Hey, Connie here. As far as I know people have been liking the story so far, but have wished that I had introduced the lovely Annabeth into the story a bit sooner. Well, here you go, Annabeth is introduced into the story!
Annabeth's POV
I wake up to the sound of Animal I Have Become by Three Day's Grace blaring in my eardrums. I let out a heaving groan. Thalia.
Why did she insist on customizing her ringtone on my phone to an extremely loud rock tune? Did she even consider the possibility of choosing a quieter song?
I bury my head under the pillows trying to block out the deafening sound of music. After a while the song stops. Finally, I could go back to sleep.
'So what if you can see the darkest side of me
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me'
Nope, I sigh. There is no way that I'm getting back to sleep today. Even if I don't pick up the phone Thalia is stubborn, and I know she'll keep calling. And calling...calling... Then I won't be able to sleep for the rest of my life.
So I sit up in bed, crossing my legs clumsily, still waking up from an almost good, full night's sleep. I pat down my fluffy, soft brown comforter searching for my phone. I find it under my big orange body pillow.
Picking up my Blackberry I press the green "receive call" button in the corner of my phone.
"Hello?" I say wearily.
"Hi, Annie. It's Thals, why do you sound like a dead cat?" She asks pepily.
I don't have any clue why Thalia is awake at 6:00 on a Tuesday morning, let alone why she could be described as peppy. Usually I'm the one who calls and wakes her. Though in my defense I wake her up at a reasonably sane time.
"I just woke up to Three Day's Grace blasting in my ears if you didn't realise Thalia Grace. Now why in my dead mother's name are you waking me up at 6:00? Especially since it's Tuesday. Everyone knows that on Tuesdays I take the morning off to sleep in!" I say. I can feel my anger rising from agitated to perturbed then from from perturbed to downright livid.
"Whatever," she says completely dismissing my obvious anger. "But seriously,Three Day's Grace never gets old huh?" Thalia laughs. I picture my jet black, blue streaked, spiky haired friend. I can tell she is smirking on the receiving end. Just wait until I get my hands on that skinny little wannabe punk.
"Just get to the point Thals." I murmur massaging my temples. I need caffeine.
Thalia laughs a little, "Sorry Annabeth, but you gotta come down to the office ASAP. Juniper, Silenia and I found you a job that I think that you are going to love."
"Fine." I say giving into Thalia's excitement, "I'll be there in fifty, but I don't think anything can top the job that Olympian Records gave me of redoing their main building."
"Believe me it trumps everything you've done so far. Silenia is bouncing off the walls, she can't wait to re-design this place it sounds amazing." She says. I hear a strange shuffling noise on the end of the phone which ends with a really loud thud.
"Thalia! What was that!" I exclaim.
"Nothing," she says quickly," I'll see you soon Annie. Bye!"
"Adios." I murmur into the phone.
As soon as I hang up on Thalia, I buried my head under the covers again, wanting to shrivel away from the real world just for a couple winks...
~:~
I listened to the soft clacking noise that my grey suede pumps were making as I strolled down the hall on the green marble flooring. It was oddly a calming sound-nothing like Animal I Have Become at 6:00 in the morning.
I smiled a little. Looking back on how ridiculous that situation was.
Strolling down the halls of Minerva, my own architecture company gave me a sense of great pride. I have not felt this great since I went to Camp Halfblood as a child and learned how to master swordsmanship.
Camp Halfblood was the summer camp that dad and Natalia my step-mother would always send me to. Dad was always busy with work,and Natalia was either taking care of Bobby and Matthew my step-brothers, or working extra hours at the hospital.
I never really clicked with anyone at school, but when I started going to Camp Halfblood that all change.I made life-long friends who included Juniper Busch, Thalia Grace, Silenia Beauregard, and Katie Gardner.
Katie moved away to Washington with her boyfriend Travis Stoll. I heard that he got an amazing job there. I try to keep in touch with her, but long distance friendships are hard,not to mention pricey. A phone call to Washington somehow cost more than calling my Aunt Sophie who lives in Australia.
However I still had three more friends.
Thalia, Juni and Silenia now worked with me on practically an everyday basis. I was the brains behind the architecture for the company, Thalia helped me get amazing job offers, Juniper worked a bit as my secretary and helped me keep the business running flawlessly,and Silenia works as an interior designer so most times she offers to help with re-decorating some of my projects.
They are my best-friends, we mellow each other out.
Thalia is a bit hot headed and most times it's Juniper and I who usually calm her down. I by either restraining Thalia, or using logic to reason with her as to why she shouldn't lose her cool. Juniper by using her oh so sweet niceness to coax Thalia into walking away.
When Juniper has one of her shy moments Silenia and Thalia mostly help her out. Thalia tells her she is one of the most amazing, beautiful people in the world (which she is), and Silenia by giving her a makeover or such and making her feel gorgeous and important.
