Someone commented: Well that got dark fast!

Lol, my man it's about to get a whole lot darker. Enjoy at your own discretion. (Should I put warnings if it's something truly foul? Like potentially gory descriptions?)

Chapter 18

Percy went cold. Spindles of shock locked him in place. Her? She had killed before? Her? An arsonist? She wasn't deflecting his accusations like she did with his drug runner charge. He didn't have any part in this section of her life. That was all hers. It made him breathless for two seconds.

Mr. BigMoney grinned wider at Percy's reaction. But it was sicker, grief stricken almost. "And why did you kill Caleb?"

"Because he-"

The knife tightened on her neck. His fingers dug into her side, digging his nails in as he squeezed hard. Annabeth jolted with a cry of pain and pressed her eyes shut. Tears leaked down the curves of her cheeks.

"Because I hated him," she sobbed. "Just because I hated him."

"That's right." Mr. BigMoney seethed. "So you ended our engagement, burned down millions of dollars worth of real estate, made hundreds of thousands of people homeless, and you fucking killed my best mate ALL ON THE SAME FUCKING NIGHT!"

Wild eyes, shallow rapid breathing, a tremor that went up the tendons of the neck and into the jaw. Percy recognized that expression, those micro hints. It was the face people made in a bar during a brawl seconds before they took out a gun. It was the inkling of their violent intentions making its first appearance before everything went to shit.

"I don't even know how you managed to dupe six hitmen, but sweetheart it's over tonight. You're finished."

Percy locked eyes with Annabeth. Adrenaline was pumping, tingling, ringing in his head, his ears, his throat. Plan after plan crashed through his mind. This freak, how could he separate him from her? How could he severe this sick situation? In vain he tried to tell her through his eyes that it was okay, he didn't think she was terrible for those things. That he thought she probably had a pretty good reason behind it all. But Annabeth only stared back at him in shame.

The fire, her fire was gone. Her eyes were empty.

No. No, don't give up. Not yet. Please.

"So," Mr. BigMoney shifted his attention to Percy. "Are you still going to try and save her? Is this little murderer worth it?"

That title. Murderer. He watched the way it made her die a little more. It killed him too knowing how such a small cluster of letters held so much power over her.

"Doesn't matter if I think she's worth it or not." Percy's nostrils twitched in contempt. "Because I've just decided that you are extremely worth killing."

Mr. BigMoney blanked. Scoffing, he leered at Percy with his perfect white teeth. "Bad idea fucker. If I die, Annabeth will instantly be framed for it. I have it all set up."

"Not unless I stick around and confess." Percy countered. "Your frame would never stand up against hard facts."

Percy liked seeing him caught off guard. His face scrunched up, his eyes got all beetly. Percy was a variable he didn't plan for. Either he relented now, or he somehow killed both Annabeth and him in the span of thirty seconds with a knife.

"You would go to jail for this bitch?" He squealed.

It was faint, but Annabeth quipped the tiniest of smiles. She looked at him again, a flicker of warmth in her gaze.

"No." Percy said matter-of-factly. "I would gladly go to jail if it means I get to kill you."

"You're fucking insane."

"You have no idea."

For a few pregnant minutes they were at a stalemate. Staring at each other, wondering who would crumble first. The only noise was the sound of Annabeth's blood dripping off her shirt and splattering against the marble floor.

Finally, Mr. BigMoney shifted his stance. A resolution in his brown eyes. "I propose a trade."

"I'm listening," Percy said.

"I'll let go of Annabeth if you give me the gun."

His eyes twinkled as he examined Percy again. Percy didn't like to be prodded with such gazes. Normally he was the one undressing a person's expressions, their quirks and body language. It made him feel as if he were on stage.

"Don't-" Annabeth managed to get out before the knife against her throat tightened again.

Little thread-like lines of deep red were already etched into the soft skin of her neck. What happened if he just slipped while in a state of fury? It would only take one nick the size of a popcorn kernel in the jugular

Water. Cool. Calming water.

"The knife and Annabeth," he said.

Mr. BigMoney's smirk returned. "Deal."

