"What's wrong with you? What do you owe him?" Percy's voice trembled with angerhis fists balling menacingly. "He's a traitor, and a monster, and a hypocrite, and he doesn't even care about you, so why should you care so much? This isn't about Luke! This is about saving Western Civilization, remember? You can't save everyone!"
"I'm sorry, alright! I'm sorry."
Annabeth bolted, blonde curls swinging behind her. Her cabin was empty, but she locked the door before throwing herself on the bed and burying her face in her arms, breathing in the musty smell of her pillow.
I feel it everyday it's all the same
It brings me down but I'm the one to blame
I've tried everything to get away
So here I go again
Chasing you down again
Why do I do this?
Percy was right. This had stopped being about saving the world for her a long time ago. She knew she shouldn't want to save Luke. She knew he was a traitor who deserved what Thalia tried to give him. So why did she keep wanting to chase him down, to save him, to change his ways?
Over and over, over and over
I fall for you
Over and over; over and over
I try not to
I shouldn't love you.Blinking back the hot, red ache behind her eyelids, Annabeth remembered something. She pulled a shoebox from among the pile of books under her camp bunk. Lifting the lid, she saw what she was looking for. They were pictures; maybe a hundred, of the time before she had known Luke for what he really was. There were pictures of Luke, Thalia and her seven-year old self on their journey to camp; some taken in front of landmarks, some just shots they had snuck while nobody was looking. There were a few from her first year or so at camp, when Luke had still been her best friend. She picked one up, a picture of Luke and her at archery practice.
It feels like everyday stays the same
It's dragging me down and I can't pull away
So here I go again
Chasing you down again
Why do I do this?
She tried one last time to hold back the tears, but they splashed over the shining paper as her hands pulled it apart down the middle. She ripped Luke out of the photo and began to shred apart his tanned body, his charming smile, the clean face as it had looked before there was a horrible scar running down it. The aura of light and joy had radiated out of him. Everyone, from his father down to the naiads, had admired his incredible, practically luminous goodness; and that little girl she had been had eaten it up with eyes wide. The pieces grew smaller and smaller, and it got harder and harder to see through the ocean of tears swimming before her pupils. She pulled out another picture.
Over and over, over and over
I fall for you
Over and over, over and over
I try not to
Over and over, over and over
You make me fall for you
Over and over, over and over
You don't even try
Why won't you leave me alone? She screamed silently as she reached into her pocket. She pulled an older, dusty camp pillow from under the bed and carefully placed the second picture on it: a Polaroid head shot of his boyishly grinning, kind, golden-child face. And then, practically shuddering with anger, she pulled out her bronze knife. She stabbed downward over and over into his face, and then onto the rest of the photo until the paper had mostly fallen to pieces. Then she started on the pillow, pretending it was his traitorous, tainted, double-crossing body. She slashed downward so the filling of the pillow started to spill out, but she still kept piercing the innocent cloth, the tears spilling down and wetting the translucent innards of the pillow, disappearing into the masses of gauzy carnage. She kept at it for several minutes; by the time she was done, the pillow was reduced to a pile of fabric shreds and fluff. Finally, she threw the blade down and pressed her fingers to her temples, frowning furiously, as if trying to press him out of her head by force.
So many thoughts that I can't get out of my head
I try to live without you, every time I do I feel dead
I know what's best for me
But I want you instead
I'll keep on wasting all my time
She knew what Percy felt for her, and she knew that she was hurting him, hurting herself, and that she should just let it go and move on. In fact, she'd thought she had. When he had poisoned Thalia's tree, she'd mistaken anger for hatred, or indifference. Untroubled, she'd thought she had finally forgotten the feelings she had harbored for so long. Then he had spared her life, when the General had wanted to cast her aside like yesterday's leavings, and she held onto that shred of false hope like a lifeline. And then there was the look on his face as he pleaded with Thalia. It almost let her believe this wasn't the real Luke; that somewhere beneath his cold, cruel exterior the warm, lighthearted boy she loved still existed. She'd begun to wonder whether the old Luke, the one she had loved, one she'd known since long ago, was still there, beneath the web of treachery Kronos had spun.
You're being stupid! How many times does he have to hurt you before you give up?Or will he have to kill you first?Over and over, over and over
I fall for you
Over and over, over and over
I try not to
Over and over, over and over
You make me fall for you
Over and over, over and over
You don't even try to
So here she was, back at square one, and she was beginning to doubt she'd ever be over him, really. She doubted she would ever be happy with Percy or anyone else until she could save Luke. She'd spend the rest of her life chasing him down, and the funny part was that he could never be happy either. He didn't want her; he never had. He wanted the dark-haired girl who'd sworn an oath of maidenhood to an auburn-haired goddess; an oath that could never be broken. She knew she'd always love him, more than he could ever understand or appreciate, and more than she could ever love anyone else. She knew if she could just make him listen, she could salvage the old Luke, the brave, unruffled fourteen-year-old she'd fallen for. Unless that was just the gods-cursed hubris kicking in again… here she went again thinking that she could do anything, save anyone. And she realized that this was the same flaw which had made that boy so long ago disappear.