Chapter 8

"two kids, no consequences / pull the trigger without thinking / there's only one way down this road"
- time-bomb, all time low

Annabeth dances into the living room.

"No," Thalia says immediately.

Annabeth deflates. "You haven't even heard what I was going to say!"

"I know it's going to be awful."

"Give her a break, Thalia," Piper says without looking up from her crossword.

Thalia heaves a sigh and drags her eyes away from her phone. Expectantly, she blinks at Annabeth with owlish blue eyes. "What, then?" she snaps.

Annabeth holds out her hands. "The Pat-Pad."

Piper blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"The Pat-Pad. We can call this house The Pat-Pad."

Thalia rolls her eyes. "You're out of your mind."

"I think it's cool," Piper says. She glances down at the book in her lap. "Thalia. Five letter word for cancel."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Piper gives her a dead look. "I'm taking crosswords up for a hobby now that we're not allowed to do any more proper spy-work. It's either I put myself in a life-or-death situation or you have to scroll through your inner thesaurus every now and then."

Thalia sighs. "Annul."

"Begins with I."

"Ixnay."

"Thank you."

"Guys?" Annabeth asks, a little impatiently. "Back on topic, please?"

"Of course," Thalia says. She gives Annabeth a pleasant smile. "I say utterly not."

"It's a good name, think about it. Like, P from Piper–"

"I get it, Annabeth, it's just a terrible idea."

"No, it's not. We've been living here for so long, I thought we ought to give it a name."

Thalia gives Annabeth a look. "We're not calling it the Pat-Pad."

"Yes we are."

"No."

"It's a good name!"

"No, it's an awful one. Like, the Pat-Pad? Really?"

Without looking up from her crossword, Piper says monotonously, "Don't be salty because your name is last." She turns to Annabeth. "Ten-letter word for 'join'."

"Amalgamate."

Thalia scoffs. "I'm not salty, don't be daft."

"Yes you are."

"I couldn't call it the Tap-Pad," Annabeth says. "It doesn't sound cool like that."

"You could call it the Tap... 'Tel."

Piper snorts. "The Tap Tel."

"It's not any better than the Pat Pad."

Mildly, Annabeth chides her. "Hey."

"Besides," Piper says. "It's not a hotel, so it doesn't make any sense."

Thalia flounders. "Yeah, well– it's not a pad either!"

"Well," Annabeth tells her. "If you want to think of it like that. It's either the Pat-Pad or the Tap-Tampon."

There is silence.

And then they both groan.

"Oh, Annabeth–"

"Can we have one conversation without you bringing up tampons, oh my god–"

Annabeth squeals as Thalia lobs a pillow at her from across the room. Piper tackles her and they both fall off the sofa with a thumb, Annabeth letting out a giggly groan as her spine collides awkwardly with the floorboards. Thalia whoops, "Fight, fight, fight!" like the child she is and because Annabeth is obviously the more mature one she flips her off from where Piper has her wrists pinned down.

Later, they get a noise complaint from the couple who live above them. Thalia puts on a Mom Robe, a pair of heels and a wig and obediently listens to the apartment manager as he yaks away about decency and the apartment block policies, earnestly nodding and "mm"ing in all the right places and saying, "Of course, sir. I'll tell them to keep it down next time" whilst Piper and Annabeth try and suppress their giggles in the other room.

It's a standard evening. Annabeth kind of loves it.

Annabeth faces a little problem at school the next day.

So. She's a spy. Obviously. Almost everything about her life at this current moment is fake. The only non-fake things about the whole ordeal are Thalia and Piper, and even that's to a certain extent because the names programmed into her phone and under the apartment contract and listed into schools are Contessa DeVoire and Georgina Handler.

But, like. This is a real problem.

Annabeth's face is very fake. Not her real one. Her real one is quite normal. But Lois's face is all prosthetics. Her nose is fake. Her eyes are fake. Her forehead is wider, her lips bigger, her jaw more square and her cheekbones more defined.

And in Science, her nose almost falls off.

Which is, you know. Never great.

She's in a group with Leo and Percy. Leo has taken charge of the whole situation, which Annabeth is not sure whether to feel happy or terrified about, and because of this she and Percy are hanging back by the kettles.

"Are you sure we can't help?" Percy calls nervously.

Leo waves him off. "You lovebirds stay there! I've got everything under the control." Almost immediately after he stops talking, a massive whoomph of fire shoots out his Bunsen burner and singes the ceiling. Leo looks over his shoulder at Percy and Annabeth, his Science goggles misted up and a wicked grin on his face. "See?"

Surprisingly, Annabeth doesn't feel reassured in the slightest.

Percy turns to her. "So," he says. "Has, uh, Brandon said anything to you?"