Gently, Percy lowered his gun to the ground and placed it against the marble floor. Then with a considerable thrust he slid it across the room to the base of one of the bookshelves. Mr. BigMoney snarled in frustration but didn't protest. Instead, he dropped the knife with an ear splitting clatter and raced towards the gun.

Annabeth was already moving. Just as Percy scooped up the dagger, she hooked his arm in hers and slammed the elevator button with her thumb over and over.

But the elevator must've been resting on the bottom floor, because it didn't come to them.

"It's okay-" Percy started telling her but was cut off by something heavy slamming into the back of his neck.

Little black spots chased each other in his vision. Vaguely, he felt his knees hit the ground, then could feel the cool marble against his face but everything was blurry. Maybe he blacked out for a second, maybe the darkness just brushed him gently. Disoriented, he forced his eyes open. Inches from his nose sat a large heavy book.

The thing that hit my head. His brain managed to register.

Fire raged up and down his spine as nausea spilled soggy swirls of bile up to his tongue. Groaning, Percy tried to lever himself off the ground. His palms pressed into the marble to somehow steady his flattened body from the spinning. Spinning. Spinning.

Served him right for getting three head traumas in the span of four months he supposed.

As the dizziness slowly started to settle, he felt the vibrations through the floor. Then he heard the tumbles, the scoffs and groans, the snap of joints as someone tussled around with another.

To his left, Annabeth had her ex pinned to the floor. Gripping a fistful of his perfect blonde hair, her knee on his chest. With her other hand she had locked his arm to the floor. Keeping the gun away.

Her grit teeth, her forehead glistening with sweat, her trembling muscles taunt and struggling to maintain her hold on him.

Help her! Help her!

Percy forced himself up.

Wrong move. The blackness came like a tidal wave this time.

The second time he opened his eyes he was on his back staring up at the white ceiling so far away. Unable to even lift his head as if his skull had been replaced by a thick slab of scalding hot steel.

When he blinked again, he saw the little black dot in his peripheral. The barrel of a gun, his gun. It's open mouth staring at him, just as surprised as he was at how it was aimed towards him.

Taking a heavy breath, Percy lifted his head enough to see Mr. BigMoney, holding the grip and finger poised above the trigger. A satisfied smirk on his face as he stared down the center of his office.

Annabeth was fidgeting around the big wooden desk, following instructions. Messing with a drawer while her jaw shook. The delicate blossom of blue was starting to surface on her cheekbone. When she came away from the desk, she was holding what looked like a breath mint tin, and an envelope.

"Good. See the envelope? That's your suicide note. Put it in your pocket." Mr. BigMoney's movements had gone soft, easy. He was enjoying the way he was lording over her by holding a gun aimed at Percy's head. "Now in the tin there are three strychnine pills that I've taken the liberty of making sure are heavy coated. Swallow them now. You'll have enough time to get home and sit pretty before the effects start-"

"Annabeth. Don't." Percy stirred, pushing himself off the ground one centimeter at a time. Why was gravity so heavy? Why was his vision still blurry?

It was infuriatingly nonchalant the way Mr. BigMoney walked around Percy's body. As if he were examining a new car to buy. There was a brief moment where Percy saw the bottom of the man's shoe before the pressure was applied to his neck. The hard leather edges of fine (insert fancy man shoe brand here) edged against his voice box. Silencing him.

He thrashed, throwing his arms at Mr. BigMoney's leg in an attempt to wrench him off. Gurgling more protests and attempting a weak roll as Annabeth's gaze danced between the two of them. Then again at the gun still held steadily pointed at Percy's forehead. The three white pills were clenched in her fist.

No. There was a sharp pain hanging in his throat as he tried to scream one last thing at her. Mr. BigMoney shifted more weight to his foot, eating away at Percy's ability to breath until he was fighting, open mouthed, to keep the air coming.

"Do it. Swallow them." wiggled the gun slightly to bring attention to it. "DO IT!"

Percy caught her eyes. Saw her resolve. His slamming heart stopped once as she threw her head back. One graceful motion was all it took. She drew her palm to her mouth and swallowed heavily. For a few seconds she winced as they scraped down dry. Then with all the confident coolness of a towering mountain, she flicked her golden hair over her shoulder and set Mr. BigMoney in her sights.

