these violent delights (have violent ends)

chapter III

by nocturnalis


Annabeth strode down the hallways of Northwest High School. She'd been counting the days until school ended for a while. It was Monday now, one last week — just five days, and then she'd be free from this prison. Annabeth does like school, don't get her wrong, but she was the new kid, and she'd come late enough in the year that even all the kids who'd been new at the beginning of the year had found cliques of their own, leaving Annabeth to be a loner for most part in the time she'd been here. She had a few — well, she was slightly hesitant to actually use the term "friend," but she supposed that's what they were — friends. Rachel, another girl who didn't exactly "fit in" had always been nice to her. Annabeth had shared her AP Gov., and English classes with her, and after a partnered project in AP Gov., they'd more or less become friends. Rachel was honestly pretty cool, and Annabeth could see herself getting along well with her during her next two years of high school. Annabeth particularly admired how she stood up for what she believed in by helping to organize a myriad of protests and the like as well as participating in them vigorously. Through Rachel she had met Piper and Leo, who, along with Rachel, were pretty much the closest friends she had at Northwest. Piper had piercing eyes and a sharp tongue — which Annabeth could certainly appreciate. She wasn't afraid to speak up for herself when she needed to. Annabeth still didn't really understand how Leo had become friends with either of them, but she was grateful he had nonetheless. Of the three of them, Leo and her probably had the most shared interests. He was hyperactive and quirky, but in all honesty so was she. For the life of her, she had never actually mastered staying focused, no matter how hard she tried, and she could tell Leo had the same problem. Leo was first person she'd met and felt comfortable debating and discussing math and science with, as well as her other interests.

Annabeth could easily recall the first time she'd really gone in depth with Leo. Having no one to sit with at lunch, Rachel had invited Annabeth to sit with her and her friends — Piper and Leo. A few days after she'd originally met Leo and Piper, the conversation during lunch, which Annabeth had rarely participated in during the few days she had sat there before, had shifted to engineering. Leo, who had previously been boredly building model vehicles and aircraft out of his (and several others', including Annabeth's) stale french fries that had come with his school lunch, suddenly started paying more attention and participating himself even. Before Annabeth knew it, she had contested one of his opinions and engaged Leo in a passionate debate on which of the 6 simple machines were the most useful, convenient, and therefore the best. Annabeth was partial to the lever herself, though Leo had proved to be rather stubbornly insistent that the pulley was superior, despite Annabeth vehement arguments criticizing its practicality in situations where materials were scarce. When the bell had finally rung, indicating time to head to their next period, Annabeth and Leo had exchanged an exhilarated and energized glance at the prospect of similar debates in the future and agreed to disagree. It was only later that Annabeth had processed the surprise she'd seen on the faces of Rachel and Piper. It made sense, honestly, she supposed neither of them had ever really seen Annabeth speak so much in one sitting. That had definitely changed in the months that had passed, Annabeth thought. As she'd grown more comfortable with the trio, discussions similar to that had become more and more common. It certainly didn't hurt that Leo was, for all intents and purposes, just as nerdy as she was. One of her favorite debates she's had with him had been over how soon they could expect to develop technology similar to that seen in Voltron: Legendary Defender, specifically different methods of space travel as well as the possibility of the incredible feat of faster-than-light travel.

Of course, she was still just as close to Rachel and Piper as she was to Leo. In fact, she felt she related to Rachel and Piper quite a bit. All three of them had something to be desired in their relationships with their fathers, and because of that, Annabeth felt bonded to them. Rachel's father was some business man while Piper's was an actor, and neither of them ever seemed to have any time for their daughters, just like Annabeth's dad. In the past few months, Annabeth had grown closer to them than she had to anyone in a long time. Still though, she didn't think she would miss the drafty old hallways of Northwest High over the summer.

In her contemplation, she hadn't been looking where she was going and bumped into someone, knocking the AP Gov. textbook they'd been carrying to the ground. Annabeth inhaled sharply before bending down to pick the textbook back up while apologizing profusely, "I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going, I—" Annabeth froze when she saw the person she'd run into. Matt. She'd been dreading seeing him all week.

"Annabeth, hey," he seemed as surprised as she was to see him. "Sorry about Friday night, it was dare from Ellis Wakefield, you know how it is," she didn't. Annabeth's face hardened in anger..

