Remember me? No?
That's okay. It's been a year and four months. I totally understand. I just wanted to pop in a chapter rn so people know I'm alive.
I'm doing so much better.
I survived.
And for the last year and four months I've been writing like crazy. I'll tell you more about it at the bottom of this chapter.
(Don't remember what came before this? Same bro. I've included as many cues as I could so hopefully you can just read this as is without having to go back to other chapters.)
Chapter 26
Thalia was cackling like she'd waited her whole life for this moment. Axe in hand, she stalked towards Percy in a catlike stalking motion. Throwing half-baked insults at him and dragging a sword with her other hand through the sand leaving a long wispy line. Percy still lay on the ground, trembling. Octavian had the remote to the shackles on his wings. Whatever drug they were shocking him with, it was potent stuff. He already resembled someone who had the tar licked out of them. How was he supposed to fight like this?
Catch light.
Annabeth scoped the arena. The faceless crowd shifted and morphed together. More cheers of excitement whooped up when she went running past. Past the stacks of wooden crates, past the stands of medieval styled weapons, gleaming sinisterly. Even past the V.I.P booth where Flab face, Carl and her disgusting husband watched in leisure pleasure.
Should she fly? Annabeth glanced back at the booth. Octavian saluted her with the remote.
No. Bad idea.
Think Annabeth. Think.
How was she supposed to catch light when it was all around her? What did they expect exactly? A box of light? A box emitting light or only containing it? But they didn't give her a box. It felt as if there were a hot lump in her throat. As if her breathing tubes had been replaced with pinched straws.
She rounded the side of the egg, reaching the crack they emerged from. Grover was still inside, dull eyed. Could the empty platters be used? They were reflective.
Not light capturing though. Like a diamond? Like water maybe?
A shriek ripped static up her spine. Before her, Percy was on the ground again. Red. A thick oozing line of blood flooded from a gash in his shoulder. Dripping into the sand. Disappearing into a dark damp patch. Already his face was pale, coated thickly in a sheen of dappled sweat. Panting despairingly, he glanced back at her, pleadingly. Thalia stood above him, speckled in crimson, smiling and holding the sword above her head. Cheers raged over the arena.
'Finish'
"STOP!" Annabeth moved. Faster than she thought she could. Faster than she'd ever moved before. Lunging between them, holding up her arms to block the blow.
The crowds gasped and lulled into tense silence.
Thalia froze. Her eyes froze. Even her smile. For a moment she was an ice statue, a mime mid performance, before a look of confusion melted onto her face. Lost almost.
"Wrong move," Octavian sang happily. His words scuttled by so closely. Why did it feel like he was whispering in her ear? Annabeth was already shaking.
Behind her, Percy yelped. When she whipped her head around, he was already thrashing like a victim of electrocution. His eyes rolled back into his head. Pain mangled his mouth open in a silent scream. Tossing grains with his spazzing wings.
Annabeth's heart squeezed. Tears burned her eyes. Everything inside her was choking desperately.
"STOP THIS! PLEASE! STOP THIS!" She turned towards the box of monsters. Her throat already raw. "HURT ME! NOT HIM! PLEASE! PLEASE!"
Octavian shrugged. "Catch. Light. Really Annabeth, it's not that hard."
Catch light.
Her eyes raked every surface, every cranny.
Catch light.
"I.. I'm okay," Percy wheezed. He was struggling to find traction in the sand. Holding his injured shoulder as he tried to get up. Annabeth moved to help him before she realized her mistake. She took a deep breath.
Just. Catch. Light.
Percy rose from the ground like a starved flower. Gingerly, he picked up a loose sword and tested it in his hand. Then there was a clang of metal. A joyous sound from the crowds. Percy was fighting. Weakly, one handedly, but he was fighting. Fighting for her, she realized with a jolt. He was trying to be strong for her sake.
So dammit, I'm going to catch light. She grit her teeth until her skull rang with pressure.
Exasperated she flapped her wings. The way the air flowed under her power was still unfamiliar, still exciting. Gripping her fists, she thrusted her wings down again. Creating ripples of sand and getting a hush from the audience.
She was on the edge of a punishment and she knew it. All she had to do…
Annabeth let her eyes go skyward. There was enough room to fly in there. Plenty in fact. Above was a ceiling made of light. Something she couldn't catch.
In the background, the sounds of metal on metal intensified. Annabeth wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but she could hear Percy's labored breaths. The pain that was sparked in each one.
Catch it. C'mon Annabeth.
She took off. Flapping as hard as she could, reaching out in a desperate attempt. Working towards the ceiling of light one beat after another. The ground spun below her. Just as she was about to touch it, grab at it, a crack of pain ripped up her skeleton. Her body turned to lead.
