Learning to Trust (A Leo Valdez Love Story)

Chapter 6

PIPER'S POV

      When Piper woke up she was cold and shivering. She had the strangest dream about a donkey chasing her and yelling "You're it!"

      "Oh, gods!" She said her teeth chattering. "He turned me to gold!"

      "You're okay now," Jason said as he wrapped a warm blanket around her. She blinked and looked around the room. They were in some sort of cave, firelight danced off the walls, and she couldn't tell if it was day or night because of the storm outside.

     " L-L-Leo, K-Kyra." Piper managed.

      "Present and degoldified." she heard Leo say. "Kyra's asleep." Piper looked over, Leo didn't look great and Kyra was asleep against his shoulder, paler than usual, and had a bandage wrapped around her stomach and a blanket around her shoulders.  "I got the precious metal treatment too, I came out of it quicker though, Jason and Kyra had to dip you in the lake, you got hypothermia."

      "Coach Hedge did a little of nature magic," Jason said.

      "Sports medicine," Coach said. "I won't be surprised if your breath smells like mushrooms and Gatorade for a while, and Kyra should be awake any minute now, she got cut by Lit's sword."

      As if on cue Kyra woke up, with circles under her eyes, she looked at Piper, "Hi Piper," she smiled, but it turned out to be more like a grimace. She realized she was leaning on Leo and tried to move away, but just cried out in pain.

      "Kyra, you can stay if you want," Leo said. Kyra put her head back on his shoulder slowly but seemed tense. Piper thought that Kyra was finally starting to trust them.

      "How did you beat Midas?" Piper asked. Jason told her the story because Kyra could barely stay awake, let alone talk, putting most of it down to luck.

      Coach snorted. "The kids are being modest, you should have seen them they were like  'Boom! Smack! Crash with the lightning!" 

      "Coach you didn't even see it," Jason said. "You were outside eating the lawn."

      But Coach wasn't done yet "Then I came in with my club and totally dominated that room, after I told them 'Kids, that was really good, if you could just work on your upper body strength-"

      "Coach," Jason said. "Shut up please." Coach went back to eating his cudgel.

      Jason checked Piper's temperature, "Leo could you stroke the fire?"

      "On it!" Leo said. Kyra slowly got off his shoulder with Leo's help and leaned her head back against the wall, while Leo summoned some flames and threw them into the fire.

      "Where are we?" Piper asked.

      "Pikes Peak," Jason said. "Colorado."

      "But that's what- five hundred miles from Omaha?" Piper asked. "Why are we here?"

      Leo sniffed, "That's what I asked him,"

      Jason gazed into the raging storm outside as if he were looking for something, "That glittery storm trail we saw yesterday," he began. "It ended here, I just felt like this was the right place to stop."

      "Course it is." Coach Hedge said. "Aeolus's floating palace should be right above us, this is one of his favorite places to dock."

      "Maybe," Jason said, "There was something else too,"

      "The Hunters were heading west too," Piper said, "Do you think they're around here?" Kyra's breath hitched in her throat, everyone looked at her.