Thalia couldn't even close her eyes.
She lay quietly on her side, trying to fall asleep. Thalia didn't know how long she was on her side, but it was enough for her to think up horrible scenarios in her head, Artemis sending the Hunt after her, threatening her with a knife, like the one they'd killed a stray cat with. As uncomfortable as her sleeping position was, she didn't move, so Annabeth wouldn't know she was still awake.
As right as Hera could be sometimes, Annabeth was never going to hit the bottom like Thalia. She had to give her little sister credit, that girl was smart. Thalia knew Annabeth wasn't going to smoke, and in fact Annabeth was the only one who bothered lecturing Thalia or knocking the lighter out of her hand.
The mansion of an apartment Zeus bought to please Hera was big enough for Annabeth and Thalia to have separate rooms, and an extra room for Jason's toys, though the three of them slept in the same room. It was the happiest situation, they all felt less lonely, even though Annabeth hated it when Thalia would blast her music during their designated homework time and Jason would cry when the girls moved his toys on accident.
Thalia thought of her conversation with Annabeth. She'd entered the apartment feeling better after her chat with Percy Jackson, though her mood had dropped with Hera scowling at her. With a small "goodnight" to Hera, Thalia had gone upstairs to find Annabeth hovering over her Pre-Algebra notes and Jason asleep on her pillow.
"You met someone." Annabeth had said. Thalia had been taken aback, but Annabeth was very smart and she could easily read Thalia- something endearing, yet she hated it, since she wasn't supposed to be easy to figure out. Her sister had known to some extent about the Hunt, but her tone wasn't implying that the person was in the Hunt.
"Yeah, what's it to you?" Thalia had replied in a quiet voice, draping her jacket over Jason.
"I want to meet him, Thalia." She had casually thrown out, flicking a page of her textbook. Thalia had frozen.
"I never said he was a boy." Thalia had said sharply. Jason squirmed on her pillow.
"Your headphones aren't on." Annabeth had stated. "And you always have them on when you get back from visiting them or coming home from school." Thalia had been at a loss for words.
"God, you are smart." She had said, impressed. Annabeth had given her a smile and picket Jason off Thalia's bed and moved him to his.
Now, laying in bed, Thalia waned to get away from Jason's soft snore and the sounds of Annabeth flicking the pages of her novel. She felt guilty, especially guilty that she wanted nothing more than to run up the emergency stairs of the apartment and out into the roof, to sit there and kill herself slowly, breathing in the toxic smoke from her rolled up stick of cancer.
Slowly, she forced herself to close her eyes and fall asleep to the sounds of Annabeth reading late into the night.
"Thalia, you've already hit snooze three times." Annabeth's sleepy voice woke her up. "Someday the alarm's going to wake up Jason."
Thalia sat up and rubbed her eyes. Annabeth was at the closet, already awake with a small cup up of tea in one hand and a sweater in the other. She slowly fell out of her bed to the floor, letting the blanket roll around her. Her younger sister laughed quietly and set down her tea.
"Big sister, get up."
"No" Thalia groaned in response.
"You're walking me to school today." Annabeth whispers. "Imagine mom's face if I told her I walked by myself in New York city this morning. You'd get it for sure." Thalia's eyes shot open and she tried stand up, even though she tripped on the blanket. She cursed under her breath and hopped Annabeth hadn't heard.
"Hera is never going to replace your mom, Annabeth." She said as she pulled out her black shirt. Annabeth sighed and Thalia knew her sister was looking at the photo of Athena that was always on her desk.
Thalia slouched downstairs and let Annabeth cook her something. Her eyes felt heavy, but she forced herself up to make coffee- the food of the gods. The only thing keeping her awake was the smell of the beans roasting in one of the fancy electronic coffee makers Thalia's dad had blown his money on.
They both sat at the large, custom table as Annabeth picked at her eggs and Thalia chugged down her coffee- even if it stung a bit down her throat. It wasn't too silent, New York was never asleep, and you could already hear the traffic. Luckily most of the population wasn't out, neither were the tourists, so the street wasn't too crowded with the familiar yellow cabs.
"Off to school now." Thalia plucked up Annabeth's plate and slid it into the sink. "Go grab your backpack." The two of them walked back to their room and Annabeth stuffed all of her papers into her folder. Thalia picked up her school work and grabbed clothes for Jason. She unbuttoned his shirt to he wouldn't have to ask Hera, it was something she always did. Hera hated Thalia's mom, but she loathed her children most, Jason above all. It broke Thalia's heart when Jason had come up and asked her to get his clothes ready when she got up before him, because he was too scared to ask Hera in case she might yell at him.
She took one last look at Jason and leaned in to kiss his forehead, before remembering her breath probably smelled like nicotine and lung cancer, it was one of those things that stuck. Thalia couldn't leave that mark on him, so she ran out the room to catch up to Annabeth.
"I'm sorry you have to be here fifteen minutes early." Thalia said in a low voice, checking her watch. Annabeth's eyes were trained on a boy with curtly brown hair.
