Luke's P.O.V

Percy wanted to know about Annabeth, my Annabeth. I don't know what possessed me to tell him, but I did.

"She's beautiful, kind and smart. Did you know we met when she was seven? She had this thirst for knowledge the likes of which I'd never seen. She was always smiling and laughing with me and Thalia. I didn't know it then, but I care about her a lot." I said to Percy my temper coming back down as I spoke about Annabeth. She always had that effect on me.

"I know you do Luke" Percy said.

"He doesn't know." He said to me, and anger boiled in me as I realised that he was right. Percy didn't know.

"How could you possibly know how I feel?!" I demanded. "You don't know me!"

"No I don't really know you, Luke." Percy said so calmly that it only irritated me further. "But Annabeth does, she's told me all about you." Percy continued.

"He's lying, why would she tell him about you?" He asked me.

"It's true," Percy said. "She told me how you used to look out for her because she was younger than you. How when she was upset, you'd listen to her and hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay."

I had done those things. Images flashed through my mind of Annabeth, Thalia, and me over the years. All the times Annabeth would seek me out in comfort, how good that made me feel. Until one day it stopped, and I don't remember why.

"But she stopped coming to me. She stopped letting me take care of her." I said bitterly.

"She didn't stop needing your comfort, Luke. But you weren't the only comfort she sought out. There were three of you in that family. That's what you were wasn't it a family?" Percy asked. He knew so many things he shouldn't know, why would she tell him this?

I thought about what he'd said, and he was right we were a family until we weren't.

Percy's P.O.V

I'd say anything at this point to try and keep Luke in control of whoever he had become when he'd told himself to hit me. Talking about Annabeth seemed to calm him down, to centre him.

I was, not for the first time in my life, incredibly grateful for Annabeth Chase. And that she'd told me about her history with Luke. I was embellishing what she'd told me a lot. But it was keeping Luke calm. Unfortunately as I thought of my embellishments, I was still unsuccessful in releasing me arms or legs from whatever Luke had used to bind me.

"She pushed me away" Luke said angrily.

"No Luke, you pushed her away." I countered. Which wasn't the right thing to say, I realised, a bit too late, as another well placed punch, made contact with my left eye. My vision blurred instantly, and I blinked furiously to try and focus it again. The pain was excruciating but I tried not to let him know how much pain he was managing to inflict.

Talking about Annabeth, while originally it had centred him was now starting to push his buttons. Buttons, of which, I had no idea what would happen when they were pushed. I needed another angle, something else to talk about.

"Why am I here Luke?" I asked again.

"Why is he here?" Luke asked snidely, I didn't know which version of him had asked that.

"You know why he's here." The stronger voice that Luke used said.

"Tell him" Luke said powerfully.

"Well it starts with Annabeth, and for me it'll end with her too. You won't be so lucky…" He said.

Annabeth's P.O.V

Today's lectures had passed very slowly. My thoughts had constantly drifted to Percy and where he could possibly be. Where could Luke possibly have taken him? I knew the police were looking for him, but I had to do something more than crying and continuing on with my classes.

It was this thought process that had landed me in the library searching the name Luke Castellan in every search engine I could think of. As I suspected a lot of what came up was actually about his father as he was a well-known business man in the tech industry. What I found interesting was shortly after the time that Thalia had been hospitalised, Mrs. Castellan had stopped appearing in the pictures at press conferences with next to no information as to why.

When I thought back to what I could remember of that time. It did tie in with when Luke's behaviour started to change. It had been a subtle to start off with, things I didn't really notice at the time because I had been spending so much time with Thalia. But looking back almost as soon as Thalia has been released from the hospital, we had ceased to be a trio. He'd hang out if it was me and him but not the three of us. Had that been guilt over what he'd done to Thalia?

I remembered our interactions became fewer until I joined him and Thalia in high school, however, they were still few and far between what they had been. I'd been so besotted with him at the time, I don't think I cared, nor had I noticed. Had this had something to do with his mom's disappearance from the spot light?

My memory of Mrs. Castellan was frustratingly vague. I remembered her making us all peanut-butter sandwiches and offering us all red Kool-Aid to drink, and slightly burnt choc-chip cookies for afters. I remember her cooing over Luke and him being embarrassed, but not a lot else. I was starting to realise most of the times that we'd hung out had not been at Luke's house, but at mine or the park or anywhere else. I wondered if Thalia remembered more.

Annabeth: Hey are you free tonight?

Thalia: Yes, be at yours in ten?

Annabeth: Great!

I packed up my things and logged out of the university computer before heading back to the apartment to meet Thalia. I was determined to figure this out and I was certain that whatever had happened to Mrs. Castellan had been the start of it all.

