Chapter 21
"you were born to run but your poison tongue won't save you / cause when you play with fire it all goes up in smoke"
- fireproof, against the current
The address leads to a deserted phone warehouse.
Annabeth gets chills just looking at it. It's obviously been a long time since it was used – the windows that haven't been blacked and taped over are smashed, and the brickwork is flaky and chipping. It looks like it's on its last legs.
With old infrastructure not unlike this one, it can sometimes take only one bullet to bring down the entire thing.
She approaches it slowly. She knows that she's safe out here – despite its age, it is still on a remarkably public highway. Whoever is camping out here wouldn't be stupid enough to attack her outside, because it would be seen by around fifty drivers as well as security cameras and the speeding patrol. Annabeth glances behind her wistfully. She's been walking for around half an hour. If she wanted, she could turn back now. She could walk all the way home, curl up in bed and fall asleep.
She could stay alive.
But if she doesn't die now then Percy will. And she would give up her life in a heartbeat if it meant Percy would live until he was old.
Swallowing her fear, she walks through the doorway. The door moves easily; the wood is soft and worm-eaten, and it takes one well-placed kick to bring it down. It goes too easily. Someone has pushed it down before.
She pauses and closes her eyes.
I'm sorry, Chiron.
There are no working lights when she walks in. The corridor is dark and funny-smelling, like it had been drowned with bleach and then left to nature for the next five years. She moves through it silently, placing her feet carefully on the floorboards. Whoever is waiting for her here is obviously expecting her, but they didn't take Percy for the fun of it. He's leverage, bait. He's lured her here. They're going to use that as much as they can.
If she can have the element of surprise on her side, she's one rung higher than them.
However, the person seems to have quite the opposite idea.
Because the second she opens the door to what she assumes is the hall a gun sounds and suddenly she's throwing herself to the ground and watching in horror as the bullet imbeds itself into the wall where her head had been seconds ago.
Oh my god.
She feels sick.
"You almost killed me," she breathes, shocked.
"But I didn't."
She looks up.
Of course it is. It always was.
Brandon Lawrence stands in the centre of the room, so casually, deceptively cool. He pushes the gun into the waistband of his jeans and gives Annabeth an easy grin. He takes her expression the wrong way. "Surprised to see me?"
"Hardly."
And it's true. Annabeth doesn't feel the lie pulsate beneath her skin like it normally does. Instead, it rushes over her skin like a wave, like relief, because it's true, it always has been. It's surprising, certainly, because it's not every day one of your classmates asks to meet in an abandoned phone warehouse and then fires a bullet at your head, but she's not shocked. Brandon Lawrence has been an enigma the entire time Annabeth has known him, and now, finally, the pieces are falling into place.
That isn't the look of a teenage boy. That's the look of a terrorist.
There's no way he could have known her name is Chase.
It looks like she's not the only one undercover at Marino High.
She looks at him right in the eyes.
The only other possibility–
No.
He's good, she'll give him that.
But she's better.
"Why did you try and shoot me?" Annabeth asks, trying to keep her voice level.
Brandon smirks. "Just making sure we didn't have any unwanted visitors."
Annabeth's eye twitches.
"Anyway." Brandon waves his hand. "Enough of this small talk. Let's get down to business."
Annabeth wastes no time. "What do you want with me?"
"What an interesting question," Brendan says. He's got a cold smile on his lips. The left corner of them is twitching a little – he's got an ugly scar running through them from his eye down to his jaw that she doesn't think she's ever seen before. She wants to rip it open. "I think you know exactly what I want, Annabeth."
Annabeth doesn't flinch. Instead, she looks at him right in the eye and says, "I wouldn't be so sure, Luke."
Brendan steps back like he's been smacked.
"How did you know?" he growls.
Something burns in Annabeth's stomach, but she doesn't let it show on her face. She had hoped she was wrong, and that Brandon was nothing more than a jerk that thought he could be dangerous. But life isn't a story, and now Annabeth is standing face-to-face with the serial killer who has chased her across the country. Ever since he left the Society she hasn't seen him. Finally he's caught up, and Annabeth knows this is where it ends.