"Its okay, Thalia." Annabeth pointed at the boy. "I have one of my best friends, Grover." She noticed that Grover was looking at Annabeth and nervously glancing at Thalia.
"Go on, before I scare away the poor boy." She said firmly, giving Annabeth a small shove. Thalia got a small wave, before her sister disappeared. She walked back on the streets, to where a few blocks down here school would be. There were already a lot of people. It was much easier to navigate the streets when she was younger, since she was so short and no one stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take a selfie of themselves and the city behind then.
One thing was true, Thalia disliked tourists.
It was always "Where is Times Square?" or "How far to Central Park?", never a "please" or "excuse me" or "Can I ask you a question Miss Thalia Grace?". The tourists were the worst, and Thalia never knew how they strayed to her part of the city, farther away from the busy attractions. They also looked like the stereotypical American tourists, with polo shirts, baseball caps and large black cameras around their necks.
So Thalia began her usual morning activity, walking down the street to school with her heavy bag over her shoulder. After bumping past the crowd she ended up at her school. It was old and made of brick, with a football field out back. Whenever Thalia had to drop Annabeth off she arrived at school early.
And that was no good. You had the mean popular girls plodding along in high heels, lead by Drew. The athletic crew and the jocks were okay, even thought the girls never really joked a lot. Thalia respected their hardcore leader, Reyna, because she was cool. No one else. Especially the idiots on the football team, Travis and Connor Stoll. The worst in the morning were the bad boys. She didn't know if they came from the wrong neighborhoods or they were rich slacks, all she knew is to stay clear of Orion and his violent pack.
"Hey Grace, looking fine." Ethan whistled at her from the gang. She could hear Orion cackling in the back.
"Hey Namakura, looking like an douchebag." Thalia said without missing a beat, shooting him the bird. Orion's gang laughed it off.
"Yeah, Grace!" Orion called out. Thalia grumbled under her breath and turned around. "Hey, you!"
"What do you want, Orion." She spat, wrinkling her nose at his black tank top and sagging pants. He had a baseball cap on backwards, and it annoyed Thalia to no end that his cigarette hung loosely the same way Zoe's did when they sat on the balcony and had a smoke.
Not time to think of the Hunt.
"Your place or mine?" He called. Thalia bit the inside of her cheek to stop her from going up to him and breaking his long and ugly nose. His gang laughed loudly and Drew shot her a dirty look from the staircase where she was teasing a nerd.
"Both," Thalia said sweetly, marching up to him. "You go to yours, I go to mine." Thalia allowed a pause for effect. "Oh, and bring Drew along, she looks- well." Thalia didn't have to say anything. After hearing Thalia's rejection to Orion, Drew had stood up and put on her most seductive face and stomped over. Thalia strolled into the school as the bell rang, leaving Orion to who would soon be his newest fling.
She let the day fly by without thinking. It happens by this time, early October, where he work load wasn't too much yet, but you had already gone quite a ways in to the school year. Thalia sat with her weird, yet outgoing sort of friend, Luke Castellan. They used to be better friends, Luke went with Orion for a few years, ditching Thalia, and then had come back, so he was in some sort of awkward limbo.
In sixth period she got a text message from Helen. Thalia cast a glance at her teacher before unlocking her phone.
Thalia Grace, make sure to pick little Annabeth up.
She snorted silently, imaging Annabeth's reacting at being called little. After the classes where done, she didn't even bother with the best friend crap most people did- instead of waiting at Luke's locker, she burst out the doors and down the dirty and noisy streets to Annabeth's Junior High. She knew it was a waste, since she would have to put it out by the time she was at the school, but she lit a cigarette, careful to not light the tourists on fire (as much as she wanted to) and stuck it in her mouth.
"How'd your math test go?" She said after crushing the small stick of lung cancer, pulling Annabeth out of the curb so she wouldn't ruh into a parked Taxi. Annabeth's face lit up and she smiled.
"Great!" She said, pulling Thalia's arm along. "When do I meet the boy?" Thalia was so surprised by the quick change in topic that she tripped on the sidewalk crack.
"What?" She choked out. "Today? Nuh, uh, imagine how pissed off Hera would be if I got her precious little Annie darling home a minute late-"
"I don't care." Annabeth rolled her eyes at Thalia's high pitched interpretation. "He's making you happy, I'm going to meet him." She gave Annabeth a death glare.
"I met him yesterday, he's a stranger!" Thalia said indignantly. "I barely know him, he's not a friend, and I don't even know if he's going to be there."
"A stranger and a boy you barely know are different, Thals." Annabeth said knowingly. "They aren't synonyms- ouch!" Thalia had pinched her arm, hard.
"Okay." Thalia said, pulling Annabeth along as she slouched along the sidewalk. "Fine. Later tonight. I'll buy you a cake there if you shut up until seven." Annabeth pressed her lips together, but smiled.