Hi again, everyone! It is good to be back! Thanks for all the reviews lately and stuff... *awkward silence* AND I am SOOOOOOOO sorry for the wait on this chapter, I've just had quite a bit on my plate at the moment with school, family and a new story I'm writing and haven't had much time for fanfiction. Forgive me?
So yeah, I know it might be dragging with the whole Annabeth's secret and stuff, but this should be the chapter we have all been waiting for. You have my good friend Megh to thank for the idea of most of this chapter and for my inspiration and motivation! THANKYOU MEGH!
ANYWAY, I bet you're all wanting to FINALLY know the truth about Annabeth - I know I am - so here it is.
Percy's POV
So, here we are, at the 'final battle', or whatever you want to call it. All of us are standing in front of this massive group of tall, broad-shouldered men who might actually want to pull out our intestines to get what they want. I don't want to die, at least not like that. Maybe a healthy shot in the head, or something. I know this whole fighting scene thing should be filled with adrenaline and throwing punches and being generally awesome hero's. It feels nothing like this, so far. Now, I feel like I'm going to pee my pants from all the energy and nerves in this room.
And now you have to be the leader. Whoopie-doo.
I look around, trying to decide what to do next. The only thing I can think of is an ambush. I glance at Thalia and see her piercing blue eyes catch my own gaze, and she peers back at me, determination in her blue eyes. It's like we understand each other, like we've always been able to and this is the time to make use of it. Silent conversations are always fun when no one else can understand what you're talking about and the person you are talking to. Thalia and I glance at the others, also making eye contact. I mouth the words,
'On three,' and hold up three fingers, feeling all the eyes of the room on me as the final finger slides into my knuckles.
We attack.
Okay, it may sound massively better than it is, but it is fun. All of us rush forward to the group of men-in-black, our fists flying, striving to reach out to our friend and save her. Hey, look, I'm a poet and didn't know it!
Not now, Perce. Concentrate.
Right, Annabeth. Now really is not the time to think about my literacy skills.
I pulled my fist back at swung it at the first man I saw, the knuckles snapping as it connected with his cheek. I don't want to sound wimpy, but it hurt. Mt hand flew backwards and the other guy stumbled backwards for a second and I kicked him in the chest. I have no idea how my foot got that high, but just believe it did. It seems the whole place was silently loud, if that makes any sense. The senses dimmed and the only thing I hear and see are the oncoming people, challenging my strength and agility.
Uppercut. Back. Snap back. Hook. Jab. Snap back. All the moves go round in a vicious circle. I leap to the side as a burly man comes flying at my right side. He crashes into another man, sending them both, stumbling, out of the way. I dodge another, kicking his shins to knock him down. Suddenly, my weight vanishes completely and I am thrown backwards, into the air. I glance around, confused and see no one. An odd misty color clouds my vision, settling over me.
Someone turn off the lights. I want to sleep.
I MUST NOT SLEEP!
Annabeth is here. I have to get to Annabeth. I try to get my heavy mind to unravel the mist, but it doesn't want to. I blink several times and rub my eyes, feeling dizzy and light-headed. I can't give up now. I need to save Annabeth. I will protect Annabeth. I love Annabeth.
Hold the phone... love?
Shut up, brain. This is between me and my heart... and possible my brain for the whole getting up thing. Just, let me save her and worry about the rest later. It is way too confusing to think about now. Especially with all this fog!
I shake my head and shut my eyes, trying not to be sick. I open them again and the room is still blurry, but I am able to see a little. I see the shock of blonde hair that stands by a man in a grey suit and the mass of men-in-black who are trying to punch my friends. My mind still travelling one mile-an-hour, I stand up and move closer to them all, everything in a strange slow motion, my senses gone and everything muffled.
"Percy!" a distant voice calls. I shake my head again. "Percy! Look out!" Annabeth. "PERCY!"
What?
BACK! The lights and sounds of the room come back at one hundred times their normal. The snaps and cracks of knuckles are like thunder against my weak eardrums and the screams of a certain blonde haired girl hit me like a freight train of noise. I turn around and see the impact happening right in front of me, in a strange out-of-body experience.
CRACK!
That has got to be a broken nose. I stumble sideways from the punch, slamming my body into a wall, already feeling beaten. The warm feeling of blood seeps down my nasal and I put a hand up to my nose to try and stem the bleeding for a while, the sickly red liquid dribbling over my chin. I look around at the room again, the colors brighter than ever with my enhanced senses, and see Thalia, brutally punching and kicking a dark haired man.
Wait, isn't that Nico?
Then again, that wouldn't surprise me.
