Taken
Chapter 24- The Explosion
-Annabeth POV-
The choice between living and getting revenge was hard to weigh. If I chose to live, to walk out of the building, I wouldn't get my revenge. But if I chose revenge, I wouldn't be able to live the rest of my life and do what I wanted to do.
So in other words, the choice was simple, really.
"Luke, what the hell do you think you're doing," I spoke, my voice echoing a confidence that I did not have. My body felt weak, but my voice was strong.
His icy blue eyes pierced up at me like bullets would skin. They were like daggers digging into my conscience, eating away at my soul. There was only one way to stop this.
"I've came to stop you, of course. Do you really think I would let you leave that easily, Annie?"
I rolled my eyes at him. "Yet you still seem to let the very men who betrayed you leave here unscathed? What did I do to you? Why did you pick me to be subjected to your sick obsession?"
He simply rolled his eyes at me, and a sickly smile came across his face. "You're just like him, you know."
I cocked an eyebrow, totally not seeing where this was going. "Wait, what?"
"You are just like your brother, Annie. So brave, so strong. I was never able to crack Malcolm, either. Even the one he most loved leaving him didn't do the job. He was stronger than life itself, my dear. He was light."
My eyes widened, and I had to calm myself at the mention of my brother. "So why me?"
Luke's eyes seemingly faded into a different place as he replied, "He was so good, so smart, so good at everything. And for some reason I hated him for that. Even in his darkest moments, the man still kept his chin high and pushed forward. I hated him because of that."
He looked at me for a second, a newfound look of awe glittering in his eyes. "All I wanted was to be great. I just wanted one chance to make a difference in this world, and your brother took that from me. He told me I was doing it the wrong way; he told me I was being a monster…" Luke sighed, and his eyes turned dark and menacing, so much that I instinctively took a step back. "So I showed him what a monster truly looked like. I became one."
"He trusted you, Luke," I spoke, my voice wavering slightly. "Malcolm trusted that you would make the right decision. And you made the wrong one."
He looked at me with such hatred my heart stopped in fear. "You are just like him. You are good at everything, smart, beautiful, have all the guys kneeling at your feet. I see the same light in you that he had, so I made it my mission to snuff it out. You are too good, to pure, and that is the real monster. Not me. You."
I started walking down the stairs, as everything became clear now. I was the final hurdle in Luke's plan. I was the one who had the power to stop everything that he had worked for, and he feared me. The most feared man in the country is afraid of me.
I couldn't hide the smirk that found its way to my face. All sense left me as I realized that I was making my decision, I was choosing revenge. I was choosing the wrong choice for the first time in my life and it felt good.
"You have been the subject of my fears for over half my life," I said, stalking slowly upon Luke as a tigress would its prey. "This ends right now, Luke. Between you and me."
He laughed, obviously not believing a word I had been saying. "What are you going to do, Annabeth Chase? Are you going to kill me? Cause good luck, dearie, living with my blood on your hands for the rest of your life. You see, even when I'm dead I'll still be the subject of your fears. There's truly no way on heaven or earth you can get rid of me."
I took out my dagger and held it out in front of me, as if I were in a fighting stance. Hell, I don't even know what a fighting stance would look like, but from the movies I had seen I'm pretty sure it would come close to it.
"Oh, look, the girl has a knife! Ha, I'd like to see you try to stab me, Annabeth. I doubt you could even give me a scratch."
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists in anger over his words. He thought I was weak, and he was taunting me, trying to make me make a false move. But I wasn't going to give him that luxury.
I dropped the knife behind me, and looked at him with a pointed gaze. His eyes widened, then a laugh escaped his throat at the sight that was in front of him. But, to be honest, I couldn't really blame him. A girl who had been nearly starved to death trying to kill him. What a sight.
I reached behind me and pulled at the metal rings that I had hid in my waistband. And smirked at him tauntingly. "Who ever said I was going to kill you, Luke?"
