Breaking Facade

Chapter 5

He wasn't expecting to find his entire cabin staring at him.

Some time during the night, Leo had fallen asleep in the bunker. He was slumped against the hydraulic lift with an unfinished toy in his hands. His neck felt stiff and when he tried to move it, a sharp pain shot up the side of his neck. He grimaced.

Nyssa shook her head, though she was smiling. They were more that accustom to Leo's sleeping habits, more accurately the odd places they found him in. Harley had once caught him sleeping on a workbench in the forge. Given the places he'd slept in all the times he'd run away, Leo could sleep just about anywhere.

"You missed breakfast. Again."

Leo groaned and sat up. He'd been doing that a lot. "What time is it?"

"Almost lunch time," Harley informed him.

At least he didn't miss lunch. With another groan, he stood up and rubbed his neck in a futile attempt to loosen it. "Good. I'm starving."

His siblings said nothing as he shuffled out of the bunker. A couple snickered. Nyssa just shook her head again.

Despite it being early in the morning, the camp was teeming with action. When he emerged from the woods, he was nearly rundown by a renegade chariot. He barely registered Will's apology as it thundered past him with five or six campers chasing after it. Had he not been used to the odd things that happened Camp Half-Blood, he would have been concerned instead of mildly annoyed. The further into the mess he traveled, the more chariots he noticed.

"Leo!"

He'd just stepped out of the way of the Ares cabin's chariot when Piper called out to him. She was standing by another chariot. "You look like you slept in a sewer," she wrinkled her nose.

"I fell asleep in the bunker," he muttered. His voice was still thick with sleep.

She raised her brows but said nothing on the matter. "So look what Will loaned us."

Piper motioned to the chariot. It looked exactly like the one that had taken them from the Wilderness School. "Is that...?"

She nodded. "Will said he and his siblings made a new one and they let Jason and I borrow this one for the race tonight."

Leo knit his brows. "Race?"

Unperturbed by his ignorance on the matter, Piper shrugged. "You ran off before Chiron made the announcement. Apparently there's a whole lot of stuff going on this week. Well, the chariot race was a bit sudden since someone mentioned it at dinner and everyone wanted to have it today. I think tomorrow we're going something else."

"So you and Jason are taking this one?"

She nodded again. "I thought it'd be fun to try. You know, just for the heck of it."

Leo hadn't actually taken part in the chariot races, but he had seen one. They weren't exactly the most interesting thing in the world, but he suspected it was much more entertaining when you were actually in the chariot. Entertaining and dangerous. Just his type of game. Naturally, since he was so busy with the construction of the Argo II, he hadn't had a chance to take part in most of the camp activities. Yesterday was only the second time he'd played Captured the Flag.

"Don't get maimed." He said. "I'm gonna go get lunch."

She waved goodbye and went back to preparing the chariot.

Ignoring the sinking feeling in his chest, he approached the amphitheater and plopped down at his table. Lunch and breakfast weren't nearly as monitored as dinner; which meant that Chiron wasn't present and most of the campers took advantage of that. He glanced around the pavilion. There were Hermes kids at the Apollo table, Ares kids at the Aphrodite table, and a couple of Demeter's kids were at the Hermes table. He was the only one at his table.

Or he was, until Drew sat down.

He must have made a face, because she pointed to the Aphrodite table with her fork and said, "Clarisse."

She didn't need to say anymore, still, it baffled him why she chose to sit with him. Then she smiled at him. "You entering the race, hon?"

"Uh...no." He said.

Leo could talk to just about anyone, but for some reason, when it came to Drew, he often found himself unable to speak. He was bad with people, but he was even worse when it came to her, and he wasn't exactly sure why.

Maybe it was the way she was looking at him, or the way she smiled. Maybe it was because of what happened in the infirmary last night. She seemed more...real to him now. Like there was more to her than just a pretty face and a bad attitude.

He barely held back the urge to groan. It was starting again, the inevitable cycle that always ended with Leo being rejected. She was just his type too; pretty and she could squash him like a bug - way out of his league. It was like he was stuck in a loop. And honestly, he wasn't even going to try with her. She'd eat him alive.

"Pity. That would have been interesting to watch."

He thought she was mocking him, but then she gave him a small smile and winked. Just as the day before, he didn't know how to respond. He'd like to think she was flirting with him, but even he knew that was ridiculous. There was no way she would. Was there?

"Uh huh..."

She rolled her eyes. "Such an intelligent response, Valdez."

Then she smiled again and Leo was certain he wasn't imagining it. She was flirting with him.

"Anyway," she continued, taking a tentative bite of her salad, "I want to see the ship."

"What ship?"

"The ship you're building, idiot," she replied. Leo noted that there was no malice in her tone. She wasn't insulting him, she was joking around. Weird.

"Why?"

Again, she rolled her eyes. "I'm curious? I mean you're building a massive battleship and I hear you're quite the builder."

"Quite the builder?" Leo raised a brow. "I am the builder. I can fix and build anything." He said proudly.

Drew gave him a skeptical look. "Now I really have to see this ship."

"All I've got done is the skeleton. It's not all that impressive."

"Cute and modest, huh?"

Cute? Did Drew Takana really just call him cute? He was probably blushing. She just laughed.

"So, are you going to show me the ship or not?"

He swallowed thickly. "Uh...sure. If you want."

