CHAPTER 22: RAIN & RUINATION

PERCY

I couldn't drag my eyes away from where Gabe was standing. A thousand memories from my childhood were coming roaring back like a flood, and I couldn't shut them off. Beside me, Annabeth stood still except for a flick of her gaze to mine. You okay? she asked silently.

I swallowed, forcing myself to let go of Annabeth's hand—I'd been holding it so tightly that my hand had gone white-knuckled. Feeling helpless, I steadied myself and tried to clear my mind. I was undercover and I really, really couldn't afford to lose my composure. I was certain that if Gabe looked at me too long, he'd recognise me as his estranged stepson, so I forced myself to remain one with the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming here tonight," Gabe was saying. His face was half-cast in shadow by the limelight, making his brown, beady eyes look dark. A predator, through and through. "I know bringing so many of you into one place may have caused some unresolved tensions to rise, but I'm grateful for your collective restraint in keeping your hackles low. As we know, there is a common enemy here."

A few people in the crowd whooped and applauded—mostly those on the wrong side of sober. In the comm set at my ear, I heard Will's voice crackle into existence. "Nico and I are at the back entrance. We've managed to take out the guards, but we'll need a distraction to allow the rest of our forces to flood in. And quickly, before they send another rotation of guards."

I shared a trepid glance with Annabeth. We couldn't try and pull anything, not while Gabe was addressing the gangs. "I hope this event will be the first stepping stone in an unrivalled alliance against the Organisation. It's time to take this city back, restore it to our control. We will absolve this city's power imbalance and make it our own." As my stepfather's voice echoed through the crimson-lit room, I felt the gang leaders warming up to his ideology and swaying to his cause. Gabe was a skilled public speaker; he was undeniably calculating and manipulative by nature.

Suddenly, a feeling of unease washed over me. On instinct, I let my knuckles brush over the holster of my gun so I could draw at a moment's notice. I tore my eyes away from Gabe, squinting into the crowd for whatever was causing my dread.

Behind me, a familiar voice whispered into my ear. "Did you think I wouldn't recognise you, Jackson?" Juno.

I whirled around, gun already in hand. I lashed out at her where she was stood behind me, holding a knife to my neck. Faster than anything, I ducked under her arm and kicked her in the leg. To my eternal satisfaction, I realised both her legs were supported by braces—injuries she'd sustained when I'd put bullets in both her kneecaps. She'd healed quicker than I'd expected, but then again I supposed my stepfather had probably made sure she'd been given the best possible care.

Juno grunted, but didn't go down. She sliced at me with her blade, cruel grin splitting her face. "I should've known you'd show your face here."

I fired a shot at her abdomen, but she'd whirled away before the bullet even left my gun. "How're the legs?" I jabbed.

Annabeth joined the fight, drawing two knives from her sleeves. But the whole crowd was aware of our presence now. I felt someone grab my arm, wrestling it behind me. Their hand closed around my neck, digging into my windpipe. "Don't resist," he spat into my ear, but it was easy enough to angle the muzzle of my gun down and press it against the flesh of my assailant's leg.

"Think you'd survive a gunshot wound at this range?" I hissed into his ear. He stumbled back, giving me the leeway to spin around and plant a bullet between his masked eyes.

Annabeth was locked in combat with Juno, but several gang leaders behind her had decided to join the fight. I watched as they wrenched her arms behind her back, prising her knife from her grip. Juno laughed in Annabeth's face at her helplessness.

I fired a round of bullets around me by way of warning as the crowd tried to surge forward, charging towards Annabeth. "Get the fuck off her," I snarled, already raising my gun in Juno's direction. But before I could pull the trigger, I felt the sudden, fiery pain of a gunshot find the flesh of my right arm: my shooting arm. I cried out but managed to remain upright—the adrenaline in my body numbed the pain before it could cripple me. I switched my gun to my left hand, hoping at least to get one shot out.

I was knocked off balance by a harsh, debilitating blow to the back of my head, and then I was being restrained. Where were Will and Nico with our reinforcements? They should've been here by now. If this wasn't enough of a fucking diversion, I didn't know what was. I felt the cold, cruel pressure of a muzzle being pressed against my temple and squeezed my eyes shut. No. Not now.

