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Annabeth POV

I certainly wasn't going to let Percy get away with that so easily. So naturally I spent that whole night bitching with Thalia. Our bus had stopped near some woods, and we were camping in tents once again. Considering Percy was doing nothing but confusing me, I stayed away from him most of the day. And in doing so, I actually got to know some other people on the program better. I learned that Katie liked gardening and Rachel loved art as we hung out on the bus ride. I also got to talk to Nico more when we stopped to get food.

Yet the entire day, my thoughts kept looping back to Percy. He had nearly kissed me, so where the hell did that leave us? It had become pretty obvious from that little scene that we had feelings for each other, but god knows where he wanted things to go. I know we probably wouldn't have a functional relationship unless I started opening up, but blackmailing me like that sure wasn't going to get me to spill.

And so there I sat in the tent after trying to explain all of this to Thalia. She just looked at me blankly for a few moments before saying, "Well, forget what he wants. What do you want?"

Did she have to ask that of all questions?

"I don't know," I sighed.

She huffed in annoyance because I clearly wasn't making her job as my shrink any easier. "I think you do know. As a matter of fact, I think everyone on this damn trip knows you want to be with him."

"I do. But at the same time I don't."

Throwing her hands up in exasperation, she practically shouted, "But why?"

"It would just be too confusing. And I barely know anything about him."

"You're wrong," she deadpanned.

"What are you talking-?"

"What's his favorite color?"

"Blue. What does that have to do with-?"

"What's his brother's name?"

"Tyson, but-"

"When's his birthday?"

"August 18th. Why are you asking-?"

"Does he have ADHD?"

"Yeah, and dyslexia too. I don't understand what that has to do with anything though."

She sighed, "How can you not understand it? I just gave you the most random questionnaire about him, and you were able to answer everything right. That means you at least know something about him."

"But those are just a bunch of random fun facts about him," I argued.

"So?" she pointed out. "These days, people will hook up with someone without even knowing their name. You know more than you think about Percy. It just bothers you that you don't know about his past." To be completely honest, I already knew what she was telling me. I just hoped that maybe no one else would notice so that wouldn't be an obvious factor in my decision. Apparently I made it pretty obvious though.

"Fine, I guess you have a point. But why do you seem like you want us together so bad anyway?"

She shrugged. "It's not so much that. I just don't want you to have only stupid reasons keeping you from going out with him."

"Like your reasons for not going out with Luke or Nico?" I probably shouldn't have said that.

Her eyes zeroed in on me and for once I realized why people could see her as such a threat sometimes. "That's completely different. I don't like either of them."

"You aren't getting away with an answer like that. You messed with my head, now I'm messing with yours." I told her and her face darkened. Something told me I was really walking into bad territory with her, but someone needed to say something about this to her. "I think you say you don't like either of them, yet in reality you actually like both of them and you're torn."

"So what if I am?"

"You tell me."

She clenched her jaw and turned her head away. "Annabeth, I really don't want to get angry with you. So you might just want to drop this."

"Not until you tell me what's up." I said stubbornly. "Aren't normal girls supposed to gossip like this and spill our hearts out to each other?"

I was glad to hear her chuckle at this. "Yeah. But if you haven't noticed, we don't exactly fall under the category of 'normal'."

"We can still gossip though. If anything, the fact that we aren't normal gives us a lot more to talk about. So why won't you go out with either of them?"

With a roll of her eyes, she grumbled, "I can't believe I'm actually having this conversation. I'd rather just stick with the whole 'I don't like either of them' façade. Because I feel like I just seem whiny and spoiled when I say I have two great guys who like me and I can't choose as if it's some sort of crisis. I like Nico because we're just such close friends and he always seems to be the one comforting me. But with Luke, there's just so much history."

"You always say things with him are complicated or that you guys have some huge history. Is it really that bad?"

"Let's just say that this-" she tugged the collar of her shirt and her bra strap aside so I could see the scar on her shoulder where it looked like something had actually been stabbed through her, "-was his doing."

My jaw probably dropped in shock. I thought about the Luke I had been paired up with today. Sure, some of his jokes were a little daring, but he seemed harmless. He just seemed a little sneaky sometimes. Not in a cruel way though. Then I thought about what I'd heard him say to Thalia when it was storming the other night: "I'm still so sorry".

"There's no way," I shook my head in disbelief.

"That's what I thought once," she stated in a flat tone before curling up in her sleeping bag. "I'm going to bed. Night."'

