she already knows? how?"

"when i repaired festus," leo explained. "lil bugger tried to torch us— and i used my fire for light."

piper, all the way in the back, made some sort of scoffing sound. "interesting..."

i imagined my face burning bright red, and not because of the fire.

anyway, piper told me how leo single-handedly defeated the cyclopes family; how they freed jason, then noticed the cyclopes starting to re-form; how leo bandaged me up before he replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten us back in the air just as they'd started to hear the cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.

i was impressed (which seemed to be a word i used in relation to valdez a lot recently). taking out three cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit? not bad. it didn't exactly scare me to hear how close he'd come to
death, but it did make me feel horrible. i'm a daughter of a titan, i should be able to hold my own. especially, backup isn't always guaranteed.

piper began to explain to jason about other kid the cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke latin. a son of mercury... the roman version of hermes.

"i'm not alone, then," jason said. "there are others like me."

"jason," piper said, "you were never alone. you've got us."

"we're a team, wolf boy," i said, turning around to lightly punch his shoulder from behind me.

"i—i know... but something hera said. i was having a dream..."

he told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage: an exchange.

"an exchange?" piper asked. "what does that mean?"

jason shook his head. "but hera's gamble is me. just by sending me to camp half-blood, i have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"

"or save us," piper said hopefully. "that bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady leo and camille told us about."

leo cleared his throat. "about that... she kind of appeared to me and mils back in detroit, in a pool of porta-potty sludge."

"did you say... porta-potty?"
leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. i was too shaken up from my flashback to say anything.

"i don't know if she's completely unkillable," leo said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. we can vouch for that. she wanted mils and me to betray you guys, and i was like, 'pfft, right, i'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"