"Are you sure this recording is legit?" Lawyer Brown's serious green eyes bore into Jason's electric blue ones.
"Well, I guess." Jason's eyes tried to escape from Brown's but is failing. "I mean, I was technically asleep the whole time. I was dreaming then I woke up. I assume it is real."
"Had it ever occur to you that this tape may be tampered with?"
"No." Jason lied slowly. Since he had overheard Doctor Marshall, he had suspected that Doctor Marshall was doing something wrong to the tape of Jason's hypnotism but he wasn't ready to say it out loud. Jason felt like he had to do some investigating himself first.
"Are you sure?" Lawyer Brown said patiently. "Tell me the truth."
Jason nodded as he heard the lawyer mutter something like "You better not lie. If I win this case, I can finally bring my wife to Malibu."
Giving a huge sigh, Lawyer Brown said "Well, I suppose I have the answer. I'm not sure if it's the one I wanted, though."
"So you want me to lie to you and say that Doctor Marshall tampered with the tape and stuff?" Jason questioned.
"I'm not sure if I can trust Doctor Marshall." Lawyer Brown stated. "He does have a very…dodgy past. What happened to Megan Leighton is very unfortunate."
Megan Leighton…the name sounds oddly familiar to Jason. "What happened to her?" he asked curiously.
Brown seemed very impatient but decided to tell Jason. "I'm not entirely sure, but it was huge at that time. In fact, it was on the news two years ago which you probably won't remember. It was around a month before the Shooting, I think. Sergeant Tait of the FBI department was shot in the shoulder and left unconscious three months. Apparently, after the three months he reported to us that he did not remember anything that happened that night."
Lawyer Brown paused then continued. "Megan Leighton, this girl around your age was found next to him. Everybody thought she shot him despite the fact Megan doesn't know or have any relation to him. Later, it was found out that Megan suffers Aspergers Syndrome and could not be capable to assault Tait. Again, lawyers, judges investigating the case of Sergeant Tait thought maybe if they ask Megan what happen, she'll provide good alibi since she was near the crime scene. When Megan refused to tell them anything, Doctor Marshall hypnotized her and tampered with the tape to make it seem like Megan killed Tait but luckily, due to an anonymous tip, the truth was discovered."
"So why did you use him again to hypnotize me?" Jason asked.
"He's the only one that is capable on hypnotizing." Lawyer Brown admitted.
"Had it ever occur to you on getting witnesses during the hypnotism?" Jason raised an eyebrow.
"It had. However, he claimed that he couldn't hypnotize people with an audience."
"If he doesn't have an audience, how do you know his hypnotism really worked?" Jason pressed on.
Lawyer Brown seemed annoyed at all these questions but as it was Jason's right to be answered truthfully, he replied. "2004. He hypnotized a 5 year old named Hannah Pennington and due to the evidence produced by the hypnotism, the truth was discovered."
Piper went to Ashley Taylor's party with Sky. Not really, with Sky as in a date, but as in going together into the house. Everybody in the party were in high school and Piper didn't know the majority there. Most of the time, Piper hung out with her clique and nobody from her clique was in the party.
However, people knew who Piper is. Occasionally, a few of them would come over and say 'hi' to Piper. Piper found it extremely awkward but said hi anyway. It wasn't like she had anything better to do. All she did was hung around the food areas and pretended like she actually had people to talk to in the party, except she was getting food.
The plan worked out pretty well until Ashley Taylors made her way to Piper. "Hey Piper, is it?"
"Yeah." Piper blushed. What is Ashley doing here? What does Ashley want with a girl like Piper? Not that Piper is complaining, it's pretty cool having the Queen Bee even speaking to her.
"How do you like the party?" Ashley asked casually.
"It's good. Nothing like I've been before." Piper confessed. Looking around the room, a quarter of them were drunk, a bunch of guys were trying to flirt with girls etc.
For Piper, it was pretty crazy as she limited herself to parties with only 30 people or less. It won't do her any good going into any parties with more than 30 people in it anyway. Her dad being Tristan Mclean meant paparazzi stalking her technically 24/7. She didn't want any encounters with the paparazzi that might make the public think in a way Piper doesn't want them to think about her. For example during Grade 4, Piper paired up with two local geeks for a school project (blame the teacher). While they were putting the project together in the public library, a whole crowd of paparazzi came inside and snapped photos. On the next day's gossip mag, "Piper Mclean loves geeks!" was on the headline.
Ashley grinned. "You haven't seen what it's like normally. I honestly don't know why they're so calm and quiet today."
What? Piper wanted to exclaim but immediately stopped herself. Was it cool enough for Ashley if she haven't been in a wild party before? Instead, she forced a laugh.
"Anyway, tell your dad that if he needs any extras for his new movie, I'm free." Ashley winked. "It'll be totally awesome to work in a set with your father."
