Reyna was surprised at the amount of time it took for people to notice Leo was missing. Of, course it was probably some matter that it was October and most of the Hephaestus kids were at school for the year, but still, Reyna had expected someone to notice.
To no avail; it was three days before it was brought to attention that Leo was gone. Of course, as soon as Piper realized that, she instantly panicked. Apparently Leo had a history with running, something that didn't exactly surprise Reyna. Apparently when he left, he never came back. Again, that didn't surprise her. If you left somewhere, it obviously wasn't somewhere you wanted to be.
The clue he left behind kept tormenting her. The city of revenge. It had to be somewhere they'd gone on their quest. But there was no chance to ask anyone. If she asked places they'd been, they might send out people to those places, or they could assume she knew something, which she did, but she didn't want to reveal that to anyone. It had seemed like an unspoken promise to her. Reyna tried not to break promises.
October turned into November, which turned into December. People starting thinking, that was it; he would never come back. Piper was the only one who really seemed concerned about where he might be, despite the fact that Reyna knew her well enough that she knew he was fine on his own. Reyna occasionally had to bite back a laugh. You only miss him when he's gone. Reyna noticed in an irritatingly large way that Leo wasn't there. She always noticed Leo, because he was always trying to be noticed in some way. He was almost begging her to look at him. Leo was always doing something and now that he was gone, the camp seemed surprisingly…empty.
Reyna somehow managed to slip her question into a conversation with Jason. It was about the time when Jason had been on a quest to free Juno the previous year, and Jason was telling her about the bronze dragon Festus they had to ride.
"He was a real machine," Jason was saying. "Sure we had to put down a few times, but I can't think of a cooler way to travel across the country."
"Cooler than the Argo ll?" Reyna asked, beginning to lean toward the question.
Jason thought for a minute. "No. The Argo ll was cooler. Leo was so proud of it."
And there it was. The name. The unspeakable. Reyna had learned not to say it in conversations with the seven or the Hephaestus cabin, as had the others who hadn't known Leo that well. Reyna guessed it was almost like when Percy was missing, only on a much smaller scale. Back then, you couldn't mention Percy's name. Talking about Leo just bothered people. But Reyna hadn't expected anything different. Leo probably hadn't either.
"I heard he was always fixing it," she said.
"He was. As soon as we left New Rome, we had to put down in At the Great Salt Lake. Leo saw Nemesis there."
"For all the talk of Olympus being closed, you guys saw many gods."
"I guess so," Jason said. The air of the conversation began to get awkward, and Reyna changed to subject. But she had her information. Great Salt Lake. Would that mean Salt Lake City? It was close. It had almost the same name. It would fit everything easily.
The only problem was getting there.
As soon as she got to that part in the plan, she stopped herself. Why did she care? Why did it matter where Leo was? He had even said it himself; they never talked. Reyna had every right to be indifferent, hold up a mask of polite concern and nothing more. She didn't have to go searching for Leo. She owed him nothing. But in a way, she owed him more than he knew.
Despite that, she managed to push all the thoughts out of her head of leaving the camp. She continued her praetor duties, led her people, and continued to keep her distance like the Reyna that everybody knew. She crossed between the two camps a lot these days; there was a lot of business the two stations shared. And most of all, she tried to push down the burning guilt she felt whenever the thought surfaced again and made her want to blurt out He's in Salt Lake City.
Because in a way she'd promised. And she was scared that if she told anyone, he'd run away again, and this time, she wouldn't have a clue where he was.
The business at Camp Half-Blood had taken less time than she'd thought. She didn't have to be back at Camp Jupiter for another two days. Heading back across the country, she slowly came to the realization that she was close to Utah. He's in Salt Lake City, the little voice screamed. She gritted her teeth. She wasn't supposed to care. She was supposed to be indifferent. She was supposed to go back to camp Jupiter as planned and continue on in her life. That was possible. She could do that. That's what she had been doing. But saying all that in her head hurt more than it usually did.
Somehow she found herself in Salt Lake City.
It was a vain hope. Salt Lake City was pretty big. You couldn't find one person in a city that large. Also, there were other cities that were on the coast of the lake. He could be in any one of those. Or maybe Jason had been wrong. Maybe it was a completely different lake altogether. Maybe it wasn't even a lake. It could have been a coastline, or a river. It was a total long-shot. But Reyna took it.