She fell. Twirling through the air in a maple whirly wing fashion. Time grew thick and slow, like a rich molasses. Every blink plunged her into darkness for what felt like eternity.
Somewhere in her agony fogged mind she caught a glimpse of a drone. Something filming her as she plummeted. Fighting every wilted nerve, every pulse of lava through her heart, she angled her wings and aimed for the little machine. It collided with her. Got it, she thought as she secured its warm plastic body between her arms. Then Percy screamed her name right before she hit the ground.
Impact was breath stealing. It was like being slapped with two tons of concrete. Dazed, Annabeth lay against the ground, staring at the white lights lining the ceiling. Swallowing back the dryness in her throat, she clutched the drone harder.
It was whirring and spitting. The little propellers skidded against her skin in an attempt to be airborne again. She could barely feel it. Her bones ached with a brittleness that felt aging.
"Annabeth!" Percy sounded far far away. Him and the squeal of metal on metal from their fight. And Thalia's war cries. And Octavian's taunting words, whatever he was saying.
The crowd sounded close. Very close. Almost as if they were bustling around her broken form, whispering, laughing, rejoicing. Their indistinct tones and words were pouring down her shirt and clawing through her ears. Ringing there, echoing there.
Catch light. She reminded herself groggily.
In the far distance, Percy screeched again.
Annabeth dug her hands into the sand. She had to get up. She had to get up. But it was like moving through the earth. Gravity clung to every limb. Groaning, she forced her way up into a sitting position, one firm hand on the drone, another holding her steady. Her legs refused to move the way she wanted.
Percy.
Growling, she dragged herself. She could feel the eyes of the panel on her but she didn't care anymore. She knew what to do. She reached a stand lined with medieval swords and daggers. Carefully, she selected one and leveled it above her abdomen. Her cool gaze settled on Octavian, searching for a reaction.
He smiled and held up the remote again.
Instead, she lowered the weapon onto the flat back of the drone and drew a deep cut into its plastic.
'Light' she inscribed.
With what was left of her energy, she vaulted the drone at the viewing box and smirked at how the three men ducked to avoid getting smacked.
"There!" she yelled, pulling herself to her feet, one leg at a time. "I caught you light."
Octavian sneered. Holding up the drone by one of its sputtering propellers. "This is not light."
"I named it Light," Annabeth hissed. "And I caught it. Therefore, I caught light."
Whatever indecent thing Octavian was about to scream, he was cut off by Carl. The security guard was shaking. A shy hand covered his face. For a few moments, Annabeth didn't understand that he was laughing.
"Clever," he chuckled. "Really. It's clever. But not what you were supposed to do."
On cue, Octavian clicked the button. Percy's cries echoed around the arena.
"NO!" she shrieked.
What did they expect of her? What were they looking for? Why couldn't she do what they wanted? Rage set her skin on fire. Breaking her out of her foggy brain reality and powering her strength up. Ablaze, she powered across the arena and stormed up to Thalia. In two thrusts she had the bluejay girl in the sand with her wings splayed in confusion.
"Percy."
He was battered and slick with blood. Cuts criss-crossed up his arms and across his neck. The grey of his jumpsuit was almost completely soaked in red. Two of his primaries on his left wing had been sliced off. What was worse was he wasn't responding. His eyes fluttered open and closed without rhythm.
Tenderly, she wiped the warm crimson away from his face with one hand, and snaked another around his back. Her fingers found the metal strips encasing the base of his wings. She stuck her nail under the rim and pulled, prying it open until one fell free. Carefully, she felt for the other one.
She wasn't going to let them hurt him again.
"Aaannnd that's an orange level violation," Flab face's voice echoed over the crowd. "A hundred lashes Goldie."
"I'll take it," she grumbled. "You're not touching him."
"You misunderstand."
In a crown of pain, her world went black. She slumped against Percy.
-{:oOo:}-
Her tongue felt too big for her mouth. Everything was blurry. Her thoughts, her vision, even the way she moved if that made any sense.
Either she was spinning or the room was spinning. A deep resonating ache echoed up and down her arms, collecting at her wrists. Shackles, she could feel their bite.
In vain Annabeth cracked her eyes open but the world still didn't make sense. A deep thronging noise was humming against the walls of her cell, like the building was singing. It took her a few moments to come to understand it was her own ears ringing.
A square of sunlight spilled over the floor before her, out of reach. She was chained close to the wall. Her links of chain had been cut shorter. Suspending her arms in the air like she was perpetually giving up.