This is the final chapter.
Someone is going to die tonight. Annabeth knows it's going to be her. She just prays she can take Luke down with her when she does.
"I couldn't be sure," she says. "Not until your reaction. But I was wondering for a while." She gives him a little smirk and taps her cheek – right where his scar is. "After all, Castellan, you can't run from the past, can you?"
"I covered it up."
"Not well. Blood sachets? Please. Oldest trick in the book. I used it myself."
Luke doesn't take well to being patronized. Never did. Annabeth smirks as she watches his lip curl.
"It was sloppy work," she says. "I'm frankly a little ashamed."
"You used it yourself, you said so."
"Yes, but I wasn't hiding from a spy, now, was I?"
Luke's face twists. He's too mature to growl or call her a name, but Annabeth knows that he wants to. He may be a spy, but she is too. He has the upper hand simply because he has a gun and also Percy – but Annabeth knows she is smarter.
If she can think her way out of this, Percy will be safe.
"You didn't figure it out," Luke says. "Not until it was too late."
"I knew you weren't called Brandon a few months back."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"Did you really expect me to? Please. I'm a professional."
"Hardly."
"I'm better than you."
Luke scowls. "Oh, really?"
"You couldn't do anything without killing hundreds of innocent people. This is all your fault."
"My fault?" Luke laughs incredulously. "Look around Annabeth. Are you really pinning the blame on me? This is all my father!"
"For doing what, Luke? For not trusting a serial killer with information that could bring the entire world down to its knees?"
"I only became what I am because he betrayed me!" Luke snarls. "It was an oath. They had all sworn that when we turned sixteen we would be entrusted with this information, and then Hermes had to go screw it all up because he sensed 'negative vibes' coming off me. Do you know how that feels, Annabeth? To be rejected by your own father?"
"Can you blame him?" Annabeth cries, and Luke takes a step back in surprise. "Look around, Luke. You're a murderer. You've killed hundreds of innocent people, and all for what? To kill me?"
Luke lets out a laugh. It's cold and malicious. "Oh, Annabeth. How so very naïve you are. I never tried to kill you."
"Say that to the bomb and the train tracks you sabotaged."
Luke gives her a dead look. "I think you underestimate my intelligence, Annabeth. It's actually rather insulting."
Annabeth rolls her eyes.
"See, what you may have forgotten is that I am a spy too, and I grew up with you. I know you, Annabeth, as much as you would claim otherwise. I knew the bomb wouldn't kill you. You're awkward and uncomfortable in most social situations, although you do a good at covering it up, I will admit. You would rather push a pencil through your eyeball then take the table near the centre or near the counter. That would give people space to talk to you – and you would never want that, would you? Also, you were clearly in that bakery on a mission. The best way to Study an area is from the outside, isn't it? That's why you took the seat furthest from the counter."
He's good.
Annabeth feels herself quivering, but she's not quite sure what with. The fact that this psychopath knows her well enough to predict where she would sit shakes her to the core. Luke isn't stupid. If he got it wrong, Annabeth would be dead and he would never find the password.
He's a gambler who never loses a single game.
"What about the train?" she asks, her voice shaking. "You couldn't have possibly known I would miss it."
"See, that's where you are wrong. I could, and I did, because you're still alive. When it comes to insignificant things – like, for example, a train ticket – you have a habit of misplacing them because you deem them 'not important enough' to keep in a safe place that you'll remember. This would buy me at least one and half minutes – but I narrowed it down to one, you know, to stay on the safe side. And then it was as simple as that. I broke into the driver's house and turned his clock forward by thirty seconds. Of course you were going to miss it."
"But why?" Annabeth challenged. "What's the point of killing and injuring innocent people when it does nothing?"
"To scare you, of course. Or, more importantly, to scare Chiron. I planned it just right. I set enough traps that he would feel like you weren't safe in Georgia and send you to New York."
Annabeth heaves a sigh. "Is this where I ask how you knew it would be New York?"
Luke gives her a reptilian smirk. "Atta girl. You're catching on fast."
"Your overinflated ego is nothing new, Castellan."