By some miracle of Fortuna, she lucked out. After wandering aimlessly around town for a few hours, she spotted a scrawny Latino boy walking with his head down through the busy streets. No, it couldn't be so easy, she thought. But she tailed the boy anyway, feeling much like a creeper as she mirrored the boys every move through the walkways. Then he turned, and she gasped.
"Leo?"
Leo wasn't exactly irritated to see her, so that was a start.
He didn't say a word to her after Reyna had said she wanted to talk, but Reyna tried to think about her mission. I was right, she told herself. He's here. I found him. They wound through the streets of the city, Leo not stopping to see if she was following, which made Reyna feel like he was hoping she'd get lost and never bother him again. They finally stopped in front of a seemingly random apartment building, which Leo deducted might be where he lived. She hadn't even thought of that. He'd have to live somewhere. Leo turned to face her, and his eyes were colder than she remembered, even colder than they were the night he left.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her.
"You met Nemesis at Great Salt Lake," she tried to explain. "She's the goddess of revenge. I took a wild guess."
"But why are you here?" he asked.
Reyna hesitated. "I don't know. I wanted to see you, I guess. I wanted to know where you were."
Leo blew air through his mouth. "Did you tell anyone where I was? Are they coming to find me?"
"No, no one knows. I wasn't even sure, but it was on my way, and I thought I would see."
Her voice stopped after noticing the look Leo was giving her. It was a mean look, exasperated and tired, and it didn't belong on Leo's face. She went on, now determined to get her point across
"I thought I was wrong," she went on. "Why would you go back to that place if there were bad memories there? But that's where no one would ever think to look. A place they knew you hated."
Leo hadn't changed much. His face was still the same. He might have grown an inch, but he was still scrawny. His hands still fidgeted with the strings of his hoodie, and even though he was only sixteen- less than a year younger than herself- he looked much older and sadder. But the part that he'd worried about seemed to be over. He took a deep breath, and tried for another confident Leo-smile, which he managed so perfectly that Reyna had to wonder how many times he'd slipped behind a mask like that, and no one had ever noticed.
"So, what did you want to talk to me about belleza?" He asked, his tone sporting again. Reyna blinked.
"I wanted to hear how you're doing," she said. As soon as she said it, she realized it was the truth. That was what she wanted to know. Leo's smile widened into a real one.
"Well, that would be a long story, my dear," he began, and Reyna knew that she had asked for it.
They walked through the town, Leo talking about insignificant details, and places he'd been in the city ("The food at that place is horrible." "The lady in the apartment above me has the loudest freaking dog you'll ever hear.") Reyna got the idea that he was enjoying himself more than he'd like to admit. And that was fine. She was there. She had been right. Three months of guilt lifted off her chest.
Eventually, Leo's chatted died down. Trudging through the snow seemed more of a chore, and Reyna's breath steamed in the air. It was getting colder. Of course, Reyna was pretty sure Leo didn't get cold, but that was beside the point. It meant that soon, Reyna would have to get going, to be out before nightfall. They both realized this, but neither of them called on it. They just continued to walk in silence.
"How is everyone?" Leo finally asked.
"Worried," Reyna said truthfully. "At least Camp Half-Blood is. Especially Piper. She's been a wreck."
Leo wiggled an eyebrow. "All da ladies love Leo," he reminded her.
"Right, I'd forgotten." Reyna looked at their feet moving in tune with each other. She wondered how that had happened. She was used to walking faster than everybody else. But Leo kept pace pretty well.
"I miss you too, you know," she said quietly.
"That's what you said," he responded. "I still don't get why."
"You were always by yourself," she said. "But you managed to act like you were happy. And I knew that if you could do it, I could. If you could stand being alone, then so could I. Then you were gone…and I had to fight for my own ground again." She paused, not sure whether to continue or not. "It was hard."
"When I got here," Leo said. "All I could think was that everyone had somewhere to be, something to do, except me, just like at Camp. After a while, it started seeming natural."
"Then why didn't you go?" Reyna questioned, almost harshly. "Why didn't you leave here and try again somewhere else?"
Leo hunched his shoulders. "I don't know," he said. "I felt like I had to stay. I felt like I was waiting for something. I might've. I still might."
