Daughter of Wine

Callida

My heart feels heavy, but I try not to let it show. My friends have already readied the ship for our supersonic journey.

Zeus grows to a hundred feet tall, and I try not to think about how big his feet must be and how many buildings he must be crushing beneath them. He booms, HOLD ON!

Then he tosses the ship up and spikes it overhand like a volleyball.

If I wasn't strapped to the control console with one of Leo's twenty-point safety harnesses, I probably would disintegrate. Either way, my stomach tries to stay behind in Greece and all the air gets sucked out of my lungs.

The sky turns black. The ship rattles and creaks. The deck cracks like ice, and with a sonic boom, the Argo II hurtles out of the clouds.

"Jason!" Leo shouts from beside me. "Hurry!"

Jason fumbles as he removes his safety straps.

Leo and I are lashed to the control console, desperately trying to right the ship as we spiral downwards in free fall. The sails are on fire. Festus creaks in alarm. A catapult peels away and lifts into the air. Centrifugal force sends the shields flying off the railings like metal Frisbees.

Wider cracks open in the deck as Jason staggers toward the hull, using the winds to keep himself anchored.

Then the hatch bursts open. Frank and Hazel stumble through, pulling on the guide rope they attached to the mast. Piper, Annabeth, and Percy follow, all of them looking disoriented.

"Go!" Leo yells."Go, go, go!"

For once, his tone is deadly serious.

We talked through our evacuation plan, but that slap across the world seems to have made everyone's minds sluggish.

"Get it together!" I try, throwing my voice as loudly as I can. "Let's go!"

That seems to help a little, but it's Buford that really saves us. He clatters across the deck with his holographic Hedge blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"

Then his tabletop splits into helicopter blades and Buford buzzes away.

Frank changes form. Instead of a dazed demigod, he's a dazed gray dragon. Hazel climbs onto his neck. Frank grabs Percy and Annabeth in his front claws, then spreads his wings and soars away.

Jason holds Piper by the waist, ready to fly.

"Callli!" he yells. "Get Leo!"

"Sir, yes sir!" I salute, and he nods. He takes one last look at our splintering ship, and he shoots into the sky.

"Leo, come on!" I grab his arm, but he shakes his head.

"You go." He says. "I have a plan."

"A plan to get smashed to bits?" I have to yell over the wind.

"Come on, let me have a cool entrance for once." He looks so serious, so different from his usual self, that I believe him.

"You sure?" I glance at the quickly approaching ground.

"Trust me, mamasita."

Then, he grabs me, kissing me with so much force, so much passion, I feel like the wind has been knocked out of my lungs again. I feel like I lift out of my body. I see Leo and I, standing on the deck of a flaming ship falling out of the sky, locked in the best kiss of my life. It's ridiculously romantic.

When he pulls away, he looks incredibly sad, but determined, "Go."

"Not without you." I manage to speak.