chapter thirteen

─── i'm in pain, time to sleep

          𝔄s soon as the lights faded, the pain hit me. Groaning, I leant forward, huffing slightly as I tried not to alert Piper and Leo to the fact. The pins and needles from that spark had left, and I rubbed at my shoulders and back as they throbbed with pain.

I'd deal with that later.

"You were amazing, Piper." I patted the girl in front of me's shoulders, wanting to keep this on the down low. Me being injured would hurt our moral.

"I only talked to Boreas, and you did too, it wasn't that amazing." Piper muttered, followed by a sentence that I couldn't quite here.

"Considering you've had no proper training, you held your own in front of two gods and whatever Zethes and Cal were." I grinned. "If that's not amazing then I don't know what is."

"He only let us go because of your past, something to do with those tattoos. I think he thought you were some sort of Roman." Piper mused as my head throbbed. I rubbed it, not needing pain from two areas of my body. "But I thought Romans and Greeks didn't mix, what with them being from different time periods and different godly forms."

"I wish I could answer your questions, but I'm still an amnesiac." I pointed out with a shrug. "Look, it doesn't matter at the end of the day."

Piper looked like she wanted to say something else, but Leo put a pause on the conversation to hand the pair sandwiches. As they ate, I explained what happened in the throne room. By the end, Leo let out a whistle, shaking his head.

"Damn." He huffed. "That's all a bit mad."

We hummed in agreement and fell silent.

I was starting to feel like these two were hiding something from me, each a different thing, but I couldn't work out what. Then again, I was also hiding something from them, the fact that I had a sister, and that I could remember parts of where I was from, in a sense.

But, all of that felt too personal and in reality, as bad as it sounded, I still did not know the pair all that well. They had their fake memories of me, but I had no memories of them, nothing to look back on and think, oh we're all such good friends.

Piper's head hit my shoulder, and she was fast asleep in an instance as I looked down at the younger teenager. She was so comfortable with me, yet part of me felt like I needed to push her away, like all of this was wrong. We were supposedly best friends, but did I have close friends waiting for me elsewhere?

"Hey, Cress, go to sleep." I glanced up at Leo, who was grinning. "You look like shit."

"Thanks." I rolled my eyes.

"I'll wake you up when we're there." He turned back around, pulling his mask up to keep warm, as I leant back slightly.

It takes a moment for me to fall asleep, mostly due to the freezing cold wind that buffeted around us, before my eyes fell closed and my head slumps forward. I didn't realise how tired I was but I am out like a light in the moment.

I thought I might dream, considering that my mind was so stuck on the fact that I was wondering if there was anyone that would come and find me, or if I had people searching for me. But, then again, I guessed that I was in so much pain that I just passed out.

I was just glad that I didn't fall off Festus.

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When I woke up, I had fallen off Festus.

"Oh shit!" I yelped, finding the wind currents and stabilising myself once more. Looking around, I finally looked down, seeing a large bronze blur flying towards the ground and above that, two screaming teenager.

"Not cool!" Leo's scream reached my ears, as I jumped from the wind column that I was hovering on, diving down towards the two younger teens.

Piper was closest, spinning around in circles, and Leo was going fastest out of the pair, so this was going to be a fun thing for me.

"Piper, level out!" I shouted over the wind, screaming as loud as I could so that she could hear me. "Piper! Extend your arms and legs!"

I didn't know whether she heard me but her body moved and she extended her limbs as I slammed into the back of her.

"Okay, I got you." I slowed her down, as she clung onto me like a koala. "Too tight! Too tight!"

"Leo!" She shouted, as I managed to get some air back into my system before dropping back down and diving towards the ground. We were being buffeted by winds, and even though I was trying to make them work for me, I couldn't get an exact hold on them. I mean, wind is a bit tricky to hold.

"Hold on, this is gonna be rough." I warned as Piper locked her arms around me, grasping tightly. She screamed in my ears, half deafening me as I wondered why my wakeup couldn't have been a little nicer than this. I locked onto Leo, before slamming into him, groaning in pain as my muscles protested. He was wriggling in my arms, trying to get free as I growled in annoyance. "Stop fighting!"

"My dragon! You gotta save Festus!"

"Do I look like I can carry all three of you?" I shouted back, trying to slow them down as we headed for a warehouse below us. 

"Cressida, get-" Leo was cut off by a large explosion below them, a fireball rolling into the sky as all three of us paused. Leo's body went limp as I groaned in pain, trying to bounce us down towards the ground slowly. "Festus!"

"Come on, work with me here." I groaned, holding onto both of them as the ground got closer. We had slowed a lot from our original descent, but the weight of three people and trying to find wind to hold all of us up at once, was proving strenuous. I was sure that I was bright red. "Shit, I can't-"

"Cress, please, please don't drop us." Piper pleaded as I huffed, leaning backwards to try and keep them upright.