"Now let him go."

Mr. BigMoney laughed. It echoed in Percy's ears. Melding, morphing, joining that roaring cry of his own pulse playing the drums against his head. That ever tightening feeling of suffocation overwhelmed him then.

The black returned.

He woke up to sobs.

Heavy heart wrenching cries. The kind that kneaded your heart with pain and longing to soothe whatever poor soul was tortured enough to make such a sound.

It was hard to swallow, his neck felt raw. Hot. But at least he could breathe easily again. Prickles of pain and pressure were still throbbing in his brain although the room had stopped its dizzying spin.

On the floor, by the firmly planted feet of her ex, Annabeth was kneeling. Hunched over forwards, gripping the pant leg of his slacks. Thick crystalline tears poured over her eyes in a steady stream. Dripping down her shirt, spotting the fabric of her jeans, plipping against the floor.

"Just let him go, let him go. Please. Just let him go." She was chanting. Over and over. Breaking her pleas only to heave in a deep sob. Shoulders trembling all the while.

Her ex. His client. That man, all he did was smile down at her. The gun still clamped in his hand but slack by his side.

Just don't pass out. Percy's plan had degraded to the most basic of steps. Stay awake. Breathe. Recover.

"Annabeth, you simple creature, what would I get if I didn't kill him?" Mr. BigMoney spoke as if talking down to a child. Condescension oozing out of every syllable.

"I'd do anything!" She cried. "Please. Please. I'll do anything."

"Anything?" He asked. Using the barrel of the gun he lifted her chin to look into her bloodshot eyes.

"Anything." She affirmed. So solemn in her honesty that despite her wavering voice, she never looked away from him.

His already seedy smile only grew. "Well there is… something you never let me have while we were together."

Annabeth clenched her jaw as his eyes dawdled over her body. His intentions clear.

Water, cool clear water. Water. Water. Water. Percy clamped his eyes shut. A roll of hatred and disgust burst through his body. Desperately, he tried to keep still, keep out of notice.

"A-Alright." Annabeth said. "But you let him go first."

No. No. NO. NO!

There was silence. There was tension. Abruptly Percy had to shut his eyes again as Mr. BigMoney glanced his way. When he peeked them open, Mr. BigMoney was still smiling like he won the lottery but shaking his head.

"Oh? Give me a reason I can't have both."

"Because-"

"Besides, this revenge is much much sweeter than what I had planned earlier. You killed my friend, I kill yours. That's fair."

"No. No. NO!" Annabeth jumped to her feet as her ex raised the gun towards Percy again. In vain, she threw herself against the weapon, smothering it with her own body. Scratching, swatting, clawing at the thing in a frenzied panic.

"ENOUGH!" Her ex slammed his elbow into her chest. The impact threw her back against the floor, slapping her against the marble.

"Finally taste the consequences of your own actions." He said while leveling the gun again.

Percy didn't hide his open eyes this time. His consciousness took the man by surprise, but only excited him more.

"NO!" Annabeth's cracked scream rang across the office.

She lunged again.

He pulled the trigger.

Click.

Annabeth skidded to a stop. Stunned.

Mr. BigMoney stared at the gun, then back at Percy. Lost for words.

As if to check, he cocked the gun again and fired quickly.

Click.

When Mr. BigMoney met his eyes, ringing with confusion and disbelief, Percy smiled back.

In one leap, he jumped to his feet and slammed his fist into Mr. BigMoney's face so hard that he rocked against the floor like a sack of bricks.

Annabeth was still standing there, dumbstruck. Tear tracks etched down her cheeks and mouth hanging open as she stared blankly at Percy. Her big beautiful grey eyes were numbed, from shock or relief he couldn't tell.

"Are you-" she said slowly. Emotionless. "-fucking kidding me?"

Percy sighed and massaged a hand through his hair to try and lessen the returned throbbing. "You kicked me out of your house before I could get my bullets back. Remember? You were practicing, so I emptied it."

Annabeth staggered. "Then-"

"You need to go make yourself vomit. Now." Percy folded over to scoop up the dagger still by the elevator door. "I'll deal with the vermin."

