Just a Pair of Broken Wings
Chapter One
"Hey," Annabeth heard a call from her left as soon as she walked into her new school via the side entrance. "New girl!" Blinking, Annabeth searched the near-empty hallway (it was a hour before school started, after all). There were a few students milling about, but the only one that seemed remotely interested in Annabeth was a lone girl, leaning against a locker and completely covered in black.
Not as in paint. As in, everything she wore—skinny jeans, leather jacket, tank top, vans—and her hair, even, was black. The only bits of color Annabeth could find on the girl were her eyes, two icy sapphires, and a incongruous pink bracelet wrapped around her right wrist. "Are you talking to me?" Annabeth inquired, trying not to seem like she was picking a fight.
"Yeah, I'm talkin' to you," the girl responded seriously, as if she took offense to Annabeth's response. Annabeth shrunk back as the other approached smoothly, and she couldn't help being reminded of a jaguar, full of grace and power. Apparently, Annabeth's expression betrayed her inner fear that she'd been at school for five minutes and had already made an enemy because the girl broke out into a grin. "Man, I'm just kidding." She started laughing. "You should've seen your face."
Annabeth tried to keep the sigh of relief in, but it escaped anyway. This sent the girl into another fit of giggles. "Sorry, New Kid, but you're fresh meat, I've just gotta tease you. Besides, I've got nothing better to do." She stuck out her hand for Annabeth to shake. "Name's Thalia. Don't forget it. But that's unlikely though. I have a feeling we'll get along swell."
She clasped Annabeth's hand in an unsurprisingly strong grip as they shook hands, then whirled and wrapped an arm loosely around Annabeth's shoulder, putting a slight pressure so that they both started moving forward. "Come on, Kid, let's find your locker. What's your name?"
Finally finding her voice again (and hog-tying it in its place), Annabeth responded softly, "Annabeth. Annabeth Chase."
"Chase, huh? I'm stuck with Grace, not that I'm fond of it."
"Why not?"
"It's just not my thing."
"If you don't mind me asking, what's with the bracelet? It doesn't seem like it'd fit your style." Annabeth motioned at said bracelet on the wrist that wasn't hanging off Annabeth's shoulder.
"It doesn't, does it?" Thalia mused, suddenly looking serious and even a bit sad for a moment before she brightened again. "No, I suppose not," she said, and laughed. "It was a bet from the summer. I lost, and the consequence was that I had to wear something pink for the whole of the first semester. This was the least pink thing I could find." Thalia sounded exasperated.
Annabeth smiled in amusement. "Not a fan of pink, I gather?"
"Nooo," Thalia said, drawing out the word. "Anyway. You know your way around, yet?"
"I've only been here once before, for registration."
"Then the answer is no. How 'bout we stop at the front office and pick up your schedule and such and then I'll give you the grand tour? Well, maybe just the 'tour'. I mean, you can't really get 'grand' in this dump, can you?"
Annabeth laughed. "Sounds good, but I really wouldn't know."
"You don't have to know. You walk in, first day of school, and things are already trashed. I had to go complain—not that they listen—about my locker because it wouldn't close. Like, at all. This school takes the 'lock' out of 'locker.' Now that's a feat."
Annabeth laughed again, then changed the subject to one mentioned previously. "What about your friends? The ones who you lost the bet to. Are any of them coming here?"
Thalia seemed surprised by the question. There was a vague undercurrent to her voice when she said, "Huh? Oh, oh, yeah. They all go to school here."
"Oh, I see," Annabeth replied. She got the feeling there was something Thalia wasn't telling her, but having known the girl for less than ten minutes, Annabeth didn't feel it within her friendship rights to press. "What are your friends like?"
"They're all dorks," Thalia said, smirking, the mystery in her voice that was there when she last spoke now gone. "There's this Nico kid—total geek. Then there's Grover, who's totally in love with the whole 'save the Earth!' getup. And, I mean, yeah, it's a good cause, but I wouldn't go as far as he's gone."
"Well, what has he done?"
"We don't talk about it," Thalia said darkly. "It's something that must not be mentioned."
"You just mentioned it," Annabeth pointed out.
"So I did. I've said too much. You speak of this to no one," said the other and then met Annabeth's eyes. They simultaneously burst out laughing.
And so the conversation continued, during which Annabeth learned that Thalia was a Linkin Park fan, as well as many other bands that the blonde had never even heard of before. There was a talk of who was hotter—Gale or Peeta—and eventually the conversation turned to other interests, like gaming.
