Fortunate Son of the Sea God
Chapter 4: Riders on the Storm
Jason POV
"Just another average day," Jason muttered to himself as he drove his car to the airport.
Jason was a flight attendant and boy did he hate his job. He was rarely given that much vacation time and the work had gotten boring and monotonous over the past couple of months. Despite this, Jason tried to stay optimistic in the car ride. He cranked up the volume on his car's stereo. He soon recognized the words to one of his favorite songs and started humming along to the music.
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm
The song helped Jason divert his focus away from his stupid job and more on things that mattered more. The only reason he even had the job was because he was trying to gather money to aid in the search for his parents. Jason never met his true parents and had been in foster care for as long as he could remember. Once he had grown old enough, he had started searching for clues as to who exactly were his parents and where he could find them. He hadn't found much of anything besides the fact that he had a sister. He had a old, worn-out picture of her that he kept in his wallet for safe keeping.
He was told her name was Thalia by the nun at the orphanage who gave it to him and said that the picture came in a sealed envelope with Jason's name on it plus the address of the orphanage he was at. The strange thing was that there was no return address and the stamp had some Greek symbol on it or something.
Jason continued thinking about his predicament until he arrived at the airport. He parked his car in the employee-parking garage and made his way inside the airport.
It was Wednesday so the airport wasn't that busy today, most of the people Jason saw were businessmen or lone strangers who were traveling alone.
Jason noticed the anxious and excited looks on many of the travelers he passed while walking through the airport terminal, a look that Jason used to share before he became a flight attendant. Jason picked this job because he felt at ease up in the sky. He also desired a chance to be able to travel to new and exotic places. He understood that it wouldn't be the same as being a tourist but he figured it was as close as he could get. Sadly, the farthest flight that Jason had been on was to Canada. Not that Jason had anything against the country, but he had hoped for the opportunity to see other countries that didn't border the United States.
Jason let out a sigh, he continued walking down the terminal before arriving at the flight he would be serving people on. It was a round trip flight all the way to New York City and Jason couldn't be anymore less excited for it.
He had been on this flight to and from New York plenty of times and he had gotten used to taking in the sight of all the big buildings and skyscrapers.
Jason then noticed two things that caught his attention. First, Jason looked out of the big window next to the gate and saw that there were some dark and ominous clouds in the distance. Jason was surprised that they hadn't delayed the flight. The forecast must've been different from what Jason was seeing.
The second thing Jason noticed was a girl sitting outside the gate in the waiting area. She had dark black hair and was wearing a black leather jacket with a black shirt underneath along with ripped black jeans to match. She was looking at the ground impatiently when Jason spotted her. She must have sensed that Jason was staring at her because she raised her head and made direct eye contact with Jason.
She looked almost exactly like the girl from the photo! She must've aged a good bit since the picture was taken but Jason still recognized her. She looked fairly similar to him and had electric blue eyes just like Jason. Jason had finally found Thalia and he could hardly believe it. He wanted to sprint over and give her huge a brother to sister hug and try to catch up with her on their parents. Hopefully she had better information on their parents and they could work together to find them. Jason was so awestruck that he didn't even notice one of his fellow flight attendants trying to get his attention.
"Jason?" she asked.
Jason didn't respond, he still had his eyes locked into a weird staring contest with his newfound sister. Thalia's eyes started to get wide in astonishment as she started to realize that she was staring at her lost brother.
"Jason…it's time for us to get the plane cabin set up," this time Jason snapped his attention to his coworker standing behind him tapping her foot impatiently.
"Yes mamm, sorry about that," Jason responded as his cheeks grew a little red from embarrassment. His coworker simply shook her head and made her way onto the plane and Jason followed.
Just as he was about to enter the gate, he glanced back at his sister who was still sitting in her same seat in the waiting area. Jason noticed that she was whispering something into the ear of the girl next to her and Jason figured they were friends or acquaintances of some sort. Jason still wanted to run over to her and ask her a million questions but it would have to wait until the plane had departed and they were up in the air.