"I'm sorry, Piper." I apologised before my body felt like lead and all three of us dropped like stones. I hit the roof with my legs first, groaning as more pain hit my body, before dropping my shoulder and rolling so that I wouldn't take all of the force onto one part of my body. Once I had slowed, I dropped down through the roof, landing on the floor once more.

I found Leo first.

"Hey, you alright?" I turned him over.

"Are you an angel?"

"Still just me." I smacked his face gently as his eyes came back into focus. "Where's Piper?"

"Not here."

"I can see that. Piper? Piper!" I called, looking around for the other girl. "Piper, where'd you go?"

"Piper!" Leo began to call as I hauled him upright.

"Here!" A faint voice shouted at us from higher up on the first floor. There were railings around the central area, where Leo had landed, that were sort of like a catwalk and Leo and I hurried up the ladder to get back to Piper's side. She was whimpering, muttering and cursing to herself as we grew closer.

"Hey, Piper." I grinned as I saw her, before catching sight of her feet and gulping.

"It looks bad, doesn't it?"

"No, not at all." I shook my head. "Completely fixable."

Her toes were pointing the wrong way, her ankle looked swollen and it was broken. I didn't know how fixable this was going to be.

"I'm going to be sick, that looks terrible." Leo gagged as I sighed.

"Thanks Leo." Piper began to freak out as I looked around. We were in an industrial warehouse, no one around, which was a small miracle. There were large cranes and the signs were all graffitti'd over which made me think that this hadn't been used in a while. "Ow, ow, it hurts. It really hurts."

"I can see." Leo gagged, pulling gauze and duck tape out of his tool belt and handing it off to me so that I could get to work. One part of my brain knew that I had basic first aid knowledge for combat situations. The other part of me didn't know how.

"How did you-" Piper tried to get up and I pushed her back down again. "How did you pull that stuff from an empty belt?"

"Magic." Piper and I shot Leo incredulous looks but he just nodded. "Magic, honest. Haven't figured it out completely yet but I can summon just about any regular tool from the pockets and some other helpful stuff, like mints and stuff."

"That's cool, Leo." I grinned. "Now, we've got to fix the foot. Can you help?"

He gagged again at just one look at it.

"I'll take that as a no." 

"I'm not good with injuries and stuff, never have been." Leo explained, growing pale in the light. Piper was panting, eyes closed in pain and hand slung over her eyes. "What about that godly stuff?"

"Ambrosia? We have that?" I questioned. I didn't want to ask him whether it had blown up with Festus, feeling that it might be a bit insensitive because Leo had been sobbing on the way down.

"Bag." Piper whispered, looking pained. "It's in my bag."

"Got it." I helped Piper up as Leo unzipped the bag and grabbed the Ziploc full of cracker looking things. Leo broke off a piece, feeding it to her as Piper's eyes fluttered shut.

"More."

"No, we shouldn't risk it." I stopped Leo from giving her any more. "Piper, I'm going to set your foot."

Her eyes snapped open, watching me cautiously.

"Have you ever done this before?"

"Still an amnesiac, but I think I've had medical training." I grinned and winked, before taking the piece of wood that Leo had found and broken in half. "Alright, this is going to hurt. Leo, hold her leg still."

Leo took a deep breath, paling further, before grasping the top of Piper's leg to keep it still as I assessed the situation.

"Alright, three, two..." I set it on two. She flinched, groaning in pain and letting out a little scream as she punched Leo's arm. The boy winced, as I double checked that it was alright, before creating the splint with the wood, gauze and duck tape.

"Thank the gods my face wasn't there." Leo moaned in annoyance, rubbing his arm.

"Sorry." Piper sat back up, looking at her foot.

"You two both did great." I grinned at them, handing Piper some water. "I'll get you two first aid trained in no time."

I took my own bite of ambrosia, hoping to dull the pain in my shoulders and back. We all took a moment to recover before Piper spoke up.

"What happened to the dragon? Where are we?" Leo's expression turned sullen, his face falling as he looked away.

"I don't know with Festus. He just, sort of, jerked sideways like he'd hit a wall or something and then we started falling." Leo sighed, running a hand through his hair. "As far as where we are...I think it's called Monocle Motors, its a closed car assembly part. I saw some stuff when I was looking around."

"I think Detroit." I tightened my pony tail, rolling my shoulders out. The pain had nearly gone. Maybe it was just that I had over exerted myself. "Roughly how far would that be from Chicago?"

"Maybe 3/4 of the way there." Leo winced. "The thing is, with no dragon, we're going overland but that's not safe."

"And I don't know if I can walk. Three people? Cress, you can't fly that many across the country." Piper pointed out, as I huffed.

