I didn't die, if that's what you were thinking. I noticed him pulling the string back and as soon as it reached his cheek, I let myself fall backwards. It was the perfect moment so that when he shot the arrow, it sailed right over my head. From the boat, it still looked like I'd been shot. I clapped myself on the back for my superior acting skills.
"JASE!" Somebody yelled. I threw up a little water cannon to let the others know I was alright, but not to alert Sciron.
"Great. Now that that's taken care of, who wants to go first?"
I peaked over the edge of the boat. Sciron had taken out a large fisherman's knife. Charlie made eye contact with Jonathan and swallowed nervously.
"Please, kill me first! I cannot stand to live in such fear any longer! To see what you will do put the fear of god in me. Your almighty ways scare me, I must die before it gets any worse!" he dramatically pleaded. It was obvious he was playing, but what was his angle? Sciron smirked and beckoned him forward. I was just about to jump onto the deck, but apparently Charlie had other plans. He burst into fire the second Sciron grabbed him.
The evil demigod screamed in anguish and ran around the ship. I hauled myself on board and he spotted me. His screams of pain turned into ones of anger and he ran towards me. As he was trying to tackle me, Nico stuck his foot out. Sciron simply tripped and fell over the edge of the boat. It was a funny sight, really. In an ironic twist, his screams were stopped when he landed in the open mouth of his giant island turtle. Again.
"No!" he shouted. "Noooo!"
Casey ran up to me and slapped me in the face, then she gave me a hug. "You brainatic idiot! Do you know how worried we were?"
I did, but I only shrugged. "Sorry Cas, I just needed to clear my head." Her gaze softened. "Where are the kids?" I asked.
She stuck her thumb towards the cabins. "Oscar's in a supply closet with Will, Adora's hiding under her bed. I'm getting her now. We should reach Greece by the end of the day according to Charlie's calculations, so get ready. We don't have a plan yet, and we're going to need your help to make one."
I nodded as she headed off. Charlie walked past me and I grabbed his arm. "Charlie, that was really brave of you," I said.
Charlie smiled, "Like father like son, right?"
It was still early. Besides the Sciron incident, the day was pretty quiet. Charlie spent most of his time fixing the rest of the ship. I went back to my room and played with the kids for the day, taking a few breaks to check in with Charlie. Adora really missed our parents so I played games with her to try and keep her mind off of their disappearance. While the kids were napping, I went over Mom's documents on their last travel to the Doors of Death. I still didn't find anything helpful. That night I fell asleep at my desk. Oscar was on my bed and Jonathan must have come in later that night and tucked him in but he didn't wake me up. I'd gotten so little sleep the past few days, I needed the rest.
The next morning, I woke up late and groggy. I hadn't had any dreams the night before, thankfully. Casey knocked on the door twice before walking in. "Jase, can you come to the conference room? We're going to try and make a plan," she asked.
I yawned and rubbed my eyes. "Yeah, I'll be there in a minute. Have you seen my glasses?" I shuffled around a few papers and looked for my glasses. Casey raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms. "They're on my head, aren't they?"
She only nodded. I sighed and put them on. I stood up and walked to the conference room, not even bothering to put on my shoes.
"You're a mess," Katrina said
I rolled my eyes and sat down between Adora and Jonathan. Casey took Oscar who was gurgling on his teething toy. I noted that Charlie was gone and assumed he was still down in the engine room.
"Like I was saying, the cracks have got to be somewhere that it's been opened before, but there was more than one crack last time. There's the doors, but there was also the one that Percy and Annabeth…" Nico trailed off.
"I told Charlie to head to the doors, that's where most of the monsters got out last time," I changed the subject.
"Should we split up? One group go to the doors and the other group go there?" Katrina asked.
Jonathan shook his head to oppose his twin. "We've already seen how powerful these things are. I think we'd better stick together if want to have any chance at beating them."
I nodded in agreement and said, "Jon's right. The only times we've split up we've been attacked. Especially if we expect to be attacked, we're stronger together."
"I know, but if they're not at the doors of death then we have to travel all the way to where you parents fell in. Do we really have enough time for that?" Katrina asked. "And we're not even sure they're at either of those places."
"We won't do then any good if we're dead," I countered.
"I could go."
We all looked to Nico. He was twisted the skull ring around his finger, something he only did when he was stressed or nervous. Will raised his eyebrows and leaned forward.
"What?" he asked.
Nico shrugged and avoided his eyes. "I could go and check it out, see where they are," he answered.
Will scoffed, "No you can't."
"I have enough power to get there and back with a break or two," Nico was cut off by Will's glare.
"No, you cannot. I don't care if you have enough power to get there. These monsters were able to take the most powerful demigods in history, you're not walking straight to them," Will said.
Nico shook his head. "I'm not walking straight anywhere." Then he seemed to realize he's made his joke out loud. "I'm just going to see if they're there. Plus, we don't have any other ideas, do we?"
"Nico, we'll come up with something else. We need to there when we fight, if you are captured you can't do that. It's too dangerous. We'll figure something out, we've still got awhile until we reach Greece," I said, not leaving any room for argument. I don't care what he said, we weren't losing Nico too.
We didn't get a chance to continue the conversation. Like usual, something happened.
