-ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
SEEING Piper and her dad act so cute and close made Rebecca realise she may have an issue or two.
Jason nudged her- nudging had kind of became their thing.
"It's fine," he smiled jokingly, "I don't have a dad either."
Rebecca blushed in embarrassment. "It's not that."
He smiled knowingly, "sure."
She coughed. "What now?"
Piper soothed her father, and with charmspeak she convinced the people in the helicopter to bring her father to the airport.
Coach Hedge ended up leaving with Piper's dad, not before whispering to Rebecca.
"You take care of blondie and the crew or you're getting extra push ups."
She nodded fast, pretending to be scared.
"And don't go all lovey dovey with blondie." Rebecca went as red as a tomato.
The plane ride was kind of quiet, or at least Piper was. Leo, Jason and her played with an apple that was there.
Rebecca could bounce it on her elbow, leg, it was amazing. Leo and Jason attempted to do it, Jason did it almost as well as Rebecca, but not quite.
When the plane was heading down the runaway, Piper started to cry. At first the other three didn't know what to do.
Honestly Rebecca wasn't the most empathic, but slowly she wrapped her arms around her friend. Piper sobbed and sniffed in her arm, and Rebecca held her.
It was kind of weird at the beginning, she hadn't seen many people crying, but slowly she got used to the feeling. It was kind of nice, to have someone let you hold them while they cried. As if that person trusted you enough, Piper trusted her? Piper trusted her.
Then, right next to Jason, the air began to shimmer. At first Rebecca thought it was heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter, but she quickly realised what she was.
It was an Iris message. An image appeared in the air—a dark-haired girl in silver winter camouflage, holding a bow.
Jason stumbled back in surprise. "Thalia!"
"Thank the gods," said the Hunter. The scene behind her was hard to make out, but Rebecca heard yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions.
"We've found her," Thalia said. "Where are you?"
"Oakland," he said. "Where are you?"
"The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you're not too far. We're holding off the giant's minions, but we can't hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it's all over."
"Then it's not too late?" Piper cried. Hope surged through Rebecca, but Thalia's expression quickly dampened it.
"Not yet," Thalia said. "But Jason-it's worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry."
That wasn't good, not good at all.
"But where is the Wolf House?" he pleaded.
Rebecca looked away uncomfortably, she could tell them, but she didn't think it was her place, it was Jason's call.
"Our last trip," Thalia said, her image starting to flicker. "The park. Jack London. Remember?"
Rebecca remembered ages ago when Jason told her about that trip, Jason seemed to remember too, because he looked as if he had been shot.
He tottered, his face pale, and the Iris message disappeared.
Rebecca looked at him, "you okay."
He nodded, directly looking at her, neither of them broke the eye contact.
"Uh yeah," Jason said. "Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air."
Piper turned to the ranger pilot, who'd been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression.
Yeah, he wasn't understanding a single thing.
"Ma"am," Piper said with her best smile. "You don't mind helping us one more time, do you?"
"I don't mind," the pilot agreed.
"We can't take a mortal into battle," Jason said. "It's too dangerous." He turned to Leo. "Do you think you could fly this thing?"
"Um..." Leo's expression didn't exactly reassure Rebecca. But then he put his hand on the side of the helicopter, concentrating hard, as if listening to the machine.
"He can," Rebecca said confidently, and turned to Leo. "You can Leo."
"Bell 412HP utility helicopter," Leo answered with a smile. "Composite four-blade main rotor, cruising speed twenty-two knots, service ceiling twenty-thousand feet. The tank is near full. Sure, I can fly it."
He smiled at her grateful, she smiled back.
Piper turned to the ranger again. "You don't have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We'll return it."
"I—" The pilot nearly choked on the words, but she got them out: "I don't have a problem with that."
Rebecca laughed- neither of the three were surprised, at how surrealist the whole situation was. But in a world of gods and monsters, what could she expect?
Leo grinned. "Hop in, kids. Uncle Leo's gonna take you for a ride."
The sun was going down as they flew north over the Richmond Bridge, and Rebecca didn't grasp how fast time had gone by.
"So what's the Wolf House?" Leo asked.
Jason knelt between their seats. "An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it-Jack London." Leo couldn't place the name. "He an actor?"
"Writer," Rebecca corrected. "Adventure stuff. Call of the Wild, White Fang."
"Yeah," Jason said. "He was a son of Mercury-I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while.
Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion—the Wolf House."
"Named that 'cause he wrote about wolves?" Leo guessed.
"Partially," Jason said. "But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves-he was dropping hints about his personal experience.
There're a lot of holes in his life story—how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much-stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod."
The bay slipped behind them, and the helicopter continued north.
Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as Rebecca could see.
"So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood," Leo guessed.
"No," Jason said. "No, he didn't."
"Bro, you're freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?"
"Pieces," Jason said. "Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It's where London started his journey as a child—where he found out he was a demigod. That's why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn't meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site."
"So," Piper said, "how do you know all this?"
A shadow crossed Jason's face. Probably just a cloud, but knowing Jupiter's dramatics it was probably that.
"I started my journey there too," Jason said. "It's a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion-that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully."
The helicopter shuddered. Metal creaked, Rebecca got scared and gripped the closest thing to her, which so
happened to be a hand (Jason's) she let it go as if it were poisoned.
Leo leveled out the chopper, and the creaking stopped.
"Thirty minutes out," Leo told his friends, somehow he knew. "If you want to get some rest, now's a good time."
Jason strapped himself into the back of the helicopter and passed out almost immediately, soon sleep claimed over Rebecca too.
Her dreams started in ancient Greece.
It was night, the stars shined bright in the sky. It had been a year since Jason had left with her sister Medea.
Why? She didn't know, was it because the gods had cursed them? Was she too much of a nuisance or too mean.
Rebecca looked at the waves breaking against the cliffs, she dangled her legs, the cold enveloping her.
She thought of Jason, at first it was rage, as every time she thought of him, then it morphed into sadness.
One tear, another tear, she sobbed. And she couldn't remembered the last time she had cried.
Was it when she realised she was born to fail, or when her sister outshined her in everything, everyone chose her, including stupid, reckless, Jason.
Jason who she thought had understood her, she thought he understood her loneliness and desire to be remembered, but he was just another silly boy.
How couldn't they love Medea? She was so smiley and so nice. And Rebeka was so cold and distant.
The sun wasn't even out- she hated the sun, ever since her beloved bulls left to gods know where.
She sobbed again and clutched the letter she had received. Her father informed her she was going to be married, married with a Corinth prince.
She sobbed again, and screamed, she ripped the letter into pieces and jumped into the sea.
____________________________
- i'm baaaack
- i'm re-watching obx atm, who is
your favourite character, mine
probably jj, pope, or kiara
- i can't make decisions 😭
flo <3