Piper knew that Ashley didn't exactly came here to have a chat. They barely knew each other. Finally, Piper realized what made the it girl came. Tristan Mclean's new movie 'Peter Johnson and the Lightning Thief' (AN: haha…go ahead and make fun of this but I really don't know what to do) is rumored to be a big hit like his previous one 'King of Sparta' which gained all his fame.
"Sure." Piper nodded twirling her messily chopped brunette sides nervously. "I'll ask him."
"Just in case," Ashley rummaged through her Prada bag, got a sparkly diamond pen and wrote a telephone number on Piper's arm. "Here's my number."
"We didn't spend millions of dollars putting you in Goode high ~ the most elite high school for you to get a B!" Mrs. Jennings shouted angrily. "B! Not even a B+."
"I'm sorry." Reyna looked glumly towards the ground. She had been expecting all this anger from her parents but she didn't know what it actually felt like. All her life, she had been in the top, even in Kindergarten she wrote the nicest set of alphabets.
"Look." Mr. Jennings grasped the report card tightly. "Talk to Mr, Freyers, do extra work, I don't care what you do but if this grade doesn't improve by next week, you're over. Probably no universities would accept you and you'll have to be a McDonald's worker."
"Aren't you exaggerating a bit?" Reyna asked mildly. She was sure one slip-up won't turn her into a McDonald's worker.
"Listen to me, young woman." Mr. Jennings glared at Reyna. "I'm talking over here, not you. Now go to your room and don't bother coming out for dinner. Stay there and reflect on your poor grades."
Reyna sulked miserably as her footsteps slowly led to her room. Never in her life had this happen and how will she ever convince Mr. Freyer to give her extra time to lift her grade?
Beep! Feeling cross at her parents, Reyna checked her IPhone. A message from Hylla. Reyna groaned, what can it be now? A taunt? A bitchy reminder than she is always better? Clicking on the message, she read silently.
"I heard what happened and I know how to help you"
The burly assassins were starting to annoy Percy.
They should have been gone 5 hours ago when he called the police but somehow, they managed to get out of the police's grasp. They should have been gone 3 hours ago when Percy trapped them in a locked cabinet but they got out of that too. They definitely should have died an hour ago when Percy witnessed them being ran over by a garbage truck.
Percy started to think that these killers were immortal. Nothing can beat them, they just seem to pop out from nowhere shooting bullets at him again.
On the other hand, the killers couldn't kill Percy. They shot bullets, threw knives, did everything illegal but somehow, Percy escaped. Maybe it's because of his dad's self defense skills, or maybe just sheer luck. Percy thought he is the one who needed protection now, not Jason. Jason seemed perfectly fine over the weeks and nobody tried to kill him.
Thanks to those assassins, Percy had wrecked his favorite shorts, got onto the wrong side of his school janitor and had to cancel his date with Annabeth to go to the police station and give descriptions of the assassins. Apparently, that haven't been enough. The assassins were still behind Percy with killer blades.
"Look," Percy tried to reason while running away. "What do you even want from me? This morning, I was watching a goddamn movie when you broke into my house and attempted to shoot my head. I ran away obviously because I don't want to die and you guys have to chase me around New York."
"I'm not telling you anything until we catch you." One of the muscular dudes said monotoned. The exact same reply Percy got every time.
"Catch me? You probably would have killed me before you caught me." Percy scoffed dodging a flying spear.
"Stop running, Percy Jackson." The other buff dude said plainly. "Karma will catch up to you sooner or later."
Karma, what? Percy was pretty sure he'd never done anything so bad he deserved two powerfully built killers ruining his day.
"What do you think karma would do to you if you kill an innocent boy?" Percy challenged.
"Innocent? You're blood is dirtier than the Mississipi River. Which if you don't know if one of the word's most polluted-"
"Okay." Percy interrupted. "But I'm pretty sure science would back me up in this point. If my blood is as dirty as that river, I would be dead."
"Shut up, Percy Jackson. Oh, by the way, what time is it?"
Percy looked at his watch hurriedly. "6. 6pm."
"Is our shift over?" One of the killers asked.
"I hope so." Percy muttered.
"Yeah." Percy heard the heavy footsteps of his killers stopped. "I suppose we should head back now. Good bye Percy Jackson."
Without another word, the killers disappeared into a dark alley. What? Percy is confused. So these two sturdy buff guys had been trying to kill Percy since 12 am than they stop after 6 because their 'shift' is over? Although Percy isn't the brightest kid you'll ever meet, he figured out that somebody paid the killers to slaughter him but didn't pay enough for them to continue after 6. Even Percy admits that it's ridiculous
You probably see what I did with the beginning of Percy's part. (Just in case you don't know, reread the first chapter of the Son of Neptune) Yeah, I'd thought it would be pretty cool to add that in :P
Heehee! So this chapter got into the more action-y side of the story and some secrets would be revealed soon. Again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter so don't forget to REVIEW! :)
~ Kisses, Emily