REMEMBER ME ---- BOOK I / Heroes of Olympus / Leo Valdez Fanfiction

fuck my entirety. no need for kidnappers in a camp tho. ignore my crying *sobs*

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AFTER A MORNING OF STORM SPIRIT'S, goat men, and flying boyfriends, Piper should've been losing her mind. Instead, all she felt was dread.

It's starting, she thought. Just like the dream said.

She stood in back of the chariot with Penelope, Jason and Leo, while the bald guy, Butch, handled the reins, and the blond girl, Annabeth, adjusted a bronze navigation device. They rose over the Grand Canyon and headed east, icy wind ripping straight through Piper's jacket. Behind them, more storm clouds were gathering.

The chariot lurched and bumped. It had no seat belts and the back was wide open, so Piper wondered if Jason would catch her again if she fell. That had been the most disturbing part of the morning—not that Jason could fly, but that he'd held her in his arms and yet didn't know who she was.

All semester she'd worked on a relationship, trying to get Jason to notice her as more than a friend. Finally she'd gotten the big dope to kiss her. The last few weeks had been the best of her life. And then, three nights ago, the dream had ruined everything—that horrible voice, giving her horrible news. She hadn't told anyone about it, not even Jason.

Now she didn't even have him. It was like someone had wiped his memory, and she was stuck in the worst "do over" of all time. She wanted to scream. Jason stood right next to her: those sky blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair, that cute little scar on his upper lip. His face was kind and gentle, but always a little sad. And he just stared at the horizon, not even noticing her.

Meanwhile, Leo was being annoying, as usual. "This is so cool!" He spit a pegasus feather out of his mouth. "Where are we going?"

"A safe place," Annabeth said. "The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood."

"Half-Blood?" Piper was immediately on guard. She hated that word. She'd been called a half-blood too many times—half Cherokee, half white—and it was never a compliment. "Is that some kind of bad joke?"

"She means we're demigods," Jason said. "Half god, half mortal."

Annabeth looked back. "You seem to know a lot, Jason. But, yes, demigods. My mom is Athena and Aphrodite, goddess of wisdom and love. Butch here is the son of Iris, the rainbow goddess."

Leo choked. "Your mom is a rainbow goddess?"

"Got a problem with that?" Butch said.

"Shut the fuck up dude."

"No, no," Leo said. "Rainbows. Very cool."

"Butch is our best equestrian," Annabeth said. "He gets along great with the pegasi."

"Rainbows, ponies," Leo muttered.

"I'm gonna toss you off this chariot," Butch warned.

"Me too please." Penelope begged. "I would fucking die rather than stay hungry."

Penelope, placed her hand over his mouth, probably warning him how there was no coach goat to save him.

"Demigods," Penelope said. "You mean you think you're ... you think we're—"

Lightning flashed. The chariot shuddered, and Leo yelled, "Left wheel's on fire!"

Piper stepped back. Sure enough, the wheel was burning, white flames lapping up the side of the chariot.

The wind roared. Piper glanced behind them and saw dark shapes forming in the clouds, more storm spirits spiraling toward the chariot—except these looked more like horses than angels.

She started to say, "Why are they—"

"Anemoi come in different shapes," Annabeth said. "Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending on how chaotic they are. Hold on. This is going to get rough."

Butch flicked the reins. The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Piper's stomach crawled into her throat. Her vision went black, and when it came back to normal, they were in a totally different place.

A cold gray ocean stretched out to the left. Snow-covered fields, roads, and forests spread to the right. Directly below them was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on three sides and water to the north. Piper saw a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake, and a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire. But before she could really process all she was seeing, their wheels came off and the chariot dropped out of the sky.

Annabeth and Butch tried to maintain control. The pegasi labored to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of five people was just too much.

"The lake!" Annabeth yelled. "Aim for the lake!"

"NAH!" Penelope yelled.

Piper remembered something her dad had once told her, about hitting water from up high being as bad as hitting cement.

And then—BOOM.

The biggest shock was the cold. She was underwater, so disoriented that she didn't know which way was up.

She just had time to think: This would be a stupid way to die. She saw down Penelope, who was wearing the same black baggy jeans with the hoodie she'd gotten a few days ago. Beside her floated a necklace, which Penelope claimed to have had from the first of her memories. Piper grabbed the necklace and Penelope's hand, who'd seemed to have had fainted. Then faces appeared in the green murk—girls with long black hair and glowing yellow eyes. They smiled at her, grabbed her shoulders, and hauled them up.

They tossed them both, gasping and shivering, onto the shore. Nearby, Butch stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off the pegasi. Fortunately, the horses looked okay, but they were flapping their wings and splashing water everywhere. Jason, Leo, and Annabeth were already on shore, surrounded by kids giving them blankets and asking questions. Somebody took Piper by the arms and helped her stand. Butch came to Penelope, offered her a towel and helped her next to the fire next to him, as Leo snickered.

Apparently kids fell into the lake a lot, because a detail of campers ran up with big bronze leaf blower–looking things and blasted Piper and Penelope with hot air; and in about two seconds their clothes were dry.

There were at least twenty campers milling around—the youngest maybe nine, the oldest college age, eighteen or nineteen—and all of them had orange T-shirts like Annabeth. Piper looked back at the water and saw those strange girls just below the surface, their hair floating in the current. They waved like, toodle-oo, and disappeared into the depths. A second later the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.

"Annabeth !" A guy with a bow and quiver on his back pushed through the crowd. "I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!"

"Will, I'm sorry," Annabeth sighed. "I'll get it fixed, I promise."

"Who the fuck am I," Penelope groaned.