"Night," I replied, slipping into my own sleeping bag even though I was still surprised. My nightmares didn't help my state much either.

I was in a blind rage. My body was on autopilot as I tore into the locker room where I knew my arch enemies would be getting changed for their cheerleading practice. It turns out Tammi and Kelli were already changed and were just having a blast checking themselves out in one of the tall mirrors around the room. They must have been crushed by the fact that no one else was there to watch them be super perfect and fake.

"What the hell are you up to?" I growled as I stormed up to them.

"What on earth could you possibly mean?" Tammi asked in mock-innocence, even though the evil smirks on their faces proved as total evidence.

My eyes narrowed furiously. "Could you drop the dumbass act for one damn minute? You both know what I'm talking about."

Kelli gave out a little laugh. "Annabeth, there must be a misunderstanding."

"What's there to misunderstand?" I spat. "You and your stupid boyfriends ganged up on my brothers. Did you think I wouldn't notice when they came home scared and bruised? It would've been bad enough if you just talked to them. But it's obvious more happened if they came home bruised. What the f*** did you do to them?"

"We were just looking for a little cash, that's all," Kelli explained. "We heard you had two brothers who went to the elementary school, so we decided to check them out. We needed some cash and we figured we could just steal their lunch money or something. Your mother," she was putting the word 'mother' in on purpose. She knew I only had a step mom, "must have made them lunch because they didn't have even a penny on them. They had to pay up in some way, so our boys may have roughened them up a bit. Boys will be boys, I guess."

Far beyond pissed off now, I slammed them up against the nearest wall, pinning them with my forearms pressed against their throats. "You better listen well. Pick on me all you want. By this point, I couldn't care less. But do not go anywhere near my brothers ever again."

Tammi just chuckled a little, which sounded strangled as I rammed my arm harder against her neck. "You do realize we could get you expelled from this school too. Considering right now you're not only attacking us, but also threatening us."

"You won't though," I said knowingly. "You guys would rather keep me around to try and tear my life down as much as possible."

Releasing my hold on them, I turned and headed for the door. Just before I could leave, Kelli called out, "Annabeth?"

"What?" I snapped.

"I just thought you should know; I really did enjoy meeting your brothers," the wicked gleam in her eye only unsettled me more.

My eyes flickered open. I was panting heavily from the anger built up in my dream. Now that I was awake though, I was torn between wanting to cry and wanting to be furious. Neither happened though. I just sort of sat there, staring at the tent flaps for what felt like hours. After a while, I heard Thalia shift and the next thing I knew, she was sitting right next to me, watching the tent flaps as well.

"Thinking?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "All thanks to another bad dream. I'm sorry if I was being a bit pushy last night."

She waved the comment off. "It's no big deal. Only the first year campers didn't know that Luke did that. I was probably going to tell you eventually. Normally, I wouldn't have cared about telling you. I've just been a bit off lately."

"I've noticed."

She nodded. "I didn't realize I was being obvious about it."

"You weren't. I wasn't even entirely sure until you just told me."

"Oh."

"Is it because of the mail you got the other day?"

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "How did you guess?"

"Percy told me your letter was bad. I was just assuming that was why since I didn't know of anything else that could've set you off. If you don't want to tell me though, it's okay." As you all probably guessed, I actually did want to know, I just didn't want to be obnoxious. I already pried enough from her in the past twenty-four hours.

"I don't mind. It was a letter from one of my old neighbors. She was writing to tell me that my mom died in a car crash."

I turned to look at her. "I'm sorry."

I was surprised to see her as fairly unbothered. When I heard about my brothers, I was a wreck. How was she so calm?

"I know it sounds heartless," she said, "but she's been dead to me for years. She was always drinking and she never paid me any attention any way. I was talking to Nico about it the other night because I felt terrible. I felt like a sick person because it didn't even seem to bother me that much that my own mother had died."

Trying to be sympathetic, I just threw out there, "I know the feeling. My step mom is a bitch. I'd probably feel the same way if she died. I guess it's a little different since we aren't blood-related."

With a grin, she just clapped me on the back. "It's different, but the attempt was nice." The two of us laughed and she checked her watch. "Everyone's going to start waking up soon. I think we should pack everything up now so we can get the seats all the way in the back on the bus."

}{}{}{}{}{}{

Due to the rest of the day's events, I must admit that my dream had pretty much been entirely forgotten. Things started getting really interesting from the minute we got on the bus. And yes, Thalia and I did get the two farthest back seats. At some point a sing-a-long had been started up, much to our chaperones' dismay. I can assure you, you never want to hear all thirteen of us belting out Somebody Told Me by The Killers. You would most likely want to go deaf.

