Hey guys, I'm starting a new fanfiction. It's about Annabeth, and yes Percy will be in it, just not quite yet. I hope you guys enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson series
I asked Rick for the rights to PJO.
He asked me if I needed a ride to a mental hospital.
Caution
Ten million dollars.
That's what we're talking about here. Ten million, seven zeroes total. Enough to buy you an all expense paid trip to out of the hell you live in. And Caution, well, she needed that. Perhaps she'd be gone by her sixteenth birthday. She's a Saittarius—the archer, not far off from murderer. Caution might be three feet from such a title, not that it bothered her though. Her heart had become to hard for it to even cause minor damage.
Caution was in quicksand, and she kept struggling, sinking herself deeper. She's a thief. A robber. An outlaw. There's not really any other way to put it, just that there's a special spot reserved for her when she dies.
It's night time, when it happened, the time Caution hates the most. When 90% of the population is robbed, killed, abused or tortured in other unspeakable ways. The New York sky looked like someone stuck a giant syringe into it and sucked out all the color. Dead black.
Huh. Dead. That didn't sound too bad to Caution right now.
The sky may have lost it's will, but it was never dark. The streets were still lit with night activity, and Caution was a part of it. She moved down the sidewalk, staying close to the street, and away from the alleys where the horrible happens. Caution honestly doesn't mind death, but not yet, not tonight. Tonight she had business to take care of.
She moved along the street, her head down, black hood up. No one pays her any mind, no one should. A New York breeze catught her hood, and drew it back for a few moments before Caution ripped it back up. If anyone had taken the chance to see her eyes, they would've spotted fear.
No. Not fear. Caution. That's all. Intense caution. As if she's afraid of stepping on the wrong piece of pavement. It's in her eyes, as they dart about the cursed street, looking for something. She saunters down the sidewalk, stumbling every few steps. Some sophisticated business man would wonder what she's on, but any person taking a more oberservational look would realize she's faking.
No one ever suspects the drunk to do something when not in a dark alley. She hangs a left onto Sycamore Street, the people fade away, no one's at Sycamore this time of night. Except for bad people, but she's not afraid. Rumors go around about her, everyone's eyes fill with fear when she's in sight.
Her walking pace evens out, her path straight, without the illusion of intoxication. The people here will fear her more if she's in a sober place. Not like they didn't fear her anyways, but people know alertness is key, and drunkness is quite the opposite.
"Hey, baby." A man, calls to her from an alley, drunk. He wolf-whistles at her tight-fitting black skinny jeans, and combat boots, the black hoodie hid her face from his booze impaired vision, "Now what's a pretty thing, like you, doing out so late? Why don't you come over here, and let me take care of you?"
He comes towards her, a sheepish grin plastering his face, and she lowers the hood. Even in his hammered state, he recognizes her face. He knows her legendary gray eyes and blonde curls, and he realizes the only thing he'd ever get out of her is a pickpocketing.
"Caution?" He asks, his eyes bloodshot with alcohol. "I am so sorry. I got—I got business in the works, I can pay you for your toubles. Just please don't tell Caster about this."
Caution twitches at the mention of Caster. "No problem," she tells him.
And Caution walks into the night, leaving the man to look for another hit.
Caution feels like she's being followed, a quick look over her shoulder confirms her suspicions. A small black 2002 Honda Corolla is tailing her. She sees it out of the corner of her eye, it's driver hidden by tinted windows. She stops. She knows this car. It pulls up next to her, confirming her recognition with a key-scratched "C" on the drivers door. She knew there was a matching one on the other side.
She walks in front of it, and to the passanger's doors. Caution pulls open settles herself inside. She smiles at the driver and he offers a lopsided grin in return.
"Where ya been, Traveler?" She asks as they start to drive again.
"Where d'ya think?" He laughs.
Laughter was rare in their world, and it was most often fake. Everything was fake, including the money half the time. But this job they were about to pull, it was rare, and the pay was huge. After Caster got his share.
They drove in silence for an eternity, until Traveler pulled around back of the New York Museum of Arts and Design, as Caution pulled out a map from her jacket pocket. She opened it against the console of the Corolla, and grabbed a flashlight from her other pocket. She twisted the flaslight on, and gave it to Traveler to hold, so she could prevent the old map from closing in on itself.
She points out multiple things to Traveler, telling him the plan of action. He nods, but she knows she'll have to remind him of every step, every five minutes. Caution asks if he remembered her backpack. He gives her a look with an eyebrow raised, and his lips pressed. Caution chuckles and fishes her bag from the backseat, and shoulders it.
They both get out of the car, and sneak up the back fire escape, creeping on their toes to prevent sound. Traveler hits a bad spot, and the rusted metal creaks. They both pause, expecting the worst, but no one comes. She glares at him, and he mimes a nervous chuckles, fearing more noise.