"Wait. Don't kill him," Juno said. Around me, the crowd was murmuring. Speculating. I knew only Juno had recognised me, but that wasn't going to last. "Take off his mask," she ordered. "And the girl's," she added, an afterthought.

I braced myself as someone unlaced my mask and prised it off, letting a wash of cool air settle over my face. I poured as much malice into my expression as I could. If they were going to recognise me as the Butcher's son, I wanted them to be scared about it.

A wave of unrest rippled through the crowd as their appraisal locked on my face. Their expressions betrayed confusion and sickly unease. I glared at Juno, at her smug smile. "What, little rabbit?" she murmured. She grabbed my jaw, moving it to the side in the way a mother might assess her son for injuries. "Can't find a way to escape now?"

Disgust reared in me at the ugly sensation of her fingertips on my skin. I jolted away from the touch. "You've recovered nicely," I sneered. "How long did it take, after I shot you in both legs?"

Without warning, Juno slapped me: a sick echo of when I was younger, having missed the target yet again at the knife-throwing range under her supervision.

Annabeth made a noise of horror. She had blood on her face, dripping down from what looked like a broken nose. "Percy, don't."

Juno smiled in Annabeth's direction. "Who's this, then? Your accomplice? Your partner?" When she looked back at me, her face was twisted with gleeful malice. "Your girlfriend?"

I spat at Juno's feet, not even bothering to reply.

Up on the stage, my stepfather's gaze was burning holes through me. I watched as he gestured sharply to his men, then stepped down off the stage. Even at the same level as everyone else, he seemed to loom larger than life. The crowd parted as he walked through, the anticipation in the air so tangible it could've been cut with a knife. My eyes met Annabeth's for a moment—her face was hardened steel. Be strong. Don't let him win.

As Gabe approached, I swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn't squash the irrational instincts ingrained in me since childhood to stay still, stay quiet, fade into the background whenever I was in his presence. Still, I grunted and struggled to wrench my wrists out of the ironclad grip they were being held in behind my back.

Gabe's expression didn't change as he stopped a metre in front of me; he remained discerning, calculating. For an uneasy few seconds, he didn't speak. I wondered what he thought of who I'd become. It'd been years since I'd ran away, and I'd undoubtedly changed since then. "Well," he said, voice dripping with no small amount of satisfaction. "After all this time, I didn't expect you to wander right into my clutches, yet...here you are."

I clenched my jaw. Hopefully the assault squads would break in soon, but until then there was nothing stopping Gabe from putting a bullet in my head. "Here I am," I agreed, refusing to let my voice tremor.

"So, what brings you here, then? Is this your feeble attempt to take me down?" I said nothing, refusing to lower my stare. "Perhaps you've finally realised how weak you are without SPQR. Without me." He laughed: a hollow, flat sound. A few seconds passed before he spoke, as though he was considering the strange fallacy of my existence before him. His tone fell low, no longer putting on a show for the audience. "I remember when you were four, when I took you to a shooting range for the first time. You doted on my words, clung to my guidance like a lifeline. You believed all the beautiful lies I told you. I could've set the world on fire and called it rain."

A wave of crawling revulsion crashed over me. "That was a long time ago," I gritted out. "You showed your true colours soon enough as a disgusting, manipulative prick. My mom should've killed you in your sleep as soon as you laid a goddamn finger on her."

That seemed to give Gabe something to consider. "I haven't thought about Sally in a while," he mused. "It's probably for the best that my men found her in the end. She only made you weak, and that's the one thing my son should never be."

"Your son?" I said, incredulous. But then something occurred to me. "Wait...your men? What do you mean? She killed herself."

Gabe smiled, slow and serpentine. "You still haven't worked it out? I'm surprised. I thought I raised you smarter than that. Percy, you and your mother's escape was the single greatest insult I've ever suffered. I never could've let her live."

I stuttered. "You..."

Gabe continued, "She hid you well, certainly, but never was quite so careful about herself. My men eventually tracked her down and caught her off guard." He shrugged. "In retrospect, maybe stringing her from the ceiling was needlessly brutal. Still, it was her fault for thinking she could betray me like that and then walk free."