Piper's P.O.V

I was worried about Annabeth. She'd gone into an almost trance like state since last night. Like she wasn't really all there, and I understood why of course I did. But I didn't know how to help. For the first time in our friendship Annabeth had a problem that I had no idea how to help with. That wasn't to say I wasn't worried about Percy, Jason, and the others because I was. I hated feeling as useless as I did right now.

A knock on the door drew me from my thoughts, Thalia was standing there when I opened it.

"Hi Thalia, Jason has a class, and I don't know where Annabeth is, she finished her classes for the day a few hours ago. She's probably in the library." I said letting her into the apartment.

"She asked me to meet her here, so she'll probably be on her way." Thalia said taking a seat on the sofa.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"I don't really know to be honest with you. What about you?" She asked me.

"Feeling pretty useless if I'm being honest." I said.

Thalia and I continued to chat about Percy and Annabeth until Annabeth returned.

"Sorry," Annabeth said as she came through the door. She looked so different from when she'd left this morning. There was a fire in her eyes, a new found determination that hadn't been there this morning. She had a purpose again.

I was selfishly very glad for this. It meant that she hadn't given in, that there was potentially something I could do to help. Though until I knew what this new found determination had been brought on by I wouldn't know how to help, but the opportunity was going to be there, and I would help when it presented itself.

We sat, Thalia and I, and listened to Annabeth's theory and what she had been working on in the library.

"...if I can just put all of the pieces together, I know I can find him. I know I can bring Percy home." She finished.

"Annie, I love you, and I love my cousin, and there's nothing I want more than to see him come home. But that's not on you, you know that right?" Thalia asked her.

"Yes, but I have to do something Thals! Doing nothing is getting me nowhere, getting Percy nowhere." Annabeth said. Ignoring the fact Thalia had called her 'Annie' which we all knew she hated.

Thalia sighed. "That being said then. Let's see what we can piece together." Thalia said.

Luke's P.O.V

"Annabeth was always supposed to end up with me." I told Percy. His jaw noticeable clenched.

"You don't get to decide that for her." Percy growled at me. I was making him angry, good.

"And you do?" I asked. "Don't think I don't know about your plan to marry her." I snarled punching him in the face again. No-one marries my girl.

Percy spat blood out of his mouth. "Difference being, I was always going to give her the opportunity to say no. No matter how much it would break my heart, if she said no, I would respect that."

"Right," he said sarcastically, and I couldn't agree more with him, he was after all why we'd managed to get this far why would I doubt him now?

"Annabeth started seeing Josh as you probably know. I hated that, but unlike you there was a way to get him to disappear." I told him.

"Don't you realise how much you hurt her when you did that?!" Percy raged.

"It was for the best" he said.

"I told you she was supposed to end up with me. I had to show her Josh was wrong for her. So I forced him to break up with her."

"If she knew, she'd never speak to you again."

I snapped. I punched him several times. He would not tell her. He would not take her away from me.

"YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS IS ALL FOR HER, SO SHE'LL BE WITH ME!"

It took him a while to come around from my punches, but I didn't much care.

"Why…" Percy gasped out, "Why did you wait so long after breaking them up to try talking to her again?"

"She wasn't the same, she wasn't my Annabeth. I needed to find a way to bring my Annabeth back."

"You don't get it do you? Do you want to know why she changed Luke? Do you really want to know?" Percy asked far too smugly for his and my liking. So I punched him until he finally blacked out.

"He doesn't know, he's bluffing." I told him.

"Enough of this time wasting go and get the girl." He told me.

Ψ

~Author's Note~

Hi all, hope you're well? I hope you liked this chapter! We've come to the end of my pre-typed chapter and as previously stated it's come at a really in opportune time with me being thrown so heavily into Christmas. I will try and update as often as I can from this point on, but it will probably not be as consistently as I would like it to be for this month. That being said I will absolutely try my best to update as close to weekly as I can. Please bear with me and I hope you enjoy the story.

Going Dark – Thank you for your review! Yes, I know that Luke being unstable isn't really canon what I was hoping to replicate was the time Kronos was in Luke's body and he was fighting him. It might not have come across that way and if it hasn't, I apologise. I hope you're still enjoying the story please let me know.

Insanedreamer7905 – Thank you for your review! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter! I'm glad you're enjoying, and I love hearing all your favourite parts as always, please let me know what they are for this chapter!

WiseGrl14 – Thank you for your review! Glad you like the angle I went with – unfortunately Annabeth will have to hold out a little while longer! Please let me know what you thought of this chapter!

SarcasmRocks – Thank you for your review! I'm glad you loved it and that you liked the direction I'm taking this in. I hope you like this one just as much, please let me know!

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Happy reading all, stay safe! :)