My new PJO story, Love Is A Four Letter Word, is posted! Please read! Someone asked if I preferred the Divergent Trilogy or the Hunger Games Trilogy. Why must you make me chose between two amazing series!? Ugh… well, it's definitely the Divergent trilogy! If you haven't read that series, READ IT! It's just... amazing, like you guys.

Sorry about Typos/OOCness! And the extreme Percabeth fluff halfway through the chapter:) I Really Hope You Enjoy!

Happy Reading!

Chapter 21

Percy

Now that Annabeth's ankle and ribs were almost healed, she could stand up and walk around with little to no pain. Her face shined, and Percy's face did too. He was so happy for her.

They started exploring the different floors. It was kind of weird, considering they were completely alone. Every movement they made echoed throughout the many floors of the building.

Percy couldn't even believe that some people had lost things like this. There was a money room of the house, and money of all shapes and sizes, from all different countries around the world, and even some lost civilizations. He could see a mound of drachmas and hundred dollar American dollars.

He went after it, but Annabeth pulled him back. "It said to only take what you need," she told him. "We don't need any money. Just leave it."

That wasn't an easy thing to do. There were just mounds of money lying on the ground. Some of it would probably never be used. "Well, we'll always need money," he protested, picking up a few drachmas and waving them in Annabeth's face. She rolled her eyes and plucked them from his fingers and put them away.

"But we don't need it right now. Let's go to the next floor," she said.

Percy followed Annabeth's orders and backed away from the room. Lacing their fingers together, Percy guided them to the next floor.

It was hardware. It even had a labeled sing on the wall informing them. "I think this is where Tisiphone was coming to."

Once they stepped away from the stairs, the first thing they saw was a bunch of butcher knives. There were bloody ropes hanging on the wall, along with barbed wire and old chains of all different sizes. There was one of those electrotherapy chairs against the wall too. "How do you lose one of these?" Percy asked, flabbergasted.

Annabeth shrugged. "I don't know."

Along with that, there actually was some hardware supplies. Nails, screws, nuts, bolts, windows, screwdrivers, and tons of other things. "Do you think we'll need any of this stuff?" Annabeth asked, running her fingers through the basket of rusty nails.

"I don't think so." Percy casually looked at the display of drills and saws. It looked like if you even touched the tip it would cut you. "What about these?"

"Hmm, no."

Percy thought about Leo and how much he would love this kind of room. It had everything he would need to fix, well, anything. It made him a little sad and he wondered what was going on with his friends, way above.

We're they still in Rome? We're they already Greece? We're they at the Doors of Death already? What if they were hurt, or dead? Percy ignored that thought. They were too tough to be dead.

So they left the hardware floor and went onto the food floor. It wasn't anything like Percy had imagined.

In his head, Percy was thinking about a mall's food court. Chick-Fil-A on one side, and Sbarro on the other side. Maybe a TCBY in the middle, or a Dairy Queen. Percy almost smiled at the thought of a normal mall. But this place was nothing like that.

When they meant lost food, they really meant 'lost food.' Crumbs and pieces of food that had been chewed, swallowed, thrown-up, and forgotten about littered the ground in giant mounds. It looked like a giant landfill. Flies landed on the piles and roaches crawled on the ground. It was all Percy could do to not throw up.

And even worse than the visual was the smell. It was the smell of food that had been rotting for years. Soured food, moldy food, food ten thousand years beyond its expiration date. Percy's eyes watered. He suddenly wasn't that hungry, and he yanked Annabeth up the stairs.

"That was disgusting," Annabeth coughed, pinching her nose. "I can still smell it."

"I still might throw up," Percy mumbled, supporting himself against the wall. His head was spinning. His legs were even shaking.

"Let's get out of here," Annabeth whispered, her shirt now pulled up over her nose. They took the stairs two at a time, coughing and gagging the entire way. Percy had one hand pressed against his stomach, and he was quietly saying, "You will not get sick, you will not get sick."

The next floor, the sixth one, was beauty supplies. The place smelled like Bath and Body Works. Perfume and lotion dripped from the ceiling. Some sweet pea lotion fell into Percy's hair. He groaned. He was hating this place more and more, but at least the horrid smells were masking the rotting food.

Annabeth stepped away from him and looked at the makeup section. She smiled to herself. "Do you remember how Silena used to always run around, trying to get me to wear makeup?"

Percy laughed a little bit, but it sounded strangled. "How could I forget? It was always a highlight of the day, watching you two bicker about it."

She nodded and glanced at the pallet of eye shadow and giant brush in her hands. She sighed and put them back on the shelf. "Well, that hasn't changed. I still hate makeup." She shook her head and walked away, Percy following.

