Wild ― Piper McLean

―xiv. aphrodite-approved makeovers

"Comforting," Verona deadpanned. 

"Could be a hit list," Leo put in, which was somehow worse than Jason's guess. "But I feel like a hit list would have full names." 

That was a good point. The list only provided a first name and an initial, which was completely unhelpful. Verona had no clue what the C next to her name could be. Campbell? Carter? Cabbage?

Verona plucked the piece of paper out of Hedge's hand before he could make a snack out of it. "I don't think it's important right now. We need to figure out how to save Piper's dad and the Queen of the Heavens—we can worry about my maybe-hit list later." 

Leo nodded. "What's our game plan?"

"Climb the mountain," Hedge said. "Kill everything except Piper's dad. Leave."

"Thank you, General Eisenhower," Jason grumbled.

"Hey, I'm just saying!"

"Guys," Piper said. "There's more you need to know." She told them some things she'd figured out in her dreams, and who their real enemy was: Gaea.

"Gaea?" Leo shook her head. "Isn't that Mother Nature? She's supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and deer and rabbits doing her laundry."

"Leo, that's Snow White," Piper deadpanned.

"I thought we established that Verona is Snow White."

"Listen, cupcake." Hedge dabbed the espresso out of his goatee. "Piper's telling us some serious stuff, here. Gaea's no softie. I'm not even sure I could take her."

Leo whistled. "Really?"

Hedge nodded. "The earth lady—she and her old man the sky were nasty customers."

"Ouranos," Piper said, looking nervously at the sky like it might be eavesdropping.

"Right," Hedge said. "So Ouranos, he's not the best dad. He throws their first kids, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus. That makes Gaea mad, but she bides her time. Then they have another set of kids—the twelve Titans—and Gaea is afraid they'll get thrown into prison too. So she goes up to her son Kronos—"

"The big bad dude," Leo said. "The one they defeated last summer."

"Right. And Gaea's the one who gives him the scythe, and tells him, 'Hey, why don't I call your dad down here? And while he's talking to me, distracted, you can cut him to pieces. Then you can take over the world. Wouldn't that be great?'"

Nobody said anything for a few moments.

"I think I prefer Verona's version of Snow White," Piper decided. 

"Yeah, same here," Leo agreed.

"Nah, Kronos was a bad guy," Hedge said. "But Gaea is literally the mother of all bad guys. She's so old and powerful, so huge, that it's hard for her to be fully conscious. Most of the time, she sleeps, and that's the way we like her—snoring."

"But she talked to me," Leo said. "How can she be asleep?"

Hedge brushed crumbs off his canary yellow lapel. He was on his sixth espresso now, and his pupils were as big as quarters. "Even in her sleep, part of her consciousness is active—dreaming, keeping watch, doing little things like causing volcanoes to explode and monsters to rise. Even now, she's not fully awake. Believe me, you don't want to see her fully awake."

"But she's getting more powerful," Piper pointed out. "She's causing the giants to rise. And if their king comes back—this guy Porphyrion—"

"He'll raise an army to destroy the gods," Jason put in. "Starting with Hera. It'll be another war. And Gaea will wake up fully."