Wildfires, Heroes of Olympus ₂

058, everyone's in the trenches

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
FINLEY                BRIGGS

Finn was too sick to go on the quest in Venice.

For an alcoholic of four to five years, it wasn't really that simple to cold-cut stop drinking wine. She was still experiencing serious tremors, sweating, headaches, nausea, weakness, and irritability. Her already-horrible sleep schedule was getting even more screwed up as well.

Finn wanted the plan in Venice to succeed, so the only way to help that happen was to step back. If she had gone, she would've been of no assistance to Annabeth, Frank, Hazel, or Nico.

She wasn't the only one staying back, which made her feel slightly better.

Coach Hedge was one of them, because he didn't want to do a "boring expedition," which ended up working out, because Leo stayed back and asked Hedge to help him in the engine room when he finished repairing the foremast. Piper wasn't going, because she was really bad with cows? (Finn wasn't sure how that correlated, but she didn't really care.)

Jason stayed back as well. Apparently, there were lots of venti in the storm that previous night. He said that he wanted to be there if they decided to attack the ship again. Finn, personally, was suspicious of the validity of that statement, but confronting Jason meant she would have to speak to him. That was the last thing she wanted to do.

Finn was never keen on admitting things aloud. One of these things was how mortifyingly embarrassed she was about everything that had happened on his birthday. Finn had hugged him. She'd taken a spear for him. She'd curled into his side like a pathetic idiot. None of that should've happened, so when she told everyone that "didn't happen," she truly meant it.

Finn couldn't be like that anymore. She couldn't trust Jason, nor could she depend on him. He'd made that vividly clear four years ago when Finn had been struggling with the weight of her life. Jason may not remember how he treated her, but it still counted. Finn still remembered. She still felt her misery all the time, as if their friendship's fallout had transpired only yesterday.

So she was trying to forget about it, just like Jason had.

The only issue was that Finn was trying to get sober. She couldn't drown her sorrows in alcohol to ignore her problems. As much as Finn really wanted to conjure wine right now, she couldn't. Every time her hands shook to use her dictukinesis, she would remind herself of three words: Percy and Sylvie.

Finn visited the training room Leo had put on the Argo II instead. She picked out a weapon, leaving her gun holstered in her thigh, and began training with it.

The weapon in her hands was something Finn wasn't used to—it was a Greek weapon. The shortsword was made of Celestial bronze instead of Imperial gold. It was short, like a Roman gladius, but the blade was curved in a way she'd never had experience with. 

Still, Finn was determined to learn how to use it.

Because there was no one with her, Finn couldn't do anything except practice with the sword against one of the two training dummies Leo had placed inside the combat arena. Considering they were nine (now seven) demigods on one ship all required to fight to survive, the son of Hephaestus figured it would be a good idea to create this kind of room; it wasn't used often, but Finn was finally grateful for its existence.