Annabeth pressed the elevator button. There must've been a bathroom on that floor, but for whatever reason she pressed the floor below and disappeared behind the silver doors.

It simply made Percy's job easier.

Slowly, he turned the dagger to catch the light. A thin strip of Annabeth's blood was still hardening on its cruel edge.

Mr. BigMoney was leaning against the bookshelves, dazed. Pressing the butt of his hand below his right eye in pain.

"Now," Percy cornered him. "Let's rearrange a few of your plans shall we?"

Mr. BigMoney scoffed lazily. "Please. You and I both know that you can't use that knife. You're a nobody."

"Oh? Say my name." He wrenched him forward with a fistful of his shirt. Planting the dagger right below his adams apple.

"Jack Manderson?"

"Again."

"Jack Manderson."

"I killed Jack Manderson."

It was delicious, watching the smugness drain from his almond brown eyes. His skin glowed white as a new clamminess lined the edges of his eyes and down his pathetic neck.

Percy drank it all in, that fire raging inside of him only grew. When was the last time he'd felt such rage before? Most of his kills had been cold, emotionless. Part of the motions of his life. His first had been fear induced, his second; stress. So why was this familiar? The way he slowly drew the knife across the bulge of pale flesh on his neck, a small trickle of red followed his movements. Mr. BigMoney's whine of breath dancing in his ears.

Didn't he draw a similar line down that man's cheek? Splitting his face open from his eye socket to chin with the assistance of a screwdriver. Watching his fear, soaking in his dread with an insatiable appetite. Laughing whenever he heard the utterance of an apology. It didn't last long. Percy had cracked memories of the moments afterwards. Stabbing out Jack's left eye with his screwdriver, then his right. Driving it through his face over and over in ragged bloodthirsty motions. Spraying the cement floors of the garage with crimson. Soon Jack's face was a wet mash of skin, cartilage and brain tissue. Only his blue and purple lips were still recognizable.

But that's when Percy started kicking. First bringing down his foot so that the jaw snapped downwards and ripped off with a sickening pop. Then he started hollowing out the corpse's head one stroke at a time until there was only a warm empty shell left. Gobs of human skin, pulped eyeball, and pulverized brain were skewed across the ground. Red dripped down the sides of the walls, clung to the cement, pooled in the cracks of the ground. Blood stained up both his arms and legs and its stench filled him with a dark satisfaction. He had to fish out splinters of skull from the tip of his shoe.

For the next half hour he stood by the door drinking another cold beer and watched the mayflies swarm the yellow parking lot lights.

Then he sorted through Jack's stuff. Took his car keys, his wallet, his money, and even a change of his clothes. He used his hose to wash away the blood and tissue. He used Jack's own pickup truck to drive his body into the woods and dug him a grave with Jack's shovel.

He didn't get a cent for Jack's death. All he got was an identity to slink around under. Jack Manderson was never truly loved so no one asked questions when he disappeared.

Water. Cool. Clear. Water. Percy cleared his head.

He couldn't go back into that demonic state of rage. He couldn't lose control like that ever again. No matter how he tried to justify it, it just wasn't right. It was plain coldblooded murder. And this circumstance called for precision, caution. Not some dumb eighteen year old with a screwdriver and a drinking problem.

"I heard you have someone tailing Piper Mclean." Percy loosened his grip. He had to avoid noticing the flutter in Mr. BigMoney's breath, the wide glassiness of his eyes. If he started enjoying these little signs of fear, he'd be gone again. Lost to his rage and the way it was satiated.

"So?"

"So you're about to message them to call them off."

A resistant sneer had only just started to surface on Mr. BigMoney's face when Percy rammed his fist up into his jaw. Fizzing excitedly at the way his teeth clacked together, how his eyes widened for a moment. On a high he couldn't control, Percy wrenched him around, twisting his arm to his back, then slammed the butt of his dagger into Mr. BigMoney's elbow.

Shrieking, Mr. BigMoney arched his back in pain. The whole of his arm was tense and spazzing, fighting against the impact that had just jarred his nervous system.

"So how about that message?" Percy asked calmly. Forcing him towards his desk, towards his laptop.

Using the scruff of his collared shirt to guide him.