My eyes adjust again and see that Nico is fighting a short ginger man, being the one attacking instead of defending the fast punches from the ginger. I almost laugh, but hear a struggled scream to my right and go towards it.
Annabeth is struggling in Mr Suit-Guys arms, stamping on his feet every so often and biting at his steel grip, but he isn't giving in. He tries to drag her away but she won't give up, scratching, biting, kicking and screeching right into his ear. I make a risky grab for her, bolts of raw adrenaline pumping through my veins, powering my every move toward the rescue. Mr Suit-guy twists his arm around his back so Annabeth's arms are in one grip and behind his back. I swing my fist toward his face but he blocks it quickly in a matter of seconds, making his own attack. I try and jab him in the stomach, but he leans away, as if expecting the punch. Annabeth stands her ground, pulling on his other arm, away from her neck. I try the same pattern again.
Uppercut. Back. Snap back. Hook. Jab. Snap back. It doesn't work this time. Each time I try to land a hit, his forearm slams into my fist, parrying it away from any of his body parts. Then his fist comes back to jab me, holding out, no matter how much I want to kill him. Which, right now, is definitely a lot.
Annabeth's POV
It hurts. My arm hurts. My neck hurts. My legs hurt. My body aches and I can't escape the vice grip Mr Grayson has me in.
I can't see much of what is going on between Percy and Mr Grayson, but I know it can't be good from the grunts of Percy and satisfied breaths of laughter from Grayson. The sounds of snaps of knuckles on skin are also there, too, but it's hard to tell whose skin on whose. I have to hope Percy is beating his sorry ass, but know it's the other way round.
SNAP!
The sound of a kick snaps in the air and I gasp, twisting my head to watch Percy crumble in mid-air, his chest convulsing and sucking in.
"EVERYBODY STOP OR SHE DIES!" shouts Grayson, holding something to my head and I instantly know what it is. The light pressure against my temple is almost familiar and it could only be one thing. A gun. More specifically, the Glock 22, scratched at the tip. The same gun used to kill my own father, courtesy of me. This gun can do powerful things and there is nothing to do to stop it. The final destruction of Chase is over, just like Grayson wanted all those years ago when he first met me.
Grayson locks the gun and I hear the sickening click as it sets into place to kill me, here and now. I can only hope no one remembers my brains spewed over the floor like what I saw of my father, his dead eyes asking the only question.
Why?
And, like most times, I don't have an answer.
Percy's POV
I stop and look up, trying to breathe through the hiking pain in my chest and abdomen. A gun. By her head. How very cliche. I think guns are a losers way out of a bad fight. Guns and knives are the final resort when you know you're going to lose.
"Thank you, everyone, for your corporation. You may not be killed on exiting the premises!" Mr Suit-guy says, smirking at us all. I glare at him and move away to stand by the exit, the doors to the corridor. I see Nico and Thalia share a frightened glance.
"Please, let her go?" I ask, hoping against anything that he might have a heart to heal mine. He shakes his head, still smirking and tries to push past me. "Why are you taking her? What do you need?"
"It's not what I need, but who I need. And I need Miss Chase, here." I try to stop the broken heart for showing on my face, keeping it light and determined. This is a challenge in itself. "Now, get out of the way, before I shoot you." Mr Suit-guy says, pulling the gun away from Annabeth's head to move it near mine.
"Percy," Annabeth utters, barely audible, but louder in the deadly silence of the room. "Please, just move away. I don't want you to get hurt. You don't know what you're getting into. Just... please move?"
"But - " I begin, looking right into her swirling grey eyes. They stare back at me, intense like a lone night in the cold, clouds shrouding the stars and sea over-turning, leaving traces of white tipped waves. Annabeth takes her warm hands and places mine in them. I look down at them, almost unaware of my friends and the gun at my temple. Almost. I wish I could forget everything but Annabeth. [A/N: ... SoN] I wish I could say I forgot about the possibility of being shot, but then I would be lying. It certainly crossed my mind more than once.
"I want you to be safe," she says, smiling sadly at me. I can't speak and there is a thick lump in my throat. All I do is nod and stare back at her face, looking at our hands every so often. They feel strangely suited, like they'd been held like this many times before. But I know I haven't met her before, so I gulp and listen to her words like they are liquid gold. "I'm sorry I have to go, but it's better for us both. I'll leave, you'll forget and we'll never see each other again. I'm sorry I dragged you into this."
"I'm not," I say, voicing my thoughts, my small part of my mind speaking the same thoughts as my other part. The nicer and less sarcastic part.
