TERRIFIED . . . annabeth chase

sixty four.

LEO DID NOT come out of the wall.

Which was very inconvenient to Val, who had to get him to the mess hall since she was already standing up. Naturally.

"Leo!" Val called behind him. "We need you."

Leo sighed. "Talk to the pants, Val! 'Cause the hands are busy!"

"I am not talking to the pants. Meeting in the mess hall. We're almost at Olympia. That's what Annabeth says."

"Yeah, fine. I'll be there in a sec."

"What are you doing, anyway? You've been poking around inside the hull for days. It woke me up this morning."

Leo didn't respond for a while. "Sorry, Valentine. I'm doing routine maintenance."

By now, Val knew when he was lying. "Leo –"

"Hey, while you're out there, do me a favor. I got this itch right below my –"

"Fine, I'm leaving!"

Val left and staggered into the Mess Hall, collapsing in her seat and sighing in relief, her arm darting out in front of her to grab a cup of coffee. Finally.

In front of her, Percy was eating a huge stack of blue pancakes while Annabeth chided him for pouring on too much syrup.

"You're drowning them!" she complained.

"Hey, I'm a Poseidon kid," he said. "I can't drown. And neither can my pancakes."

Annabeth looked over at Val when she sat down. Questioning.

"I'm fine," Val mumbled, taking a sip of coffee and letting out a delighted noise at the amazing liquid. "Leo's coming soon, by the way."

To her left, Frank and Hazel used their cereal bowls to flatten out a map of Greece. They looked over it, their heads close together. Every once in a while Frank's hand would cover Hazel's, just sweet and natural like they were an old married couple, and Hazel didn't even look flustered, which was real progress for a girl from the 1940s. Until recently, if somebody said gosh darn, she would nearly faint.

At the head of the table, Jason sat uncomfortably with his T-shirt rolled up to his ribcage as Nurse Piper changed his bandages.

"Hold still," she said. "I know it hurts."

"It's just cold," he said.

Val could hear the pain in his voice. That gladius blade had pierced him all the way through. The entrance wound on his back was an ugly shade of purple and it steamed. Probably not a good sign.

"What's up, guys?" Just then, Leo strolled into the mess hall. "Aw, yes to brownies!"

He grabbed the last one – from a special sea-salt recipe they'd picked up from a fish centaur at the bottom of the Atlantic. Supposedly. Val didn't know, but she baked them often, which was a relaxing experience.

The intercom crackled. Buford's Mini-Hedge yelled over the speakers, "PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"

Everyone jumped. Hazel ended up five feet away from Frank. Percy spilled syrup in his orange juice. Jason awkwardly wriggled back into his T-shirt, and Frank turned into a bulldog.

Piper glared at Leo. "I thought you were getting rid of that stupid hologram."

"Hey, Buford's just saying good morning. He loves his hologram! Besides, we all miss the coach. And Frank makes a cute bulldog."

Frank morphed back into a burly, grumpy Chinese Canadian dude. "Just sit down, Leo. We've got stuff to talk about."

Leo squeezed in between Val and Hazel.

"So . . ." Jason winced as he leaned forward. "We're going to stay airborne and drop anchor as close as we can to Olympia. It's further inland than I'd like – about five miles – but we don't have much choice. According to Juno, we have to find the goddess of victory and, um . . . subdue her."