They reach the roof, and Caution moves towards an electric panel, one that controlled top lighting, but if reqired correctly could be the key to their theft. She takes calming breaths, nervous at what she's about to do. She looks at Traveler who gives her an encouraging nod. She slowly opens the case, praying that it wouldn't set off an alarm. She tenses, preparing for her own arrest, but once again luck plays on her side.
No switch inside is labeled, but Caution doesn't need that. She takes the flashlight and holds it in her mouth, as her finger set to work on the wires. She rewires the routing, turning off the security alarms, red lasers, security camaras, and police notifications. She hopes she did it right, but there was no time for checking it.
"Come on Caution." Traveler whispers, as he heaves opens a sky light. "We've got, like, five minutes before security realizes what we've done to the system. Hurry—"
Caution chuckles quietly. "Five minutes?' More like fifteen with that crack squad they've got working down there."
Traveler smiles, but still motions her to move faster. They secure a harness around her mid-section, and snap on a rope and lock. Traveler places a metal stand onto the roof, an ingenious invention, it locks itself onto the brick roof at the push of a button. Caution looks back to Travler, as he secures the rope around the stand. He tugs on it a bit, then nods to her.
"Look, Traveler," she begans, not looking to sentiment. "If anything happens, get out."
"An—Caution." He caught himself. "Nothing will happen, you're fine. We'll get the diamonds to Caster, and then skip town and find our families.
Caution faked a smile. Maybe he would, she knows he had a brother to find, but she can't go back home. Home doesn't want her, but she still nods in agreement.
"Okay, Caution." He said as she stands by the open sky light. "Whenever you're ready—as long as it's in the next ten seconds."
She didn't let him finish her sentence, before she fell forward, lowering herself into the room. She tugs back on the rope, holding back multiple profanities as she spots a single night guard on duty in the room. Caution had checked the guard schedule nearly thirteen times! She had been so, well, cautious. Maybe thirteen really is an unlucky number.
She's about to tug the rope again, to have Traveler push the button on the machine to pull her up, but then she spots the diamonds. In a crystal clear case, they sparkle in the night time light, and Caution wants them. She imagines all they could buy her, but one thing stands above the rest—her freedom. Caution wants her freedom.
She pulls three times, a signal to Traveler, to lower her down more. She starts slow, then drops six feet, only mere foot from the glass container. She looks up, and feels Traveler pulling on the rope, two pulls. A malfunction. Something happened. Something's wrong. Caution is yanked up a few inches, before she drops back to her same place. She know's what's wrong.
The machine broke, and now Traveler is holding on for dear life, trying to pull her up.
She remembers telling him to leave her if something happened. She curses him for his huge heart, and looks back to the diamonds. He needs those diamonds to get back to his family. She slowly unties the harness from her waist, and grabs onto the rope when it releases her. Five tugs from Traveler. A question. What the heck are you doing?
She doesn't respond. She lifts the glass from the diamonds, and looks back to the guard, he still doesn't notice her. She smirks, and moves to pick up the diamonds. Caution reaches down, and secured a single diamond into her pocket. Her left arm grows sore from holding her body weight with no assistance. She thinks about switching hands, but that's much to difficult.
"Hey!"
Caution looks up. The guard. He's turned around, and he's seen her.
"What are you doing?!"
This is for you Traveler.
Caution can almost here Traveler protesting her action, can almost see him up on the roof, telling her not to be an idiot. But Caution lets go to the rope, and falls onto the diamonds, breaking the glass and their stand. That's how unstupid she is, the single diamond still resting in her pocket.
"Stand down!" The guard is pointing a pistol at her chest. She raises her hands in defense. "Down on the ground!"
Caution gets on her knees, and lies face down on the cold museum floor, her hands on her head. She can hear the guard walking towards her. Caution is smart; smarter than him at least. She times it all through, intense calculations going through her head. She smiles and breaths easily.
He's near her, she can feels the heat of his hands near her own, ready to restrain her with handcuffs. Not today. Caution moves quickly, turning her body on the slick flooring. Her feet sweep the guard's feet out from under him, and he falls. Caution stands and runs, towards the front door. There's no where else to go, and constant studying of the layout benefits her as she knows the quickest route.
As she breaks open the glass on the front door, an alarm goes off. She jumps at the sound, swearing loudly that the electric box she rewired had only accounted for the diamond room. She sprinted off into the night, not paying attention to anything, until she turned onto a busy street.
She raised her hood, and blended into the crowd.
Caution returned to the warehouse late that night.
She was wet from a slight drizzle, about half an hour before she returned. The warehouse was a depressing place. Half of the windows were blown out from Caster's target practices, and from local kids, taking dares to see who would actually knock out one of Caster's windows. Abandoned crates lay about, serving as makeshift furniture. The only real furniture was in Caster's office, upstairs, where he did a certain kind of business Caution wanted no part of.