When Silenia is having a melt down or is emotionally unstable due to a suckish date it was usually Juniper and Thalia and I who comfort her and watch mushy movies and eat truck loads of chocolate.
I'm usually the one who over thinks everything that's work related, and so everyone joins in for a de-stressing girl's night out to help me unfocus on my job.
I opened the door to my office to find Thalia, Juniper and Silenia all sitting in chairs reading TeenWeekly magazine.
"Good morning girls." I say dropping my big black case which contained all my working documents and my compact purple purse on my desk.
I waited for them to say good morning, or at least something, but the three of the just sat there intently reading their gossipy, juvenile magazine.
So I raised my voice," Hello! Anyone home? It's Annabeth, Annabeth Chase. Remember me?"
I waited again. No response. Instead of trying to get their attention again, I just tore the magazine out of the girls' hands.
"Hey we were reading that!" Thalia exclaimed.
"Well, now you're not!" I say grinning cheekily.
"We were working!" Silenia shouted placing her hands on her hips.
How is reading a trashy teen magazine working I thought. Thankfully Juniper read my mind. Thank Zeus someone had an ounce of brains here.
"Annabeth, I swear that the article we were reading in TeenWeekly was helping us do a bit of background research on the building you were commissioned to redo." Juniper pleaded.
I have to admit I have a bit of a soft spot for Juniper. She was so sweet, and loving and kind,and I knew she would never lie to me. Besides that she didn't look the the person who would read TeenWeekly for fun, she was much too work oriented to do something of the kind.
So, I looked at the article. A big and handsome close-up of Percy Jackson filled an entire page
"What the hell?" I screamed.
Why were these girls in my office reading an article on Percy freaking Jackson, the singing sensation?
I have to admit I did love Percy just a little bit. He wrote all of his songs himself, and I could tell that his intentions were pure and meaningful. Plus he has the gorgeous sea green eyes that change and shift colours like the tides (No no like Edward and his menopausal mood ring eyes). But no matter how much I liked Percy Jackson, this was uncalled for. We were now on working hours and we should act professionally, and focus only on the job at task.
"How does Percy Jackson pertain to Minerva Architecture?" I question with notes of anger in my voice.
Thalia hops of of her chair and swings an arm over my shoulder, "My dear, dear Annabeth," her electric blue eyes connect with my grey orbs. "Read paragraph two from lines twelve to sixteen, then paragraph 4 from lines five to seven."
I scowl at Thalia but I listen and do as she has told me.
Reading through these few lines of a magazine article, did get me kind of told me the amazing story of a broken-hearted boy who had overcome all of the odds to become famous by singing at an ancient, but popular club.
I softened my attitude a bit. "It's an amazing story Thalia, but I don't see what this has to do with me!"
"It has everything to do with you Annabeth." Juniper says smiling.
"That nightclub that Percy sang at, the one that made him famous has commissioned us to fix it!" Silenia shrieks.
"What?" I gasp. They wanted me to redesign a nightclub?
"Think of how amazing this could be for your career Annie, Minerva would be famous. I can assure you that we'll get amazing publicity. Plus the owner is someone you already know and he's promising to pay us big money!" Thalia yells excitedly.
"Who's the owner?" I question raising an eyebrow.
"Chiron!" The girls all chided in.
"Oh my gods! Chiron the director from Camp Halfblood?" I say.
"Yes. He is still running Camp to this day, but it turns out that he has always owned this club since forever." Juniper says playing with her gold streaked auburn hair.
"That's amazing", I say,"Why does he want me?"
"Because the place obviously needs a touch of Annabeth. From what he's told us the place is turning into an absolute dump. It's clear that club needs a makeover." Silenia tells me saying it like it's totally obvious.
Still standing up I pace around a little bit. This sounds like an amazing opportunity.
"What's the catch?" I say. This job sounds way too good to be true.
"No catch." Thalia says smiling mischievously.
"Thals, there has to be a downfall to this project."
"It's perfect would have to be insane to not accept this job." Silenia says her golden brown eyes twinkling like stars.
Juniper, Thalia and Silenia all look at me with pleading eyes.
I sigh. I know that something about this job is going to make me ever regret accepting it
"Fine, how soon can we start?" I ask giving into the silent peer pressure (and puppy dog eyes).
"Yay!" They Juniper and Silenia cheer because Thalia is way to cool just smothers me in a hug.
"Today sounds great!" Juniper rejoices.
"Yes," Silenia agrees. " I need to start planning! I'm thinking a whole nautical theme, it's going to be gorgeous!"
"Nautical?" I exclaim.
"Yeah," Thalia says. "The club is called Anchor."
So, that felt like it was really long. It took a while to write, because I have been on fanfic on and off. Remember to R&R!
Fly On,
Connie