Seeing his shock, I used that moment to pounce on him, and grabbed his wrist and cuffed it with the cuffs I had taken from the storage room. I immediately cuffed the other end to the metal handrail and jumped back so that he couldn't grab me.
He looked at me, eyes wide. "What did you do?"
I laughed, and eased myself back up the stairs, carefully minding the dagger that I had left behind before.
He struggled against the binds of the hand cuffs that now bound him to the very building that I set to destruct in the next minute. "What did you do!"
I smiled at him as I daintily picked up the dagger and laughed as I swung it around in front of him. "I never told you that I was going to kill you, Luke. That's something that you will be doing yourself. And as for what I did? Well, in approximately 15 seconds this place is going to blow up, taking everyone and everything with it."
I tossed the dagger down by his feet when I got to the top of the stairs. "So do as you may choose. You see, I am giving you a choice. So it is your choice whether or not to die by the hand of you, or the hand of this establishment. And I must be going now. Goodbye."
I counted down to myself as the time started to wind down. I reached to open the door, and took a deep breath before opening it.
Nothing.
It was locked.
I was locked in from the outside. I frantically banged on the door and tried to pry it open, but I knew I was running out of time and fast. My body was too weak to make any damage, so I braced myself for the worst.
5
A single tear fell from my eye as I slowly eased myself down the wall.
4
I closed my eyes, thinking about the sunshine and the sound of birds chirping in the summer. A sound I would never hear again.
3
I could see my mother, my father, my brothers… they were smiling at me.
2
My friends, Thalia, Juniper, Piper…
1
I could see the sweet smile of Percy Jackson, his sea green eyes lighting up along with it, bringing life to everything around him.
0.
-Percy POV-
The explosion rocked the car, dangerously pushing it on the side. I heard a small squeal of the tires and I knew they were dragged with the force of the blast.
My hands were on my ears, but I couldn't bring myself to close my eyes. Even though I had been relatively in a safe place, my ears rang and my heart was beating out of my chest. Tears were threatening to escape my eyes, but I used all the will I had left to hold it in.
My eyes were trained on the sight of the now collapsed building that I know Annabeth had just been in. Surely she was still alive, I mean, she had survived everything else, why can't she survive this? She's fine. She has to be.
I slowly got out of the car, and as soon as I opened the car door the scent of things burning overwhelmed me, and the heat that had been given off from the blast had just increased the temperature by about thirty degrees.
My cheeks were burning, but I wasn't sure if it was from the heat or the anxiety that plagued me. I was looking at the blast sight, searching, searching for any sight of the blonde haired girl that I had come to love.
If I could just find her, then this would all be over.
"Jackson!" I turned to see a bloodied Agent Palmer. He came running over to me, gun in hand. But what caught me by surprise was the look of relief on his face. Hadn't he just seen this place blow up? Doesn't he understand that Annabeth is still inside?
He gripped my shoulder with his open hand and looked me in the eye. "I'm glad you're okay, kid."
"Annabeth is still in there," I said, turning away from his now pitiful gaze. "We need to find her."
I started to move toward the compound, but Agent Palmer's grip on my shoulder tightened, bringing me to a sudden halt. "I can't let you do that, kid. You need to get back to the SUV, and I'll get some of my guys to look for her."
I quickly turned to look at him in anger. "No, you look for her now. She's still alive, I know it. We aren't looking for a body."
Agent Palmer's eyebrows furrowed, and I could see the frustration take over. He obviously felt that he had better things to get to, so I decided to put him in his place. "Look, who do you think set off the bombs?" I asked as soon as he used his grip on my shoulder to drag me back to the car. "I know Annabeth, and this is something she would do."
Agent Palmer scoffed. "There's no way she could have done this alone-"
I shook my head, "That's because she wasn't alone. When she was talking to me she told me that she found the inside man that had been hired by my father and Hermes Castellen to stop Luke. Please, I know that she is out there, and that she needs our help."
He stopped dragging me and his grip on my shoulder eased as I saw his jaw clench but is eyes seemed to be spinning with the details of what I told him. "Sounds to me like we need to find her. If she got out, she might not have gotten out of the blast entirely, so we are going to need to mark a perimeter, and check for survivors. All of the survivors."