Luke chooses to ignore her. "Chiron is a smart man. He wouldn't send you outside the country – it would be too risky if you were to, perhaps, get in trouble, and he wouldn't be able to keep tabs on you as easily. So that narrowed it down to North America. But how I knew it would be New York? Well, that's easy. He wouldn't send you to a remote place no one's ever heard of. That's too obvious. I would have tracked you down in an instant. He moved you to New York, because, as the saying goes, 'you hide things in plain sight'."
"Los Angeles. It could have been Los Angeles."
"But it wasn't, because in LA everyone is trying to launch a career and at one point or another you'd walk past a movie set and star in an impromptu three-second cameo in the latest blockbuster or whatever. And then it would be incredibly easy to track you down."
Annabeth tries to hide her panic behind a mask of calm.
Luke has gotten better. Luke has gotten much, much better.
Now she's not sure who's better. He's got a gun and he's got Percy, and he had enough confidence in himself and his ability to read people to predict where Annabeth was going to sit and when she'd misplace her train ticket to the point of risking her life and the chance of ever finding out the secrets of the Inner Circle.
She feels like she has just dropped. Luke towers over her in advantages. It's an unfair fight but they always are.
Luke is smart.
He's extremely smart. And now he's got the threat of her life and her boyfriend on the line to get what he wants.
"That means nothing," she snaps. "So what, you found me. Now what? You think I'm going to just tell you the Olympus secrets because you're waving a gun in my face?"
"I wouldn't be so cocky, Chase," he snaps. "We both know why you're here."
"Do we?"
He growls again. She revels in it. Until he brings out the final act she can be as overconfident as she wants.
"Bring him out!" Luke shouts.
Abracadabra.
A chair gets pushed forward. Annabeth can't see who pushes it properly – it's too dark. However, she can see the chair, and she can see the person sitting in it. Her heart lurches when she realises it's Percy.
He looks awful. He's got a black eye and a split lip, dry blood crusted around his chin, wrists and ankles. He's been bound to the chair by barbed wire and just for that Annabeth wants to rip Luke's head off. He's not unconscious – he's wide-awake and blinking, and he looks absolutely terrified. She wishes he were unconscious. It would hurt less.
"Lois?" he croaks out, shocked. "Lois, why– what are you doing here?"
Annabeth keeps her face cool. She wants to run over to him and give him the biggest, hardest kiss he's ever experienced but to keep him alive she needs to act indifferent.
Game on.
"Aw, now isn't this adorable?" Luke coos. He turns to Annabeth with a smirk. "You haven't told him, have you?"
Percy looks lost. He squirms in the chair and Annabeth's heart positively breaks when she sees him wince as the barbs cut into his wrists and ankles. "What– what are you talking about? Lois? What's going on?"
Annabeth keeps a straight face. Inside she's screaming.
"You see," Luke begins, tracing a finger down the side of Percy's face. Percy jerks away. He's trembling and looking at Annabeth in desperation and confusion. Annabeth can't look him in the eye. "It seems your girlfriend here is not who she says she is."
"I'm not his girlfriend," Annabeth snaps.
Luke laughs. "Oh, really?"
"I don't even know why you brought him. He's nobody special."
She sees Percy flinch. She hates herself.
Luke laughs. "The fact that you came here would beg to differ."
Annabeth snarls at him. "Unlike you, I have a heart. I didn't want to let some innocent kid die because of me."
"Lois?"
Percy sounds shattered. Behind her back, Annabeth pinches herself hard on the wrist, her nails digging in until it starts to bleed.
"What–what is he talking about? What are you talking about– what's going on?"
Annabeth doesn't look at him. If she does, she might cry. "Shut it, kid. I'm saving your life here."
Luke cackles. "Now isn't this just precious."
"Lois?" Percy whimpers.
"Percy, Percy, Percy." Luke circles around him once, twice. Annabeth takes in his movements. He's poised, like a leopard. She can't read anything else from him – he's a spy, too. He knows what signs show what. He's dressed as plainly and inexpressively as he could be and Annabeth hates him for that because he knows her too damn well. "I think it's time that our dear Lois does some explaining, don't you?"