Suddenly, Percy got a funny idea. He walked over to the body sprays and picked up something that reeked of vanilla and tiptoed back to his girlfriend. "Annabeth," he said quietly. Probably on instinct, she turned around. He sprayed it on her. "Surprise!"

She coughed and backed away, waving her hands around. "What the heck, Percy?" she cried, but he was too busy laughing his head off to answer her. Her eyes narrowed, trained on Percy. He gulped. "It's so on."

Moving as fast as she could with the giant boot, she went for another type of spray. Percy, still laughing, lunged behind a table and knocked over a crap load of hand sanitizers and nail polishes. They shattered all around him and on his clothes. He started laughing even harder.

A small part of his mind was blinking red lights in his face. They didn't have time to be having beauty wars which other. But the happy part of Percy didn't care. He loved seeing Annabeth smile. He hadn't seen her this joyful in a long time, and he completely thought that it was worth it.

Something shattered next to his head, twice. He moved his head as shards of mirror fell all around him. Annabeth cursed, and Percy screamed, "You missed, Wise Girl. What happened to your perfect aim?"

"You better watch your mouth," she yelled back from somewhere on the floor. Percy picked up a lip stick cylinder and tossed it in his hand. Annabeth threw a sponge at him, which only hit the wall. Percy waited a few seconds, and then jumped up and threw the lipstick at Annabeth, who was on the other side of the room.

He sat back down before he could see if he hit her or not. He heard her grunt and he knew that he had hit her. But shortly after, he heard ragged breathing, like she was… crying?

Had he hurt her?

Percy was on his feet in a split second, rushing over to Annabeth. He mentally slapped himself repeatedly. This had been a stupid idea. What if he had hurt Annabeth? She was still weak from everything. He was such an idiot.

He found her lying on the ground, writhing around, and hand pressed to her eyes. Something red leaked through her fingers, and she looked like she was in so much pain. His breath caught. What had he done?

He approached her slowly, his hands out. "Oh, gods, Annabeth-"

Before he could react, Annabeth's leg shot out and swept his out from underneath him. He gasped and fell down on the white tile with a thud. His vision went black for a second, but when he opened his eyes again, Annabeth was straddling him with the stick on lipstick to his neck.

"You're such a Seaweed Brain," she said softly, laughing.

Percy couldn't form words. "But- How- I- What?"

"It's called acting, Percy. Learn it." Her smile was wide. She showed him a bottle of dark red sanitizer. "Looks enough like blood, don't you think so?"

"That so wasn't cool, Annabeth," Percy protested. "I really thought that I had hurt you."

"Well, I don't usually pull this card, but you started it." She smiled, and he couldn't help but smile back at her. She placed her hand on his cheek and kissed him slowly and carefully. He never wanted the kiss to end, but she broke it. "You should have seen the look on your face. Sorry, but that was totally worth it. And I don't think lipstick is going to hurt me that much."

Okay, so maybe he had overreacted a little bit. Annabeth and him stood up and left the sixth floor, quickly going to the seventh. It was labeled 'Furniture and Household Appliances'.

"Well, this is the craziest floor. How do you lose a couch?"

Couches were stacked on top of each other, tables were everywhere with the legs broken off. An ancient looking grandfather clock was at the bottom of the stairs, and then stepped over it. There was a baby grand piano and a drum set in their too.

In addition, there was a long row of beds, right next to the sinks and refrigerators. Annabeth was at the beds before Percy was. They both flopped down on them. "Wow," he sighed. "It feels so nice to be in a real bed."

"I know," Annabeth agreed. But she sat back up and jumped to her feet. "We can't waste our time in here though."

"Why not? Didn't we just waste a bunch of our time in the beauty parlor?"

"Yes, and we wasted way too much in there. Let's go to the top floor and then leave."

"But I want to take a bed with me," moaned Percy. Annabeth pulled him off and lead him back to the stairs. "Why can't I take a bed with me? I'll carry it the entire way, and I think we need one."

"No we don't."

So they ended up on the Miscellaneous level, the eighth and final level. Right when they arrived, Annabeth yelped, "No freaking way," and ran away from him and towards something that he couldn't even see. He was curious, so he followed.

Surprisingly, it was Annabeth's old backpack. The last time Percy had seen it, it was with Annabeth when she left him with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Annabeth tore through it, so excited.

With a huge grin, she brought out something that was glinting. Percy too grinned when he saw the familiar blade and hilt. It was Annabeth's old dagger, given to her by Luke when she was little. He glanced inside and saw a flashlight, some string (what?), a water bottle, the map, some matches, ambrosia, and a few other things.

