78. Wish
It's funny how when life starts to go wrong people get greedy.
Like now, Reyna is standing there, frozen with shock, unable to move or form whole thoughts, staring at her surroundings.
Everything around her is breaking.
She's begging for something, for many things, pleading in her mind, please, please, please, and it's not working.
She's watching, incapable of anything, as Leo is stabbed in front of her eyes.
Gaea stands over him, a wicked pure green sword that emanates evil, powerful sickly sweet smelling magic, held in her hand.
Of course it's not pure green anymore because there's a steady stream of dripping scarlet blood falling from its point onto the ground.
"There." Gaea's voice is like raging rapids, washing over Reyna, filling her mind, drowning out anything else that may be going on around her.
Like Piper's broken scream or Percy's roar of anger. Frank's choked cry and Jason, stumbling back, his arms hanging at his sides, a look of absolute horror on his face. Or the fact that Leo had told her earlier that he was the only one who knew how to take Gaea down.
And now he was-
"That's one down," Gaea's voice is satisfied but calm as she surveys the demigods standing in a half ring before her. "Six more to go?"
And its' the fact that she doesn't even acknowledge that Reyna is standing right there, having just watched Leo's life leave his body, or Nico or the faun Grover and Tyson the cyclops. The immortal is focusing on the rest of the Seven, as if the others didn't even matter.
"You're going to die," Percy stepped forward, and for a second Reyna feels a flicker of fear because Percy looks terrifying. "If I have to spend the rest of my life making sure it happens, I will. I will kill you."
Gaea laughs and Reyna squeezes her eyes shut.
She can't get the image of Leo's body out of her mind, and she wishes, will all of her heart, that this is just a bad dream and the real fight will happen tomorrow. Or never.
"Perseus Jackson," Gaea's eyes are glinting now, she's enjoying this, and Reyna feel a sick twist in her stomach. "So powerful but so easily broken. I'm immortal, my dear, even your girlfriend should be able to tell you that you can't kill me."
Reyna can't stand it anymore. She breaks ranks- for the first time in her life- and runs to Leo, ignoring Gaea's cruel laughter as everybody watches, eyes glancing back and forth from her to Gaea.
She's not crying, but her hands are shaking, and she doesn't hear anything else that Percy and Gaea say, she feebly tries to stem the blood flow coming from Leo's chest.
And that's when she feels it.
His heartbeat. Strong and loud and constant.
"Leo?" She breathes.
He cracks his eyes open, only slightly. "Hey Rey," he says only for her to hear. "Ready to kick Mother Nature's butt?"
"You- how-?"
An empty glass vial appears when he opens his clenched hand.
Leo grins. "I guess there are such things as miracles." He grabs her hand. "Now come on. Let's kill this mother."
When Reyna pulls Leo up, only Annabeth doesn't look surprised.
Reyna supposes somebody else had to be in on whatever their plan had been.
"You," Gaea breathes when she turns around to meet Leo's eyes, and Reyna sees fear flicker in her own. "How-?"
Leo's hands light up. "Get ready to go to sleep," he replies. "It's past your bedtime."