"Horror games are the best," Thalia announced.
"I've never played any," Annabeth said.
Thalia looked at her like she'd just grown two heads and put her hand to her heart as if wounded. "You poor child. Did you grow up under a rock?"
"Well, if I did, I think I came out pretty good," replied Annabeth, laughing.
"You must come over sometime and game with me. Actually, how about tonight? I was going to have some of the others over today, anyway."
"I really shouldn't—"
"Come on, it'll be fun," Thalia argued.
"Won't your parents mind?"
"Nah, my mom doesn't care."
Annabeth couldn't help but notice the lack of mentioning both parents, but she didn't say anything. "Uh, well, I guess I could . . ."
"Great! Six, okay? Oh, you probably have no idea where my house is. I'll send someone to retrieve you. And by that I mean you're going to have a stalker until six. Don't worry, he doesn't bite. Well, not that a I know of."
"He?" Annabeth asked, but they'd already reached the front office and Thalia didn't respond as she threw open the door and announced:
"Your favorite student's here!"
"Get out, Thalia," someone growled from within the office.
"That hurts, Chiron, that really does."
"Good," came the muttered reply.
"I'm deeply offended, Sir," Thalia gasped, putting her hand to her chest. "Right in our developed relationship."
"What relationship?"
"You don't remember? How could you! I thought we had something special!"
"What do you want Thalia? I'm busy."
Said girl grinned. She wrapped an arm around Annabeth's shoulders and tugged the blonde into the office. "New kid."
"Oh, hello," said a man from within the office. Despite his gruff tone when he spoke to Thalia, he had a welcoming expression when he greeted Annabeth.
"Hi," Annabeth replied.
"So you're new, huh?" he asked, ignoring Thalia's 'I just said that.' "I suppose you need your schedule?" he added.
"And my locker number, Sir," Annebeth informed him.
"Such formalities," he muttered, rising from his desk, a smile in his eyes. "Well, what's your name?"
"Annabeth Chase."
"Nice to meet you, Annabeth. I'm Chiron, the principle here." He held out his hand.
Annabeth shook it. "Nice to meet you too, Sir."
"Now, let's see. . . Annabeth Chase. . . Chase . . ." Chiron muttered as he turned and worked with his computer for a couple of seconds. After a few clicks and a couple of typed words, he straightened. Annabeth heard a printer start from somewhere in the office. "That'll be your schedule, now. I'll be right back with it."
As soon as Chiron left the room, Thalia burst out laughing. "Well, he likes you."
"Does he?"
"Yeah. Well, he likes a lot of kids. I think it's rather he just doesn't like me."
"Why?"
"I get in his hair. Plus, he knows me. He knows I don't take offense—not really—so he messes with me," explained Thalia.
"Oh."
By the time the two of them finished talking, Chiron returned with Annabeth's schedule. He glanced at his computer screen, scribbling something on the paper in his hand, which he then handed to Annabeth. "There you go, Ms. Chase. And there's your locker number," he said, pointing with his pen at the number he'd written on the schedule.
"Thank you, Chiron."
Annabeth gripped the paper and walked out of the office. Thalia followed after calling out to Chiron in a sing-song voice, "Bye sir!"
"Go away," came the response, just as the office door closed.
Annabeth looked over her shoulder at the office as Thalia took the lead. She led Annabeth through the halls, showing the blond around and mentioning various events that had happened throughout the years.
"And there," Thalia announced, "Is where my brother managed to single-handedly make a fool of himself in front of the one girl he was interested in."
"Your brother comes here, too?" Annabeth inquired.
"Yup, little dunce. He's a year younger than me, but he's in football and all that good stuff. Things I'm not particularly interested in. That sort of thing."
"What did he do? In front of the girl he liked, I mean."
"Oh, he just managed to mention about every single woman that she hated when he was asking her out."
"Ouch," Annabeth said, chuckling.
"They did finally get together, though," Thalia mused. She turned to look at Annabeth. "Her name's Piper. I think you'd like her."
"What's she like?"
"Imagine me but more girly."
Annabeth attempted to put that image in her head and failed, despite her advanced thinking capabilities. "Uh-huh," she finally said after a moment of scrunching up her eyebrows.
Thalia laughed at her expression. "Come on, I'll walk you through your schedule."