I am so so so sorry this took forever. Writer's block and then ACT and then 3 more ACT's then college prep... It's been insane. I swear that I thought I'd get this out sooner. I'm so very sorry. Please don't come after me. Since I made all of you wait so long, this AN is going to be short. I also want to say to anyone experiencing this horrible flooding by Missouri, Illinois, and everywhere else, I hope you are all safe. As always, be sure to review. Reading these reviews is what got me up and writing almost all day. Because of you guys, I was inspired so thank you. And again, please review.

I own nothing but the plot. The characters belong to Rick Riordan... Lucky ... Person...

enjoy

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of laughing outside my tent. I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I looked to my left and found Thalia digging through her bag. When she noticed me, she looked up and smirked.

"Well, hello Sleeping Beauty," she jeered.

I ignored her and made my way towards the zipper of the tent. As I began to unzip it, Thalia grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

"What the heck are you doing, Thalia," I grumbled, my scratchy sleep-voice very apparent.

"Well first of all, you need to wake up some because that voice? Not attractive. Second, your hair looks like there could be a rat nested in it," she said as she pulled a leaf out of my hair. "Where is your brush," she asked, grabbing for my bag.

I groaned, "Why does it matter how I look?"

She gave me a "seriously?" look, "Dude. Do you really want your brand new Bae to see you like this?"

Suddenly, yesterday's events came rushing back to me. I was immediately wide awake and aware of the dried drool on my cheek. I quickly whipped the saliva off of my face and ran a brush through my tangled hair.

Thalia wasn't kidding when she said my hair was a mess. It took me about a minute to just put the brush through my hair once. I was scared my brush was going to snap in half. Fortunately, I didn't.

Finally, when I had finished fighting my hair, I started to make my way out of the tent when Thalia stopped me again.

"Something else," I asked, heaving a sigh.

She laughed, "Yeah. The bus that's taking us up river will be here in about half an hour, so you need to get dressed, that's what I'm doing."

"Okay," I sighed changing into my swimsuit from yesterday and throwing on an orange t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts. I slipped on my flip-flops and, again, began to get out of the tent when Thalia stopped me again.

"What now," I growled.

Grinning, she said in a sing-song voice, "Have fun."

I scoffed, "Dude, you're going, too."

"Yeah, but I don't have a boyfriend to have fun with."

I grinned evilly, "For now."

She immediately dropped her smile and turned pale. I laughed as I unzipped the tent and crawled out. As I was zipping it back up, I felt a pair of strong arms snake their way around my waist.

"Hey, Wisegirl," Percy whispered in my ear, "How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty well. How about you?"

"I slept decently considering Grover snored like a banshee all night long," he answered, still hugging me from behind.

I laughed at his answer when the smell of something hit my nose.

"Hey, what's burning?"

"Oh, crap!" shouted, letting go of me and running over to the camp grill.

"Told you," I heard Grover yell from the tent.

Percy snapped back, "Shut up!"

I shook my head and smiled as I walked over to Percy. I watched as he scooped up the charcoaled pancake and threw it into the woods. I noticed the plate on the table beside him was stacked precariously high with pancakes.

"I think you've made enough for all of us," I laughed, grabbing the top pancake off the stack.

He smiled and shrugged, "I got bored."

I tisked him, "But no bacon. I'm disappointed."

Realization dawned on his face. He slapped his forehead and groaned, "Man, I knew I forgot something." He started towards the cooler to the bacon but I ran over and grabbed his hand, laughing.

"I was just teasing. Breakfast looks great," I said giving him a hug, "Thank you."

"You're mean. You know that?"

"Hey, you chose me," I stated.

"And I'm sure glad I did."

"Ew. Excuse me while I go vomit," we heard Thalia say behind me.

He and I broke apart as I made a face at her. She countered with an equally weird face.

"So where is everyone else," I asked Percy.

"Well, Grover is packing a waterproof bag for our lunches. Connor, Travis, Katie, and Juniper are getting some stuff up at the store," he answered, "I hope they get back soon because the bus should be here any minute now."

A few minutes later, we spotted the Stolls' truck coming down the road. They parked and everyone hopped out. Connor got out carrying a large case of soda.

We all started gathering our things and closing up the tents. I made sure that I had my waterproof camera and my electronics water case. It allows you to hook up your iPod inside the box and you can put your phone or whatever in it. It has speakers so you can listen to your music but most of all, you can keep your electronics safe. I made sure to put Percy's car keys inside of it and the other valuables and food we had we left in the locked car.

Just as we were finishing up, Juniper hollered, "There's the bus!"

Sure enough, there it was. A big yellow school bus with a trailer loaded up with rafts and paddles was driving down to where we were waiting.

Percy came up behind me and took my hand. I looked up into his sea-green eyes and smiled.

"You ready," he asked.

I nodded.

The bus stopped and we all piled on, greeting the bus driver. We all sat near the back of the bus. I sat by the window, still holding Percy's hand.

"So where are y'all from," the bus driver questioned as he started back down the road.

"New York, sir," Percy shouted to be heard over the engine.

The driver whistled. "Y'all just down here to camp or is there another reason."

"Nope. Just camping," Juniper replied.

"Well, hope you have fun," he began to turn onto the main road, "I have to make one other stop to pick up a few more people. Then we'll be on our way."