Annabeth shakes her head and takes her hands away, leaving mine hanging in mid air, cold and lost without them. I know I sound pathetic, but I can't lose Annabeth, not now and not ever. I follow her hands with my eyes and they land on my shoulders, light and soft, and I shiver involuntarily at the slight touch. She kisses me lightly on the cheek and I intake a breath, my eyes open wide, glancing down at her lips as they leave my skin. I pull her into a hug, missing her already and savoring every second, and she wraps her arms around my middle.
"Enough already. Now that's over, let's move," Mr Suit-guy says, glaring at us. We breath apart and I see the pool of tears in her eyes, threatening to spill over at any time. Mr Suit-guy takes the gun from my head and places it on the small of Annabeth's back, leading her. "Move or I'll shoot her," he says to me. I move aside, not wanting Annabeth to be hurt. She gives me a small smile and walks past me, out of the room.
Silence.
"That was awesome!" Leo shouts. "Let's do it again." I take one look at him and see the pile of knocked-out bodies beside him. I almost laugh. Almost.
"What now, man?" Nico asks, stepping toward me. I see the other men stirring in my peripheral vision.
"Take your weapons," I mutter.
"They should each have a stunning weapon on their belts," Piper says. "My Dad did a scene like this before."
"Thanks, Pipes, What are the odds, Hazel?" I ask.
"The men will all wake up soon enough, having suffered only a blow to the head numerous times. They will be less nimble and slow, therefore giving us time to get away if we need to. If we get out of here now, they'll throw us out and we won't be able to get back in. If we stay, we have inside access and more chance to get Annabeth back. I suggest stay." I nod in agreement.
"Let's go get your girl," Nico says, grinning and taking a small black gun from one of the men's belts.
Piper's POV
I slide the gun out of the belt and stash it in the waistband of my jeans, careful to keep the setting off of locked. I really don't want to shoot myself in the leg, or in my new jeans. They're not designer and probably the only comfortable pair I own. The man on the floor twitches and his eyelids shake, slowly coming back to consciousness.
"Watch out," someone mutters from beside me. I turn around, stepping backward and am met by a tall, blonde-haired boy, peering over me. Our faces are inches apart and I can't help but look down at his lips, thinking of all the times we have met them at this point. But never since he cheated. He's probably still with that girl.
The slut.
Jason stares deep into my eyes and leans toward me slightly, asking for my confirmation with his eyes. I don't give it, stepping it away and walking away, but then I stumble over the unconscious man on the floor. Jason catches my arm and pulls me up, before I land on top the large guy in black. I glance at Jason, feeling the bolt of electricity, then back at the waking man.
"What the hell is going on? Where's the boss?" the man asks, getting up. "You!" He jabs a finger at Percy and a flicker of recognition goes across his pale face and Percy looks around at the room, seeing the other men stirring. He checks the waistband of his jeans and pulls down his jacket, covering the butt of the gun, crammed inside.
"Not sure where he went, but we're all pretty sure he wanted us to go and find the girl and kill everyone in the building. He called us dangerous," Thalia says, stopping Percy in his speech, even if he hadn't started yet. Thalia was being cunning, as usual, and this is why we would always get where we need to be. Or want to be. I guess that was how we got into that concert without tickets... She can be a good persuader.
"Well you can't do that," the man in black says, walking over to his friends and waking them up. "Take 'em to the cells." Now, I think a British accent is hot, but this dude just sounds like a dork when he tries to speak 'like a manly man'. "You lot, come with us."
Nico winks at Thalia and she almost blushes, raising her eyebrows slightly. The men lead Percy and Percy leads us out of the room, into the cells where our plan will begin. Or we can just wing it, but not with any of these buff men around.
Thalia's POV
We are walking down yet another corridor, this one the dirtiest and darkest, cobwebs lining the rusted ceiling. No spiders are in sight, probably too scared of the entire place. Percy catches my eye, warning us all. The men are playing tricks with our minds, telling us things about the place and about the people who work here. Something about second death, which was a shared joke between all of the large men. I can't say I'd want to work here, or be one of the victims of one of those killers.
"Just a little way down here," one of the 'guards' mutter and, in my peripheral vision which does seem to help us all out a lot, I see the man place a hand on the small of Piper's back. I tense and see her tense, eyes going a dark green. Angry, or 'seriously annoyed', as Jason puts it. Alas, he is not a girl and does not understand how to back off when a girl tenses like that, jaw clenched and eyes glaring. She stops.
"Get your hand off of me," she spits, turning around and stepping away, leaning back from him.
"I can put my hands where I like," the guy says, sneering. I would punch him, but Jason kind of beats me to it, his fist snapping right into the man's nose, breaking it into a thousand tiny, tiny, tiny pieces. I hope. If it's not broken, I'll happily hit him again.
