CATHARSIS, jason grace¹

𝟬𝟮𝟬. she means you're amazing, man

Leo sniffled, wiping both his nose and the blood coming from the cut on the corner of his mouth. He flipped open the dragon's head panel. Jason could see that the control disk was cracked and burned beyond repair. There was no fixing him. Festus was gone.

"Something my dad told me," Leo croaked. "Everything can be reused."

Jason's eye twitched. "Your dad talked to you? When?"

"Hephaestus is the god of forges," Aera said darkly. She had stopped her pacing but her uneasy voice sounded like she was still moving back and forth. "He can fix Festus. He has to."

A spark of hope ignited in Jason. "Yeah, if you spoke to your dad, can't he fix him?"

Leo didn't answer either of them. He worked miserably at the dragon's neck hinges until the head was detached. The thing looked like it weighed about a hundred pounds, but Leo managed to pick it up and hold it tenderly in his arms.

Jason watched as Leo looked up at the starry sky and said, "Take him back to the bunker, Dad. Please, until I can reuse him. I've never asked you for anything."

The wind picked up, and the dragon's head floated out of Leo's arms like it weighed nothing. It flew into the sky and disappeared into the darkness.

Piper stared at him in amazement. "He actually answered you?"

"I had a dream," Leo said vaguely. "Tell you later."

Jason didn't know when later would be a good time. The large white mansion glowed menacingly in the center of the grounds. Tall brick walls with strobe lights and security cameras surrounded the perimeter. Those walls were defended pretty heavily. Something told Jason that if they tried to leave the way they came in, they would end up worse than Festus.

"Where are we?" Leo asked. "I mean, what city?"

"Omaha, Nebraska," Piper noted. "I saw a billboard as we flew in. But I don't know what this mansion is. We came in right behind you, but as you were landing, Leo, I swear it looked like—I don't know—"

"Lasers," Leo said. He picked up a piece of dragon wreckage and threw it toward the top of the fence. Immediately a turret popped up from the brick wall and a beam of pure heat incinerated the bronze plating to ashes.

Jason whistled. "Some defense system. How are we even alive?"

"Festus," Leo said mournfully. "He took the fire. The lasers sliced him to bits as he came in so they didn't focus on you. I led him into a death trap."

"You couldn't have known," Piper comforted. "He saved our lives again."

"But what now?" Jason said. He didn't like the feeling of being stranded here in the snow in the dark. "The main gates are locked, and I'm guessing I can't fly us out of here without getting shot down."

Leo nodded his head toward the walkway at the big white mansion. "Since we can't go out, we'll have to go in."

Jason couldn't help but look to Aera for her opinion. She had been so quiet, glaring at the row of frozen rosebushes, it was hard to tell what she was thinking. She stuck out her hand and an invisible force seemed to yank out a single rose, thorns still attached. It flew into her hand. Aera clutched the thorny stem of the rose and said, "Let's go rob some rich people."

Piper and Jason exchanged looks. Piper started chewing on her lip. They had no other option, it seemed.

Jason sighed. "Let's go rob some rich people."

Aera would have died five times to the front door if not for Leo. First it was the motion-activated trapdoor on the sidewalk, then the lasers on the steps, then the nerve gas dispenser on the porch railing, the pressure-sensitive poison spikes in the welcome mat, and of course the exploding doorbell.