LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . hoo

XXXIII.

MIA DECIDED THAT the world hated her. They just would not let her sleep.

She woke up to the alarm bell, rubbing her eyes slowly as she tried figuring out what happened. She was wrapped up in a blanket, rolling out of it and onto the floor. She sat there blankly until she heard the word, "Shrimpzilla!" and figured that she should probably be doing something.

She stood up, running to the stairs and bounding up them, changing her Starfury ring to Regulus on her way up. She immediately regretted doing anything, though, once she saw Shrimpzilla.

It was the length of their ship. In the moonlight, it looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, hence Shrimpzilla, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail, and millipede-type legs undulating hypnotically as the monster scraped against the hull of the Argo II.

And, god, its head — the slimy pink face of an enormous catfish with glassy dead eyes, a gaping toothless maw, and a forest of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, making the bushiest nose beard Mia had ever had the displeasure to behold.

She wished she'd stayed asleep, because what the fuck.

"How did it get so close?" Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields. Mia didn't want to know what had happened to her.

"I don't know!" Hedge snarled. He looked around for his bat, which had rolled across the quarterdeck.

"I'm stupid!" Leo scolded himself. "Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!"

The ship tilted farther to starboard. Either the monster was trying to give them a hug, or it was about to capsize them.

"Sonar?" Hedge demanded. "Pan's pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn't been staring into Hazel's eyes, holding hands for so long—"

"What?" Frank yelped.

"It wasn't like that!" Hazel protested.

"It doesn't matter!" Piper said. "Jason, can you call some lightning?"

Jason struggled to his feet. "I—" He only managed to shake his head. Summoning the storm earlier had taken too much out of him. Mia doubted the dude could pop a spark plug in the shape he was in.

"Percy!" Annabeth said. "Can you talk to that thing? Do you know what it is?"

The son of the sea god shook his head, clearly mystified. "Maybe it's just curious about the ship. Maybe—"

The monster's tendrils lashed across the deck so fast, Mia didn't even have time to yell, look out!

One slammed Percy in the chest and sent him crashing down the steps. Another wrapped around Piper's legs and dragged her, screaming, toward the rail. Dozens more tendrils curled around the masts, encircling the crossbows and ripping down the rigging.

"Nose-hair attack!" Hedge snatched up his bat and leaped into action; but his hits just bounced harmlessly off the tendrils.

Jason drew his sword. He tried to free Piper, but he was still weak. His gold blade cut through the tendrils with no problem, but faster than he could sever them, more took their place.

Annabeth unsheathed her dagger. She ran through the forest of tentacles, dodging and stabbing at whatever target she could find. Frank pulled out his bow. He fired over the side at the creature's body, lodging arrows in the chinks of its shell; but that only seemed to annoy the monster. It bellowed, and rocked the ship. The mast creaked like it might snap off.

So, naturally, Mia followed Annabeth, stabbing and slicing at every tentacle that came her way, but it really wasn't doing anything. She didn't have the braincells to improvise a plan right now.