Annabeth shakes her head. Something flashes in the corner of her in Leo's direction, which is later confirmed when Hephaestus bellows, "VALDEZ!" seconds afterwards. She chooses to ignore it. "Not after I, uh. Pasta-d him."

For some reason, Percy looks pleased. "Good." Then he goes scarlet. "I mean. For you. Like. He's left you alone now."

"Yeah." She takes a look at Percy's pink cheeks and decides to experiment. "Guess that means I don't need a boyfriend, anymore."

Percy's head shoots up, his eyes wide. "What?"

"I mean." Annabeth tries to suppress her smirk. "He's left me alone, hasn't he?"

She doesn't do a good job. Percy notices. "Stop laughing at me!"

"Sorry. You're cute when you're mad."

Percy goes the colour of a poppy. "Shut up."

"Aw."

"No, shh."

Annabeth presses a finger against Percy's cheek. "You're really red," she notes.

"That's your fault, Watermann. You're really pretty and you're standing, like. Right here."

Annabeth pauses. "You– you think I'm pretty?"

Suddenly she's not sure whose face is redder.

"Um." Percy fidgets. "Yeah."

"Oh." Annabeth smiles shyly. "Thank you."

She's going to fall asleep with his words clutched to her chest. She feels her stomach swirl with something unfamiliar, and for the first time lets herself indulge herself in it. Maybe liking Percy isn't so bad after all. After all. She's meant to be a normal teenager, isn't she?

That is, until she feels oil dripping off her chin.

The steam from the kettles has melted the clay holding her fake nose in place. Thankfully not completely, so Annabeth has time to step away and hold her nose so it doesn't slip off, praying that the remaining wax dries quickly, but she's still not out of the clear yet. Because unfortunately stopping mid-sentence to grab at your nose whilst something suspiciously skin-coloured drips down your arm is not considered normal.

Percy frowns. "Lois? Are– is everything okay?"

Annabeth's eyes widens. "Yes!" she says, a little too loudly. Snap out of it, Annabeth. "Sorry," she says again, risking taking her hand away from her nose and quickly fanning herself before clamping it down again. "Is it me or is it very hot in here?"

Percy looks very confused. "Lois, it's– it's Feburary. And the air con is on."

"Right." Annabeth nods firmly. "I see."

Percy stares at her.

"I, um." Annabeth gestures to the door. "I need the toilet. I'll be quick."

She sprints out the room.

But because life isn't on her side at the moment she bumps into Brandon darting out the door.

"Oh!" she squeaks. Her hand is still clamped to her nose, and she can feel the wax hardening beneath her fingertips. She should feel thankful except she has no way of knowing how it dried, so her nose could very well be upside down. She tightens her hand. "Brandon!"

Brandon's lip curls. "Lois."

He still hasn't forgotten the Spaghetti Incident.

She kind of doesn't blame him. She feels like she may have overstepped the mark just a touch.

"Hey," she says. "Um. Sorry, I'd love to talk, but I kind of need the toilet? If you could, um. Let me through. That would be lovely."

Brandon sidesteps and lets her go.

Annabeth scurries to the bathroom. Thank goodness, it's empty. She leans and peers at herself in the mirror. The wax has dried a little, but it's crooked and uneven. She cringes. She's going to need more facial clay if a little bit of steam does that to her nose.

Frowning, she begins to dab at her face.

Brandon strikes a week later.

Annabeth isn't dumb. She knows it's going to happen. He's incredibly predictable, really. Of course, he would deny otherwise, but Annabeth has managed to map out when he's going to get her down to the minute. It took a bit of careful chopping and choosing but after a few days of watching the way he would glare at her across the cafeteria when he thought she wasn't looking she managed to figure out a rough estimate.

And she's right, too. She would applaud herself, but her hands have been duct-taped together behind her back so it's a little difficult.

"This is extremely unnecessary," she says through the cupboard door.

"It's payback, Watermann. You don't humiliate me in front of the whole school and get away with it."

Annabeth rolls her eyes.

The door jiggles. Annabeth can hear Brandon struggle on the other side trying to figure out how to lock a doorknob he had broken only minutes before to get her in. If she wanted to, she could nudge the door open. She decides to humour him, though. Boys' egos are fragile. It can't be fun to have the school witness someone covering you in spaghetti bolognaise and then the revenge you had planned backfiring on you before you had even got it officially started.

"So," she says conversationally.

"What, Lois?"

"How long were you planning on keeping me in here for?"

"Until the janitor discovers you."

Annabeth should be scared. She should. She almost feels guilty that she doesn't. The janitor only makes his rounds very late at night. But even though the cupboard is small and cramped and pitch black she can think of thirteen ways to escape and honestly none of them are even that heroic. She's a little disappointed, actually.

But she needs to maintain an image. She makes her voice slightly hysterical. "You're keeping me in here for that long?"

When Brandon next speaks, his voice is very close. She imagines he's pressing his lips against the crack in the door. She could kick it and he'd break his nose.