"Percy," she croaked. She still couldn't see properly. Was he there? Was he okay?
Thalia cackled from her corner. "Oh honey. He isn't going to answer you for a while."
That woke her up fast.
Cracking her neck up, she squinted at Percy's cell. Straining against her shackles, her bare feet scraped against the ground. Finally her vision cleared.
Bile swelled in her throat along with a broken desperate cry.
Only the cuffs of Percy's grey jumpsuit were identifiable. The rest was discoloured. He hung against the wall of his cell like a shirt put out to dry.
Red coated him in different shades. Ruddy brown coloured against his clothes and scabbing on the ground and wall. Rusty caked in the droop of his wings and the crannies of his ripped clothes. Dark red shined in the layers of deep slashes that mangled and deformed the skin of his back. Blood still trickled in a weak line to patter against the cold floor. Patterning the wall with speckles like some sick modern art.
"Percy!" she sobbed.
A hundred lashes. She had misunderstood. Not for her. For him.
Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?
"Oh get over it. They'll keep him alive," Thalia snorted. "Only the lucky ones die."
"You," Annabeth snarled murderously in a flare of hot anger. She could still see the light cuts on Percy's arms and legs. Cuts Thalia gave him. Papercuts in comparison but still. "Do you have anything left inside you?"
"Nope," Thalia said, popping the 'p'. "If I have nothing left, then they have nothing to take. See how I've survived this long miss princess?"
Annabeth tried for a retort but her voice wouldn't work. Her jaw was shaking. Everything was swimming in one long line that filled her to the brim and never seemed to stop, not even for a single moment. It was like the world condensed into a tiny droplet of existence and she was six thousand miles away, running but making it nowhere, screaming but saying nothing. She couldn't feel the tears but she saw them fall free from her eyes and tick against the floor, leaving dark marks in the concrete. Did those even exist?
She was detached. Empty. As if she were floating above her own head in a little helium balloon, tethered by one ribbon with a flimsy slipknot. The only thing that was real was the stabbing in her chest. The bright aching pain that kept her present. Percy's pain was hers too.
"HA. The suit is shunned," Thalia chortled.
Annabeth took a deep breath. She could feel the air flood into her lungs this time. She blinked. Her cheeks wet.
Someone was banging against the bars of her cell. A rolled up magazine clenched in their fingers. A dark look of pleasure ripped up their face. Coldness rolled out of their eyes like dry ice. All bones and sharp edges.
A cast on one foot.
Octavian. Annabeth realized. She hadn't recognized him. And not because he was different but because her brain was a pool of sludge, swishing around her skull.
"Finally." Octavian smirked. "I've been trying to get your attention for five minutes! Feeling a little out of it?"
Not now. She groaned internally. Not now. Not now! She had no more fire to fight him with. She was empty. He could do whatever he wanted. She didn't care.
"Didn't you enjoy the gift I left you?" Octavian cocked his head at her. He thrust the magazine through the bars and started showing her one page after another. "I thought you'd be glad to get an update on your family."
She shifted then glanced up. Taking the bait, and she knew it. But what about her family? What had he done?
Malcolm was smiling up through a page. Glowing, healthy, happy. She couldn't unscramble the words next to his photo. They were too far, too black, too close together.
"Youngest Doctor ever to be made into chief surgeon in downtown Blakely's most esteemed hospital." Octavian read with a simpering tone. "Isn't that just great? My father did it mostly. Your darling brother only had to sign a contract saying he would never talk about you again to get the position."
Annabeth shivered. A cloud was in her mind. A dark one. "You're lying."
"That's the best part. I'm not!" Octavian laughed. "Your mother was a part of the interview too. She was just gushing about the success of her only child."
That part she didn't care about. She sunk back down in her shackles and let her brain go to the floor again.
"This suit is chatty," Thalia complained loudly. "And it looks like an unbalanced penguin. All beak and feet."
"Shut up you."
"OooOoohh. Wanna fight turtle face?"
She waited for his cranky response but he didn't reply. He was quiet. Suspiciously quiet. Swallowing, she glanced up again. Probably taking the bait for a second time.
Octavian was smiling in front of Percy's cell. A deeply twisted smile artists conjured to paint on devil faces. The kind of grin that fed upon pain.
"How gruesome," Octavian tutted with delight. "He's going to be covered in scars after this."
Like he knew she was watching him, Octavian captured her eye contact. Gleaming with joy.
"How could you do this to him Annabeth?"
Her heart stopped. The cloud thickened. "W-what?"
"You must be demented," he laughed. "I mean, if it wasn't for you this boy wouldn't be here. He'd be enjoying his life in the woods, unbothered. If you hadn't come after him on our wedding day he would never have gotten torn up this badly. Honestly dear, are you trying to love him or hurt him? I guess you don't know the difference."