"Are we sure Festus didn't malfunction?" I moved back onto Festus.

"I mean, I don't know. I'll have to find where he's landed, see if he's in one piece, all of that stuff." Leo picked at his nails, looking down.

"It's my fault." Piper put her head in her hand as I looked between my two depressed friends.

"How? You were asleep." I shook my head. "It can't be your fault, so don't even start to think like that. You're in pain so just rest. Leo, why don't you try and find Festus? No point theorising if we don't actually know for sure. I'll stay with Piper, but just stay safe and if you're not back within an hour, I'll come searching."

"Of course." Leo agreed, pulling a flashlight from his belt and though I didn't like sending anyone off on their own, there were three of us and I couldn't leave Piper, not when she could barely stand. Leo had more of a chance to run, and more of a chance to pull some form of weapon from his belt.

The boy disappeared, as I placed my hand against Piper's forehead.

"Well, you look better and you don't have a fever so this is all positive." I grinned.

"You did a good job, Cress." She smiled at me, finding my hand and squeezing. "Where'd you learn first aid?"

"Amnesiac still."

"But you're starting to have some memories, aren't you?" Piper pushed, watching me with wide eyes. "Like that prophecy in Latin back at camp, or that dream about the wolf."

I sighed. I didn't know how to explain it or if I should tell her about the others. It felt private and just for me, but maybe I should have told her. 

"I don't know. Everything's fuzzy. I get feelings that I know these sorts of things, or how to do stuff, but then it's gone before my brain can latch onto it. Except, it's like that for my entire life. I don't know anything and I'm worried that even if I do get my memories back, will I get everything back?"

We fell silent.

"You had a photo in your pocket." I pulled back in an instance at her words, my shoulders tensing and eyes narrowing. "I'm sorry, that's none of my business, forget it."

I huffed, chewing on my lip as I tried to untense.

"No, shit, sorry, it's alright." I took a deep breath. "I think, she's my sister. I don't know, I'm still trying to work everything out. She's called Thalia, but I can't remember anything and why are you smiling?"

"Nothing." Piper's grin dropped. "But its great that you remembered. Annabeth told me she became a Hunter of Artemis, right?"

"Luke told me she was a tree." I pulled a face at the thought as Piper gave me a confused look. "I get the feeling I'm supposed to find her. Hera left certain memories for a reason and I'm sure that means it has something to do with the quest. But then, my intuition is telling me that it's also dangerous. I don't know if I want to find out the truth but then that seems a little crazy."

"No, it doesn't." Piper shook her head and both of us fell silent. "Cress, speaking of the truth, I have to tell you something, something about my da-"

A clang sounded in the distance and I froze. I held my hand up for her to stop talking, flipping the coin in an instance so that I could snatch the sword out of the air. I cautiously looked over the railing, but there was no one there and no sign of a flashlight.

"I don't like this." I muttered, turning back to Piper.

"He could be in trouble. Go, check."

"I'm not leaving you alone." I shook my head.

"I'll be alright." She smiled, though it shook, squeezing my hand gently. "I'll stab anyone who gets close."

"I'll leave the pack. If I'm not back in five minutes..." I trailed off, standing up and flicking the sword.

"Panic?" She grinned.

"Something like that." I winked at her, walking backwards. "Don't miss me too much."

"Glad you're back to normal." That threw me for a moment, wondering what I was like in her fake memories. "Get going, Sparky."

"Sparky?" I rolled my eyes at that, before disappearing into the darkness. I had to move quietly and carefully, assess for danger and then get out. It was that simple and easy enough for me to do. 

I swept through the building, looking for areas that could hide attackers and then also for Leo. Yet, there was no sign of the son of Hephaestus and no sign of the attackers. 

My pocket felt heavy, and I put my hand in, squeezing the bird toy as the ache in my shoulders came back.

"Help." I pause, hearing the voice of a small child. "Help me, please, please, help me!"

I didn't hesitate, rushing forward to try and find the sound, but there was no one there. No matter where I looked, or what I tried to find there was no one there.

"Hello? Look, just come out. I can help."

"I'm sorry." The voice called and I turned, coming face to face with someone's legs. I looked up, seeing a looming figure staring down at me. "Were you looking for me?"

"Oh shit." I hissed, before something hard crashed into the back of my head and I was sent flying. My back hit a wall, head smashing against it, before I slumped down to the floor. This wasn't very heroine-esque of me.

My eyes began to flutter close, sight failing as unconsciousness dragged me down.

"Goldie." There was a voice calling me. "Goldie!"

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Hiya,

I'm excited and this should be fun. I'm really looking forward to next chapter and we're getting some backstory! ish. Also, I love Cress. shes a mood that's for sure. But anyway, let me know what you think,

Love Li xx