a.n. my pacing with multichap fics is terrible god im sorry. come yell with me about the wonder of pjo and the new season of teen wolf over on tumblr? im bananannabeth over there too.

Lydia had wanted to drive, but it had been enough of a struggle convincing Percy and Annabeth to go with them at all after Stiles and Isaac's performance; letting them drive themselves to the loft seemed like a fair compromise.

Having Lydia sit in their back seat, not so much.

The idea was that they'd be less inclined to just drive off with a relative stranger in their car, but honestly there wasn't anything stopping them from booting her out on the curb and racing away. That was why Stiles had protested so much, but Lydia had ended up offering herself up as a sort of show of good will - like, Hey, I'm willing to lock myself in a car with you, I know you aren't as bad as all those news reports and expulsions make you out to be!

Truthfully, she was more intrigued than scared. There was obviously something weird about these two, but she wasn't convinced that it was the bad sort of weird.

Even if Annabeth had glared at her like she wanted to strangle her to death as they'd stomped out of Lydia's house.

Now, Annabeth was choosing to pretend that she wasn't even there and was staring stonily out her window, while Percy kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror, eyebrows knotted together like he was waiting for her to launch into an interrogation.

"I honestly did want to study with you," Lydia said as they followed Stiles's jeep towards the loft.

Her words finally pushed Percy to speak, although what he said had nothing to do with her statement. "Who's Derek?" he asked flatly.

Lydia absentmindedly examined her manicure. "A friend of ours. Older, likes to think he's wiser."

"And what does he want with us?"

Lydia shrugged. "I don't know."

Percy rolled his eyes. "You have no idea at all?"

"If I knew, I would have told you back at the house. It could be anything, really." That wasn't an exaggeration - for all she knew, these two could have been more involved with the supernatural world than she'd thought, and Derek could have met them before. If that was the case, they were doing a good job of acting like the name meant nothing to them. Frustrated, Lydia muttered, "He keeps things mysterious."

"What does he do for a living?" Percy asked.

"Hm." Lydia tilted her head to the side, pondering the question. He obviously had some good investments, because he didn't have a day job. So what did Derek do for a living? Lurk around Beacon Hills, all brooding stares and bulging biceps?

Before she could answer, a car cut them off, turning dangerously close to the bumper, and Percy slammed on the brakes and let out a string of curses. Annabeth sat straight up in her seat and put her hand on his knee. Her eyes met Lydia's in the rearview mirror, and she didn't miss the flicker of apprehension in her expression.

Lydia quirked a brow. "Was that Latin?"

Percy's shoulders tensed as he carefully began driving again. "What?"

"You just swore in Latin," Lydia said, absolutely certain.

"Inside joke," Annabeth said tersely, removing her hand from Percy's leg.

Lydia pursed her lips together and leaned forward between the two front seats, resting her elbows on her knees. "Must be a long running inside joke, to have become instinctual like that."

"Since we were twelve," Percy said.

"Oh, I was twelve when I learnt Latin," she said offhandedly.

It had the exact effect she'd wanted.

Annabeth turned in her seat to look at her front on. She looked thoroughly unimpressed. "You learnt Latin when you were twelve."

"And Archaic Latin when I was fourteen," Lydia said without pause. She smiled her sweetest smile and added, "I was bored of Classical by then."

Annabeth pursed her lips and continued to stare at Lydia, gaze focused and calculating. Lydia met her stare head on, sizing her up just the same. The tension between them was palpable, but the moment was broken when Percy laughed and Annabeth turned her glare onto him instead.

"Wow. Bored of Classical Latin," he breathed, shaking his head. "Unbelievable."

Lydia settled back into her seat with a smug smile, and Annabeth went back to staring out her window in silence.

They parked beside the Jeep, which Stiles and Scott had driven, and Isaac and Allison pulled up just after them.

Percy craned his head back to look at the building as he got out of the car. He glanced across the roof of the car at Annabeth, who was doing the same, and asked, "Okay?"

"Yeah." She nodded and slammed her door shut.

Lydia watched the exchange curiously, but didn't say anything as she carefully shut her own door.

"Hey," Stiles called, walking briskly over to her. "You all right?"

"Fine," she assured him. "We spent the ride talking about Latin."

Annabeth glanced at her over her shoulder, and Lydia smiled.