Agent Palmer directed the rest of the agents and officers to do exactly that, and only when Agent Charleston came over to the two of us did he let go of my shoulder. It was as if he expected me to try and escape, which I couldn't help but admit had passed through my mind.
"Jackson, you can help us find Annabeth as long as you stick with the two of us," Agent Palmer spoke, and nodded toward Charleston. "And you do exactly as we say when we say it."
I nodded, and the anxiety that had been taking over me started to take its effect. My chest started to tighten, and when we started to search for Annabeth I could feel my hands start to shake from the adrenaline coursing through my blood.
Over the course of the next hour we had found a lot of Luke's men. Some were dead, others were being carted off to the hospital with both major and minor injuries. I couldn't look at them without feeling a certain hatred run through me. I hoped they had all died in the blast, but I really couldn't bring myself to admit it.
"Annabeth!" I called, picking up pieces of rubble and tossing it to the side. Frustration was starting to take over, and I couldn't help but think about if she didn't get out. Tears had been streaming down my face on and off, and I didn't care about how strong or weak I looked at the moment.
I couldn't help but feel the fear start to spread throughout my body, and take its toll on my thoughts. The images of her body lying there, broken and mangled from the blast shrouded my mind, and made me want to throw up.
"Annabeth!" I yelled again, using my hands as a megaphone, and couldn't stop the curses that started to ring out of my mouth. I was starting to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, starting to see that the only person who could lift that weight off my shoulders might never have the chance to do so.
A sob wracked through my body, and I collapsed onto my knees amidst the rubble and debris. By this time all that could be checked was checked, and the fire department was starting to remove large pieces of fallen cement walls to recover the bodies.
Bodies. That's what they were now calling them.
I barely felt the hands that helped me up and brought me to the back of an ambulance. I didn't really notice when the EMT shone a light in my eyes, or when he asked me any questions. I just stared at the place that I had resided in for months, the place where Annabeth will never quite leave.
My mouth was wide open, as if I was screaming, but no sound was coming out. My bottom chin was shaking with the pressure that had been put on my body, with the grief and oppression that was feeling.
"Jackson," A voice spoke to me, and my ears perked up at the familiar name. A name she called me. "Jackson, c'mon, snap out of it. We need you."
It was as if everything snapped back to reality, and my eyes focused on a face in front of me. Or, rather, four different faces. "What do you want, agents?" I asked, my voice coming out in a gravelly rasp.
I saw Agent Palmer blink at the dead look I had in my eyes, almost not quite believing the toll that this whole ordeal was taking on me. He gestured to the two men that were standing by him and Agent Charleston. "These two have something to tell you, Jackson, and I think you're going to want to hear this."
I moved my eyes lazily from Palmer to the two men, and was taken aback. These were two of Luke's men, two of them that I recognized. Luke had liked to use them to drag Annabeth and I around.
"Get the hell away from me," I spat, moving back further into the ambulance, then turned to the two agents with wild eyes. "Get them away from me!"
The African American man looked to the other man with olive skin, who pursed his lips. They both were bleeding, but I didn't care to see from where it was coming from. I just didn't want them to be anywhere near me.
Agent Palmer walked forward and held up his hands in a soothing gesture. "Percy, look, just hear them out, okay? They have some information that can help us."
My breathing hitched, and I immediately drew the connection. "Are you the inside man? Or men?"
The African American man nodded, a small smile curving onto his face. "Yes, Mister Jackson. I was employed to learn what Luke was up to, and Chris and I here worked to get you and Miss Chase out of there."
My eyebrows furrowed, and I tried to suppress the hope that started to build up in my stomach. If the people who were supposed to help Annabeth escape were still alive, then there was a chance that she was still alive too.
And that's all I needed. A chance.
"What-Where's Annabeth? Why isn't she with you?" I asked, my eyes narrowing at the two men in front of me.
