In a word: I had writer's block. Deal.
Coin has been tossed. Decision revealed… soon.
Thalia led me from the room, into a columned walkway. There were plants growing out of baskets that hung from the stone roof. We were on the second floor, and the walkway was rectangular, with bright sunlight flooding down to a courtyard of perfectly mown grass, marble statues, and a fountain of unnaturally blue water tinkling merrily away in the centre.
It was a world away from my life of late. All this sunshine, and gentle noise was nothing like the darkness and silence of my life. It seemed almost unnatural, and that scared me, because it meant I was losing touch with reality.
Thalia led me down a flight of stairs to the bottom floor, before pushing open a door. It led to a street, and I stood blinking in the sunlight as Thalia closed the door behind us. The street was wide and paved in an orderly fashion. Of course it was. I designed it.
We must be on the main street, which led from the entry to Olympus via the elevator in the Empire State Building to the main temple of the Olympians. It had been almost destroyed in Kronos' last uprising, and I was the one who had designed the repairs for it.
The tiles reflected the sun, looking as clean now as the day they were put in. There wasn't any time to admire more of my own work, however, because Thalia was walking off, without looking at me. I followed her, up the street, past building after gleaming white building, all slapped together against perfect lawns of green grass and flowers and statues. It was ridiculously beautiful, and it made my heart clench that my own life wasn't all sunshine and green grass.
"In here," Thalia said, stopping outside another building, no different from the ones on either side. It was nondescript, white, and columned, like all of the buildings on Olympus. Thalia shoved open the door and we walked inside.
It was dark in the temple, with no light whatsoever filtering in from the outside. Instead, the ground immediately in front of me was lit with bronze braziers, showing a row of steps that sunk into the ground, beneath the temple.
Thalia walked down the stairs into darkness, and not wanting to be left alone in the creepy room, I followed.
It was faintly lit at the bottom by torches set in brackets along the walls. The walls were solid stone, and the walkway was extremely narrow. Even though I was not claustrophobic, I could not help the slight dread I felt when I realised that my knuckles scraped the walls when my arms were at my sides.
Thankfully, after a couple of meters, the corridor widened out, into an area about the size of a gazebo. There were other corridors, branching off, and we took the one on the right.
It was wider than the one we came in from, and on either side there were cells with iron bars. All of them were deserted, until we got to the end.
There were two figures standing in front of the last cell, on the right. They looked so incredibly life like that originally I thought they were real people. However, as I got closer in the darkness, I saw that they were, in fact, made of bronze.
Thalia stood in front of it, and motioned me inside.
"I've already talked to him," she said, smiling at me. "I think you should talk to him alone. I'll see you later." She squeezed my hand and then set off back down the hallway.
I stared at her for a second, before going inside the cell.
The taxi sped down the highway, driving out of Orange County and into New York City. In the back, a man dressed in an immaculately pressed business suit was sitting, tapping the bottom of the car with the toe of one brilliantly polished shoe.
Percy's eyes were perfectly normal when I reached out of the hug to stare at his face.
"What?" he asked, frowning. "Do I have something on my face?"
I shook my head. "No. I'm just glad to see you again."
He smiled. "I'm glad to see you too."
And then he kissed me, and I melted. I had forgotten how good he made me feel, and all thoughts of everything melted away. He was fine. He wasn't trying to kill me. And he was kissing me.
The taxi took the off-ramp, speeding onto the road that led to the city, weaving in and out of traffic at dangerous speeds. The man in the back sat calmly, as though he knew he had no need to rush, like he knew what was going to happen. The car passed the first few houses on the outskirts of the city.
He sat down on one side of the bench, and I on the other, just looking. Then he opened his mouth and began to speak.
"Annabeth," he said, running a hand through his dark hair. "I am so sorry for what I did to you. He—he forced me to do it. It was like I was a puppet on an invisible string—I couldn't break free even if I wanted to. And God, I wanted to. These last couple of days have been Hell. The amount of times I've tried to kill you is insane, and I hope that you'll forgive me, though I'll understand if you don't. I just—"
"Percy." I cut him off.
"What?" he asked.
"You're rambling. It's okay. I forgive you."
He stared at me for a second before breaking into a smile. And it was that smile that I had been missing for four years. It brought home exactly how much I'd missed him, how much pain and sadness I'd gone through over the past four years.
But now I had him back. Now it was okay. Because, finally, he was free.
The car weaved through buildings, cutting off other drivers, earning curses and horn-honks from other drivers. The man in the back wasn't bothered by this, however. If he was bothered, he would have gone back and slaughtered every single one of them in their cars.
The car pulled up in front of the Empire State Building and stopped.
We were talking, randomly, about everything and nothing at all. It was easy and simple. It was comforting, that I was still able to talk like a normal person, and if one that did not know anything of the two's relationship, they would have found it amazing that just two short days ago, he was trying to kill her. This opinion would have changed in a couple of seconds, though.
The man thanked the apparition in the front seat of the taxi, before stepping out on the pavement.
Mid-way through a sentence, Percy froze.
"Percy? Are you okay?" I asked him, uncertain. His pupils dilated, and he swayed slightly in his seat.
The man took one deliberate step forward.
"Uh, Percy?" I went over to him. "Are you all—"
He leapt up, unbelievably fast, and I was on the floor, his tall frame on top of me. His hands wrapped around my throat, cutting off my air supply, and all I could do stare at him as his eyes slowly changed from sea-green to black.
Sorry for the cliff-hangers. The story shall be over soon.