Chapter 2

Annabeth

You know how it is when someone just keeps talking and talking while you're trying to focus and they just won't stop? Well, if you've ever met Leo Valdez you know exactly what I'm talking about. The rescue ship was almost done, but still he laid on the floor of Bunker 9 working, covered with grease, and pulling tool after tool out of his magic belt, all the while chattering on and on.

"So I'm just sitting there, while Jason and Thalia are talking and I just try to put in a little comment here and there, and every time she turns to me like 'hey, you're cool'… you know how girls do that when they raise their eyebrows? Isn't that awesome. She so totally digs me. Too bad, she can't date anybody cause she is smokin'. Almost hotter than you, actually."

He flashed a smile at me and I rolled my eyes. He'd been pulling pick-up lines on me all day, and it was getting on my nerves, especially because I'd been mapping, and that takes focus.

"Hey, Leo?"

"Yah,"

"Let's be quiet for a minute, ok?"

"Ok."

Leo went silent and I turned back to my map. It was almost finished, our route charted. It wasn't the quickest path, but it was the safest, and as the saying goes, "slow and steady wins the race". I believe in sayings only because my mother invented most of them. I began to draw the trail again. It was long work, and extremely tiring on the eyes. Thank god, I was almost finished. I had almost moved on to the last part of the trail when something bumped my arm.

I felt like my arm moved in slow motion, but with so much momentum it was impossible to stop it and watched as the pen scraped a dark black line through my otherwise perfect mapping. I dropped it and stared blankly at my work, clutching the edge of the table for support. I had spent hours grueling over that map, all the while having to put up with Leo's endless… Leo.

I turned and saw Leo grinning sheepishly.

"Sorry." He blushed, and I could tell he meant it, but that didn't matter.

"Sorry doesn't cut it."

My heart was beating fast and I could feel the hot dry wind rolling off Long Island Sound whip my curls behind me. The need for revenge I'd gotten from my mother was taking over. It was something I'd always been able to control around… other people, but now that my emotions were out of whack nothing was going to stop me. I pulled my knife from my belt. Leo backed up fast.

"Get out now and don't ever talk to me again."

"Annabeth, I'm sorry… I didn't mean..."

"I don't care what you did and didn't mean. You did that on purpose, you jerk!"
Leo looked angry now too, but I raised my knife. I was prepared for anything. Leo didn't take out a weapon though, even though I knew he had one.

"You need to get control of yourself. Just 'cause Percy's gone doesn't mean you have the right to be a complete and total idiot," he said angrily, " and plus, he probably already has another girlfriend. There are plenty of girls out there way prettier than you."

He stormed out as I threw my knife, but I was way off target and it embedded itself in a solid wood desk. I sank to my knees, put my hands over my head and shielded myself from the world all the while praying the way I hadn't in years. If only Percy would remember, then maybe it would all go back to the way it used to be. Maybe.

…

I redid my map and stayed up way past curfew just sitting on the floor of my room looking at pictures: old ones from a long time ago that hurt to look at, ones that I couldn't describe. And then at the very bottom of my desk drawer was my diary. It was weird seeing it, because I hadn't written in it in years. I had stopped ever since my first quest. I didn't have time for trivial things after that. I had to grow up.

I opened the book to my last entry, written in a purple ink:

"June

I'm going on a quest! This is what I've been waiting for, for years and it's all because of Percy Jackson, some son of Poseidon kid I just met. We're leaving tomorrow and we're going to go to the Underworld. I know right? In all my life, I never imagined I'd go there. This is the biggest quest in forever! I'm so nervous, but so freaking excited! See, I told you Percy was something special. Well, I've got to go pack. Wish me luck!

Annabeth

It was pretty funny to read something I'd written when I was so young and naïve. I mean sure, I'd been living a pretty crazy life then, but in no way the same as I did in the years afterward. I could picture Percy's face if I showed him this, how hard he'd laugh if he saw what he wrote and I promised myself I would show it to him. If I promised myself he would be okay he would be. I hoped.

I took a deep breath and laid down on my bed, extremely tired. Malcolm was glaring at me because I still had my light on. It took me another hour to actually sleep only because I liked to think at night. It was the perfect time to relax my mind and let in whatever wanted to expose itself.

That night I had a dream. And not just a typical dream, one about Percy. I saw him surrounded, his eyes glowing sea green and still just as ignorant as the day I met him. He was yelling at some girl, with blonde hair, just like me but prettier. She was curvy and tall and wore make-up. As Jason would say: "she was a knock-out". That was when I saw the wolf. She was tall and strangely human, so that I recognized her immediately: Lupa. Percy was at the Roman camp. Our guess had been right.

Lupa gestured a paw at a petite pixy-haired girl who grabbed Percy by the arm and led him away, talking animatedly all the while. I felt my heart contract. Who was she? And what was she doing with him. Then the dream faded and I was somewhere else entirely.

I was standing in a field that looked a lot like Camp Half-Blood's sword arena. Percy was sitting on a bench next to the blonde-haired girl laughing. It looked like they'd put their differences aside. Then he leaned over and kissed her. I felt my heart pound, but the strangest thing was that it wasn't my own heart. I was looking out of someone else's eyes. Then I ran into the field, the wind blowing my hair back, spun Percy away from her, and slapped him on the face.

He stared at me in shock, his eyes wide open, just as beautiful as always, but he was staring straight through me. He didn't know who I was. That was when the girl behind him ran at me and pinned me to the ground. I felt a horrible pain in my shoulder: the same side that had been stabbed last year and tried to roll out of her grip, but she held me fast.

"Get off her Reyna, she's hurt!" Percy yelled, and at first I thought maybe he'd remembered, but I was proven wrong.

"Uh-huh. She was spying on us. She was the girl you stabbed, remember? Back for revenge I presume." She was glaring down at me, obviously because I'd just ruined their little moment.

She pressed my shoulders down and I screamed. It was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. My whole chest was compressing with it, and it filled my whole body. I heard Percy yell and then it all went black and I was awake in my bed, covered in cold sweat. Malcolm was standing over me, breathing hard. Bright sunlight filtered dust in through the curtains.

"Nightmares, Annabeth?"
"Yah,"
"You want to t-"

"No."

"Ok."

He left me in the cabin, tears streaked down my cheeks. I had seen the future, and there was no way I was going to let it come true.