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Annabeth watched in horror as Jason--obviously dazed and in pain--lunged for Leo, caught hied to slow their fall They disappeared behind the ramparts of the fort Frank tumbled after them Then the chariot dropped so CRACK! One broken wheel spun into the air
"Coach!" Piper screae deunned the engines The hull shuddered as they picked up speed The docks of the island were only a hundred yards away now, but a dozen od in its claws
The Argo II’s creould be outnumbered at least three to one
"Percy," Annabeth said, "we’re going to come in hard I need you to control the water so we don’t s to have to hold off the attackers The rest of you help hiuard the ship"
"But--Jason!" Piper said
"Frank and Leo!" Hazel added
"I’ll find theure out where the map is And I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can do that"
"The fort is crawling with Roh, find our friends--assuet everybody back alive All on your own?"
"Just an average day" Annabeth kissed him "Whatever you do, don’t let them take this ship!"
Chapter 20
The new civil war had begun
Leo had so froles swooping down on hi over piles of cannonballs and dodging tourists, who screa, "It’s just a reenacth they didn’t sound sure The Mist could only do so e what mortals saw
In the rown elephant--could that be Frank?--ra Rohting with a stocky centurion whose lips were stained cherry red, like blood A wannabe vampire, or maybe a Kool-Aid freak?
As Annabeth watched, Jason yelled, "Sorry about this, Dakota!"
He vaulted straight over the centurion’s head like an acrobat and slaladius into the back of the Roman’s head Dakota crumpled
"Jason!" Annabeth called
He scanned the battlefield until he saw her
She pointed to where the Argo II was docked "Get the others aboard! Retreat!"
"What about you?" he called
"Don’t wait for me!"
Annabeth bolted off before he could protest
She had a hard tih the mobs of tourists Why did sosummer day? But Annabeth quickly realized the crowds had saved their lives Without the chaos of all these panicked mortals, the Romans would have already surrounded their outnued into a sarrison She tried to steady her breathing She iined what it would have been like to be a Union soldier on this island in 1861 Surrounded by ene
Some of the Union defenders had been children of Athena They’d hidden an i into eneods, where would she have put it?
Suddenly the walls glistened The air beca She was about to run for the exit when the door slammed shut The mortar between the stones blistered The bubbles popped, and thousands of tiny black spiders swelled forth
Annabeth couldn’t move Her heart see over one another, spreading across the floor and gradually surrounding her It was ied her into ain, alone in her bedrooht They crawled in waves from her closet and waited in the shadows She yelled for her father, but her father ay for work He always seemed to be away for work
Her step the bad cop, she had once told Annabeth’s father, when she didn’t think Annabeth could hear
It’s only your iination, her step your baby brothers
They’re not ued, which made her stepmother’s expression harden Her eyes were almost as scary as the spiders
Go to sleep now, her step
The spiders came back as soon as her stepmother had left the rooood Eventually she fell asleep fro, freckled with bites, cobwebs covering her eyes, her ot dressed, so she had nothing to show her stepht was some sort of clever trick
Nogirl now
The second night, the spiders caain Her stepmother continued to be the bad cop Annabeth wasn’t allowed to call her father and bother him with this nonsense No, he would not coht, Annabeth ran away from home
Later, at Camp Half-Blood, she learned that all children of Athena feared spiders Long ago, Athena had taught theher for her pride by turning her into the first spider Ever since, spiders had hated the children of Athena