The Veiled Legacy | PJO - Book Two

seventeen

SILENCE

LEO:

Leo was still in shock.

Everything had happened so quickly. They had secured grappling lines to the Athena Parthenos just as the floor gave way, and the final columns of webbing snapped.

Jason and Frank dove down to save the others, but they'd only found Nico and Hazel hanging from the rope ladder. Ariana, Percy and Annabeth were gone.

The pit to Tartarus had been buried under several tons of debris. Leo pulled the Argo Il out of the cavern seconds before the entire place imploded, taking the rest of the parking lot with it.

The Argo II was now parked on a hill overlooking the city. Jason, Hazel, and Frank had returned to the scene of the catastrophe, hoping to dig through the rubble and find a way to save Ariana, Percy and Annabeth, but they'd come back demoralized.

The cavern was simply gone. The scene was swarming with police and rescue workers. No mortals had been hurt, but the Italians would be scratching their heads for months, wondering how a massive sinkhole had opened right in the middle of a parking lot and swallowed a dozen perfectly good cars.

Dazed with grief, Leo and the others carefully loaded the Athena Parthenos into the hold, using the ship's hydraulic winches with an assist from Frank Zhang, part-time elephant.

The statue just fit, though what they were going to do with it, Leo had no idea. Coach Hedge was too miserable to help.

He kept pacing the deck with tears in his eyes, pulling at his goatee and slapping the side of his head, muttering, "I should have saved them! I should have blown up more stuff!"

Finally Leo told him to go belowdecks and secure everything for departure. He wasn't doing any good beating himself up.

The six demigods gathered on the quarterdeck and gazed at the distant column of dust still rising from the site of the implosion.

Leo rested his hand on the Archimedes sphere, which now sat on the helm, ready to be installed.

He should have been excited. It was the biggest discovery of his life even bigger than Bunker 9. If he could decipher Archimedes's scrolls, he could do amazing things.

He hardly dared to hope, but he might even be able to build a new control disk for a certain dragon friend of his.

Still, the price had been too high.

He could almost hear Nemesis laughing. I told you we could do business, Leo Valdez.

He had opened the fortune cookie. He'd gotten the access code for the sphere and saved Frank and Hazel. But the sacrifice had been Percy and Annabeth and Ariana. Leo was sure of it.

"It's my fault." he said miserably, missing Ariana.

Just days before he had her lips on his, Leo had developed a crush.

The others stared at him. Only Hazel seemed to understand. She'd been with him at the Great Salt Lake.

"No." she insisted. "No, this is Gaea's fault. It had nothing to do with you."

Leo wanted to believe that, but he couldn't. They'd started this voyage with Leo messing up, firing on New Rome. They'd ended in old Rome with Leo breaking a cookie and paying a price much worse than an eye.

Ariana, Leo could barely think of her name without his heart clutching and aching in pain. He wished he had kissed her that night; he wished she had told her how he felt about her.

But he didn't.

Leo would always regret that.

"Leo, listen to me." Hazel gripped his hand. "I won't allow you to take the blame. I couldn't bear that after-after Sammy..."