It was a Sunday and Leo had persuaded his friends to come out for a day. They did- on one condition… they could bring their girls. Louisa, sadly, was unavailable that day. Annabeth claimed she had gone out in the early hours of the morning, earlier than usual, and she had no idea where.

"She'll be back later, I suppose. She normally is." Annabeth smiled.

"OK." Leo said, vowing to not let it bug him that they all had girls with them while his one was AWOL. It wasn't easy though, seeing as the girls had most of their attention all day. Leo understood- they were eighteen year old guys that had only been in the presence of girls for a few days, maybe less. Of course they were going to get distracted by that lot. Leo's distraction was a little robot person he was making. It was going to walk and wave its arms around and hopefully saw a few curses once he was finished with it. Or he could programme it to hold normal conversations with people, offering natural responses. That would be cool.

"Leo?"

"Huh?" He replied brilliantly.

"What are you doing?" Hazel asked. Leo looked at the half man he held in his hands and explained his idea. The girls seemed amazed. "I make stuff." Leo finished.

"He's pretty good. Remember that car you made when we were eight?" Leo grinned.

"The remote controlled one?" Jason nodded, smiling. "Dude, that was awesome. Shame it broke."

"Sorry." Nico said, very unapologetic. The guys chuckled while the girls smiled. "It was cool, admittedly. You should make another one."

"Aw, Nico want a kiddy toy?" Leo teased.

"Shut it, Curls." Leo stuck his tongue out childishly.

"What did that car do then?" Piper asked.

"It did flips, jumps, hovered over water and flew a couple of feet off the ground."

"And it had fire on the side." Leo added.

"Oh, that bloody fire paint. You were obsessed with fire."

"Still am." Leo replied easily, spreading his hands. The girls looked worried and he smiled devilishly.

"Uh, Leo…" Frank pointed. "Penguin…" They all looked round. Louisa was leaning against a building ten metres away, doubled over with an arm around her ribs. "She's hurt."

"Lou!" Annabeth called. The other girls took up the shout and they all ran for Louisa. The boys followed. "Lou!" Louisa glanced up. Blood was running down the side of her face from a gash under her fringe. Her lip was bleeding and there was a three claw mark on her neck. "Lou, what happened?" Annabeth asked, holding Louisa's head in her hands to study Louisa's tired emerald eyes desperately. There were bruises and gashes along Louisa's arms, dried blood and mud staining her clothes.

Annabeth and Reyna put Louisa's arms around their shoulders and helped her walk. The boys, Hazel and Piper made people move out of the way. Annabeth was quizzing Louisa on what had happened and why she was injured and how did she get those injuries, but Louisa remained mute, staring at her with blank eyes.

"Lou… was it those things that… that… that attacked J- her?" Louisa showed emotion then, pain flaring in her eyes like a wooden house bursting into flames, crumbling to ashes in matter of minutes.

"What things?" Leo asked. No-one answered him. Instead, he studied Louisa, noticing the agony her eyes had become, eyes that were cheeky and happy a few days ago, when Leo last saw her. Where had she been? What things had taken J-, whoever that was? And what had happened?

Leo wasn't going to get those questions answered any time soon.