the_blood_of_olympus_-_rick_riordan

xxv
Jason
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!’
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. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’
‘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 and a half, 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!
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. He’d spent enough time nursing the
wound in his gut. Either it would kill him or it wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to wait around for the
wound to decide. He had to help his friends.
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.