Chapter 6:

"Hey Perce, Jason" Thalia said as soon as they entered the place.

"Hey" they replied in sort of a monotone. The former laughed at their faces which resembled two puppies who had been reprimanded for playing in the mud.

"What happened?" Reyna asked as she stepped into the room "Why these two look like hamsters in a cage do and why Thalia is laughing?"

"Just got sassed by a girl whose name I don't know." Percy said. "She called us superlitio, impregnant and some other very large words like that." He said sending both the females in hysterics both at the situation and Percy's vocabulary.

"And what did you do?" Reyna asked him.

"Oh he, he did nothing at all. He stood and gaped at the girl opening and closing his mouth like a fish staring at her." Jason said making Percy twist his face in an expression close to a pout.

"Hey you can't blame me. She was pretty." Percy said. "You talk as if you weren't staring at Pipes."

"Piper." Jason corrected.

Reyna frowned and said "That's a strange name."

"Pretty nonetheless." Jason said completely oblivious to Reyna pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows.

"This reminds me that you, Percy have your birthday in 2 days time." Reyna said.

"How can that statement remind you of this?" Percy asked.

"Leave it… It just did."Reyna said.

"Shit!" Thalia said causing the other to look at her.

"What?" Jason asked.

"I won't be able to prank Percy anymore." She told him just to be interrupted by Leo who came and said, "We'll find another way."

What did the world have against him today?

xx-xx

AFTER SIXTEEN YEARS OF EXISTENCE, THE ONLY THING SHE WAS HUNDRED PERCENT CERTAIN OF WAS THAT HER LIFE SUCKED.

She didn't need any further evidence, proof or whatever they used to come to a conclusion.

In fact if she got a drachma for every time she was able to give proof for this statement, she surely would have been richer than the whole nation combined.

And currently lying there on the hard mattress with rough white sheets and a comforted which provided no comfort partly due to it being as thin as a paper and partly due to the fact that it reeked of medicines, she got just another incident to add in her file of : 100000 Reasons Why Her Life Sucked.

Not that she maintained one; she could certainly live without recalling all those awful incidents.

She was in the infirmary, again. It had become her abode. Literally. Piper had told her that after she had told off the creepy guys, she left the scene and they met Connor who had sneaked in to deliver supplies. That guy was the reason they could manage living in this hellhole. He got them a whole lot of stuff and they paid him. She speculated that the even the authorities knew about him and his brother but they did nothing. Today he had gotten the two of them everything from chocolates to soap as sort of a compensation for what happened to them or mostly her without even taking the single penny and had then tried his hand at playfully flirting with them. Two most important things about Connor were that he was extremely clever with his hands (keep one hand on your wallet when you're near him.) and the other was that he was hopelessly horrible at flirting. Then, you can figure out how his attempt went.

She was getting distracted. The basic thing was that after they had laughed their butts off Connor hugged Piper and then engulfed her into one due to which she blacked out or so she was told and ended up waking in the ever so homely Infirmary.

"You surely gave him a scare." Piper had told her.

She was disgusted to say the least. Disgusted by her own weakness and inability to cope up. Piper had said that it was alright and it would be gone after some time had passed but the mere fact that she couldn't touch a person without having flashbacks or blacking out made her want to cry. And the fact that she wanted to cry made her want to strangle that guy and stab him with her knife until he died.

Calm down, Annabeth. Happy thoughts.

If it weren't for Piper arriving, she certainly would have been thrown out of the place for breaking things. The girl surely was her saviour.

"Hey Annie" She said.

"It's Annabeth."

"Whatever, Annie." Piper said making Annabeth sigh. Some people never learn.

"What happened to those guys?" Annabeth asked referring to the creeps with hoodies and sunglasses. Seriously, did they think they were in some 3rd grade spy movie?

"I don't know. Only the two of us saw them. Though, Tess said two guys going through the back entrance."

"Talk about weird." Annabeth said her expression morphing into one of confusion and slight disgust. They were hitting on a girl they had known for 65 seconds. The general bratty behaviour which both of them had had enough of.

"Tess told us to start packing." Piper blurted out suddenly after a minute of silence.

"What?" The blonde screamed. Forget what she said a minute ago about Piper improving her mood.

"Tess told us to start packing." She explained slowly as if talking to a four year old.

"I understood that, Pipes. I meant that why do we…-leave it." Annabeth said, the frustration evident in her voice. The ghost of a smile played at Pipers lips when she saw the sharp-tongued, witty girl at a loss of words for once.

"On a better note. I will do it for you." Piper said despite knowing that Annabeth liked fight her own battles or in this case do her own work.

"Piper" she said her tone a bit threatening.

"I left you alone. I can do this much can't I?" Piper said. Annabeth's face softened visibly.

"It was not fault." She told her.

"I'm still packing for you."

Annabeth nodded partly because of those puppy eyes and partly because packing with a sprained wrist would be difficult.

"But why? Didn't we have two days? She asked.

"You were out for a day."

"Oh" Annabeth said "Can I get out of here now?"

"Umm… You can" Piper said.

"Thanks" and with she leaped out of the bed, if it could be called that and went towards the garden with piper on her tail to make the best of the one day they had.