Heros of Houston (a Heroes of Olympus fanfiction)

Valdez

The giants were coming closer to me. The entire class stood there frozen, watching. I closed my eyes and bit my lip, to keep from screaming again while waiting to feel the terrible pain of my death. But it never came. I heard a collective gasp and opened my eyes enough to make out the details around me. The only thing that had changed was that a boy standing in the opening in the wall. A boy with dark curly hair, tan skin, and brown eyes. It looked like he was taller than me, barely, but there was a slight elf like quality to his features. Regardless, he was cute. And there to help me.

"Hey lug heads!" He screamed, causing them to turn.

I took the opportunity to lung for my sword and ended up by the teacher's desk. The boy glanced at me and back to the giants. There was an unreadable emotion on his face when he looked at me, but it quickly disappeared and he was back to the fierceness of someone who had no doubt that he would be making it out of this battle.

"Why do you want her? Who sent you?" He lit his hands on fire and my eyes widened. Of course I had my own powers, but I'd never seen anyone else who had a visible power.

"Our mistress will be happy with you Valdez... Though she only instructed us to retrieve the Grace girl. We can eat you and keep her alive." The giant spoke with a voice that was terrifying to me but Leo managed to only falter slightly.

His face hardened and with a flick of his wrist he sent a blast of flames at each of the giants and they went up in flames. I stared at him and put my sword away. He went outside with only a glance in my direction and I couldn't help but follow him across the street to a hidden alleyway.

"I'm Leo Valdez. what's your name?" He asked, turning to face me.

"Uh...Kaitlin. Kaitlin Grace." he studied me and I rolled my eyes before looking at him.

Really, actually, looking at him. He was cute, in a dorky kind of way. I felt my iPod vibrate and pulled it out. There was a message from my foster father telling me to get home and that I was in big trouble for destroying the school.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I should go. Thanks for saving my life, Valdez." I turned to go and he followed me.

"Of course, your brother would kill me if he found out anything had happened to you while I could've helped." I turned and stared at him. How could he know about Jason? Either way, I took it as offensive and slapped him across the face.

"My brother is dead. So is my sister, and my mother. How do you even know that I had a brother?! You know what, I don't want to know. I just want to get back to my Foster home. You need to leave me alone."

"Jason's alive. Thalia is too. Come with me and you can see Jason, he's in town. Just come back to the hotel with me, that's all. It's down the street. After you see him, if you still want to go back to your normal life you can."

"Why should I trust you? How do I know you won't just take me somewhere to kill me?"

"I just saved your life. Please Kaitlin, he would be so happy to meet you. Just give it a chance."

I hesitated but eventually nodded. he smiled and we started talking about our time in Foster care. I told him about my mom and he said it matched the story about Jason and Thalia's mom. After a few minutes of walking we arrived at a small motel and Leo knocked on the door of one of the rooms. He pushed me in front of him and, after a minute, the door opened to reveal a boy with blonde hair and electric blue eyes like mine. There was a small scar on his lower lip that I figured was from the story my mom had told me about him trying to eat a stapler before Juno took him.

"Thalia....?" He asked, a slight look of disbelief on his face.