I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry I know I'm a despicable person for not updating in forever but I was banned from fanfiction for a while and then I opened a wattpad account and I moved back to Australia and I've been settling in and I haven't been able to be focused on Loveless at all but that will change, I promise. Wow, that was a long sentence, but I swear I mean every word. I WILL update more often, and I WON'T be abandoning this story.

And here are cookies for my poor neglected readers and reviewers:

(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)

Chapter Two

distance verb

become less involved with or supportive of

As she walked, she took out her ridiculously advanced phone, courtesy of her ridiculously smart mother, and plugged in the card. An audio file popped up, and she started to play it, the sound going straight to her comm link, disguised as a little silver earring.

As she waited for it to load, she leaned back onto her heels, quietly observing the people that milled around her.

Finally it began.

"I'll need those files back, Annie." an all too familiar voice stated, and she froze.

Her breath started coming in short gasps, and she felt her feet were rooted to the grass. People still milled around her, but she was completely unaware of them.

"I know you took them- do you really think that I wouldn't recognise you? It's only been four years, and I've been watching you since then. I know what my little sister looks like, despite any disguises she may think up." Her chest constricted painfully; she couldn't breathe. Deep down, she knew that there was a word for what was happening: she was hyperventilating. But she couldn't think, as panic consumed her. "Just bring me back the files and nothing will happen to Bobby or Matthew."

No, no, no.

"You wouldn't," she whispered, half to herself. "You loved them, too. You can't have changed that much."

He continued to talk: "Don't think I won't do it, either. I'm not the older brother you used to know, Anna-banana."

His voice was cold as ice, somehow mangling the pet name into an expression of hate.

"Just thought you should know, Annie, the card is a tracking device." She could hear the smirk in his voice. "My agents should be closing in on you right now."

The file ended, and the agent assigned to be the decoy gasped out over the comm:

"I've lost them. I think they're headed toward the carnival. Please don't tell me you're near there."

She didn't want to move, couldn't. All she wanted to do was curl up in a corner and hide from the world, from the nasty truth of betrayal. She had worked so hard to distance herself from it.

"Owlet! Answer me! If you are anywhere near there you need to get out now!"

Annabeth swore to herself as she threw the memory card, and her phone, in case a virus had invaded it, into a gutter.

"Thanks, Chocolate," she gasped into her comm as she ran.

Annabeth darted into the crowd, hoping that she would be unnoticeable within the throng of people. No such luck.

A burly man, his face scarred and dirty, jammed a gun into her side, seizing her arm.

Annabeth, in her panic, could only think to taunt him.

"Really, Hyperion, a trench coat? Isn't that just a little cliché? And Krios," she stated to the thug that grabbed her other arm, "what is it with you and knives? Guns are so much cooler."

Something inside her, perhaps rationality, told her not to provoke them. But she was stalling; hoping that Chocolate would hear her over the comm and inform the Council.

There was no communication at all.

"Where are the files, Owlet?" Hyperion queried, his voice calm and confident. "And I know that you already listened to agent Castellan's recording."

It was already too late to pretend she didn't know them, but Annabeth supposed she could still try to play dumb.

"Files?" She put on an innocent expression. "I'm afraid you'll have to explain."

"The Kronos files, Miss Chase." Her heart skipped a beat as he used her real name. No one was supposed to know anything but her codename. "The files that you stole."

~*/Love\\*~

Approximately ten years earlier, San Francisco, the Chase household.

Annabeth peered out from behind her mother as she studied the boy on their porch.

"Is that him, mommy? Is that Luke?" she whispered, tugging on her blouse.

"Stop that!" she hissed, her welcoming smile never leaving her face, and Annabeth recoiled. All she wanted to do was hide. She didn't like strangers, much.

"Welcome, Luke. I'm Frederick Chase, and this is my wife, Helen, and my daughter, Annabeth, but you can call me Dad," her father welcomed, taking the boy's suitcase.

"It's very nice to meet you, Luke," her mother added, giving Annabeth a look that clearly stated she'd better introduce herself or else. She only shrunk back, cowed by the stranger about to step into their house.

"Annabeth will show you to your room." Annabeth looked fearfully at him, wishing that she knew him as her brother already, or that he would at least be nice to her.

Then, the boy smiled hesitantly at her. And she smiled back, after only a moment of thought.

"Do you want to see where it is now?" she asked, stepping inside.

"Sure."

He looked awed as he walked up the stairs, his eyes drinking in every aspect of the furniture and house.

"Are you rich?" he asked quietly, evidently not wanting the parents to overhear.

"We. We are rich. Mommy has really rich parents and even more money gets here each month, not even from where daddy works. I don't know where it comes from."

Luke scrunched his eyebrows together. "We?"

"Yes, we. You're going to be a part of our family, because your mommy and daddy are dead. So if we're rich, so are you."

"Actually," Luke shifted uncomfortably, "my mom's not dead. She's crazy, and I don't know my dad."

"Oh." Annabeth's mouth was a perfect circle. "Sorry. I didn't know. I thought that all adopted kids were orphans."

Luke shrugged, nonchalantly. "She was crazy, anyway." He paused. "You talk really good for a six year old."

"Well," Annabeth corrected. "I speak really well. And don't tell mommy or daddy," she leaned in conspiratorially, "but I get it from reading, lots and lots. I already know how to read really well, but they don't like that."

She held open a door. "This room is yours- I think. We have lots of rooms in this house."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Daddy says they're guest rooms, and Mommy says they're for when she has kids. She wants two boys, and she wants to name them Bobby and Matthew. I don't like those names, but I like yours. I like you, Luke."

"I like you, too, Annie."

She gave him an affronted scowl, "Don't call me Annie!"

Again, I apologize profusely for neglecting this story, but I'll get better with updating. I swear. And if you want to check out my wattpad account, my username is sellerofpurplecloth.

Just type your thoughts into that little box down there. :)

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Thanks!