He's right.
(shut up)
You did this to him.
(shut up)
He'd be happier without you.
The cloud descended. She was air. She was gone. One single tug of that string and she'd be a balloon in the breeze. Soaring through the clouds without the weight of her body. Static had replaced her skin, vapor had replaced her eyes, sound had replaced her ears.
What noises were fake and which ones were real? Did her ears know? Or were they the ones deceiving her. Was this just all in her head? Was this her own fault?
Wake up! She told herself sternly. We can't give up now! WAKE UP!
But she was coated in leaden memories. She wasn't good enough to defeat the bad. Crack went her etiquette teacher's ruler. She wasn't sitting up straight enough. Crack, she'd been caught at school doing a prank. Crack her mothers hand stung across her cheek as she stumbled around her stale and bright office. Crack. Was Octavian slapping her now?
CRACK.
Annabeth gasped. Instantly aligning her spine into that perfect straight posture. Relaxing her expression into a graceful poised look while being sure to have an air of disinterest. Crossing her legs at the ankles with her hands folded in her lap as was proper for a lady when sitting.
"Uh oh. Fancy mode. Someone must've pressed a wrong button," Thalia said across from her. Mindlessly munching on a vague green cracker.
Annabeth blinked.
She was no longer in her cell. It was a small square concrete room. A single table and chairs all bolted to the floor. Grover was to her left, fish eyed. Three platters of food were stationed before them.
"I see the lights are already starting to flicker out for you," Thalia said with a mouthful of food.
Annabeth blinked.
One vacant seat stared back at her next to Thalia. A sinful absence almost. "Percy."
"Yeah yeah. I know. Percy this and Percy that. It's all you've babbled about for the last three hours."
"Three hours?" Her own voice sounded so distant. So foreign. Even forming words felt unfamiliar and weird, like she was speaking a new language for the first time.
She didn't care that three hours had passed without her noticing. But she should've. She knew she should've. Shaking her head, Annabeth rubbed her palm over her forehead.
WAKE UP!
"You better eat. Unless you want to be my new puppet." Thalia was dropping globs of grey mush in Grovers hair slowly. Thoroughly amused as it stretched down his cheeks and into his baggy jumpsuit. Grover teetered forward as if he was going to face plant into his food
Anger. It sprouted up in her chest like a tiny flower of fire. How long had it been since she'd felt a solid emotion other than loss? She didn't know. She couldn't remember.
WAKE UP!
With a growl she dragged Grover's platter of food away. "Stop."
"Awww, you're the scariest kid on the playground Princess." Thalia mocked. Using her own food now to finger paint a huge swear word onto the metal tabletop.
Annabeth plopped her own platter in front of Grover. Untouched food, if food is what you could call it. Different coloured piles of mush didn't exactly tell you what you were eating.
"Where's Percy?"
"Eating rainbows and dancing in puddles," Thalia replied. Shuddering her big blue wings as if she'd just made the world's funniest joke.
"Thalia."
"Still strung up like a cow carcass. Don't worry, they want him alive. Someone will jam a tube down his throat and force him full of nutrients. That's a fun thing to watch because the poor bugger getting filled turns a shade of blue or purple like a smurf."
Of course you'd love it you sicko. Annabeth clamped her fists. However, she had no replies. Her brain wasn't functioning. It was like she was on a greased slide. Grover was at the end, when she reached him, she became him.
Shivering, Annabeth realigned her wings against her back. They felt loose. Unhinged. Like at any moment they'd peel off her shoulders and drop dead on the floor. Maybe the coordinators of this hell hole would give them to Octavian so he could mount them in his trophy room.
She closed her eyes to scrub the image from her mind. It wouldn't happen like that. It couldn't. Whether or not she died there, her wings would never be Octavian's. They'd want to do tests even on her remains, she was sure of it.
"Windy today, isn't it?" Thalia called from far away.
Annabeth opened her eyes.
She was outside. Between the two purple mountains. A plain of grass surrounded her. A quick moving stream with a rocky shore gurgled by. In the distance stood the cabin. Empty, quiet, and almost forlorn.
She should be jarred. She should be afraid. She was just eating dinner, how did she get there? How long had passed since she shut her eyes?
Thalia stood near the stream. Arms spread wide in sync with her bluejay wings. Catching the wind in her feathers and hair and whooping a joyful cry at the feeling. She was unbound, she could fly away. Why didn't she?
Grover was slumped over in the grass next to her. His brown curls were licked up in the fray of air as it shushed around them.