When we finally reached our next stop all of us looked around in confusion. The three nearest places were a Laundromat, a Best Buy, and a bank. None of us had money to buy anything from Best Buy (nor would we have anywhere to really put stuff). And there was no way they would willingly send juvenile delinquents into a bank. So we could only assume they were sending us to the Laundromat.

"It has come to my attention that many of you didn't pack enough clothes for this trip and could really use an opportunity to wash some of your clothes." Chiron said and a lot of us nodded in agreement. "Since we see this as a bit of a necessity we will lend you all money for a wash and dry cycle. Once you get some, feel free to take your clothes and go wash them."

No one argued. We all grabbed our money and headed in. But once all of us had put our stuff in machines, we had some down time. The washers were built into the walls, but the dryers were all stationed on the ground. So of course, the Stoll brothers decided to start dancing on top of the dryers.

"My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. And they're like, It's better than yours," Travis began singing.

And, to no one's surprise, Connor joined in. "Damn right, it's better than yours. I can teach you, But I have to charge."

"Stop singing this instant, you infernal children!" Mr. D barked.

They did stop singing, but by no means did they stop dancing. Speakers in the place actually had other music playing, so the two of them were going around to everyone in the program, and other random strangers, to see if they would dance with them. The only person they got to join in was Luke, who ended up coming to me to try and get me to dance with him.

He bowed and offered out his hand, "May I have this dance, my lady?"

I rolled my eyes at his mock attempt at being proper. "I'm good."

"Come on," he taunted. "Who's here that you would be embarrassed in front of? Percy?"

I scowled at that. I'm not really one to care if people think I'm weird. Or at least I'm used to it. So I really didn't care if Percy would've judged me for dancing with Luke. The only problem was, once again, that he almost kissed me. If that meant to him that we were together in any sort of way, wouldn't it be wrong for me to be dancing with Luke? Thinking about him almost kissing me was actually my deciding factor to dance with Luke. It wouldn't mean anything to me or Luke and it would show Percy that he can't keep sending me mixed signals.

Grabbing his hand, I responded, "Actually, I'd love to dance."

After a few minutes of us just dancing like complete psychos together, he asked, "Are you okay? You keep looking at me weird."

Without even realizing it, I was trying to picture him as the creep who would've stabbed Thalia. With him laughing and dancing though, I just couldn't see it. I by no means thought Thalia was lying, but it just made me wonder what the old him used to be like.

"Thalia told me what you did to her," I said simply.

His eyes widened for a moment, as if trying to figure out if he did something wrong recently. His eyes then darkened though and it was evident he knew what I meant. "Oh. And so now you're wary of me."

I shook my head. "Actually, I'm trying to picture you doing that. And I just can't."

He grinned. "You're probably one of the few people on the trip who think that. A lot of people heard about how I was my first year. I was kind of an asshole."

"Oh."

Neither of us talked the rest of the time. We finally stopped at one point when we all had to switch our clothes over to a dryer. During this whole transition, I happen to catch Percy's eye. He was giving me an annoyed look as if to ask what the hell my whole scene with Luke was about. I put on my best innocent face and pretended I had no idea why seemed annoyed. Luke apparently caught this sort-of conversation between us.

"Are you trying to piss Percy off?" he asked me.

I shrugged. "I consider it getting even." I also did not plan on being the one to cave first.

"I think I can help with that. Just don't freak out," he told me.

Before I could even ask what he meant, he leaned down and wrapped his arms around my waist in a hug. I was surprised I didn't actually feel trapped. He kept his grip loose and he just felt so relaxed himself that it almost gave me no reason to feel tensed. So I brought my arms around him in return. To be completely honest, I nearly started crying. It had been my first hug since I had hugged Bobby and Matthew the night I found out kids were starting to bully them. And that was close to a year ago. I was glad it was from Luke. It didn't have to mean anything with him since he liked Thalia. With Percy it would've meant something, even if I didn't know what.

"Thank you," he whispered in my ear.

"For what?"

With a laugh, he pulled out of the hug. "For not punching me or judging me when you found out about what I did to Thalia. When most people find out, they try and beat me up."

"No problem."

We parted ways and I wasn't surprised to find Percy glowering at Luke. I almost felt bad about it. He once told me it was game on though. Now I guess I'm just stepping up the game.