Daughter of Pluto | Wattys2017

XXVIII

Piper wasn't shivering anymore."I don't understand. If demigods and gods have to work together to kill the giants, why would the gods stay silent? If they need us—"

"Ha," said Coach Hedge. "The gods hate needing humans. They like to be needed by humans, but not the other way around. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before Zeus admits he made a mistake closing Olympus."

"Coach," Piper said, "that was almost an intelligent comment."

Hedge huffed. "What? I'm intelligent! I'm not surprised you cupcakes haven't heard of the Giant War. The gods don't like to talk about it. Bad PR to admit you needed mortals to help beat an enemy. That's just embarrassing."

"There's more, though," Jason said. "When me and Aimee dreamed about Hera in her cage, she said Zeus was acting unusually paranoid. And Hera—she said she went to those ruins because a voice had been speaking in her head. What if someone's influencing the gods, like Medea influenced us?"

Aimee shuddered. She'd had a similar thought—that some force they couldn't see was manipulating things behind the scenes, helping the giants. Maybe the same force was keeping Enceladus informed about their movements, and had even knocked their dragon out of the sky over Detroit. Perhaps it was her's and Leo's sleeping Dirt Woman, or another servant of hers ...

Leo set hamburger buns on the skillet to toast. "Yeah, Hephaestus said something similar, like Zeus was acting weirder than usual. But what bothered me was the stuff my dad didn't say. Like a couple of times he was talking about the demigods, and how he had so many kids and all. I don't know. He acted like getting the greatest demigods together was going to be almost impossible—like Hera was trying, but it was a really stupid thing to do, and there was some secret Hephaestus wasn't supposed to tell me."

Aimee shifted. Piper could see how tense she was.

"Chiron was the same way back at camp," she said. "He mentioned a sacred oath not to discuss—something. Coach, you know anything about that?"

"Nah. I'm just a satyr. They don't tell us the juicy stuff. Especially an old—" He stopped himself.

"An old guy like you?" Piper asked. "But you're not that old, are you?"

"Hundred and six," the coach muttered.

Leo coughed. "Say what?"

"Don't catch your panties on fire, Valdez. That's just fifty-three in human years. Still, yeah, I made some enemies on the Council of Cloven Elders. I've been a protector a long time. But they started saying I was getting unpredictable. Too violent. Can you imagine?"

"Wow." Aimee tried not to look at her friends. "That's hard to believe."

Coach scowled. "Yeah, then finally we get a good war going with the Titans, and do they put me on the front lines? No! They send me as far away as possible—the Canadian frontier, can you believe it? Then after the war, they put me out to pasture. The Wilderness School. Bah! Like I'm too old to be helpful just because I like playing offense. All those flower-pickers on the Council—talking about nature."

"I thought satyrs liked nature," Piper ventured.

"Shoot, I love nature," Hedge said. "Nature means big things killing and eating little things! And when you're a —you know—vertically challenged satyr like me, you get in good shape, you carry a big stick, and you don't take nothing from no one! That's nature." Hedge snorted indignantly. "Flower-pickers. Anyway, I hope you got something vegetarian cooking, Valdez. I don't do flesh."

"Yeah, Coach. Don't eat your cudgel. I got some tofu patties here. Piper's a vegetarian too. I'll throw them on in a second."

The smell of frying burgers filled the air. Aimee tried to shut out the smell and the thought of being hungry , but her stomach was thinking other things and rumbled.

I'm losing it, she thought. Think about anything but food

Her stomach wasn't the only thing rebelling. Lying by the fire,all the guilt Piper had been holding in for the last week, since the giant Enceladus had first sent her a dream, was hitting Aimee in waves.Aimee didn't know why she could always feel things from others but she didn't like it.

Aimee and her friends wanted to help Piper. Jason even said he'd walk into a trap to save Piper's dad. And Aimee knew that Piper would try to shut them out.

For all Aimee knew, Piper could have already doomed her father when she attacked Medea.

Piper may have done the right thing in Chicago by saving her friends, but she'd only delayed her problem.

Leo put tofu patties on the skillet. The wind kept raging. Aimee leaned back against the wall,she soon found herself slipping into a memory.