Caster didn't come to greet her. Maybe he wasn't here. Maybe he didn't she's failed.
Caution saw Traveler sitting on a crate, his head in his hands. She could see he had been crying. His black t-shirt was ruffled, and his curly brown hair was messier than usual, as if he had been running his hand through it, worrying. She smiled, knowing that it was probably for her, that he probably felt guiltly. A police radio sat by his side, he had been listening attentively, waiting for the arrest of Caution to be announced.
"Hey Traveler." Caution hopped onto the crate next to him.
"Caution!" Traveler engulfed her in a hug. "Thank god you're all right. If I had lost you, one: I'd be sad. Two: Caster would've killed me. He doesn't even know I'm back yet."
"Good." Caution relaxed a bit. "'Cause this is all I got."
Caution held out the small diamond from her pocket, and Traveler's eyes widened at it. He was at a loss for words, but he pushed it back into her pocket.
"You can't tell Caster about that, okay?"
"What?" Caution was genuinely surprised at Traveler's disobediance. "Why?"
"Because." Traveler said. "I don't know why yet, it just isn't feeling right to tell him."
Caution shrugged, "Okay..."
Caution and Traveler sat in silence for a little longer, until Caster came out of his office, with an angry look on his face. Caution waves a hello; a hopeful gesture he didn't ask—or already know—about the diamonds. He doesn't wave back, he kept his arms crossed on his chest.
As he gets closer, coming down the stairs to them, she can tell he's furious. His feet are bare, as though she dragged him away from a nap—or a bit of his favorite business. He wears a white t-shirt and jeans. White, the color of purity. Pfft. As if. There's a tattoo of a caduceus with snakes crawling up it on his left forearm; even the snakes are glaring at her.
"Now." Caster speaks. "Let's talk about how you failed."
Yeah. He knows.
"Look, Caster," Traveler speaks up, "it just wasn't a good day. We'll go back and get them later."
"No, you wont." Caster says, shaking his head. "They moved the diamonds to another, government guarded, location until the day of the Design and Art Gala, in three weeks time."
Traveler gulped, knowing this wasn't going to end well, "We'll just hit the Gala then."
"That is also a government event." Caster said. "He wants them, and he'll get them. Caution might be able to pull it off, but you're dragging her down."
"Dragging her down?" Traveler asks, jumping down from the crate.
"Yes." Caster answers. "And we can't let that happen."
Caster quickly pulls a handgun from his back pocket and aims at Traveler, firing two quick shots, before Caution can protest. Traveler falls, Caution can see they're both flesh wounds, but that doesn't prevent the pain. Caster kneels down beside Traveler, whispering somthing unaudible to Caution into his ear. Traveler mutters something back, and spits at Caster.
Caster wipes the saliva from his face, and pushes his thumb into one of the bullet holes. You've never heard anything like it. Caution was scarred when she heard such a scream of pain. She couldn't bare it any longer when Caster pushed on the other as well.
"Luke!" Caution rang out. "That's enough!"
Caster suddenly stopped pushing and stood to face her, the gun still hot in his hand. "What did you just say."
"You—" Caution swallowed. "You heard me."
"Oh is that so?" Caster moved towards her. He spun her into his arms, and rammed the gun into her ribs, a killzone shot. "You think you can call me by that cursed name? You think you're so special? You think I just can't replace you're talent just like that? I should shoot you, and leave you to the alley men. You think it's wrong that I shot your precious Traveler?"
Caution looked to Traveler, but she also felt the barrel of a load pistol, "N—no."
"Good." Caster let go of her. "Because, I don't want to have to replace you, you're too special. Him, on the other hand, he's expendable."
A loud bang, and a bullet was wedged into the skull of Traveler. Caution closed her eyes at the sound, and turned away from Traveler and Caster.
"Get some rest, Caution." Caster started back to his office. "You'll be hitting up the Gala in three weeks, I suggest you plan."
Caution wouldn't even look at Traveler, but she knew what she would do. She's kill Caster, and avenge Traveler. She'd find Traveler's brother, and tell him what happened. She had to remember the his brother's name. Conner. Conner Stoll.
She still wouldn't look at him, but she whispered to his spirit, "I'm so sorry, Traveler. I'm so sorry, Travis."
She would make Caster pay for what he did to Traveler. She was Caution. The legendary Caution, she had given the name to herself. Caution, it fit perfectly for her. Caution. She breathed in the name, it was a part of her now, it was her now. Caution. As in Caution: Wet Floor. Caution: Choking Hazard. Caution: Toxic.
She was dangerous, and she needed Caster to know that. He needed to know not to mess with her.
Caution: Hot Surface. Do Not Touch
So I hoped you guys liked it. Read and Review. Sorry for any spelling and grammar errors, I'm bad at those.
Never ever stop being such Awesome Possums! :oD
