Author's Note: Sorry the last chapter was so short. Thanks for all the reviews. Enjoy this one. Also, I realize that this chapter is late, and I'm sorry about that. I'll explain why at the bottom.

Chapter 10: Jailbreak

They were thrown into opposite holding cells. Percy tried to demand his one phone call, but the guard laughed and told him that they needed to be interrogated first.

Percy had been trained on what to do during an interrogation. He started planning a cover story, but then realized that Annabeth was probably doing the same thing. Only she would be doing her best to make it sound like everything was his fault. He leaned against the wall of the cell, mulling this over. Annabeth's cell was right across from his, separated by a narrow walkway. He could hear her pacing back and forth and muttering something unintelligible. But he kept his eyes trained on the wall, because he really didn't want to talk to her right now.

Now, how would he get out of here? He picked up a plastic spoon that had been left in the corner, and experimentally poked the floor with it. It snapped in half. There goes my backup plan, he thought. Then, he remembered to check his pockets. The cops had taken almost everything: his gun, wallet, extra knife, and cell phone. The only thing left was what appeared to be a simply ballpoint pen.

He almost laughed at the irony of it. Of course the cops would take only what looked like a weapon. But one of the first things Percy had been taught in training was that anything could be a weapon: a key, chili peppers, or even a meat thermometer. And burritos. Those were deadly.

Besides, this wasn't just any ballpoint pen. He carefully uncapped it, pointed the tip away from him, and twisted the tip. A sharp, poison-coated spike popped out of the tip. It was only a centimeter long, but he could work with it. Quickly, he began plotting an escape plan. When the guard passed by, he would stab him quickly with the pen (the poison would knock him out for a few minutes), reach through the bars and steal his keys—but there was one problem. She was right across from him, and he knew that as soon as she saw what was happening, she'd scream and alert the guards.

But in a way, they were kind of at a stalemate. She couldn't try to escape, either, because then he would alert the guards. They couldn't start a fight, because that would lead to more questions. But if they didn't get out soon, they'd be interrogated and end up in jail for even longer while the police tried to figure out what was really going on.

In other words, they were both screwed.

Unless he did something crazy. They were both desperate. Maybe, just maybe, she would agree to a temporary alliance. Purely for mutual benefit, of course. They'd both escape and go right back to trying to kill each other.

Obviously, he didn't want to do anything that would help her. But if he stayed in jail too long, and caused an investigation, then he would endanger everyone at Atlantis. He might not agree with their methods sometimes, and didn't care for some of them, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything that would mean risking the ones that he did care about.

He looked over to her cell. "Hey," he whispered.

As he expected, she turned and gave him a death look. Normally, he might have been intimidated, but she was locked up. "What?"

It was the exact same tone she always used when he interrupted her from something important. But he tried to ignore that and replied, "I'm not trying to start another fight, if that's what you were thinking. I wanted to know if you were interested in getting out."

She rolled her eyes. "What makes you think I don't have a plan?"

"The fact that you're still here."

"For all you know, I could be waiting for backup."

"How? They took your phone, there's no wifi, and your agency is back in New York. You can't cause a large diversion, because that could expose you, and you can't try to sneak out, because I'll alert the guards. Face it: we're in the same boat."

She stared at him in shock for a moment, but then quickly regained composure. "Okay… Say I agree. Tell me how you think this would work. We both bust out of here, then make a mutual decision never to live near, see, spy on, contact, or be in any way affiliated with each other ever again?"

Wow, that was quick. He'd been expecting it to take a lot more convincing. Heck, he'd had a harder time talking her into repainting the living room. Deciding not to test his luck (and silently plotting to double-cross her ASAP) he replied, "Yeah, that was pretty much it. So, are you in?"

Their eyes met, giving him another bitter reminder of how badly he'd been deceived. But he refused to break eye contact, and finally she replied.

"I'm in. Now, what exactly was your plan?"

..~0~..

Annabeth wasn't stupid. It was obvious that he planned to double cross her. What he didn't know, though, is that she knew, and that she was planning on triple-crossing him first. But maybe he did know she knew. If that was the case, then her advantage was taken away. Although since she considered the possibility that he might know, that sort of prevented her from being too tricked. But then again, there was a chance that he had already worked out all this before her, and that he expected her to be thinking the way she was. So maybe, he knew that she knew that he realized she knew his plan, and was just bluffing on purpose to confuse her. Or maybe he wasn't trying to trick her, and thought that it was practically understood that they try to kill each other anyway.