Jerk.
"Protective are we?" the man asks, blood forming clots on the inside of his left nostril. Jason stands in a fighting stance and all of us take a step back, truly not knowing what would happen next. Jason could get pretty ugly when fighting due to his, ahh, anger issues. Well, that was certainly one way to put it. The guy in black nods his head to the side, pointing at another tall and particularly burly man, then nodding his head toward Piper.
Before Jason could even react, the guy had walked over to Piper, kicked her hard in the shins, causing her to cripple, then grabbed a clump of her hair, dragging her up against the wall. Piper cries out in agony as knocks hit her in the legs, chest and stomach. I look at Jason and, seeing his confusion of which way to go, shout,
"They're trying to get to you! Stop them hurting her!" He doesn't do anything, this whole thing probably being too big for his small brain to even comprehend. He takes a step toward the first guy and is ready to punch him when,
"Jason! Please, it hurts!" Piper calls out to him. A smile breaks on my face, seeing my brother turn to her, a strange look in his eye, prying the man from her, holding her tight in his arms.
"I'm so sorry for everything," he mumbles into her hair.
"Now, can we move that we have some things sorted out. You know who's boss around here." Jason glares at the guy before continuing down the corridor, not even uttering a word.
Did you notice how she didn't forgive him?
Percy's POV
"Cool it, dude! I'm trying!" Leo shouted to me, flicking his crazy hair out of his eyes.
"Sorry, it's just, I can't lose her!" I shout back, angry and impatient.
"Didn't you think to have a plan like this before we gave ourselves up?" Nico asks, trying to be polite, but not succeeding.
"It was just to keep in the building while Annabeth was here," I say, annoyed.
"Look, I can't do. We are just gonna have to make another way to get out," Leo says sighing exasperatedly. I shove my hands in my pockets and walk around, taking in the large cage around us. There is a wall on the left and and on the right is a line of vertical bars, separating me from our other friends. Nico and Thalia are in the cage with me, Leo, Hazel and Frank are in the second and Jason and Piper are in the final one. We can see everyone. Piper is leaning against Jason, clutching her leg. Hazel and Frank are talking together about something, holding each others hands.
I shove my hands deeper into my pocket and feel something paper-like in the bottom. I take it out and find a small square of paper, neatly folded over at least twice, just small enough to fit in one hand. Unfolding it, I see the untidy scrawl of a certain blonde girls writing, drawn over the page. The words stand out against the stained paper, telling me everything. A small card falls out of the paper, falling onto the floor, snapping against the concrete. On the front is says,
'Annabeth Chase, Third Floor, K.D Incorporated,'
almost like a pass to a building. A pass to their own work building. I leave the card and read the letter in my hands.
'Dear Percy,
3 weeks, I've known you. But it feels like its been years, to you and to me. This is because I have known you years, like you have known me. I have known you for a long time, but feel as if this time has never been enough. So, here goes everything as I tell you everything.
1 year is the time I've spent at this place. It's not one of those spy places like you might all think, and I'm not one of those crazy stalkers who want to kill everyone suspicious on sight. I was brought here when I was found on the streets, looking for you. They took me in and I struggled at first. They changed who I was from all the times we met. There was this thing that went wrong.
9 months before I was rescued from the streets, the Greek Gods seriously messed things up. All demi-god memories changed and were removed to that of a normal teenager. This is why you can't remember anything about what used to be. You probably think I'm crazy, but you're a demi-god, half human half god. This is why you haven't met your real Dad, well sort of. But I can explain that all later.
4 days, I have been putting off telling you about what I really do. And now this has come, I have taken time to write it all out. I'm still nervous, but I was hired to wipe out all the remaining demi-gods, having knowing about them. I was hired to kill you; all of you. I'm sorry, but this was what I was meant to do. I wasn't told who it was, but I found you and just couldn't do it. I have to hope this letter makes your memories come back about me. I have to hope that you can find a reason to forget who I am, and think about who I was.
All my love,
Annabeth xxx'
I feel so bad. I can't believe I didn't have more time for her, but I still can't remember. Only small things about her. Her smile, her face, her eyes, a dark cabin standing by a strawberry field. Grover and Annabeth in a casino, Grover with goat legs. And back to the camp. Seeing a tall man in shorts and a bright shirt, standing by the water, over looking a lake. I don't know how I know, but this man is my father.
Poseidon. Oh, sweet Heracles, I am so dead.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
So, that was unexpected!
If any of y'all want some inspirational music, try 'Heart Of Courage' by Two Steps From Hell. It's a soundtrack, and it's very powerful.
Thanks for reading... 5 reviews and I'll update? Please?