Jason entered the plane and started taking care of his usual flight attendant duties. That included preparing food for the passengers, sweeping the cabin floor, and making sure the bathrooms were stocked with toilet paper. Jason took care of his tasks but the entire time he could only think about his sister and what he would talk about with her when he got a chance.
Jason also hoped that she was sitting in the economy section because that was the section he was always assigned to take care of. It wasn't that Jason didn't like serving the richer people in first-class; it was just that Jason felt more comfortable helping those who weren't as privileged and Jason could totally relate to them.
After some time, the passengers slowly started to make their way on board the plane. Jason went through his normal routine of answering anyone's questions or helping someone fit their carry-on luggage into the overhead compartments. Jason made sure to keep a smile on his face the whole time and was incredibly polite as well. Jason was giving the outward impression that he cared deeply for all the passengers on board and he did care for them but not nearly as much as he did for his sister Thalia.
Jason kept gazing around the flight cabin looking for her before he finally spotted her sitting near the back with a few other girls in matching black clothes. Jason also noticed some writing on their shirts: The Huntresses.
Jason made a note to mentally slap himself later, The Huntresses were a famous all-girl rock band that got asked to play at some music festival in New York. Jason had no idea that his own sister was a part of a band. He also admired them a little bit for deciding to sit outside of first-class especially with all the money they've probably made.
After everyone on then plane had settled down and the other flight attendant's went over the safety instructions, the pilot spoke over the plane's intercom and gave the passengers details on their flight. Jason didn't pay much attention but he did hear the pilot mention that they might run into some bumpy weather. This didn't bother Jason too much because he had grown adjusted to dealing with just about anything that can happen on a plane minus a crash and Jason definitely wasn't the only one who would rather not experience that.
Once the pilot finished giving his boring speech, the plane slowly rolled it's way along to the runway. It wasn't long until they were speeding along the tarmac and started to ascend into the sky. Jason glanced out the window and watched the ground below as it slowly disappeared from sight as they climbed past some clouds. Jason was buckled into his flight attendant chair and waited anxiously for the pilot to give them the signal that they could move freely around the cabin.
It felt like an eternity had passed by until Jason heard a resounding ding throughout the plane followed by a message over the intercom confirming that they were at cruising altitude. Jason unbuckled his seatbelt and started to make his way over to Thalia before he was stopped by one of his coworkers.
"Jason, are you okay man?" his coworker asked curiously. It must have been obvious to those around Jason that he had his mind on something besides the task at hand and that was something that rarely happened. Jason was always focused on his work and his coworkers were confused why he seemed distracted.
Jason brushed his coworker aside gently,
"Yeah, I'm fine don't worry about it," he assured his coworker who nodded in response and went back to helping passengers.
Jason quickly returned his attention to Thalia who was only a couple of feet from him now. He slowly made his way towards her before stopping next to her chair.
She was fast asleep and wasn't paying any attention to Jason even though he stood only inches away from her.
Jason managed a smile before deciding that he didn't want to rudely wake up his sister, if her looks told him anything, she would definitely appreciate that as well. She was very tired and sullen looking, her band must've been in the middle of an extensive tour and it appeared that it had especially taken a toll on Thalia because she was the only one out of her group asleep, the rest of her band mates were ignoring Jason and chatting incoherently.
Jason then quickly realized how creepy it must look to the other passengers for him to be staring at someone sleeping so he quickly returned back to his duties as a flight attendant. As he walked away he could've sworn he saw one of Thalia's eyes crack open a little bit before shutting closes. Jason dismissed the thought and made his way back to where his coworkers were waiting on him.
Thalia POV
Thalia let her left eye creak open a little bit to see if the blonde guy had finally left her. She breathed an inward sigh of relief when she noticed that he was walking away from her seat. He glanced back and Thalia quickly closed her eye to make it seem as if she was still asleep.
