Chapter 3

Dear Daddy,

I skipped school yesterday. I know you probably think I'm a bad girl for doing so, but something good came out of it. I met a new friend, (he's a douche) and I found Annabeth. She had to get back home but, she promised me that she would meet me at the same park today. We are going to figure this out. Why my biological daddy (not my real daddy. You're my real daddy) left me at the park, and how we get into contact with Athena. I know it seems impossible, but I have to know who my mother is. I just want you to know that no matter what happens, you will always be my real daddy. I promise that I will continue to write to you everyday daddy.

I love and miss you more than you can even imagine.

-Mindy-

TEN YEARS LATER

"Min, you need to get ready for school sweetie," Marcus says entering my room. I know he feels bad because he's been getting angry at me a lot lately, but I don't forgive him for STILL not explaining daddy's letter. I mean, it's been ten years and he hasn't told me anything.

"Okay," I say, which is my first word to him since our latest argument.

Marcus looks like he wants to say something, but leaves my room before he does. Whatever. We're always mad at each other, but we act like nothing's wrong. I guess it's better than going around a quiet house all day and night.

While Marcus gets my breakfast ready, I get my backpack ready, getting stuff from underneath my bed. Today I pack an extra knife for Annabeth. She's been asking me to bring her one.

I walk downstairs after getting on some clothes and take my place at the breakfast table. It's painfully quiet as Marcus sets my plate of food in front of me. I don't like how silent it is. It's like remembering how quiet daddy was when he was dead, laying there with pills in his hand and a medicine bottle on the floor. It's been a long time since that happened, but I don't think I'll ever forget that day.

"Marcus, were you ever gonna tell me about Annabeth?" I ask. Marcus looks up from his bowl of cereal and looks at me, shaking his head.

"Mindy, how many times do I have to tell you that you weren't ready for what that letter had to say? Min, this obsession with Annabeth and Fredrick isn't healthy. You need to forget about your real family," Marcus says.

"But Marcus, I can't forget about it! How would you like it if I told you your parents weren't really your parents, and somewhere out there, you had a long lost sister? Would you just let it go?"

"Min-" he begins.

"Exactly! So I will find my family and meet them and you can't stop me!" I scream as I grab my bag and storm out of the house. I walk to the park, not caring if Marcus is following me.

When I reach the park, Dave is waiting for me under the tree that we all agreed to meet at. Shit, I forgot to bring the douche a knife too.

I scream in frustration as I plop down next to Dave. I look at were I was walking and see that Marcus was smart enough not to follow me. "Good to see you too," Dave mutters, offering me a cookie and a box of apple juice. He agreed to bring us all snacks today (when he first told me this my first reaction was "what the hell are we in Pre-K?").

After about five minutes of waiting, Annabeth shows up clutching the hand of a boy with jet black hair and sea green eyes.

"Hey guys, um this is my best friend, Percy," Annabeth says.

"Um hi," Percy says as he pushes his long hair out from his eyes.

"I wanna show you guys something," I say standing up. I walk for about fifteen minutes, navigating myself through the big city. When we reach the dark alley I slowly approach the familiar door. As I press the five numbers that will unlock the warehouse, 6-4-6-3-9. M-I-N-D-Y. Daddy picked the code out.

The big metal door swings open and I see the familiar kitchen and living room set that hides all the guns and other weapons that will fill the grey walls with a push of a button that is in the arm rest of the brown couch. My purple motorcycle sits next to daddy's black Mustang in the corner. They are parked next to a box of grenades and other explosives. In the other corner are all of our training equipment. And upstairs there are four rooms, mine, daddy's, a spare, and a room full of emergency money.

"What is this?" Annabeth asks. I smile and start to walk over to the brown couch, leaning towards the button. I press it and suddenly all of the weapons are visible. Annabeth, Percy, and Dave gasp as all sorts of gun, knives, and swords appear on the walls.

"Wow!" Annabeth exclaims, looking at a dagger on the wall. "Is all this...yours?" She asks. I nod and my smile fades a little.