"Why are you doing this, Brendan?" Percy begs. Annabeth thinks he's crying. She feels tears well up in her own heart that she instantly wills away. No. "Please. Let us go."
"Us." Luke tuts and looks at Annabeth in faux-disappointment. "My, my, Annabeth. You've certainly got him wrapped around your finger."
"Annabeth?" Percy is desperate. "Who's Annabeth? What's he talking about? Lois, what's going on?"
Annabeth counts to three. She can do this. She puts on a smirk. "I'm Annabeth, Jackson."
Percy looks like he's just been smacked. "W–what?"
Annabeth laughs. Luke looks on, impressed. Annabeth hates herself. "I'm not Lois, Jackson. Never have been, actually." She says it so dismissively she's almost got herself convinced. "I'm not even a real brunette."
Percy keeps staring at her. He's definitely crying now. His tears cause tracks in his muddy, bloodstained cheeks and Annabeth's heart gives a little thump at it. "W–what? Y–you've been lying? All this time?"
"All this time."
"Even– even us?" He's straining against the ties now. It's causing him to bleed even more but he doesn't seem to notice. "You– everything between us – was that– was that fake, too?"
It's for his safety. It's for his safety. It's for his safety.
Annabeth despises herself nonetheless.
"Yep," she says casually.
Percy can't speak. He just stares at her through his tears. Annabeth wants to do the same, but she can't. Not now. It's almost worked.
"Oh, isn't this cute," Luke says. Annabeth glances at him. There's something about the way he's looking between them that has Annabeth's blood turning to poison – and that's only confirmed when he produces a gun from his back pocket.
Both Percy and Annabeth freeze.
"Oh, relax," Luke says to Annabeth. "I'm not going to shoot you. Yet," he adds with a smirk. When no one laughs, he scowls and crossly presses the gun into Annabeth's hand. "Here."
Annabeth's veins have solidified to ice. "I could shoot you right now, you know."
"Oh, but you won't." Luke brings out another gun and smiles at her. If that smile weren't attached to a serial killer with a killing machine in his hands, Annabeth would have called it handsome. "It's not me you're going to shoot."
Percy's breath hitches.
"You." Luke puts himself behind Annabeth and pushes her forward a little so she's standing right in front of Percy. "Are going to shoot him."
Annabeth begins to tremble. "You promised me he wouldn't get hurt."
"I did no such thing. Besides." A snake-like smile slips across his lips. "He's a nobody, remember? It shouldn't be that hard to shoot someone you don't care about. Right?"
Annabeth nods; carefully, slowly. "And if I don't?" she asks in a voice barely above a whisper.
"My, Annabeth; that should be easy." Luke clicks the gun in his hand and pushes it against her temple. "I shoot you."
"Thank you, Ms Jackson. You too."
Grover puts his phone down and then presses his hands against his temples.
Percy still isn't home.
He's properly scared now. He doesn't know to think. His best friend is missing and the only person who knows where he is is his girlfriend. Grover curses himself. He should have demanded to know where he was.
Percy is in trouble. You need to do what I told you to.
Grover stares at the numbers on his arm. 0555-7631 – T&P
Slowly, he picks up his phone.
Time seems suspended on a piece of dental floss. Percy stares at Annabeth. Annabeth stares at Percy. She can't shoot him. She loves him, for goodness sake. How on earth can she–
She freezes.
She loves him.
It's not a big of a realization as she had originally thought. She expected it to be late at night when she realises that she's really very hopelessly in love with her English partner, because that's what all the novels she's read said it would be like. But it's not. It's not fireworks and sunshine and rainbows and that's actually okay because the fact that nothing has really changed makes her believe that maybe she was in love with him all along.
But now she's staring at him down the barrel of a gun and she's not sure what to believe.
"You lied," she says in a shaky voice. "You said I'd get him back in one piece."
"I never said that."
"It was implied."
"You should know by now that implications don't exist in our world, Annabeth."
He's right.
"I can't," she says finally. "I can't shoot him."