"I didn't think I would ever find this," she said gleefully. "Wow… now I have my knife back." She looked through the bag some more and brought out a few more things. One of them was her laptop, and the other was her cell phone. "I can't believe all of my stuff that I lost is in here. Maybe things are getting better."

"Maybe they are." Percy looked around, and his eyes fell on something. "Look!"

There was a book at the far end of the room, sitting on a pedestal as if it were the most important thing in the world. He cocked his head to the side and drifted forward. "I wonder what's so special about this book."

Annabeth was behind him; he could hear her footsteps. The book was open to a certain page, but percy didn't bother reading it. Half of the book had been burned. The pages were almost black and falling apart in some places.

Percy looked at the cover. It wasn't in English, but a list of other languages. He saw one in ancient Greek and he deciphered it quickly. His jaw dropped. "Annabeth, these are the Sibylline Books… or, one of them."

"No way…" She pushed him out of the way and looked for herself. "But… how?"

"I thought the books were in the US," Percy said, taking the book in his hands. The cover was made of wood and leather, the pages were papyrus. "Ella had all of the prophecies in these books memorized. Octavian's been after them for years. What would they being doing in here?"

"I don't know. I really don't know. I still can't believe that you're holding one of them. That's amazing."

Percy went back to the page that it had been turned to. The bottom of it was burned off, but the words were in English. His hands were still shaking, and the book wasn't that heavy. "Annabeth, read this for me. My nerves are too bad."

She gladly took the book from him and began to read.

"The House of Hades Hold the Key,
To Destroying the World and Restoring Peace."

Annabeth stopped. "Well, this is definitely a prophecy. And I think it was meant for us." She cleared her throat and continued the prophecy.

"At the End of Battle's Foretold Strike,
The Two Enemies will Fight to Unite."

"That doesn't sound too good," Percy mumbled. Annabeth nodded her head.

"The Giant Stalks the Six Waiting for War,
The Earth Mother Haunts at the Doors."

"Well, the six is obviously the others," Percy reasoned out. "The two enemies could be the Greeks and Romans."

"Percy, there's another verse," Annabeth interrupted.

"What? Prophecies are never that long," he said. He had never heard one with more than six lines. But Annabeth continued the reading.

"For Though the Eight May Stay,
There Is One too Many for Giant's Decay.
Fire and Ice will Oppose the Threats,
Made By Man Who Conquers All Death."

"Wait!" Percy said. Annabeth stopped. "Does this mean someone is supposed to die? That's crazy. Is there anymore to the prophecy?"

"Yeah, two more lines." She cracked her neck. "But the rest after that has been burnt off. I'll just keep reading…"

"Lost in the Wind as Whisper's Tell,
The Ghost King Will Forever Reign in Hell."

Annabeth set down the book. Percy locked his eyes with hers. They were wide and stormy. At the same time, like the books may have fated to happen, they breathed, "Nico."

Uh-oh... What'd you think of my prophecy? Was it okay? I tried my best!

*** READ THIS! IT'S IMPORTANT, BUT LONG! ***

THIS IS MY LAST TIME UPDATING FOR ABOUT TWO WEEKS! I'm sorry. You may get an update this Friday, but probably not. This is because of a few things. One is that I have midterms this week, and it's the end of my semester, so grades are very important to me. The biggest reason is that I am going to the PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION THIS WEEKEND. I am going with the Inaugural Scholars Program, which is a bunch of scholars from all over the country from ages 11-24.

While I'm there, I will get to meet a bunch of famous people, such as Barbara and Jenna Bush, Vanessa Roth, Brandon Greene, Norah O'Donnel, and Cynthia Lowen. I entered a bunch of competitions, and everyone i entered, I won. This means I get to present this essay in front of everyone, and get my picture taken ith Cynthia, Barbara, and Jenna! I also get to go to a private concert, a GIANT party, and I get early access to the Smithsonian before the rest of the public! I'm so excited, but I will not have the chance to be on my computer from Saturday to Thursday. And once I get back, I will have tons of homework to make up. Ugh...

If I get the chance to write any chapters, I will get Kimmie G914 to update for me. But I doubt that will happen. I'm sorry, but if you really want to read something, GO READ MY OTHER STORIES! They include: Tell Me, You and Me Against The World, Love is a Four Letter Word, Eight Pages, Amsterdam, Mine, and Are You Scared?

Oh, and my Mark of Athena just passed 3,000 REVIEWS! Thanks guys! Ugh, and It's like in the 80's where I live... I'm wearing shorts, and people are going to the beach and pool...

Reviews and ideas are loved! See you all soon!

-BBH