Anger wrenched through me, a hurricane. "You murdered her? All this time, I thought she did it herself. God, I'll kill you. I'll kill you!" I struggled as hard as I could, wishing with everything I had that my hands were free so I could wrap them around my stepfather's neck. "Fucking asshole!" I shouted, voice hoarse.

A metre away, Annabeth shook her head desperately. "Percy, stay calm." Her words were a faraway whisper of rationality.

Suddenly, a jarring round of gunshots reverberated through the speakeasy. It came from the floor above us. The others have finally got in.

I watched as an array of shock, then confusion, then malice flickered across Gabe's face faster than I could comprehend it. He clenched his fist, glancing wildly around him for more intruders. "It's the Organisation," he spat, then signalled to Juno. She was already clipping a fresh round of ammo onto her gun. "Let our reinforcements know they're needed. Find out how the hell they got in, and," he jabbed a thumb at me and Annabeth, "get these two in restraints."

Juno nodded, then began barking orders at her guards. The cold, heavy weight of handcuffs were snapped around my wrists, and I cried out as my wounded shoulder was wrenched back. A pit formed in my stomach. With my hands bound, how was I going to fight?

Gabe spent a moment fixing his cufflinks. I wasn't sure why he thought his appearance mattered when his hideout was being stormed. "Listen up," he called, projecting his authoritative voice into the crowd that was rapidly growing more and more haywire. Somehow, even in the chaos, he managed to gather attention to him. "We are currently under attack by the Organisation. This is no longer a matter of everyone versus everyone; it is now us versus them. Raise your guns and stand your ground!"

I swore under my breath that, against all odds, the gang leaders were listening to him. This wasn't going the way we'd hoped. Our attack was supposed to be shattering the gangs' faith in SPQR, not reinforcing it. Annabeth seemed to have realised the same thing. When I met her eyes, there was a look of sheer desperation in them.

The doors to the speakeasy burst open, letting loose a cover fire of steel bullets. Cries of pain and anger alike emanated from the crowd as they drew their weapons, ready to turn on their attackers. Nico and Will were leading the assault, both of them grim-faced and commanding as they directed their squads to take control of the hideout. "Over here!" I screamed.

Nico noticed us first, his onyx eyes jolting as he registered that we'd been captured and restrained. He said something to Will, who nodded and issued more spitfire orders to the recruits around him.

In seconds, the speakeasy devolved into chaos. I lost sight of Annabeth. Panic rose in me at the thought that she might've gone down. The guards who were holding me in place shoved me to the floor with a brutal hit to the backs of my knees. I collapsed, landing on my bad shoulder; my hands were cuffed behind me and therefore unable to break my fall. "Don't fucking get up," one of the guards hissed at me. They both disappeared into the frenzy, presumably to help keep the hideout under SPQR's control.

I tried to struggle to my feet, but the gunshot wound in my shoulder ached and was still weeping blood. I fought off the haziness that threatened to engulf my vision as a result of the blood loss. Don't pass out yet, I told myself deliriously. I could still fight, I just needed someone to break the chain of these goddamn cuffs.

As if my prayers had been answered, I felt hands slip under my arms and haul me, agonisingly, to my feet. "Are you okay?" they asked, accent careful and British. I turned to see that it was Will standing behind me, gun in hand. Dark blood splattered his clothing, but none of it seemed to be his own.

Shakily trying to find my balance, I nodded, gratefully leaning on him while the world stopped spinning. "Took a bullet to the shoulder, but I can still fight. For now, anyway. Can you break my cuffs?" I held them out behind me, wrists apart. Will bashed the chain once, twice, three times with the muzzle of his gun before it finally shattered. Relieved, I let out a sharp sigh. "Thank God." I pulled two knives out of my suit jacket; I definitely couldn't reliably fire a gun with an injured shoulder due to the kickback, but I could handle knives just fine.

"Ready?" Will asked, already flicking the safety off his gun. He grinned at me fiercely, teeth pale white in the contrasting darkness.

"Of course," I replied, raising my knives. Already, I could feel the adrenaline rushing back into my bloodstream. I have to find Annabeth. Together, we plunged into the fray.