Their faces turned grim, and my heart dropped at the sight of their now dropped eyes. "She didn't make it out in time," The African American man admitted. "She wanted to meet up with Luke, to get even. I tried to talk her out of it, I really did, but I guess she never got out."
All hope that had been slowly building up had completely disintegrated now. I couldn't help but look away from the two men who were supposed to be something like the messiah, who were supposed to fix everything.
Agent Palmer patted my leg and I heard him take a deep breath. "We're looking into the site where she was supposed to escape from, just in case she survived the explosion. But I just thought you should know that she didn't make it out."
I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, and hoped that the men in front of me weren't going to judge me for the tears that escaped despite my best efforts.
I heard the sound of shuffling and stiffened when I felt a shift in the level in the back of the ambulance. I opened my eyes to see the olive-skinned man sitting next to me, keeping his distance. "She did really care about you, you know."
I looked away from the man next to me, and took a deep breath. Even though I didn't want to speak to anyone, let alone a man who had been a part of the torture that Annabeth and I had went through, he seems to have known Annabeth, and I bet she knew him.
"Yeah? What did she say?" I asked, looking back toward the compound that is now shrouded over the darkness of the night only illuminated by the lights of people searching for the bodies still left in the rubble.
The man next to me laughed. "She never really said anything, mate. It was all in her actions, you know. She never really gave up, and I bet it continued until her last breath. She wanted to live to be with you, that much was obvious. There were times she would stare off at nothing, and a smile would grace her face. That was the only time she smiled. When she was thinking of you."
I couldn't help the smile that came onto my face at the thought of her thinking of me in that way. It was wistful, thinking about what could have been. But it was also a great tragedy, thinking about what should have been said, what should have been done. I love her, and I never had the chance to let her know how much.
Hell, she thought I hated her.
"Please just don't say any more," I spoke, my voice hoarse and sullen. "I don't need to know anything because nothing is all that I'm ever going to get now. She's gone, there's no reason for thinking about what could have been now."
The man looked at me, tears in his eyes. "She didn't deserve her fate. She didn't deserve any of what Luke did to her, and I just wish that I never gotten involved with this in the first place."
I kept my eyes trained on the compound, seeing but not really seeing. "No, she didn't deserve any of this."
"I found someone!"
I didn't think anything of it, having heard those words come from the mouths of the rescuers what seems to be a thousand times. After a while I guess it just hit me that they were never going to find Annabeth. And if they did, she would be dead. I didn't know what would be worse.
"We need a doctor here! This one's alive!"
EMT's went rushing to the scene where the rescuers were calling for them, and that's as far as my eyes followed them. I suddenly didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't want to be reminded of what happened anymore. I didn't want anything to do with this.
"Oh my God," the man next to me gasped. "She survived. What the hell, she survived!"
My thoughts seemed to disappear all at once, and I looked at the man next to me before turning to see what he was looking at.
"Annabeth!"
I jumped out of the back of the ambulance and ran to the side of the stretcher holding a blonde girl that was covered in soot. "Oh, God, Annabeth!"
Her eyes were closed, her face was pale, and she had cuts all over her body. Her left arm and leg were in splints and covered in a blanket that I knew under no circumstances would I ever want to look under. There was blood sticking to her clothes, dripping onto the stretcher, and covered her skin with dirt and things that I didn't know.
The only thing that mattered was the slow rise and fall of her chest.
Sobs were wracking my frame as I took her in, and with a shaking hand I caressed her cheek, just to make sure that she was there, that it wasn't just some sort of figment of my imagination.
At the touch of my hand her eyes opened, and I saw them roll around until they focused in on me. She smiled slightly, and I grabbed the hand that wasn't splinted, and smiled back at her as tears streamed down my face.
"We're alive, Annabeth," I spoke, sheer joy shining through my voice. "We're alive."
Tears streaked down from her eyes, and left perfect lines on her cheeks as a result. Her eyes closed and my other hand moved to her cheek to wipe the tears away, and the grime around them.
"We're alive."