(She decides not to, though. He does admittedly have a very pretty face. It would be a shame to break it. He doesn't have any redeeming features so it's probably the only thing that'll be getting him any female attention.)

"Don't mess with me, Chase," he hisses. "This is your lesson."

The staccato of his footsteps gradually fades away and Annabeth is left alone.

Well.

This is certainly not how she expected her day to go. It had been pretty ordinary up until now, and even this wasn't a surprise – like Annabeth said, she knew it was going to happen. During lunch, a footballer called Toni Wallis with a head like a rugby ball and eyes like black marbles had asked if he could talk to her outside, and when they had walked out together he had scooped her up over her shoulder and carried her to the east wing corridor, where Brandon was waiting with a roll of duct tape and a malicious smile.

And now here she is. Locked in a janitor's cupboard with her hands taped behind her back.

About time. It's so incredibly dull with nothing to do.

Experimentally, she wriggles her wrists. The tape pulls at her skin, and frankly Annabeth is a little impressed. The plan may have been childish but at least they didn't use rope. Rope is incredibly amateur. Annabeth can escape rope bonds in eight seconds.

It takes her eleven minutes to get out the cupboard. A hook on the wall near her elbows provides as a good knife to cut the tape away with, and then it's simply a matter of twisting a metal handle off one of the buckets and using it to blindly fumble around in what she assumes is the key-hole area until she hears a click and the door falls open.

Far too easy.

Brandon needs to up his game. That was pathetic.

She decides to give him the satisfaction of thinking she's still there, however. She doesn't go back to her class – she heads to the Nurse's office and fakes a tummy ache, claiming she has to go home. The teacher lets her go.

It's all so easy. Anyone who said high school was hard was lying. It's simple.

However, it's only once she's halfway out the car park does she realise.

Brandon had called her Chase.

Chills run up her spine.

No. No. That can't have been. How on earth would Brandon know?

Her mind spins the entire way home.

She decides against telling Piper or Thalia. Instead, she throws it to the back of her mind, a red-hot skeleton that bubbles and simmers in the caverns of her head, where it sits like a broken marionette.

You made it up, she tells herself as she approaches their front door. It's all in your head. There's no way he could have known your name is Chase.

It doesn't do a thing. She has been brought up being taught that if you find yourself having to convince your mind of something it's more often than not untrue. The only thing that stops Annabeth from driving her keys into the wall and screaming with frustration is that there is no way Brandon could have known that her surname is Chase. Even if he did figure out that she wasn't Lois he'd never be able to track down Annabeth. There is no written record of Annabeth Chase anywhere on the planet. Her birth ticket was destroyed a day after it was signed. She has thirty-seven passports and none of them are genuine.

The only proof that Annabeth Chase exists is Annabeth Chase herself.

She slides her keys into the door. All she really wants to do now is collapse on her bed and sleep until next week, but she knows that she can't. Aside from the obvious, which is it is scientifically impossible, Thalia would never let it happen. She's a killjoy, Thalia. If Annabeth sleeps longer for ten hours she would blast a siren in her ear, let alone ten days. But maybe she and Piper can squash up on the mattress next to her and cuddle. Piper is good at cuddles. Thalia would whinge and moan but she'll settle eventually, and when she's sleepy she's soft and warm and she lets Annabeth lace their fingers together.

That's a great plan. They'll cuddle until Annabeth feels like getting up.

(Aka never.)

Unfortunately, great plans are more often than not hella unrealistic. Especially when she's sharing an apartment with two spies.

"Finally," Piper says when Annabeth walks through the door. "We've been waiting for you for decades. Come, sit down. We're playing cards."

Thalia ignores her. "You're home early," she notes suspiciously.

"It's a rather long story," Annabeth says. She drops her bag on the floor, ignoring Thalia's reptilian screech of indignation, and collapses in one of the empty chairs at the dinner table. Piper starts dealing her cards. She caught a cold so she's skipped out on school for the past two days, but Annabeth doesn't doubt for a second that she'll whip her butt if she thinks that that's a liable excuse to become lazy.

"We've got time," Thalia says mildly.

"I got locked in a cupboard," Annabeth says. "And when I got out I couldn't be bothered to go back to class so I left."

Thalia snorts as she picks up her cards. "Yeah, right."

"Who locked you in?" Piper asks.

"Brandon."

"I thought the kid had a crush on you," Thalia says. She puts down three cards facedown in the centre of the table and says, "Three queens."

Piper studies her. "Bluff."

Darkly, Thalia grumbles as she picks them back up.

"He did," Annabeth says. "But then I may or may not have humiliated him in front of the whole school."

Thalia shrugs. "I won't be impressed unless by 'humiliate' you mean stained his trousers with apple juice and announced to the whole school that he peed his pants."