It tugged at Annabeth too. Teasing her hair into knots, pulling at her jumpsuit and rolling cool puffs down the parts in her clothes. Wheezing, she rose to her feet and stuck out her hand. Feeling the air with her fingers as it rolled down her arm.
My wings.
She couldn't feel the air in her wings. Not so much as a quiver went into her feathers. Annabeth tried to stretch them out but nothing responded. It was like where her wings were another sinful blank space had been placed.
"My wings?!" she croaked. Shocked. "They took my wings?!"
Stretching, she reached to her back with her hands. Feeling the column of muscle and tendons that reached out from her shoulders. They suddenly ended in two wet stumps. Hot and slick with blood.
"MY WINGS?!" she screeched. Her echo returned to her off the mountains with a mocking tone. "WHERE ARE MY WINGS?!"
Thalia whirled around at her screams and gawked. A crow of amusement burst through her lips. "You look HILARIOUS!"
Confusion, pain, grief. Annabeth was spiraling. Before she hadn't felt anything, now she felt everything. The agony of the edges of where her wings had been torn off. The choking emotions that clenched around her throat and whipped her lungs into hiccups. Burning built up behind her eyes as she clawed her back over and over.
"MY WINGS!"
"Geez, no need to shout," Octavian retracted the magazine through the bars again. "I thought you'd be happy to hear your brother is doing so well. Far better than you could ever manage at least."
Her cell? She was chained to the wall again. Had she even left? Was this all in her head? Her wings were drooped against her shoulders. The whispering feel of her feathers gave her an ounce of comfort.
"Awww, no need to cry dear. You'll be out as soon as you forget about flight and every other nasty freedom ideologies."
Her cheeks were wet. A deep throbbing ache was pulsing behind her eyes. Exactly how long had she been crying? She shifted towards Percy. His wounds looked exactly the same. No healing. Had she just really imagined eating dinner and taking free time outside?
"Percy…" she croaked.
"Auugh. That's all I've heard ALL DAY." Thalia thrashed against her chains. "Get a new line you broken record."
All day?
"Well I better be off. I'm having tea with the team here. They adore me. After all, I am the one that brought them two new test subjects." Octavian rattled the magazine against the bars to her prison one more time. "Don't miss me too much!"
He hobbled down the hallway of mirrors. The door beeped shut behind him.
That's not right. It was a memory, wasn't it? Being in the hallway. Looking in at the layers and layers of reflections as she was led past. A single image of hers in the lineup of other hers banged against the glass, screaming. Warning her.
Annabeth shut her eyes. She focused on the sounds of Thalia's breathing. On her own breathing. She couldn't go on like this. Time was meaningless in this place. Moments came and went like dreams. Perhaps she wasn't even awake. Perhaps this truly was all in her messed up head. If that were the case, then Percy wasn't actually injured. Maybe he wasn't even really there.
Maybe I'm not really here.
She couldn't trust herself. Everything vortexed around her in an uncontrollable storm. Making her feel like a child again, hiding in her closet because she got a B on a math test. Hiding in the bathroom because her etiquette teacher had shared her disappointments with her mother. Hiding, hiding, hiding from her mothers eyes. That steeped look of disapproval, of disdain. Desperately trying to do everything right but nothing ever worked. Nothing ever would work.
That's exactly what it's like. Annabeth lifted her head.
It was like this place was her mothers eyes. Nothing she did was good enough. Nothing she'd ever done was good enough. All she did was hurt the people she loved and failed at the things she was expected to do.
Suddenly, it hit her. A clarity. A peace. Every little action of that messy day had rolled neatly into a tight ball and exploded in her mind. She knew what she needed to do. She'd been trained for this moment her whole life, she realized.
Forgive me Percy. She thought silently. Then looked past to a slumped Grover. I may have to kill your best friend.
School is kicking my butt and I just wanted to be on fan fiction again so here I am. I've actually been holding off on posting anything because I wanted to get the writing projects I'm working on now completely finished.
Remember last year when I said I was simply going to take a break to write a cheesy oneshot titled 'I Would Literally Die for You'? Yeah. That turned into a 126K word monster that I'll publish soon as a four shot. And it's not all fun and cheesy, I got carried away. (Plus another 30K word Oneshot, and a currently 90K word story, and another 80K word story... I just want to finish them before posting anything. Actually learn to edit, because obviously I've never done that before.)
Anyways, if you want to bully me into writing faster or make fun of the new hobby I'm terrible at (drawing), or see what I'm up to, or simply say hello to me I now have an instagram account! You can find me averagecanadian3
I just post PJO fanart now. I suck, but the goal is to get better.