"You've become soft, Annabeth," Luke chides, but surprisingly he doesn't sound angry. When she hears a rustle of material, she turns around to face him in disbelief. He's tucking away his gun? "I'm not even surprised," he says. "I knew this was going to happen. You're a filthy liar, Annabeth. He is important to you."
"No he's not."
"Don't even try anymore. But, I suppose I can spare his life."
Oh no.
"All you have to do," Luke says, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "is tell me the password."
And it's all come back to square one.
Annabeth is torn. She wants to save Percy – no, she needs to. She would willingly give up her own life in a heartbeat for his. He's got so much potential, so much to look forward to. Her? Well, she knows she's going to die young. Very few live to become old in the spy world. But if Luke shot her then he'd shoot Percy, too. He's already seen and heard too much.
...But on the other hand, Annabeth can't give up the password. It's an Olympus secret that's been passed down generations. Luke gave up that privilege when he removed himself from the Olympus family. If someone like Luke got the password to the Fate Vault then all the secret organizations of the world would crumple to their knees.
"Make your choice, Annabeth," Luke sings. "Time is ticking."
Annabeth closes her eyes.
She clicks the bullet into the chamber.
Luke's eyes flash venomously. "Are you sure you want to make that choice, Annabeth?" he threatens. He pulls the gun back out from his pocket and presses it against the base of her skull. "Don't you want to keep your boyfriend alive?"
It hurts. It hurts so, so much.
"You gave me a choice," Annabeth says through gritted teeth. "And this is my decision."
"Neither of you will escape alive."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that."
And before Luke can say anything, Annabeth aims and shoots.
It hits Percy in the arm. He cries out, his hands instinctively going to the wound but not being able to move because of the restraints. He's screaming and Annabeth knows that for a second Luke actually thought that she had hit him in the heart – and she takes that second to elbow him sharply in the stomach and roundhouse kick him in the head.
Blindly, Luke shoots. It hits the ceiling and flakes of plaster come down. Annabeth hears a cracking sound but she's too busy scampering over to Percy.
"I'm so sorry," she whispers. She's not sure he can hear her. The ceiling is going to come down and it's doing it amidst a symphony of breaking beams and crumbling bricks and he is wailing his head off. She grabs the barbed wire restraints with her bare hands and tugs at them hard. They cut into her hand and she knows she's bleeding but she pulls harder and eventually they snap off. The pricks are buried deep in her palms and they're going to be absolute agony to pull out, but she knows she's going to die here and she doesn't care. As long as Percy gets out alive she'll be okay.
She'll be okay.
She rips off her T-shirt, leaving her overly exposed in just a bra, and rips it in half. She knows she's only got minutes until the building comes down and seconds – if that – before Luke finds his bearings and shoots her in the back of her head but all she can think about is PercyPercyPercy.
"It hurts!" Percy sobs.
"I know, I know, shh." Percy's going to pass out, and she'll gladly take it. Anything to stop seeing him in so much pain. It happens only moments later, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, and Annabeth takes the opportunity to shove half of her T-shirt against the hole in his arm to stop the bleeding, using the other half to securely wrap it. She's moving purely on instinct, trying to remember all her medical lessons from headquarters, and they come back in fuzzy images. She hopes she's doing it right.
The ceiling lets out another alarming shriek.
Annabeth whips her head around and sees Luke pulling himself to his knees. He's got blood pouring out the corner of his mouth and blooming on the front of his T-shirt – Annabeth hopes she broke a rib or two.
"You cow," he snarls, fumbling for his gun. He's sluggish but he still shoots and it misses Annabeth's head only by a few centimetres. She feels it whip past her hair and shatter a window, and she reaches for her gun.
"Stay back," she warns, holding it up so it faces the ceiling. "Or I'll shoot and we'll all die."
Luke shoots her leg. He's not in his right space of mind but he's still wickedly good and it gets her thigh, and she crumples like a piece of paper with a howl.
There comes a crack and suddenly the whole room is filled with sawdust. Annabeth can't see Luke and she doubts Luke can see her either, but either way the ceiling is going to come down and she wants to get Percy out before it does. She's been shot before but it doesn't stop the pain from overwhelming her; somehow, she manages to stagger to her feet and grab Percy by the arm.
