The Daughter of Poseidon//Leo Valdez

First day of the Killer Quest

We had been in the air for what was way too long and my tight grip on Leo still hadn't loosened. Occasionally I would lull in and out of sleep, but then something would pull me out of my trance.

I closed my eyes tightly as my forehead rested on the latino boy's shoulder blades. My wavy hair blew around me as I tried to shield my face from it. When I searched my wrist for a hair tie I mentally cursed that I forgot one.

"Shut up, me," Leo said to the sky, causing my head to pop up.

"What?" Piper asked.

"Nothing," Leo quickly replied. "Long night. I think I'm hallucinating. It's cool."

"I swear to the gods Valdez, I'm going to kill you."

"You love me too much princesa."

"I hate you," I murmured, just quite enough so he could hear.

"Just joking." Leo changed the subject before I decided to kill him. "So what's the plan, bro? You said something about catching wind, or breaking wind, or something?"

"First we have to find Boreas and find out what he knows about our quest-" Jason was cut off by Leo.

"His name is Boreas?" Leo had to ask. "What is he, the God of Boring?"

"If you weren't flying this thing I would smack you so hard right now," I groaned.

"Second," Jason continued, "we have to go after the venti that confronted us at the canyon. Find out who sent them."

"Can we just call them storm spirits?" Leo asked. "Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks."

"So you want to look for Dylan, the nasty storm dude, on purpose," Leo said. "The guy who threw me off the skywalk and sucked Coach Hedge into the clouds."

"Well, I'm very close from throwing you off this dragon," I gave a sickingly sweet smile in his direction.

"That's about it," Jason said. "Well ... there may be a wolf involved, too. But I think she's friendly. She probably won't eat us, unless we show weakness."

"Wolf? Why does that sound so familiar?" I questioned as I got a headache while my brain desperately tried to cling to a memory.

"It's obvious that we used to know each other, but thanks for letting me know I'm not crazy," Jason lightly chuckled. "I was in the woods, one I don't remember ever seeing before. There was this old mansion, I'm honestly surprised it was still standing. It looked like I had seen it before. But I couldn't place it.

"I could read her body language as it was English and understood everything she was trying to say. Apparently it was a place for demigods to get claimed. She said that I had to find her. That that was where we would solve our quest. It was where Hera was trapped.

"She was caged and growing weaker by the second. She said whoever was orchestrating this was planning to raise a giant there. She said I was their saving grace."

"Uh-huh," Leo said. "But you don't know where this place is."

"Nope," Jason admitted.

"There's also giants," Piper added. "The prophecy said the giants‟ revenge."

"Hold on," Leo said. "Giants—like more than one? Why can't it be just one giant who wants revenge?"

"I don't think so," Piper said. "I remember in some of the old Greek stories, there was something about an army of giants."

"Great," Leo muttered. "Of course, with our luck, it's an army. So you know anything else about these giants? Didn't you do a bunch of myth research for that movie with your dad?"