Starlight and Repair boy (Leo Valdez x OC)

Chapter 11

Leo

"This is bad, worse than a burned taco." 

I woke up with the feeling of someone pulling the covers off me. "Ugh, if you want to get me out of bed, you need to lure me out with tacos." I groaned and reached for the blankets. 

"Leo! Wake up!" The voice said. I slowly opened my eyes to see Nyssa standing over me with a worried look planted on her face. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and gave her an annoyed look.

"This is urgent, Chiron needs to talk with you!" Nyssa dragged me out of bed with urgency. 

"If he needs me, he can come over and talk to me while I dream about flying." I yawned and slumped back down on my bed. Nyssa groaned, she looked as if she wanted to slap me.

I pulled the covers over my head to annoy her more. "I give up!" Nyssa declared. "Leo, Caitlyn has gone missing!" She blurted out.

I frowned. "You're only saying that to get me out of bed, she can't have gone. She loves the camp, especially the meals." Nyssa clenched her fist with frustration and looked as if she was ready to murder someone. She pulled back the covers and shouted at me. "No, Leo! I'm serious, you can check with her siblings if you don't believe me!" 

My heart dropped to my stomach and I suddenly felt sick. "There must be a mistake," I murmured. The look my sister gave hinted me that she was telling the truth. Nyssa helped me up because my legs suddenly felt like jelly. It must be a joke. Percy might've leaked the truth out of Caitlyn and decided to pull this prank on me. It might be evil, but it's the only logical explanation.

Nyssa walked me to the Apollo cabin and pounded on the door. Will opened the door and inspected us both with weariness. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was sticking out of his head. "Leo, I see you heard about it." He rasped. "Come on in."

There was a sense of dread and fear in the atmosphere of the Apollo cabin. The butterflies in my stomach grew bigger as walked in. Kayla and Austin looked devastated and looked shaken. The cabin looked darker, lonelier than the times I had visited Caitlyn here.

 Will led me to Caitlyn's bunk, her bed was neatly made and her favourite soft toy was placed neatly on her pillow. But, no sign of the owner. Nyssa's grip on my wrist weakened as she started shaking. "So it's true," I managed to whisper. My mind went to an abrupt stop. "There was no note? Nothing?" Nyssa asked as her voice trembled.

"Well, there was this." Will turned around and pointed to the wall. I looked at where he was pointing, "Aw man, another evil person to defeat?" On the wall, was a note in Ancient greek that read, "If you want the daughter of Apollo, the most troubled one needs to come over and feed us." These words were burned into the wall as if someone used a torch and wrote this message with it because they had no pen or paper.

Everyone's heads turned to me as I was having a debate with myself on whether the person to look for her was Will or Piper. "What?" I asked them, then I realised I assumed the wrong thing. Whoever wrote this wants me to go after Caitlyn. I'm in most pain because Cailtyn's gone, and now, something wants to eat me.

I felt small under everyone's stares. I had the urge to shoot a fireball into the sky so that they could stare at it. "We need to take him to Chiron, now." Will clenched his fists. Nyssa nodded and pulled me out of the dark room.

Nyssa avoided eye contact with me as she walked beside me to the Big House. I didn't feel like talking, my mind felt numb and I felt I was only partly there.

Once I was seated on the couch in the Big House for the second time that week, Chiron galloped into the room looking very troubled. I got out some wires out of my toolbelt and started making something out of it. It was what I did when I was nervous.

"This is not good at all," Chiron sighed. "Someone is asking for you to go after Caitlyn because they want something from you." I looked up and clenched my fists. "Why take away Caitlyn then? Why not take me away?" I demanded.

Chiron sighed again. "They've used Caitlyn as bait, they want you to go after her. If they took you, it would be no fun for them to watch." I huffed, I hated it when villains get their way. Where could they have hidden Caitlyn? Was she okay?

I stood up from my seat. "I need to go on a quest to find her. I can't have her in the grasp of some evil beast!" Chiron nodded. " I agree with you, Mr Valdez. You may go to the Oracle now." I nodded and lifted myself off my seat without another word.

I walked to the cave on the top of Half-Blood Hill. Once I got there, I was panting from the hard climb. I walked deeper into the cave as I looked at the walls. All of them were paintings of Rachel's visons, she was almost as good as Caitlyn at painting.

Don't think about her, you'll get distracted. I sighed but my eyes fell on a drawing on the other side of the cave wall. It was a painting of someone who seemed to be Caitlyn. She had her eyes closed and she was hugging herself tightly on the earth as three shadows loomed over her. Is this where she is? Who were her captors? I noticed that her captors had very bad ways to manage their hair. 

"I see you've come over for a prophecy." I jumped. Next to me was the oracle, Rachel. She looked very tired and she had paint-splattered clothes. I cleared my throat and I pointed to the painting on the wall. "What is this?"

Rachel frowned. "I had the vision a week ago when Caitlyn arrived at camp"

"Is this happening now?"

"I can't tell, my visions are not clear about when or where it's happening."

"Well, that's just great. If only Apollo could make prophecies-"

I stopped in mid-sentence when I noticed Rachel's eyes flash green as the spirit of the Oracle took over her. 

"In the largest wildness in the country, you must venture through,

  What you may find there will spear your heart with a silver arrow,

  A hard decision a fair maiden shall make, her buddy or her crew,

  Love will play a hard game, broken rules it won't allow,

 The foursome will follow the path of grief, in the darkest of burials,

 and its masters shall be fed, but who will the maiden heal?"

Green mist flowed out of Rachel's mouth as she spoke the terrifying words. On the last words, her eyes dimmed and she fell into my arms. I stared up at the image of Caitlyn and whispered, "This is not good."