He's still unconscious so in order to get him out she's going to have to carry him out. She's sobbing at this point but she needs to do this. She hauls him over her shoulder and almost buckles at the weight on her injured leg, but with a gun in one hand and her boyfriend in the other she begins to drag herself to where she came from.
Every step is torture. She's losing blood and she's losing it fast, and she knows that if she manages to get out she'll pass out instantaneously. She's inhaling lungfuls of sawdust by the second and that can't be great either, but the weight of Percy on her shoulder reminds her that there's a reason she needs to get out.
Get out.
Somehow, somehow, she manages to find the door. She's not sure if Luke's still in there, but at the moment all she can think about is Percy. She staggers through the corridors and hauls herself outside, getting only a few steps out the door before hearing the screech of bricks and cement as the roof of the factory collapses. Car horns wail and several people stop in the middle of the road, getting out to gawp. Annabeth wants to swear at them, but she doesn't blame them – it's a shirtless teenage girl with a hole in her thigh and a gun in her hand dragging a boy out a deserted phone warehouse that has just crumbled. She dumps Percy on the grass and digs her phone out of jeans.
A woman screams. "Are you okay?" she shouts. "What's going on?"
"Call an ambulance," Annabeth rushes out, her words jumbling together. She's going to pass out. Not now, she tells herself. Not now. "He's called– he's called Percy. He's in my contacts. Phone his mother and an ambulance. He got shot in the arm. Please, he's– he's dying."
The woman is frozen. A man climbs out his car and yells at her. "The kid's dying, woman! Call his mother!" He's got his phone in his hand and brings it to his ear. "We need an ambulance now," he shouts down the line. "There's an injured boy and girl on the side of the road. They're bleeding out."
"No– don't– don't worry 'bout me." Annabeth pushes herself to her feet. She sways. "I'll be okay."
"Sit down and wait for the ambulance," a voice instructs. Someone is screaming and horns are blaring. Everything is in hyper speed and Annabeth feels sick. She lurches and vomits.
"LOIS!"
Hazily, Annabeth blinks her eyes open. Thalia and Piper are running down the road – an ambulance is coming from the other direction. She can't see it, just hear it – her vision has gone slightly sideways. She doesn't think it's meant to be like that.
"Thalala," she says, giggling a little. Thalala. That should be her new name. It sounds prettier then Tilly– wait, no, it's Tabitha, isn't it? Or is Taylor?
"Excuse me," someone says. "No one past this point."
"Quick, quick, quick! Get the stretchers! Now!"
"That's my best friend!" a voice screeches. "Let me through!"
"Ma'am–"
"He's losing blood!"
"Get out the way!"
"Let me go, that's my friend–"
"Why isn't the girl on a stretcher yet? MOVE IT!"
"No–" Annabeth tries to say. "Don't – me..."
"Let me through! LOIS!"
Is Percy okay?
Percy. Peeerrrrccccyyyy. Annabeth giggles.
"Percy."
She feels herself being lifted up and her jeans being cut off. Someone swears and suddenly there are hands pressing at the bullet wound on her thigh and she screams, a gargling noise that breaks and crumples at her lips into a sob.
"Percy."
"Percy's okay, sweetheart," a voice says. "Can you see me? How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Where's Percy?" Annabeth demands.
"Percy's fine–"
"I want to see Percy!"
"Fingers, sweetie. How many?"
"I don't care, where's Percy?"
"Let me through!"
Suddenly, Annabeth has a headful of curls in her face and a pair of slim brown arms around her neck and it's Piper, soft, familiar, Piper, and she almost bursts into tears at the feeling of home again.
"Piper," Annabeth sobs.
"She's delirious," she hears someone explain. "She's not called Piper."
"It hurts, Piper."
"I know, it's okay, breathe for me."
"Step aside. You're making it worse."
"Leave me alone!"
An ambulance wails in the distance and Annabeth's eyes roll to the back of her head.
A/N so um
before you all kill me
THANKS FOR 300 REVIEWS GUYS WHAT
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okay so as tradition goes time to give some thank-yous:
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