Poseidon Is My Daddy (Book #1 of the Daughters of Olympus Series)

The Part That Sucked

  I woke up to the sound of Nico yelling, 'Julie! Julie! Can you hear me?!' I slowly opened my eyes and saw Nico and Jason kneeling over me. The train was charred in caved in where the arrow blew up. So much for transportation. 'Yep. Hear you loud and clear.' I muttered. Jason and Nico looked at each other in relief. Jason's knee nudged my leg and I winced. 'Oh my gods! Sorry, I forgot!' 'It's okay,' I said through gritted teeth. 'We should probably patch up my leg though. Nico, do you have any ambrosia?' 'Yep.' he responded, reaching into his jacket. 'How do you know about ambrosia?' asked Jason, 'You haven't even been injured. It's been 2 days.' I turned my head lazily in his direction, 'You don't know that.' I muttered. Nico put my head in his lap and fed me ambrosia, while Jason examined my calf. He said I'd be fine and Nico stopped feeding me. I watched the wound in my leg close miraculously and then I felt a weird feeling in my sides. I reached under my shirt it felt like there was something smooth. Like... the trident above my navel. I pulled my shirt up and looked and my sides.

Sure enough, there were the symbols of more gods and goddesses there. On my right, starting for the trident,  in a path towards my armpit (weird much?) was an ivory owl for Athena, a gold lyre for Apollo, a silver crescent moon for Artemis, an orange axe for Hephaestus and a teal peacock for Hera. On my left, also starting from the trident, going towards my armpit, was a gold-ish caduceus for Hermes, a grey lightning bolt for Zeus, a black glyph for Hades, a white dove for Aphrodite, a blood red spear for Ares, a pale yellow grain of wheat for Demeter and a purple thrysus for Dionysus. Nico and Jason were staring at the new symbols in awe. 'Why didn't they hurt?' I said. 'Maybe because you were passed out,' said Nico, 'You couldn't feel it if you weren't conscious.' 'True.' I said. 'We better get going.' 'Where?' asked Jason.

We hiked through some trees for about an hour until we arrived in a downtown area. It was as if the gods had answered a prayer, because we stopped right in front of a 'DoubleTree' hotel. We booked a room for the night and even though I should've  been uncomfortable shacking up with 2 dudes, I was so tired that I didn't even care. As soon as we got into our room, I took a hot shower and flung myself onto one of the 2 queen sized beds. I was out like a light. I didn't dream, though and I found that pretty unusual. The next morning, we were out as early as possible after an amazing, free hotel breakfast. We got to a train station and got more tickets to Chicago and we were there in like 2 hours.

'Okay,' said Nico, 'We're here, what do we do?' 'Um... we find directions.' I replied. So we went into a 'Rainforest Cafe' nearby and asked a waitress for directions. We caught a cab and in like 12 minutes, we were at the entrance of the museum. We found Perseus' sword, it was still there, but we were so confused. The sword was all rusty and bent out of shape. I was pretty sure it would disintegrate at the slightest touch. 'What would Octavian want with that?!' spat Jason. 'I don't know,' said Nico, 'We should probably stay here in case they show up out of nowhere. So we stayed in the museum, spreading ourselves out so nobody would get suspicious, but every 30 minutes or so, we came back to check on the sword. We stayed there until the museum closed, but the Romans were a no- show. When the museum closed, we slept on a nearby bus stop bench so that we could be close if the Romans decided to storm the museum. That night, I realized that they wouldn't be coming at all.

In my dream, Octavian and his lackeys were standing in a shrine, looking down on a long wooden box. There were golden hills rolling behind him. 'Stupid Greeks,' spat Octavian,'Why would I even want the sword of Perseus. He's GREEK!' Octavian's lackeys snickered, but then he opened the wooden box and they shut up. There was a wicked looking sword in  there. 'Now this is the weapon of a true man,' said Octavian, 'Crocea Mors. The sword of Julius Ceasar. And now that their only means of getting news is on the other side of the country. Prepare yourselves, we leave in a week. Those won't know what hit them.' Octavian slashed the air with the sword and I woke with a start and hit the back of my head on something.

We were still at the bus stop and Jason was asleep and Nico had my head in his lap. Well, until I jumped in my sleep; turns out, I hit my head on his chin and he was trying to massage the pain away. The sun was starting to rise, turning the sky pink and orange. 'Are you okay?' asked Nico. I shook my head and I started to cry. I was scared and stressed and worried. 'Hey,' asked Nico, holding on gently to my shoulders. 'What's the matter?' Still crying, I answered him, 'Octavian's not coming for the sword. He has Crocea Mors and it's in really good condition. He might actually win. Aren't the Romans supposed to be our allies?' I cried and Nico rubbed my arms. My mouth was closed, but then Nico took my face in his hands and kissed me and the pressure of his lips pushed mine apart. I ran my hands through his soft hair; in that moment, it felt like he could kiss all my stress, worrying and fear away. When he pulled away, he cradled my cheek in one hand and put his forehead on mine. 'Sta andando tutto bene . Stiamo andando per ottenere attraverso questo e nessuno è mai male andando a, perché ti amo troppo per vedere voi nel dolore . (It's going to be okay. We'll get through this and no one is ever gonna hurt you because I love you too much much to see you in pain.)' he whispered to me. 'Ti amo anch'io (I love you too)' I whispered back and I kissed  him. He set his hands on my waist and mine were on his neck. We had each other memorized.

When Jason woke up, I told him about my dream. He bit his bottom lip and asked Nico, 'Do you have a drachma?' 'Yeah. Why?' He pulled one out of his pocket and put it in Jason's hand. 'It's the obvious solution. Iris message Chiron and tell him to prepare the camp for what's comin'. Iris messaging is one thing that Octavian doesn't know about.' said Jason. Nico facepalmed, embarrassed. 'I totally forgot about that.' I couldn't help but be relieved. 'So,' I asked, We're not  totally screwed?' I looked at Jason with a hopeful expression. 'No. We still have a chance.' said Jason. I was almost hysterical, I was so happy. Then I realized something. 'Wait,' I said,' How are we gonna get back home?' 'I can shadow travel us there.' said Nico. He put his hands on my waist, pulled me close and whispered, 'Look, you're not gonna like it. It's pretty dark and cold and you'll feel like your face is peeling off, but it's our fastest way to get home.' I sighed, 'Okay. Nico kissed my forehead. He looked around and his eyes rested on a dark alley. 'There. Let's go.' he said and made his way toward it. 'Nico, I asked, 'Yeah um babe, why  are we headed for an alley?' 'We need shadows for shadow travel.' he answered. We stopped under an AC unit. We were REALLY deep in the alley and there wasn't a lot of light. Nico honed in on a huge shadow on the wall in front of us. He stared at it for a few seconds and then he said, 'Don't think, just run into it.' And with that, he ran into the shadow. Jason and I were quick to follow.

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