To say I was mad would be a vast understatement. My family was in trouble and I had limited time to find them alive (I refuse to think they're dead) and this stupid god wants us to find his wine goblet? I get it, Dionysus didn't love my dad, but how many years did he spend at Camp? How did he care so little about them? I could feel the concerned looks of the others being sent in my direction. I was fine. Our parents were the ones we should be worried about. Why wasn't anybody else angry about this?
"Jase, what are you doing?" Kat asked as she approached me. I shrugged. I wasn't going anything. She set her hand on mine and I felt my muscles relax. I hadn't realized how tense I was. My fists were clenched so hard that my knuckles had turned white. My glasses had slipped down my nose but I was too angry to push them back up so I looked like a deadly angry librarian. A great look, really.
"I don't understand why we have to do this stupid side quest for Dionysus. What we need to do is find the Seven! Where does he even expect us to start this stupid thing?"
Will was right. I needed a break. At this point, I just wanted to go home and go to sleep. If this had never happened, then I'd be at Camp, training with my friends and going back to being lazy and carefree. The least stressed I ever am is when I'm at Camp Half-Blood. We were protected there. Nothing could get to us at Camp.
I was wrong about that.
Dad was only at Camp for a couple hours when he was taken and Mom hadn't been there for a full ten minutes when she disappeared. How had the kidnappers even gotten to Camp? And how in Hades did nobody notice revenge-stricken monsters taking any of the Seven? They took Leo straight from the ship we were on right now, which means they could get any of us. Was anywhere safe? I almost wished I would be kidnapped too so I could just be taken straight to my family and figure this out. I wanted to be in control, and right now I had no control. I had nothing. I wasn't even sure where we were going. We were basically just heading towards Greek, where the monsters of Tartarus would most likely be. The Doors of Death, where they were last defeated. Even though the doors no longer worked, we knew that monsters were big on revenge so their take-down would most likely be where they had previously been beaten. Problem: we didn't know where the doors were. Last time the seven found them, nobody was really anxious to get the information down. They were mostly just too busy being thankful to be alive and trying to stop the Camps from going to war and trying to stop Gaea from killing everybody. And I didn't have time because now we had to go on some stupid side-quest for Dionysus.
How did Mom and Dad usually start these things? Usually, the gods at least gave them somewhere to start. All Mr. D had said was that he had lost his goblet because he pissed off Aphro-wait, Aphrodite! That's it!
"Jonathan! Kat!" I turned around so quickly that Casey nearly jumped from her socks. The Grace twins looked nearly alarmed as my sister but they approached me. Adora was staring at me as if I was an alien. I didn't usually yell so I guess my outburst had rattled her. I wanted to apologize, but we had more pressing matters.
I took a deep breath to momentarily calm myself before I told the others my plan. "I need you guys to pray to your grandmother and try to get her down her. Ask her for a makeover or something, just tell her whatever you have to to get her down here," I said. Jonatan quickly nodded, taking Kat's wrist and dragging her away before she had a chance to protest.
"Everybody else, I don't know. Just, try and get some rest."
Casey and Will left with Adora, whispering amongst themselves. I turned around and walked to the bow of the ship, looking over the edge at the endless span of water below us. Max appeared next to me. I knew he wanted to help but I really just wanted to be alone.
"Max, you should get some rest," I said. He ignored me.
"You know, the gods sometimes do things that aren't great, but we still need to respect them. If you start thinking like you are now, bad things happen,"
I didn't let him finish. "Really, Max. You should get some rest," I said, straining to sound polite but unable to hide the hard edge in my voice. He looked hurt. Part of me wanted to apologize, but a larger part of me was busy disagreeing with him. I didn't say anything as he left.
I knew what happened when people like me started thinking like this. When a demigod started to doubt the gods. The result is something along the lines Luke Castellan. But that wasn't going to be me. I wasn't like that. Just because I disagreed doesn't mean I wanted to overthrow Olympus.
I wanted so badly just to jump over the side of the ship and sink into the water. I needed some sense of calming and the water usually provided that. But there was too much work to do. I still had to go through all my mom's journals and see if she recorded anything about the location of the door of death. I had spent nearly 20 drachmas on Iris messages already and it wasn't getting me anywhere but I was going to keep trying, just in case.