"Well it used to be my daddy's...well, the man I lived with...before he died..." I trail off. I start to get memories of daddy and I in here, training, talking, drinking hot chocolate, and I get sad.

"This explains a lot," Dave mutters. I give him a death glare and he looks away.

"What's this?" Percy asks pointing to the wall filled with pictures of daddy and I killing a bunch of people in different ways. I smile when I see that.

"Oh, daddy and I called that my bedtime stories," I reply, "Me and daddy came up with over a hundred ways to kill a man, and we filled an entire storybook with all the ways."

Percy looks at me oddly. "Ohkaaay..." He says awkwardly. I laugh at that. I love it when people find out about all this stuff, their expressions are always priceless.

"Annabeth, your sister's demented," Percy says.

I give him a smile. "Thank you!" I exclaim.

"She's not demented, she's just different... in a good way," Dave says smiling at me. I think that he meant that to be sweet but I just find it creepy. "Besides I bet Annabeth has something weird about her too. Like how she's a book freak."

"You filthy mortal!" Annabeth yells as she punches Dave in the face. I laugh as I hold her back and she clutches her hand yelling "OW!" "Annabeth," I begin. "You punched him wrong, you have to do it like this," I say, "Here, let me demonstrate." I punch Dave in the face the right way, unlike Annabeth.

"What the heck!?" Dave yells as he tries to stop the blood flowing from his nose.

"YES that's it, let out all your rage!" I exclaim as I put a dummy in front of him. "Now punch it, just like I showed Annabeth. I can't be friends with a bunch of weak loser's so I'm going to train you guys to be strong."

"I am NOT weak!" Annabeth yells. She crosses her arms, but then uncrosses them and shows me her arm. "SEE, I have muscles and everything!" She flexes her arm.

"Fine then, but I'm gonna teach you how to fight the right way," I say. Percy looks at me angrily.

"Well, I'm not weak either! Dave is, but..." he trails off. I slap him.

"Bitch, be nice to Dave! Now on the floor, and do sixty push ups!" I yell at Percy. He doesn't get on the floor. "NOW!" I yell.

Annabeth goes over to Percy and clutches his face. "Are you OK? Your face is turning red and I think it's gonna bruise. Mindy why the Hades did you slap him!?" She exclaims.

"He was being mean to Dave!" I argue back. I look over at Dave, whose nose hasn't stopped bleeding. "Come on douche bag, let me help you with that."

I lead him to the bathroom in my dad's room and look around in the cabinets for bandages. "Well at least try to keep the blood in while I look, dumbass," I say, handing Dave a towel.

"You could at least be a little nicer to me!" He yells.

I sigh and sit down on the toilet seat. "I'm sorry, its just ever since daddy died and I found out that he isn't my biological daddy, there's been this fire that feeds off of my rage inside of me that grows stronger and stronger."

He smiles at me, "Hey Min, if you ever need to talk about it or anything... I'll be there for you."

I smile back and before I can react, Dave leans down and presses his lips against mine.

Annabeth's POV

"I'm sorry about Mindy," I say to Percy as I gently place the bag of ice on Percy's cheek.

"Its fine, I mean you can't control your sisters actions wise girl," he replies as he takes the ice pack from me.

An awkward silence fills the air. I turn to see Percy looking at me, his sea-green eyes wide. I stare back and observe his face. His hair is swept to one side, but is so long it manages to cover most of his eyes. But somehow his eyes still manage to be the first thing you notice when you look at his face.

"Why are you looking at me seaweed brain?" is all I can manage to say as I peel my eyes away from his, my face bright red.

"Because you're beautiful, wise girl. Duh! You're the daughter of the goddess of wisdom, shouldn't you have known this?" Percy replies. I feel my face heat up even more.

His face leans closer to mine and I think he's going to kiss me. But I can't because I have a boyfriend, Luke.

"Dave's face is fine!" Mindy yells as she enters the room causing Percy to move away.

"And still very handsome!" Dave adds.

