𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐇 [Jason Grace]

88

𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐛𝐞𝐝 so he could drown with the rest of the crew.

The ship was tilting so violently he had to climb the floor to get out of sickbay. The hull creaked. The engine groaned like a dying water buffalo. Cutting through the roar of the wind, the goddess Nike screamed from the stables: "YOU CAN DO BETTER, STORM! GIVE ME A HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT!"

When he had passed out, Piper and Leo had been at his side. Now he was alone. His chest hurt, the wound in his gut had felt worse after Dante ran away. Jason thought of what Juno had said. The wound touched his soul and so did Dante. Heartbreak seemed to make it worse.

Jason climbed the stairs to the middle deck. His legs shook. His head spun. The ship pitched to port, knocking him against the opposite wall.

Hazel stumbled out of her cabin, hugging her stomach. "I hate the ocean!"

When she saw him, her eyes widened. "I thought you were— In the sickbay," Whatever she was going to say originally, she covered up.

"I'm going up there!" he insisted. "I can help!"

Hazel looked like she wanted to argue. Then the ship tilted to starboard and she staggered towards the bathroom, her hand over her mouth.

Jason fought his way to the stairs. He hadn't been out of bed in a day, ever since the girls got back from Sparta and he'd unexpectedly collapsed. His muscles rebelled at the effort. His gut felt like Michael Varus was standing behind him, repeatedly stabbing him and yelling, Die like a Roman! Die like a Roman! The few moments of relief he used to have when he looked at Dante had all vanished since he hadn't seen Dante after their kiss.

Jason forced down the pain. He was tired of people taking care of him, whispering how worried they were. He was tired of dreaming about being a shish kebab and kissing boys that hated him. He'd spent enough time nursing the wound in his gut. Either it would kill him or it wouldn't.

Somehow he made it above deck.

What he saw there made him almost as nauseous as Hazel. A wave the size of a skyscraper crashed over the forward deck, washing the front crossbows and half the port railing out to sea. The sails were ripped to shreds. Lightning flashed all around, hitting the sea like spotlights. Horizontal rain blasted Jason's face. The clouds were so dark he honestly couldn't tell if it was day or night.

The crew was doing what they could... which wasn't much.

Leo had lashed himself to the console with a bungee cord harness. That might have seemed like a good idea when he rigged it up, but every time a wave hit he was washed away, then smacked back into his control board like a human paddleball.

Piper and Annabeth were trying to save the rigging. Since Sparta they'd become quite a team—able to work together without even talking, which was just as well, since they couldn't have heard each other over the storm.

Frank— at least Jason assumed it was Frank— had turned into a gorilla. He was swinging upside down off the starboard rail, using his massive strength and his flexible feet to hang on while he untangled some broken oars. Apparently the crew was trying to get the ship airborne, but, even if they managed to take off, Jason wasn't sure the sky would be any safer.

Dante was clinging onto the rails for dear life. There wasn't much he could do, and the violent sea just seemed to scare him. Jason could relate. The last time they had been in a particularly choppy sea, Dante had almost drowned.

Now, the color from his face had drained and he looked helpless. Jason had to force himself to look away, to focus somewhere else. But the thoughts of that night kept coming back to him.