When Mr. BigMoney typed in the code, Percy took over. Scanning every messaging board, every file, every social media platform.

Cocaine was only his starting business, Percy discovered. Human trafficking was his main focus. His water processing company was just a front for some seriously despicable crimes. It made him wonder about Annabeth. If she was a key part of beginning his drug business, how was she related to the rest of this? And how much was actually her? How much had she done simply because she was emotionally abused, and then primed into acting for this ass?

He found the contact he was looking for in Mr. BigMoney's emails. A photo of Piper sitting lazily in a first class plane seat was his last message. Percy responded with a brief sentence telling him to come back to be paid. Slum pickers were always ready to listen to money.

Then he folded the laptop backwards, cracking the screen and forcing an electric spit from between the keys.

Mr. BigMoney watched him wordlessly the entire time. Glancing every so often at his desk drawer, where he undoubtedly had another weapon hidden. If he even reached for it, Percy was prepared to slit his throat.

"If you aren't Jack Manderson." Mr. BigMoney finally spoke. A crackle in his voice as if he couldn't handle the defeat he was dealing with. "Who the hell are you?"

Percy drove the dagger through the core of the laptop slowly. Wondering if he should answer. If he should reveal it.

Make him wary of ever touching her again.

Percy relented. "I'll give you a hint. I know eight ways to cut up a human corpse to spill the least amount of blood and nine ways to hide a body in a space smaller than a microwave."

"So you're just some psychopath with a death wish?" Mr. BigMoney's eyes sparkled hatefully.

Percy shrugged. "You're the one who hired me."

Realization was slow, like the tide rising on a rocky shore, but when it hit him it flooded his entire body with shaking rising anger.

"You!"

"Me," Percy said simply.

Mr. BigMoney rose to his feet slowly. An unmitigated rage in his brown eyes. "Are you fucking her or something?"

"Don't be crass," Percy scoffed. "Just because you can't separate the idea of women and sex doesn't mean I can't."

"THEN WHAT THE FUCK STOPPED YOU FROM DOING YOUR JOB?!"

Calm. Cool. Water. The longer he stood there the more he was thankful for the desk separating them. Every bloodthirsty cry inside of him was telling him to rip out this man's throat. Dangle him from the ceiling by his intestines.

"Just… Annabeth I guess," Percy said. Filling his head with the day they first met. Her fiery spirit, her defensive nature, the way she corrected herself on the fly.

BigMoney was shaking his head in disbelief. "I said take her out, not TAKE her out!" he gritted angrily. His face was puffy and red from rage, veins protruding from his temple. Desperately, he clawed a hand through his hair. "I hired you to kill my ex-fiance. Not DATE her!"

Percy rolled his eyes at the guy. They weren't dating. Percy would never allow it to get that far. Sure his heart stopped when she smiled at him happily, sure he lost his mind at the thought of losing her… but deep down he always knew that he wasn't worth her. Not like that. No matter what Mr. BigMoney said about her being a murderer or an arsonist. She was a woman who had fought hard for her life, and fought well. He was a boy who crumbled into his tragedies. Who took every wrong step imaginable.

Someone not worth forgiveness. Someone just like Mr. BigMoney. A man who used people to make money. Who didn't care for the wellbeing or lives of the people around him. Someone who deserved to be wiped from Annabeth's life permanently.

Keep it cool. Water cool. Percy used his calming method once more.

If he kept thinking about killing BigMoney, he was going to eventually break in and do it.

"That bitch doesn't deserve to live!" There was a tremor in his voice. A knot of fear that had punctured into his rage. Breathing heavily, pulling at his face with his weird web veiny hands, Mr. BigMoney stumbled back as if reconsidering his tantrum. Then, with a scream worthy of a demon, he ripped the lamp off his desk and rammed it into the floor at Percy's feet. A flash burned through the room as the bulb died, followed by a melodic tinkle of glass shattering. The floor tremble ever so slightly at the impact.

Percy didn't flinch.

"FUCK. SHE RUINED MY LIFE," he howled. Desperation was starting to form in his eyes, bringing the stress to the edges and starting to make his eyelids flush red. Percy could tell his heart rate from where he was standing a few feet away. Separated by one desk. One piece of wood. One shield, that's all this man had to him.

