𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

i ━━ down bad, waving at the ship

03. chapter one

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

WHEN I SPILLED MY GUTS OUT TO THE crew, they were surprised, but fortunately not angry.

them learning that i had recently been at camp jupiter brought them an unexpected sense of comfort.

when i told annabeth that i had spoken to percy and told them that we were coming to get him, she hugged me so tightly she nearly squeezed my internal organs into soup.

now, we had a revised plan, a backup plan, and a backup plan for that backup plan. our white peace flag was flying from the mast and the ballistae were locked down. there was no possible way the romans could think we were coming to attack.

everything seemed to be in order. i was also feeling much better and airy now that the crew knew my secret.

even coach hedge was calm and quiet since annabeth had encouraged him to take the morning off and watch reruns of mixed martial arts championships.

the warship descended through the clouds, but i couldn't stop second-guessing myself. what if this was a bad idea? what if the romans panicked and attacked us on sight?

i knew the romans weren't particularly fond of me as a child of an underworld deity. but surely when they saw jason and i's familiar faces, they wouldn't attack, right?

the argo II definitely did not look friendly. two hundred feet long, with a bronze-plated hull, mounted repeating crossbows fore and aft, a flaming metal dragon for a figurehead, and two rotating ballistae amidships that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete... well, it wasn't the most appropriate ride for a meet-and-greet with the neighbors.

annabeth asked leo to send one of his special inventions—a holographic scroll—to alert our friends inside the camp. hopefully the message had gotten through. leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull—WASSUP? with a smiley face—but annabeth vetoed the idea. i appreciated leo's sense of humor, but we weren't to sure the romans would.

too late to turn back now.

the clouds broke around our hull, revealing the gold-and-green carpet of the oakland hills below us.

we took our places.

on the stern quarterdeck, leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and wrestling levers. most helmsmen would've been satisfied with a pilot's wheel or a tiller. leo had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls from a learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from a nintendo wii. he could turn the ship by pulling on the throttle, fire weapons by pulling on the throttle, fire weapons by sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his wii controllers really fast. even by demigod standards, leo was seriously ADHD.

piper paced back and forth between the mainmast and the ballistae, practicing her lines.

"lower your weapons," she murmured. "we just want to talk."

her charmspeak was so powerful, the words flowed over me, filling me with the desire to drop her knife, bow, and quiver and have a nice long chat.

for a child of aphrodite, piper tried hard to play down her beauty. today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn-out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink hello kitty designs. (maybe as a joke, though i could never be sure with piper.) her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle's feather.