Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 23

They gathered around the dining table, Cressida and Percy taking a little longer than twenty minutes before they were ready to join the group. They walked into the mess hall hand-in-hand, but Percy still looked very shaken up as he took his seat and then he looked scared when Cressida sat down on his lap, ignoring everyone else as she leaned her lips towards his ear.

"I trust you. I trust that you won't hurt me," she whispered. "Now you need to trust yourself."

Piper began explaining what happened at the mile marker as Percy slowly wrapped his hands around her waist. But when Piper got to the part about Gaia's trap and the eidolons that had possessed the boys, Percy's hands went back to the armrests as he got scared again.

"Of course!" Hazel slapped the table, which startled Frank so much, he dropped his burrito and just made Percy flinch as Cressida began whispering words of encouragement and reassurance in his ear and Annabeth was concerned at the sight.

"Take your time," Cressida said. "It's ok. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to break. You're not going to hurt me."

"So it wasn't my fault." Leo exhaled. "I didn't start World War Three. I just got possessed by an evil spirit. That's a relief!"

"But the Romans don't know that," Annabeth said. "And why would they take our word for it?"

"We could contact Reyna," Jason suggested like the idiot he was, still not realising how much it hurt Piper. "She would believe us." Jason turned to her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. "You could convince her, Pipes. I know you could."

Piper felt like all the blood in her body was draining into her feet. Annabeth looked at her sympathetically, as if to say: Boys are so clueless. Even Hazel winced. Cressida was still concerned with Percy which Piper didn't mind. The gods only knew how much those two had been through and if Jason hit her so hard he broke her ribs, he imagined he'd feel equally as guilty. Actually, Jason didn't have the bad history with parents that those two had, he would never be able to imagine how guilty Percy felt. None of them would.

"I could try," she said half-heartedly. "But Octavian is the one we have to worry about. In my dagger blade, I saw him taking control of the Roman crowd. I'm not sure Reyna can stop him."

Jason's expression darkened and Piper didn't get any pleasure from bursting his bubble.

"She's right," Frank said. "This afternoon when we were scouting, we saw eagles again. They were a long way off, but closing fast. Octavian is on the warpath."

Hazel grimaced. "This is exactly the sort of opportunity Octavian has always wanted. He'll try to seize power. If Reyna objects, he'll say she's soft on the Greeks. As for those eagles...It's like they could smell us."

"They can," Jason said. "Roman eagles can hunt demigods by their magical scent even better than monsters can. This ship might conceal us somewhat, but not completely—not from them."

Leo drummed his fingers. "Great. I should have installed a smoke screen that makes the ship smell like a giant chicken nugget. Remind me to invent that, next time."

Hazel frowned. "What is a chicken nugget?"

"Oh, man..." Leo shook his head in amazement. "That's right. You've missed the last like, seventy years. Well, my apprentice, a chicken nugget—"

"Doesn't matter," Annabeth interrupted. "The point is, we'll have a hard time explaining the truth to the Romans. Even if they believe us —"

"You're right." Jason leaned forward. "We should just keep going. Once we're over the Atlantic, we'll be safe—at least from the legion." He sounded so depressed, Piper didn't know whether to feel sorry for him or resentful.