"Piper says all you ever do is run," Reyna commented.
Leo went rigid. "She does not."
"Well that's what it sounded like to me. Typical. You would be one to have a temper tantrum and just run when things get hard."
"I do not have temper tantrums." Leo's voice was rising again, as was Reyna's.
"Well that's what it seems like to me. Just running off into the blue. What if the police found you? What if you'd been hurt or killed? No one knew where you were. No one knew where to find you!"
"You did!" Leo shot back. "You knew. You always knew. Enough of this 'wild guess' crap. You knew where I was because I told you! And you were scared."
"Of what?" she prodded. "What am I scared of, Leo Valdez?"
"That you would come all this way to find me, and discover that I didn't miss any of you. And that I wasn't coming back."
There was silence. They weren't walking anymore. Their breaths pooled together in white mist
"You're going to come back." Reyna didn't phrase it as a question.
"I know," Leo answered. "Just not yet."
Reyna turned away from him. "People are missing you, Leo. Piper misses you. Jason misses you. We cared about you. You can't make people keep waiting on you while you sit feeling sorry for yourself on the other side of the country. That's not fair."
He whirled on her. "Fair?" he asked. "Since when was my life fair? Nothing has ever been easy. Nothing has ever been permanent. Nothing about life is fair, Reyna!"
"You think I don't know that?" the praetor snapped. "You think I don't know what it's like to have your everything ripped away from you? You think I don't know what it's like to keep waiting for that light at the end of the tunnel but it never comes?"
They had a momentary staring contest, but Leo looked away first.
"You don't know anything about me."
"I bet I do," she challenged.
"Then why do you stay?" he replied. "If you're like me, why do you stay with the Legion? Why don't you run away like I did?" His expression had a madman glint to it, like the villain in a movie saying, Join Me.
The question caught Reyna, but she refused to stammer. She pushed forward.
"I think about leaving," she stated, her voice strong "But I don't do it. People might not miss me, but they need me. I do so much for them, that if I left, so many things would fall apart. Even if they don't care about me, I care about them, and I would never destroy them like that." She made Leo meet her eyes. "Your friends need you."
Leo's hand caught fire. He didn't try to extinguish it, he just let it burn, lighting their faces and warming the air between them. His smile had long since faded, and there was a ghostly anger to his face like he was trying not to listen but the words were already starting to sink in.
"Not today," he said. "I'm not leaving today."
"No," she said. "That would get me in trouble too." Reyna tried to keep her tone light.
"Still a rule follower, I see," Leo retorted.
"Still a rule breaker, I see."
"Some rules were made to be broken. Like, did you know it's required by law to drink milk in Utah?"
"Let me guess, you don't drink milk."
"Not one sip," he said proudly.
Reyna shook her head, and began to walk away. Then she turned and said "If I don't see you in a month, I'll start telling people where you are."
Leo's smile faded. "They'll blame you."
"Probably," she said pleasantly, getting her conversation back on track.
"You can't do that."
"Watch me. I believe this is one of those pesky things people call 'deadlines'."
"You can't tell people where I am."
Anger roared in her ears. "I can and I will," she snapped. " Why don't you get it? You're hurting other people. You're hurting yourself! Me letting you hide away here is not helping the problem. If you aren't going to solve your own problems, then by the gods I'll do it for you! People miss you and you miss them and don't pretend like you don't know it!" Her voice was rising. She tried to remain calm. The sun was even lower in the sky, and just like the fading light, her patience was running thin.
"I hate knowing how to fix a problem and then not fixing it," she said.
"So I'm a problem?" His tone was accusatory and sarcastic.
"We both are," she said. "If I can't fix myself, I'll fix you. We can do this the hard way, or the easy way."
Leo looked at her carefully, like she might be lying. Then he walked over and stood right in front of her.
"Why?" he asked. "My friends will hate you. They probably have some word for people who keep secrets, and that's what you'll be. Why would you do that?"
She looked him straight in the eyes.
"Because no one else will," she said simply. "And someone like you deserves to be saved."
Then she walked away, leaving Leo on a twilight corner in Utah, feeling less than confident, with Leo's words echoing in her head. Why don't you run? She knew that if she looked back, she might just change her mind.