Bloody Lover | Piper McLean

CHAPTER 20 : Down the drain, we go

JASON & EARLANA

Jason abruptly opened his eyes and shouted, "A Cyclops !"

"Easy, sleeping beauty," Piper said, she was seated behind him on the bronze dragon and holding him by the waist. Leo was at the front, piloting. Earlana must have been seated behind Piper. They navigated through the wintry sky as if nothing had happened.

"De... Detroit," Jason stammered. "We didn't crash land ? I thought..."

"We're good," Leo assured him. "We made it out, but you had a concussion. How are you feeling ?" Jason's temples throbbed. He remembered the factory, descending from the walkway, then a gigantic creature looming before him — a single eye in the middle of its forehead, a massive fist, and then nothing but darkness.

"The Cyclops ! How did you all..."

"Leo took them down," Piper exclaimed. "He was incredible! He can summon fire, can you believe it ?"

"It's nothing," Leo hurried to say.

"Shut it, Valdez !" Piper retorted, laughing. "I'm going to tell the whole story, deal with it."

And tell it she did. She explained to Jason how Leo single-handedly dealt with the Cyclops family, and then with Earlana's help, they freed him. They realized the Cyclopes were already starting to reform, so Leo rewired the dragon and launched them just as the first cries of revenge from the Cyclopes echoed from inside the warehouse.

Jason was impressed. Taking down three Cyclopes with just a tool belt? Pretty impressive. He wasn't terrified to learn how close he had come to death, but he felt really bad. He had walked right into an ambush and spent the whole fight out cold, leaving his comrades to fend for themselves. It was really lousy for a so-called leader !

When Piper mentioned the other boy the Cyclopes boasted about eating, the hero in the violet T-shirt who spoke Latin, Jason felt like his head was going to explode. A son of Mercury... Something told him he knew this boy, but his name eluded him.

"I'm not alone, then," he murmured. "There are others like me."

"...like us, you mean, Grace?" Earlana's voice rang out for the first time since the blonde had awakened. He was surprised by the bitterness he could hear in her tone.

"Jason," Piper said, completely ignoring the other girl in the group, "You've never been alone. You have us."

"I... I know, but Hera told me something. I had a dream." He told them about what he had seen in his sleep and what the goddess had said to him in her cage.

"An exchange ?" Piper asked. "What does that mean ?"

Jason shook his head in confusion. "But the risk Hera took was me. I feel like just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, she broke some kind of rule, and it could have catastrophic consequences."

"Or save us," Piper added hopefully. "That sleeping enemy Hera mentioned reminds me of the lady we were told about."

Leo cleared his throat. "Actually," he said, "She kind of appeared to me in Detroit, in a puddle in front of a construction site porta-potty."

Jason wasn't sure he had heard correctly.

"You said porta-potty?"

Leo then recounted the appearance of the large face in the factory yard.

"I'm not sure if she's completely impossible to kill," he added, "but toilet seats don't affect her. I can guarantee that. She wanted me to betray you guys. And I was like, 'Sure, like I'm going to listen to a face in a porta-potty puddle.'"