~ANNABETH~

Collectively, they took a tentative step forward, and the doors slammed shut with a resounding crack that echoed off the eerily silent hall. Annabeth's first instinct was to jump, but she steeled herself and schooled her face into a mask of no emotion. She'd gotten good at that from years of making herself ignore her stepmother. Next to her, she felt Percy tense, unconsciously shifting to a battle position. His grip on her hand tightened. She allowed herself a faint smile at the way he subconsciously moved slightly in front of her, as if to protect her. They both knew she could protect herself, but it was a nice gesture nonetheless.

Annabeth's mind was moving at a million miles a minute as her eyes tracked across the room, from the stony faced Olympians to the confused faces of her fellow demigods. Her eyes locked on one in particular: a spiky-haired beauty with electric eyes flashing a message at her: What's going on? Thalia Grace. Current lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis. Annabeth shrugged minutely at her in response. I don't know. Thalia looked confused, but there was a tinge of alarm behind the confusion. So she felt it, too. The spine-chilling trepidation that was creeping up on them, telling them to run, run away, telling them that something was seriously wrong here and they were in immense danger. Annabeth wasn't surprised. She no longer trusted the Olympians, not after the fiasco with Athena/Minerva and her subsequent fall to Tartarus. Especially after she and her friends had been left to fight the Giants alone before the Olympians seemingly showed up to 'save the day'. They were useless pricks, the lot of them.

She wrenched her gaze away from Thalia as Zeus began to speak. It was a load of bullshit - all powerful Olympians, blah blah blah, we are mighty, blah blah blah, we defeated Gaia - so she tuned him out, afraid that if she listened any longer she would be unable to hold her tongue and say something like, No you didn't, cowards! We did! Which would definitely get her blasted into ashes, heroine of Olympus or no.

Instead, she started studying Percy out of the corner of her eye. Even though it had been a year since they started dating, he still took her breath away every time she looked at him. She still couldn't quite believe he was hers, all hers; she half expected him to rip his hand out of hers at any given moment and push her away during every kiss. But he didn't; instead he held her tighter and pulled her closer. She couldn't believe she'd gotten so lucky to have Percy Jackson, the guy she'd been not-so-subtly crushing on since she was twelve, as her boyfriend. She sighed internally as his sea-green eyes flicked to her, giving her a reassuring smile, and drank him in. Mine, forever, she thought, trying to convince the part of herself that was still that twelve-year-old girl who thought her crush would never come to fruition.

She snapped out of her daydreaming as Percy's expression changed. It was so imperceptible that anyone else would still have thought that his face was carved out of stone, expressionless as steel, but she knew him better than that, knew his every emotion. And right now, what she was reading off his face was dread. Zeus's voice abruptly flooded back into her ears.

"-traitors!"

Her eyes widened. What had she missed? Her gaze caught on Thalia again, who now looked frantic, struggling to get through the crowd to them and making very little progress. She looked so frustrated that even from this distance, Annabeth could see the little sparks flying off her body, shocking her neighbours. Thalia's wild eyes met Annabeth's and she mouthed, run! But she knew as well as they did that they couldn't.

She could feel the fury coming off Percy, but mixed in with that was resignation and acceptance. They'd all known, to some extent. They'd all expected it. Jason's body was now crackling with electricity; Piper's grip was white-knuckled on her dagger; Leo now held some sort of explosive that he'd somehow managed to make in the past five minutes; Frank was turning slightly scaly, preparing for a transformation; Hazel had gems popping up all around her feet; and Nico's body had half turned to shadow, prepared to shadow-travel all of them. But to where? Annabeth wondered idly. There was nowhere they could go that they wouldn't eventually be found by the gods; it would be a life of constantly running, constantly looking over their shoulders. Annabeth didn't want to live that kind of life. Sometimes, she wished she'd never been born a demigod; but if she hadn't, she wouldn't have met Percy. And she wouldn't trade Percy for anything.

"These eight demigods have been found guilty of conspiring with Gaia against Olympus!" Zeus bellowed. "They are convicted of treason and as such, will be sentenced to Tartarus!"

Annabeth felt nothing but rage. How dare they? After everything they'd done for Olympus? If it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be here right now! she wanted to scream. They didn't even have any proof. All we have to do is swear on the River Styx we didn't do it, she thought, but even as the thought entered her mind she knew it was foolish. It wasn't about whether or not they had conspired with Gaia. It was the fact that they'd defeated Gaia, which had shown Zeus that they were too powerful, and had the potential to overthrow him. If they swore on the River Styx, he would just find another way to dispose of them quietly.

She looked around the room again, at the faces of the Olympians. Beside Zeus, Hera had a delighted sneer on her face, and Annabeth had to resist the urge to give her a very rude gesture. Hera had never liked her anyway, and the feeling was mutual. Most of the Olympians looked like they couldn't care one way or another. Typical gods; always thinking that mortals were beneath them. What did it matter, when their lives were so short anyway? None of them looked the slight bit distressed, and Annabeth felt the last spark of hope vanish. There would be no miraculous escapes, no almost-brushes with death. This was it.