"I'm not three years old," Annabeth retorts. She slides a card down on the table. "One five. I actually poured my lunch over his head and told everyone he has a small penis."

Piper blinks. "Well."

"Bluff," Thalia snaps.

"No, it's true."

"Not your story. That's definitely true, and you're going to give me details. Your card."

Annabeth preens. "S'a five. You can check."

Thalia scowls at her. "That isn't fair."

"All's fair in love and war, Thalia," Piper says primly, watching with a smirk as Thalia picks up Annabeth's card. "Besides, it's not my fault that you can't play."

"I can bloody play, s'just you're both good liars."

"It's called practice, sweetpea," Piper says with a sickly sweet smile. "Two eights."

"Bluff," Annabeth says immediately. "I have three."

Piper pauses. She peers at Annabeth over the top of her cards. "No you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"I just put down two eights. That doesn't make any sense."

"Stop lying. You put down a three and a six," Thalia retorts. "Although I haven't the foggiest idea why. It's a free deck, and you have an eight. Why on earth would you need to bluff on a free table?"

Piper sticks out her tongue as she gathers up her cards. "Tactics, Thalia."

"Yes, well, they aren't working very well, are they?" Thalia sighs. "Is anyone ever going to be truthful in this game?"

"I will," Annabeth says. "One ace."

Thalia rolls her eyes. "I have no energy left. Two twos."

"I call bluff," Piper says immediately.

"For heaven's sake, Piper."

"It's not interesting otherwise."

"Well. You're wrong. Pick 'em up."

Piper doesn't even look fazed.

"Goody. More cards." She flicks through them. "Annabeth, you bluffed."

Thalia swears. "Oh my god."

"Too late to call me out now," Annabeth says.

"Shame. I was looking forward to having an ace. All I got was another six."

Annabeth laughs.

Out of nowhere, Thalia frowns. "Your nose is crooked."

"Hm?" Annabeth feels for her nose, and her fingers bump into the uneven ridges of the wax. "Oh yeah. In Science I accidentally melted it off. It's fine, no one noticed. I just went to the bathroom and ran it under cold water until it hardened again."

Piper puts down her cards, concerned. "That's not good at all."

"I know. I only just managed to explain my way out of it."

Thalia furrows her eyebrows. "I'll try and make some thicker facial clay. I'll work it out, don't you worry."

She doesn't get thicker facial clay. Instead, she gets something else.

"Here," Thalia says the next morning, pressing a little bag in her hand as she passes.

Annabeth stares at it. "What is this?"

"Blood."

Annabeth almost spits out her water. "Excuse me?"

"It's not real, you idiot, don't look so scared. In that bag are six little sachets of fake blood. It's for if your nose starts falling off, which is not something we necessarily want or need happening. What you do is if that does happen just crush one of these between your fingers and hold it up to your nose so it looks like it's bleeding. Then you can rush off to the bathroom to fix it."

Annabeth is touched. "Thank you," she says genuinely. "That's– really nice of you."

"Don't sound so surprised."

"You're not really known for being nice, Thalia."

"Georgina," Thalia corrects, but she's smiling.

"Thalia Thalia Thalia."

"Don't make me take that back."

"Sorry." Annabeth gives her a shy smile. "But really, thank you. This is going to be really useful. I owe you."

"You've told me that sixteen times and it's never happened so I doubt it but you're welcome. Be careful not to sit on it, though. It might look like you had a bit of an accident."

"I'm not going to sit of them, Thalia."

"You'd be surprised. They end up everywhere. One of them somehow landed up under one of the sofa pillows and Piper sat on it. I spent an hour trying to get it out."

"We appreciate your efforts."

"No you don't. Not enough, anyway."

Annabeth rolls her eyes fondly. "Goodbye, Thalia."

"Have fun at school."

"I will."

A/N Hey amigos! This was written on three cups of tea and Burn from Hamilton on repeat for about two hours so it's a little wonky i apologise (also not so much percabeth ahh sorry next chapter though pinky promise)

I'm so sorry for this late update. School hit me like a wrecking ball (and when I say that I mean I have had three pieces of homework due every day this week and because I'm obviously very organised I do them all the day before I have to hand them in, meaning I was cramming projects meant to be done over a two-week period into a few hours WHICH protip is not a good idea do not do that)

And sorry this chapter isn't thrilling (it's a bit of a filler oops sorry). However, I have got something akin to a plan so from now on every chapter, while it may not be incredible, will be crucial to what's going on. So my writer's block has been sort-of cleared (hopefully, we'll see). If all goes to plan then I should probably have around 21 chapters. But knowing me I'll think of something and it'll probably end up something like 30.

Also – my friend McShizzle350 (yo grasshopper) is writing some great stories! Go check him out, he's awesome.

That's all I have for today, folks! Please tell me what you thought (favourite parts?) and I'll see you all soon!