(Time skip)
"Oh, Jason Jackson!" Aphrodite sang, flirting her way towards me. I assumed her appearance meant that the twins had succeeded in their task. I was still alone on the deck so I slowly turned around and leaned against the railing.
"Aphrodite," I greeted her dryly. She raised her eyebrows in a somehow ladylike way.
"What seems to be the problem? I don't remember being on bad terms with you last time we spoke," she said.
Last time we spoke? Last time we spoke was when she appeared at our house in the middle of the day in tears because I was too busy to go to my first high school dance. I didn't go to the dance because I was fighting a giant, just in case that wasn't clear.
"As you may know, Dionysus has sent us on a side quest while we're trying to find-"
"Oh, how atrocious! I couldn't imagine why anybody would send you on a quest while you're doing something so important!" she cried, flailing her arms and caressing my cheek. I pulled away from her perfume ridden body.
"He's sending us on this quest because you got angry at him and hid his wine goblet. He wants us to find it."
She looked appalled. Well, not really, but she was sure trying. Aphrodite was wearing a long white elegant robe that didn't leave much to the imagination. Her hair was gingery silver, a color I'm quite sure how to describe. I didn't really know why people say she appears as what you find most attractive because I was most certainly not attracted to her. Her curves were just body parts to me and nothing about her made me swoon. She was used to having boys and girls and whoever else drooling all over her but I think she got annoyed when people like me didn't. I have a theory about this. You see, I don't think Aphrodite appears as what you find most attractive, I think she appears as whatever she thinks you find most attractive. Every time I saw her she looked different. Don't get me wrong, it's not like she wasn't pretty. I mean, she's Aphrodite; she's beautiful. But she's not what I picture when I think of who I want to be with. Actually, I don't know either. I've kind of just assumed that I'm not going to make it to that point in my life so why bother? Basically, I didn't find Aphrodite attractive because of my lack of plans for the future. Some theory, huh?
"Of all mortals he could have chosen for this task! I just don't understand how-."
"Just tell me where the glass is," I sighed. I added a quick, "Please," in afterthought. Aphrodite sighed dramatically.
"I don't know! I just kind of tossed it somewhere over Orlando!" She exclaimed.
"Orlando, Florida?!"
She nodded. "
You threw a goblet into Orlando, Florida." We were never going to find this goblet.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?" I asked after she nodded in confirmation. My patience was running thin.
"Umm," She raised a finger to her mouth as if in thought. I'll take that as a no.
"Ok, then I've got a lot of work to do. Excuse me." I stormed past her and back into the main full.
"Nico! Change course for Florida," I called into the control room.
"That's in the opposite direction!" Nico groaned. He was going to say something else but paused when he saw me.
"Jase, you look like you're about to kill somebody," he said. I felt like it too.
"I want to run them through-,"
"I know. I agree. But you have to be careful how you talk about the gods, Jase. They're always somebody listening," he warned. He knew I was talking about the gods. This made my blood boil.
"Or really? So somebody was listening when my dad was fighting for his life within the borders of Camp Half-Blood? A place where he should be safe? Was there somebody listening when Olympus's greatest heroes were kidnapped by monsters from Tartarus? Or maybe they just didn't care! Oh, who cares that my parents saved their asses from downfall multiple times or faced and defeated entities that even the gods were too scared to look in the eye? Who was listening then?!" I yelled towards the sky. The sky didn't answer me. Nico did.
"Nobody ever said the gods were fair, Jackson."
Well isn't that an understatement. I was only getting angrier. I knew I needed to calm down, so I turned on my heel and left. It was just so unfair. After everything they'd done, this is how the gods repay them. As each day passed I grew more and more certain that they were dead, but I also knew that whatever monster that had done it would probably be bragging if that were the case. So why were they keeping them alive? I didn't stop to ponder the thought, I was more consumed with being grateful that they weren't dead.
(Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I update daily so come back around about this time tomorrow if you want to read more: :) )