afraid ツ l. valdez

16. eden is scared of things coming back

Eden woke up with a searing pain in her chest and a pounding head. She looked around and took in her surroundings- she was laying on her bed in her cabin. Leo let her personalize it, so along with the default dark wood twin bed frame in the left corner, the nightstand beside it, the desk facing the right wall, and the dresser facing the bed, she had her own decorations. Black curtains hung from the small window above the bed that was covered in a blood-red comforter and sheets. A fresh asphodel plant sat in a pot among her other knick-knacks on the dresser.

Her favorite thing, though, was the wire picture board Leo crafted for her. Currently, it had four pictures on it. One was of her, Piper and Annabeth showing off their matching bracelets. Another was one taken by a Hermes kid the moment they arrived from their quest, All four of the, dirty and bruised. The third was of her and Silena holding a bunch of shopping bags. The last one, though, was one taken by Piper of Eden holding her trident directly over Leo's chest as he lay on the ground, but they were both smiling. 

Leo. Leo had fired on camp Jupiter, had blasted her with flames. Eden look down, and sure enough, her chest was covered in white bandages. On the dark nightstand was a ice-cold glass of nectar with a red striped straw sticking out the top. She took a careful sip and instantly felt better. 

"Hello?" She called out. The boat walls were thin, which would be awful if she ever woke up screaming. 

A figure slowly opened the door, and Eden soon registered it was Annabeth. She was covered in a sticky black substance, and her curly hair was flying out of it's blonde ponytail. 

"Eden! I'm glad you're awake. What do you remember?" 

"Well, we gave Octavian a tour of the boat, and then Leo... his eyes went all cold. He started fire on the camp, so I had to fight him. I though he snapped out of it, so I ran to him... and then he blasted me." Eden shuddered. She didn't want to be afraid of Leo. "What happened next? Are we still at Camp Jupiter? Did we get Hazel, Percy, and Frank? Is Leo okay?"

"Yeah, we got everybody. Leo's fine, he says he doesn't really remember what happened. We had to stop and get some stuff to fix the ship, but after we got the roofing tar and escaped the angry nymphs, everything was fine. Now we have a group meeting in thirty minutes."

"Angry nymphs? Glad I missed that. Help me up, will you?" Eden said.

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For some strange reason, Eden got one of the head seats. It was interesting, having all eight demigods together in the same room. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. When Percy and Jason tried to reach for the opposite head seat, sparks literally flew off of Jason. They stared at each other for a minute until Annabeth scooted in and claimed the seat as hers.

Everyone recounted their small journeys and explained to Eden what happened. Leo kept trying to meet her eye, but she turned each time. She couldn't ignore the knots in her stomach and the lingering burning feeling, his cold eyes... but she tried to. Eden tried to make a joke about recounting her experience in her silly dreams, but no one laughed. Everyone was uncomfortable.

"So where to now?" Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. "I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there's still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic."

Percy was eating a piece of pie, which for some reason was completely blue—filling, crust, even the whipped cream. "We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter," he said. "Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren't far behind us."