"In your dreams douche bag!" Mindy jokes, laughing awkwardly. I notice that her and Dave won't look at each other and both of their faces are flushed and red. That's...weird.

She looks at my face and laughs even harder, "Annabeth, did this dick slap you? You're as red as a tomato, maybe even redder."

"I think she looks cute like that," I hear Percy mutter.

And I'm pretty sure Mindy heard it too because she raises her eyebrows and then looks at Percy and then back at me before winking.

"Stop winking at me Mindy, for all we know you and Dave could have been making out up there or something," I say, watching as Mindy turns redder.

"We were NOT making out..." Mindy argues, crossing her arms.

"Sure you weren't," I reply, "That's why you're all red and sweaty." Percy and I laugh as Mindy gets mad and Dave just looks away awkwardly.

"Percy, can you walk me home? I think Mindy and Dave wanna be alone," I say laughing. Percy nods.

"Um, yeah, let's go." Percy replies.

When we arrive at my house I let go of Percy's hand. I know I probably shouldn't be holding his hand considering I have a boyfriend but I felt safer knowing that he was there with me.

"Thanks," I say as I get up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek.

He smiles at me, "Hey um I have to tell you something."

"Okay, what is it seaweed brain?" I ask.

"Go on a date with me tomorrow and then I'll tell you," he says with a sly grin.

"But Percy, I have a boyfriend..." I trail off.

"Come on Annabeth, I'm your best friend," he says, the pain in his voice noticeable. "I'm sure your boyfriend wouldn't mind if you went to the movies and out to dinner with your best friend," he says, practically spitting the words boyfriend and best friend. As if he was jealous of Luke and wanted to be more than best friends.

I sigh, "Okay, pick me up at eight?"

He nods, "Wear something that will make you look pretty, well actually you can't get more beautiful than that so just come as your normal self."

I blush and kiss him on the cheek again before rushing inside.

When I get inside I accidentally run into my stepmother. My eyes widen as I see an angry look on her face and I get a little scared.

"Where the hell have you been?' She demands.

"At the library," I reply, meeting her eyes.

She only looks angrier and I look away from her glare. Before I know what's happening, she raises her hand and slaps me across the face.

"You liar. I saw you take off with some boy earlier."

My face stings as I reply weakly, "We were studying..."

My stepmother doesn't listen and she punches me in the face. I fight back angry tears as my dad walks into the room.

"Oh my God Annabeth, what happened to your face?" My dad asks.

"Um...I got into a fight at school when somebody tried to take my books." I lie. My dad just nods and mutters something about "Annabeth and her dam books."

I run up to my room afterwards and sigh in frustration. I pick up a book off my shelf, The Fault in Our Stars, and start reading. Reading always makes me feel better when my stepmother does something to me. It's like I'd rather be somebody fictional than who I am.

Just when I start reading, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I groan and answer my phone.

"Hey babe," my boyfriend Luke says on the other line.

"Oh, hey, what's up?" I reply.

"Well the camp director decided that I could go out and see you tomorrow and take you out to a movie. You up for it?" Luke asks.

"Well, as much as I'd really love to, I already agreed to go to the movies with Percy tommorrow," I say.

I can hear the jealousy in Luke's voice when he says, "Who's Percy?"

I'm about to reply when Luke cuts me off with, "Oh, nevermind, I'll just take Thalia instead."

"Percy's my best friend. Who's Thalia?" I ask.

"Thalia's my best friend," Luke says.

"Ok, have fun at the movies then." I say.

"Love you Annabeth."

I almost roll my eyes at that. Seriously, I'm starting to doubt Luke loves me. He calls me less and less everyday and when he does, the conversations are only like three minutes long. I feel like we're getting farther and farther apart every day.

"Um, yeah, you too." I reply before hanging up.

I think I might be falling for Percy.

(A/N: Big thanks to our only reviewer! If you're reading this, we'd love to hear a review, even if you think it sucked. Constructive criticism would be great. If you have any thoughts or comments, please leave a review. Thanks for reading, see you next chapter!)