"Good. Tonight after dinner. I'll meet you by the woods."

With that, she grabbed her plate and left the pavilion. For a long moment, Leo simply stared at where she'd been, trying to process what had just happened. He was tempted to ask someone, but the only person he could think of was Piper, and Piper would not be happy to hear about it. Especially if she knew how his heart was racing right now.

It almost sounded...like a date? But that was impossible. He was jumping to conclusions. She just wanted to see the ship. Nothing more, nothing less.

Still, the idea wouldn't leave him alone.

A horn sounded in the distance. Everyone in the pavilion started shuffling towards the race track. The races were about to start.

Drew couldn't help but smile as she took her seat on the stone steps situated around the track. Her plan was working, and that had really boosted her mood. Granted, she had to change her tactics a bit, but that didn't matter - just stroke his ego and bat her eyelashes and she was golden.

Out on the track, the participants had lined up. Some of the cabins had teamed up but most of them raced on their own. There were fifteen chariots total. Over the summer,the track had been widened to allow for more racers, but even then there was still a limit to how many could participate, not to mention a lot of the cabins didn't bother.

Her cabin had teamed up with the Zeus cabin, unsurprisingly. She at least hoped Piper had traded privileges with Jason, but she doubted she did. Piper probably didn't even care.

Drew rolled her eyes and examined her nails. The ambrosia squares she'd eaten the day before healed her wounds, but they didn't repair her the three broken nails she'd gotten. It was unfortunate, but she'd have to deal. She could cover them with acrylics, but she'd learned the hard way that acrylic nails and demigods were not a good mix. She'd have more that just a broken nail if she did that.

She pulled her compact from her pocket and examined her reflection. Perfect, as usual. Then she angled her mirror and caught sight of Clarisse. She was being rowdy as usual, screaming and cheering on her siblings who were currently in the lead. Drew wrinkled her nose. She always thought Clarisse looked like a pig; it wasn't difficult to imagine her hollering as a series of grunts and squeals.

Then she angled her mirror again, this time focusing on Leo.

He wasn't watching the race. His attention was on the contraption in his hands. He connected wires and added pieces like it was nothing, like a puzzle he'd done a million times over. She'd never voice the thought, but she was always secretly impressed with how children of Hephaestus could make just about anything with little effort. People took them seriously. Her and her siblings, not so much. While she didn't deny the fact that most of them were shallow and vain (she was very well aware of the fact that she was a living example of that idea), it just made it harder to gain acclaim for anything. It always seemed to surprise people when she was smart or able to fight.

It was like her and her siblings' worth was gauged by how pretty they were.

She rolled her eyes.

She wasn't sure why she continued to watch the scrawny son of Hephaestus. There was nothing physically eye catching about him, aside from that mischievous smile of his, and she found that more unnerving than endearing. It was the kind of look one would see plastered on the face of a Hermes camper who'd just stolen your wallet. His hair was an absolute disaster. She suspected it hadn't been brushed in a week, maybe more. And she didn't even want to get into his state of dress. He easily looked like he'd been sleeping in a dumpster.

No wonder he and Piper were so close.

She thought that may have been a bit too harsh on her part; as much as she disliked his appearance and found him extremely annoying, he seemed to be the only one who didn't sneer or bolt whenever she came around.

Examining him a bit more thoroughly, she concluded he wouldn't be all that bad if he cleaned up. He might not be Jason Grace gorgeous, but he was certainly a bit more attractive than his siblings and most of the Ares cabin as a whole.

He held up the finished creation, gave it a look of appraisal, scowled, and tossed it over his shoulder. To her, it looked perfect, but he must have found some sort of flaw in it's design.

A chorus of cheering tore her attention away from the compact. There were only three chariots left in the race. Piper and Jason were neck and neck with the Ares cabin's chariot, but a sudden bolt of lightning that struck the track right in front of them put an end to that. The Ares chariot toppled over and Jason and Piper crossed the finish line, eliciting another series of cheers from the crowd.

She was just happy that the Ares cabin didn't win.

Their egos would be suffering even more. Not only did they lose yesterday, two of their best fighters downed by an Aphrodite girl, they just got beaten again by another member of her cabin. She almost wanted to gloat, but she did not want to test Clarisse's patience, especially when all of her siblings were there to back her up. She'd barely managed to survive yesterday.

She sat on the steps, watching as her siblings hoisted both Piper and Jason onto their shoulders. She resisted the urge to gag when Jason leaned over and kissed her. How Jason Grace found that attractive, she would never know. With a heavy sigh, she snapped her compact closed and followed the crowd as everyone filed out of the coliseum.

Instead of heading to the pavilion for dinner, she slipped over to her cabin. She changed her clothes, discarding her camp shirt in favor of something a bit more flattering. After she had successfully chosen her outfit, she ran a brush through her hair and created a scenario in her mind.

She hadn't bothered much with her appearance; it wasn't Jason Grace who she was trying to get. She'd given up on him nearly a month before. It was evident that Piper had him hooked and he wasn't about to leave her anytime soon. Then again, this whole plan wasn't about Jason Grace, it was about getting the revenge she deserved. Besides, if she attempted to break apart Piper and Jason, it'd only make her look worse, and that was the exact opposite of what her aim was. Piper was the one who needed to look bad and if Valdez's heart was in pieces by the end, then so be it.