"You don't look sorry," Annabeth said coldly.

Matt flinched, as if he thought she was about to slap him. Instead, Annabeth made a fist and punched him in the stomach. Not that hard, but hard enough to hurt, to make him wince and take a few steps back. Matt groaned lightly before looking around at the spectators staring.

"That was a dick move, Sloan. If I ever catch you doing that to any girl again, I'll kick you twice as hard somewhere that'll hurt far more." Her voice was ice as she threatened Matt.

Annabeth raised the textbook in front of his face before dropping it to the ground. It was heavy and made a sound like thunder as it hit the ground, marking the finality of her threat and only adding on to its veracity. Then, without another word to anyone, she strutted down the hallway, back on her original path to the cafeteria.

The trip was short, and others who had seen her confrontation with Matt followed in her wake, though at a safe distance away. When she reached her usual table, she sat down next to Piper, who was rebraiding a strand of her choppy hair. Neither Leo nor Rachel had arrived yet, but their previous classes were a bit farther away than her's was, so she didn't think much of of it.

"Hey," Piper said without looking at her, she was still focused on the braid, "How did the date go?"

"Hi," Annabeth said, " um, actually, he sort of stood me up, apparently it was some dare from Ellis—"

"He did what?!" Rachel asked dangerously as Annabeth turned around to look at her. She and Leo and walked up behind them but had obviously overheard what she'd said. In the meantime, Piper had stopped braiding her hair, looking almost as angry as Rachel did. Leo's hands crumpled into fists. Annabeth was honestly touched that they cared this much, but she didn't want to make a scene, at least not more than she had already done in the hallway.

"Yeah, uh, he never showed up, but it's okay though! I actually ended up meeting a genuinely nice guy because of it, plus I kinda-sorta punched Matt in the hallway when I ran into him earlier," she placated.

And just like that, Leo's easy grin came back as Rachel's face relaxed and Piper smiled and returned to her braiding. Rachel and Leo sat down at the table as Rachel asked eagerly "How hard?"

"Considerably hard," Annabeth allowed.

Leo smirked, "Well, he certainly deserved it."

"Wait, hold on," Piper interjected as Annabeth was laughing. "Tell me about this guy you met! What happened?" Piper ordered.

"Well, Annabeth started, "his name's Percy, I think he said he goes to Goode High School, he sat down next to me when it was obvious no one was coming and pretended to be Matt, so no one knew my date had stood me up."

Leo, Piper, and Rachel all listened raptly as Piper gestured for her to keep going, so she did.

Minutes zipped by as she described their date to her friends. In the middle of their conversation, though, two girls walked up to them, one of them a step ahead of the other, as if leading. Her hair trailed behind her in a dark long braid Piper would be proud of as her piercing obsidian eyes passed over each of them before stopping on Annabeth.

"Hi," she said, "I'm Reyna and this is Gwen, we saw what you did in the hallway and we just wanted to say thanks," she smiled lightly, and though Annabeth didn't know her, it seemed almost uncharacteristic. " Matt was rude to Gwen and I last week, and honestly a touch sexist too. So thanks for putting him in his place, if there's anything you need, from Gwen or me, just ask."

As she began to turn away, Gwen smiled brightly and gave an additional thanks before fully turning around and following her friend.

As the rest of the day passed by in a blur, Annabeth couldn't help but wish that the rest of the days in her last week would too, but she didn't think she'd be that lucky.


A/N: Thank you all for your patience, bet you didn't think I'd update for another year, did you? Well here it is. The next update should arrive sometime soon, Friday hopefully, but more likely Saturday or Sunday. One thing I did want to ask was how you guys felt about cursing. Do you mind if they curse occasionally or would you prefer they didn't at all?

Additionally, congratulations to cursedhazel (love the username btw) for correctly guessing the origin of the title- Romeo and Juliet. Finally, to the guest who said they hated the new title, that's fine, but if you actually want to change anything then try actually telling me what you don't like about it and give me suggestions on how to fix it.

Thanks so much, anyways! Currently we have 83 favorites, 48 follows, and 21 reviews! That is incredible, thanks so much for all your continued support!

~nocturnalis