She hated to give this guy the cold shoulder like this but she wasn't quite ready to meet him yet. She had a gut feeling that this guy knew her from somewhere and that's why he was so fascinated by her.
What bothered her though was that he had the same stormy blue eyes that she had. Thalia had never met someone with the same unique eye color as hers and that bothered her. She remembered someone telling her when she was little that she had a brother that died in a car crash so she was sure that this guy wasn't him.
Thalia wanted to discuss this with her friends but decided against it, this was between her and this random guy.
Thalia decided that she needed to rest for real this time and closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.
It didn't take long for Thalia to be shaken awake from her sleep, the plane had hit a rough patch of turbulence and the whole plane had started shaking violently.
Thalia was already deathly afraid of heights so this was icing on the cake for her.
She sat there frozen in terror praying for the nightmare to end, this was supposed to be a normal flight from Arizona to New York, not a one-way trip to the place downstairs.
Thalia glanced over her shoulder and out the window and noticed how bad the weather really was.
Lightning was dancing across the sky while the rain came down in sheets as it pounded the plane relentlessly. Thalia could also sense strong winds outside throwing the plane off course.
"Wait a minute…," Thalia thought to herself. She could sense the stormy weather outside the plane? She directed her attention out the window and focused on all the bad weather. Maybe if she could sense the weather she could control it is what she figured. Before she could ponder it anymore a bolt of lightning slammed into the plane knocking the power out and sending the plane into a freefall.
Thalia felt as if her stomach was going up into her throat but she managed to focus out the window and concentrated on the winds and tried to will them to do her bidding. Thalia could feel beads of sweat dibble down her neck as she strained to get the winds under control. Just as it seemed as if they were all doomed, the plane suddenly stopped falling as Thalia realized she had it sitting on a strong buffet of winds.
Everyone looked around confused yet relieved as Thalia maintained her focus on keeping the plane from falling. It wasn't too long after that power returned to the plane as it resumed its flight to New York as if nothing had happened. Thalia collapsed back into her seat from exhaustion and let out a sigh of relief. She was then surprised to see the blonde headed guy standing next to her again with a tired expression on his face. He managed a smile when Thalia noticed him but it was clear how exhausted he was as well.
"My name is Jason…Jason Grace," he said.
"Thalia," was all she could manage in response.
"I guess it's time we had a little talk," he spoke with a happy face, Thalia could tell that he had been waiting a very long time for this.
The two went on to discuss how their lives had been up until now and Jason asked Thalia if she knew anything about their parents. She shook her head in response.
"I was on my own as an orphan until I met these girls," Thalia said as she motioned to the members of her band.
Jason went on to explain how he was also an orphan for a while until he was adopted by some kind people who taught him everything he knows.
After some more conversation, the plane eventually landed in one piece in New York City.
"Want to get a cup of coffee and talk some more?" Jason asked politely as he made his way off the plane with Thalia following close behind.
"I wish but we have to get ready for our next show," Thalia replied with a frown. She really didn't want to just abandon Jason but she couldn't leave her band mates hanging either.
"Oh, I understand,' Jason said with a defeated look in his face.
The two continued off the plane and into the terminal of the airport.
"I'd better get going, sorry we couldn't talk more," Thalia apologized sincerely.
Jason simply nodded and made his way back onto the airplane to resume his duties.
Before he could make it to the gate however, a man dressed in a military uniform in a wheelchair came wheeling over.
"Wait!" he shouted at Jason and Thalia.
The two froze and looked over at the mysterious man as he eventually came to a stop in front of them panting heavily. His hair was in a shaggy mess but his beard was neatly trimmed. He looked much older than Thalia and Jason and after he finally caught his breath he started to speak.
"I have a proposal for you two that you should consider," he said as he pointed a finger at Jason and Thalia.
The two exchanged a nervous look before returning their attention to the wheelchair guy.
"Alright, shoot," Thalia replied with an evil grin.