I sat there, staring out the window till we came to a stop a little down the road. Around 9 college guys got in whooping and hollering and generally being a nuisance got onto the bus. It looked as if they were having a Frat party, especially considering a few were wearing matching Greek letters.

One Frat boy looked at me with interest. He chose a seat about two seats ahead of us and across the aisle. He sat with his back to the window and watched me. His cold gaze sent an icy shiver down my back. Percy felt this and put his arm around me. I looked back at the guy and he grinned a cocky grin and winked at me.

He looked to be around 19. He had short-cropped sandy hair and blue eyes. He was tall and muscular and seemingly screamed rich-daddy's-boy-who-gets-away-with-everything.

The whole ride, I tried to ignore him and as soon as the bus stopped at the drop off spot, Percy stood up to let me out. I grabbed his hand and walked hurriedly towards the exit. I know it was probably a bit dramatic but the whole situation just completely unnerved me. I didn't like way the guy kept looking at me. The guy made sure that he was as close to me as possible as I rushed by.

When we got out, Percy pulled me to the side. He grabbed my other hand and looked at me. "Hey, what's wrong, Wisegirl," he asked, concern evident in his voice.

I kept my eyes on the ground, looking everywhere but at him. "Nothing's wrong," I tried to lie, "W-why do you ask?"

"Annabeth," he said softly, as he lifted my chin to look at him, "We've been best friends since we were 12. Something is bothering you. Let me help. What's wrong?"

I managed a small smile, "It's nothing just felt a little claustrophobic is all," which wasn't a complete lie. Though he knew I wasn't letting on.

He sighed, "I'm always here if you need me." He pulled me into a long hug and in that instant, I felt safe. Calm settled over me like I knew that everything would be ok. We stood there like that for a little bit then eventually broke apart as he said, "Let go help the others."

I nodded and he led me over to our friends.

As we were pushing our two rafts into the water, I realized that I had left one of the paddles up by the bus. I turned to Katie and told her that I'd be right back. She nodded as she tossed a few pool noodles into the raft. I ran up the hill from the raft ramp. I stopped by the trailer where the paddle lay and picked it up. When I turned around, the Frat boy from the bus was walking up to me.

"Hey, honey. What's your name," He asked.

I ignored him and tried to go around him but he moved in front of me.

"Mine's Luke. Luke Castellan," he stated, inching closer.

"Nice to meet you Luke, now I have to go," I replied, again trying to get around him, only to have him block my way again.

"Now, now, now. I told you my name, you tell me yours," Luke jeered.

Knowing that I had to get away, I pushed the paddle at him and sprinted past. I could see the top of Grover's curly hair when I felt my arm jerked back. I shouted in pain as he whipped me around to face him.

He growled, "Now baby, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Just tell me your name."

Before I could tell him where he could shove the paddle, I heard footsteps running up behind me.

"Hey, douchebag! Let her go," He yelled, the anger was obvious in his voice, and I'm sure his face matched his voice.

Luke whipped me around and bent my arm behind my back causing me to yelp in pain. He then put his other arm across my chest, placing his hand not holding my arm on my shoulder.

Percy stopped dead in his tracks. The pain was causing me to gasp. I felt that at any moment, my arm would either break, or pop right out of its socket.

Percy's face was a mixture of concern and absolute fury. No one moved for what seemed like an eternity… Well, no one but me, who was struggling to find any way to GET away.

At last, Luke spoke up saying, "I'm bored. Take her." He pushed me to the ground and jogged to the river, where his friends were all laughing, apparently having seen the whole thing.

I caught myself for the most part but still stumbled to the ground from the force. Percy was by my side in an instant.

"Annabeth," he asked frantically, "Are you ok? Did he hurt you? How bad is it?"

His questions were spewing out at a mile a minute. My head was reeling. I was in complete shock. I couldn't move. Couldn't make any words come out. He seemed to notice this after a few seconds.

"Wisegirl?"

I looked up at him, his eyes flooded with worry and an underlying wrath.

"I'm…" I started, "I'm alright. He didn't really hurt me. It's nothing bad. I'm okay."

He cupped my face and I leaned my head into his hand. "Are you sure?"

I managed a weak smile. He slowly stood then pulled me to my feet. We had only gotten a few steps when he thought of something.

"Wait… Is… Is he what was making you so nervous earlier," Percy inquired, "I should have seen it. I caught him looking at you a few times but I thought… I never thought he'd... I'm sorry, Wisegirl."

Well that got to me. "Percy, it's not your fault. None of this is your fault. Because of you, he didn't hurt me. Everything is alright now. I'm safe."

He continued to stare at the ground and I could almost see all the what-if's racing through his mind. I had to snap him out of it. I got right in front of him. "Listen to me. You can't blame yourself for this. Do you understand? Percy, I promise that I'm fine. If you hadn't gotten here..."

He gripped my shirt under my chin. His face was full of torment and his hands shook. I put my hands on top of his.

"It's okay," I whispered.

We were nose to nose. He still wouldn't look at me and I continued to whisper soothing words to him. Slowly, his eyes rose to meet mine. For a split second, time froze. Our lips met and the world around us blurred to almost nothingness. Warmth, joy, safety, and peace all flooded over me.

He pulled away long enough to breathe the words, "I love you." That was it; the world was no longer blurred but completely gone. We were the only things in the universe. For that moment, nothing else mattered.

What did you think? Yes? No? Maybe? Ideas? I really hope you liked it. I worked all day on it. Thank you so much for reading and for the continued support. Review!