𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄 - j. grace, ocxoc ¹ ✓

xviii. unwanted laser tag game !

XVIII.      DELILAH SONG-JACKSON   !
⋆ ★
unwanted laser tag game

Kaen feared if he looked back he would find those nasty sun dragons toting a flying chariot with a screaming magical saleswoman throwing potions, but nothing followed them.

Leo steered the dragon toward the southwest. Eventually, the smoke from the burning department store faded in the distance, but he didn't relax until the suburbs of Chicago gave way to snowy fields, and the sun began to set.

"Good job, Festus." Leo patted the dragon's metal hide. "You did awesome."

The dragon shuddered. Gears popped and clicked in his neck.

"I'll give you a tune-up next time we land," Leo promised. "You've earned some motor oil and Tabasco sauce."

"Hey," Delilah placed her white painted-nails on Kaen's shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"Angry," Kaen admitted, sending a glare Jason's way. "But not awful." He hoped he didn't look as embarrassed as he felt. "Delilah, Piper, thanks for saving us back there. If you hadn't talked us out of that spell—"

"Don't worry about it," Piper said.

"Yeah, you can murder Jason another day," Delilah tried to lighten the mood with her whispered words but it didn't do much for Kaen. He worried a lot. He felt terrible about how easily Medea had set him against Leo and Jason. And those feelings hadn't come from nowhere—his resentment of them for the way they treated him, Kaori, and Delilah got in the way. And Jason bringing up Kaori made Kaen furious; with charmspeak or not, those words hurt Kaori and therefore they became Kaen's issue to deal with. He didn't care if Jason didn't mean them, he hated him for it.

When they had left Medea in that exploding store, Leo had felt a little too good. He hoped she wouldn't make it out, and would go right back to the Fields of Punishment, where she belonged. Those feelings didn't make him proud, either.

And if souls were coming back from the Underworld . . . was it possible Kaen's dad could be brought back?

He tried to put the idea aside. That was Frankenstein thinking, unnatural. It wasn't right. Medea might've been brought back to life, but she hadn't seemed quite human, with the hissing nails and the glowing head and whatnot. It was against everything the underworld stood for.

Kaen's dad had passed on. Thinking any other way would just drive him nuts. Still, the thought kept poking at him, like an echo of Medea's voice.

"We're going to have to put down soon," Leo warned them. "Couple more hours, maybe, to make sure Medea's not following us. I don't think Festus can fly much longer than that."

"Yeah," Piper agreed. "Coach Hedge probably wants to get out of his canary cage, too. Question is—where are we going?"

"The Bay Area," Leo guessed. His memories of the department store were fuzzy, but he seemed to remember hearing that. "Didn't Medea say something about Oakland?"

Piper didn't respond for so long, Kaen wondered if he'd said something wrong.

"Piper's dad," Delilah put in. "Piper, something has happened to your dad, right? He got lured into a trap."

Piper let out a shaky breath. "Look, Medea said you would both die in the Bay Area. And besides . . . even if we went there, the Bay Area is huge! First we need to find Aeolus and drop off the storm spirits. Boreas said Aeolus was the only one who could tell us exactly where to go."

Kaen grunted. "So how do we find Aeolus?"

Jason leaned forward. "You mean you don't see it?" He pointed ahead of them, but Kaen didn't see anything except clouds and the lights of a few towns glowing in the dusk.