anti hero - percy jackson ²

xviii. the wolf house

"we should leave you to gaea!"

Borrowing the helicopter was easy. Getting Piper's dad on board was not.

It took a few words from Cassandra through Leo's improvised bullhorn to convince the pilot to land on the mountain, and one simple suggestion for the ranger pilot lady to agree to fly them to the Oakland Airport.

"No" Piper's dad muttered, as they picked him up off the ground. "Piper, what—there were monsters—there were monsters—"

Leo, Jason held him down, while Coach Hedge and Cassandra gathered their supplies.

"It'll be okay, Dad" Piper said. She didn't seem to like the idea of using charmspeak on him, but she did. "These people are my friends. We're going to help you. You're safe now."

Cassandra stopped listening after that.

When they got him to the bay doors, the pilot came over to help. "What's wrong with him?" She asked.

"Smoke inhalation" Jason suggested. "Or heat exhaustion."

"We should get him to a hospital" The pilot said.

"It's okay" Piper said. "The airport is good."

"Yeah, the airport is good" The pilot agreed immediately. Then she frowned uncertainly. "Isn't he Tristan McLean, the movie star?"

"No" Cassandra denied. "They only look alike. Just forget it."

"Yeah" The pilot said. "Only looks like him. I—" She blinked, confused. "I forgot what I was saying. Let's get going."

Jason raised his eyebrows at the girls, seemingly impressed. Cassandra shrugged, but Piper seemed miserable.

Finally, they were able to get the movie star on board, and the helicopter took off. The pilot kept getting questions over her radio, asking where she was going, but she ignored them. They veered away from the burning mountain and headed toward the Berkeley Hills.

Cassandra gave Piper as much privacy as possible. She took out her book and attempted focusing on the words.

But her mind kept going back to the battle with Enceladus, and the events that had happened after.

Why had Gaea listened? It wasn't like her charmspeak was special or anything. If it was, she would've had no problems charmspeaking Medea back in Chicago.

So that meant that Gaea had chose to listen to her. It meant that she had decided to leave on her own account.

And other things weren't making sense too. Like the fact that she had been literally glowing.

Piper hadn't just been seeing things. There had definitely been some sort of silver aura around her. Cassandra had felt it.

She'd felt... powerful.

And who was behind this voice? That question was like an itch that she couldn't scratch. Except the itch had been there for over a year, and every time she got close to scratching it, she became lost again.

Her mind couldn't focus on anything besides the fact that things weren't making sense. It filled her with irritation but also determination.

She wondered if this was how Annabeth felt. The daughter of Athena's thirst for knowledge probably rivaled that of Athena herself.

As they flew, her gaze moved from the book she had in her hands to the valley below them.

The gamble Hera was taking was insanely risky. Her grandfather was right. If things didn't work out, they would rip each other apart.