Or maybe, she thought, I'm just going crazy. Just be prepared for him to attack right after he's out. And if he doesn't, then attack first anyway.

She had to admit, she was a bit surprised that he had figured out that they were in a mutual situation. It bothered her, because that meant that she'd underestimated him again. It was one of the most important rules for an assassin: never underestimate the other.

Being both wrong and heartbroken didn't exactly help her mindset at the moment, but she had to remember her mission now: Get out, force him to tell her what he knew, and then kill him.

"So here's what I was thinking that we should do," he started. He told her his escape plan.

She shook her head. "The basic idea sounds good, but there are a few details we want to work out if we don't want to get caught." Planning and strategy came easily to her, and it made her feel better to start working something out again, even if it was with him.

Escaping in itself was actually pretty easy. Annabeth's cell door had a window, and Percy managed to distract the guards and steal the keys. While Annabeth got the bars off the window, through a simple application of force at the window's weakest points, Percy sneaked into her cell.

As Percy crawled through the window, Annabeth silently debated whether to run or fight. She had no weapons, but neither did he. And she was fairly resourceful when it came to finding them.

She climbed out of the window and wasn't surprised to see him sprinting away. Without hesitation, she ran after him. It was almost dawn, but the streets of Vegas were dark and deserted, which made the chase all the more complicated.

He dodged around corners, leaped over fences, and ran through alleyways, trying to ditch her, but she was fast. As she closed in on him, he turned into an alleyway and stopped short.

Annabeth skidded to a halt and stopped next to him. What she saw didn't make her feel any better.

The alley was a dead end, and about six people, each dressed completely in black and wearing a mask, stood in front of them. All of them were armed with knives. "No," Annabeth murmured, thinking that Percy had called them as backup. She whirled around, ready to kill, but then noticed his look of confusion.

"Are these guys on your side?" he asked.

"No. I thought they were on yours."

He looked at her quizzically. "You're lying."

"What could I possibly gain from lying about this?"

"Yeah, good point," he replied. "Who the hell are you people?" he demanded, addressing their attackers.

"Great question," said the guy in the middle. "Too bad you won't live long enough to find out."

He threw a knife straight at her. She dodged to the side, but another knife came flying at her barely a second later. She leaped sideways for that one and was forced to roll out of the way for a third. She landed against the wall of the building on the left, where yet another impaled itself on the wall just above her head. She didn't hesitate, pulling it out of the wall and launching herself onto the nearest attacker. The attacker was surprised, and she was able to stab him in the leg before attacking the next.

As she finished with that one, she glanced over to see what Percy was doing. He'd also gotten himself a knife, and had already taken down a couple attackers. As he tackled the next guy, he was on the point of winning.

But as Annabeth watched, the last attacker standing came up behind him, wielding a knife, about to throw it. For a moment, it was as if time slowed down. In that moment, Annabeth forgot pretty much everything that had happened in the past few days. Suddenly, all that mattered was that she stop the attacker before anything happened.

She sprinted across the alley and flung herself at the man who was about to finish Percy. His head hit the pavement hard, and his eyes became unfocused. She was about to congratulate herself when she felt a sharp pain. Annabeth looked down and realized just what she had done. The attacker's knife hadn't touched Percy. Instead, it had wound up plunging itself into her left shoulder.

She sank to the ground, trying not to cry out at the pain. In the background, she heard the sound of someone hitting the ground, hard. She knew that she should try to get away, so she tried to stand but fell back, feeling suddenly dizzy. Of course—the knife had probably come near an artery. In desperation, she pulled the knife out and tossed it to the ground, where it clattered on the pavement.

The noise seemed to attract Percy's attention. He turned around and saw her lying on the ground.

"Well?" she asked, with a grim smile. "You've won. Go ahead. Kill me." She was feeling dizzier and dizzier by the moment, but she stared straight at him anyway.

Shock, confusion, and something else that she couldn't identify played across his face. Suddenly, he knelt to the ground and picked her up.

"What are you doing?"

"I have no idea," he said truthfully as he carried her away from the alley.

End of Chapter

Author's Note and Explanation: Part of the reason why this chapter is so late is that I was making changes to the plotline. See, I'd originally planned on making the fighting between Percy and Annabeth longer, but after posting the last chapter, I realized that the jailbreak scene put them at a stalemate. It seemed like a good opportunity to get them on the path to reconciling, so I took a chance and went with it. But because of this I had to rework the plot a bit, so that took a while. Sorry I kept you guys waiting.