For the next twenty minutes, my world was a haze of ruination and the flashing silver of my knives. I took another bullet to the leg, but it hardly mattered as the wound was so superficial. I didn't even notice the pain of my shoulder, only the sensation of the knife handles in each of my palms. Combat manoeuvres that I'd learnt in my youth poured from my fingertips with the ease of muscle memory. I registered nothing but the faces and pained shouts of each gang leader I took down.

It went on forever. Both sides were so evenly matched that it didn't take long for me to realise that unless we got out of here soon with our hostages, we'd be overrun when Gabe's reinforcements arrived. My stepfather himself was long gone, which infuriated me. I wanted him to face me, so I could get my revenge for him ever making me think my mom's death was a suicide.

I pulled my blade out of a guard's leg, evoking a rough cry of pain from him as he collapsed. Scanning the scene around me, my eyes quickly locked on Nico. As I called his name, he spun around to face me. "When are we getting out of here?' I yelled.

"Thalia's sending in the getaway drivers right now," he answered, then was briefly interrupted by needing to crouch to avoid a hail of bullets that sailed right over his head. "Will's already gotten outside and secured the hostages in the vans."

"Shit," I muttered. "Have you seen Chase? Last I saw, she was still in handcuffs."

Nico shook his head, releasing the spent clip of his gun and ramming in a fresh one. "She's probably with Will. Get yourself out, okay? Your shoulder looks fucking awful." With that, he turned back to the fight.

Nico was right. The adrenaline in my system was beginning to lose its effectiveness and I could already feel my strength dissolving. I needed urgent medical attention, but that didn't mean I had to like it. I cursed, sheathing my knives as I sprinted for the back exit.

I emerged into the street outside, the cold night air enveloping me like a sigh. It was raining hard; sheets of water lashed the pavement with the impetus of a storm. There was fighting going on out here, too. Several of our vans had pulled up and recruits were piling into them, restraining hostages and defending the vans from Gabe's reinforcements that were starting to arrive.

My gaze found Thalia, who was talking animatedly to Will. I made for them, wincing as my calf throbbed with every step. Both my leg and my shoulder were soaked crimson.

Thalia gasped when she saw me. "Christ, how are you still standing? Get in a med-van, now."

I shook my head limply. "Is Annabeth with you?"

"Chase?" Thalia turned to glance around the street. "Haven't seen her. She's probably inside with Nico, holding them off."

I let out a groan of frustration. The deliria from my wounds was fogging my brain, making it hard to think straight. "She's not. I think Gabe got her, Thalia. I think—"

"What?" Thalia snatched Will's gun off him. "Right, I'm going in after her."

Will let out a noise of protest. "Wait, Thalia—"

She fixed him with a venomous glare. "What, Solace? Just 'cause my fucking hair is falling out doesn't mean I can't stand on my own two feet." Flipping the safety off her gun, she called over her shoulder, "And get Jackson some goddamn medical attention!"

Will sighed, relenting. "Alright, then. C'mon." He slipped an arm under my shoulder. Gratefully, I leaned on him with a wince.

We ducked into a side-street where the med-van was parked. In the distance, I could hear blaring sirens getting closer and closer. Will sat me down on the side of a raised stretcher, eyeing my blood-soaked clothes. "Shirt off," he demanded, pulling supplies haphazardly out of boxes. I did as he asked and unbuttoned my shirt, pushing the sleeve down to reveal the ragged wound in my shoulder.

Will turned around with a syringe in-hand, flicking it with a nail. "Wrist up, please." He pressed the needle into the vein at the inside of my elbow, drawing a huff of pain out of me. My stomach heaved at the crawling sensation of the liquid entering my bloodstream.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Morphine." He studied my shoulder for a second, then groaned. "Crap. No exit wound. And you're still bleeding."

I could feel the painkiller kicking in, making my jaw heavy and my body light. I was vaguely aware of Will guiding me down into a lying position, then of a pair of tweezers pressing into the raw, bloody flesh of my shoulder.

The last thought that crossed my detached mind was of Annabeth. After that, everything faded away.

thanks for reading, especially to my reviewers! I love y'all so much :') shit is beginning to hit the fan and I'm sorry lmao.

reminder that you can find the aesthetic board at my pinterest, suicidal_stolen_art.