Stiles blinked, mouth open. "You spent the -" He cut himself off, turning to face Percy and Annabeth. "You speak Latin?"

"Why, do you need a tutor?" Annabeth said.

Stiles closed his mouth, reeling back.

Allison laughed and Scott clapped him on the back as they walked by. "Smooth."

"That was rude," Stiles said as they all followed after Scott, heading into the building. "Completely uncalled for."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Annabeth said, completely insincere. "You could always just Google it."

Stiles scrunched his face up. "I'm not going to apologise for Googling you."

"You should," Allison admonished. "It's an invasion of privacy."

"It's the internet, there's nothing private about it!" Stiles insisted.

"For once, I agree with Stiles," Isaac said.

"You're willing to eavesdrop on the office ladies, not exactly a great moral compass," Lydia countered.

"If that's the most immoral thing you have against me -" Isaac began, but he didn't even get to finish before the entire group chimed in.

In unison; "It's not."

Percy and Annabeth shared a look as they all piled into the lift. As the doors slid shut and they began moving up, Percy pressed himself against Annabeth's side and laced his fingers through hers. Lydia noticed Annabeth's breath hitch, and Percy squeeze his eyes shut for just a second.

She nudged Scott, and he threw them a worried glance.

When the elevator dinged and Percy opened his eyes, his stare was hard. Both he and Annabeth glanced around as they walked to Derek's door, probably looking for escape routes. Lydia didn't blame them.

When Scott wrenched the door to the loft back, Derek was waiting for them. He was standing in front of his desk, facing the door and holding what looked like a wallet.

"Have you been mugging people again?" Stiles said by way of greeting.

Derek completely ignored him, all of his attention on Percy and Annabeth. "Show me your arms."

With a small degree of surprise, Lydia noticed that neither of them seemed intimidated in the slightest, even though Derek was doing his best to look as tough as possible without resorting to the glowing eyes and fangs.

In fact, Percy looked sort of amused. He stepped lightly into the loft and said sarcastically, "Hi, it's nice to meet you, too. Thanks so much for inviting us over, we're so excited to be making all these new friends."

Derek shot a look at Scott, who seemed caught between shock and amusement. He took a breath and tried again. "Show me your arms. Please."

"The manners are a nice touch," Annabeth said, coming to stand beside Percy. "But generally we like to get to know people a little better before we go showing our skin like that."

Derek made a low noise in the back of his throat, a warning, and Scott immediately stepped into the middle. "Derek, why do you want to see their arms? What's going on?"

Derek stepped forward and held the wallet out to Scott. "I found this in the woods."

Scott took the wallet, flipping it open and looking inside. He pulled out a coin and turned it over between his fingers. "Someone dropped their wallet, so what?"

Behind him, Percy and Annabeth had gone very still. Carefully, Percy pulled a pen from his pocket.

"They dropped it on purpose," Derek said. "And this was inside."

He flicked a photo over to Scott, who caught it easily. He held it up, and the rest of the group crowded forward to get a better look. It was of a group of nine teenagers, all wearing purple and orange t-shirts, standing in front of a strawberry field and grinning into the camera. Right in the middle stood Percy and Annabeth.

Lydia turned to compare the couple in the photo to the one behind her, but they weren't standing where they had been just moments ago. They'd somehow moved around the pack and were now between them and Derek, expressions murderous. Percy was holding the pen like a weapon.

"Where did you find it?"

Derek folded his arms across his chest and smiled smugly. "I'd love to give you more detail, but my memory's a little foggy."

"Tell us where you found it or I swear to the gods I'll -"

Lydia reached out to take the photo, wanting a closer look at the details. As soon as her fingers brushed the paper, however, everything in the loft was instantly drowned out by a chorus of screams. There were battle cries, screams of terror, anguish, loss, victory. There was a flame, a stick burning brightly on one end, slowly but surely getting shorter and burning away, away, away -

When she dropped the photo and the loft swam back into focus, everyone was staring at her.

"Lydia," Stiles said carefully, gently grabbing her elbow to hold her steady.

She felt the scream clawing at the back of her throat but pushed it down, forced herself to swallow around it and spit out the words, "He's dying."

All of the colour drained from Percy and Annabeth's faces. When she met their gaze all of the terror she'd felt from the photo returned.

"Frank…" Percy breathed.

Lydia could still see the flames. "He's burning."