What does he think this temper tantrum will achieve?

"And yet you chose her. You chose her. Instead of the money?! MONEY?! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!" he continued shrieking.

She just… she's the ocean. She goes where she pleases. Or maybe I had a soft spot for the ocean to begin with.

"You were supposed to be the best in the business-"

"I am," Percy cut him off with a dagger-like look. "But you could say that Annabeth is even better."

Hate was in his opponents eyes. Curdling, blood cutting hate. Percy didn't care for it, the feeling was mutual.

"How did she get her claws on you?" Mr. BigMoney simmered bitterly. "How?"

"For starters, Annabeth doesn't have claws," Percy snuffed. "She has fangs. Claws are for catching, teeth are for killing."

Mr. BigMoney growled. "Yes. We've already established that she's a killer."

"But you forget, so am I. And currently the only thing that is keeping me from taking this knife and splitting you from mouth to anus is her wellbeing. So how about you shut that exhaust pipe you call a mouth before I'm bathing in your blood while you watch in slow agony." Percy tightened his grip on the hilt. Pointing it just shy of his chin with a very real want in his eyes. "Because I will fucking carve you open and make you count your organs if you keep yappering."

Mr. BigMoney swallowed. A movement that made Percy's veins jump excitedly.

Cold water. Calming cold water.

"If you were sane, you'd have killed her." Mr. BigMoney rasped.

A roll of outrage flustered Percy's insides with a scalding bubble. Without even thinking about it, he rammed the blade down on BigMoney's hand splayed against the desk. Wedging it between two bones and slicing clear through until the blade met wood. There was a crack of his skin splitting, a wet shink of metal gliding against tissue and a deep thunk.

Mr. BigMoney screamed at the ceiling. Holding his wrist, unable to pry his hand free. That metallic smell of blood filled Percy's lungs, his nose. His hatred was swelling, dancing gleefully, filling him with the desire for more, more, MORE.

Like an addict, his hands twitched. Aching to fit his fingers around his neck, hold him still as he drew one long cut from the hollow of his throat up to the tip of his chin. Gritting his teeth, Percy took the second matching table lamp off the opposite edge of the desk and smashed it over Mr. BigMoney's head.

When he was limp in his chair, unconscious, Percy wiped a hand down his face.

Water. Cool, cold water.

He almost lost control.

Staggering slightly, Percy wandered over to the tall spotless windows. Letting his eyes roam above the constraints of the city. Up, up to the soulless black sky empty of stars.

Are you sad?

Why am I like this?

Can you change it?

I'm stuck like this for life.

He could feel something shifting in him again. Something dark. Something perpetually enraged. Something that wanted to watch the entire world fall into a pit of molten garbage and seedy fumes. He remembered burying it every night. Imagining a stone falling on the memory until it just stopped surfacing altogether, but what was it?

Percy pressed his forehead against the cool surface of the glass and sighed. He was tired. Tired of being, tired of not being, tired of thinking of being and not being. What was he but a monster? Could he really go back to the life where he ran from things constantly? He didn't think so, but then again he didn't think he could do anything else either. A crueler stalemate.

When the elevator dinged again, Annabeth was inside looking frail. Meek. For a moment, they locked eyes then she turned her attention to the limp figure at the desk. The little pool of blood dripping away from the dagger still erect in his hand. The two broken lamps.

She waved him inside anyway.

They went down in relative silence but bathed in so much tension Percy felt like he was breathing in water.

He couldn't forget her cries, her desperation. Everything she was willing to do just to save him. It made him want to start a new life on a deserted island. It made him want to force himself into exile in a snowy tundra, empty of warmth.

It made him want to pin her to the elevator wall and kiss her so passionately that she'd understand every little worming, glowing, fiery emotion currently throbbing in his heart.

"So Jack Manderson?" she finally glanced at him.

"Shellbrooke." Percy responded lightly.

He was standing next to another killer. Another murderer. Or maybe Mr. BigMoney was dressing things up. Maybe she was just a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Piper?"

"Safe."

Another silence punctuated their space as the numbers rolled down in thick green block font above the elevator door.

Annabeth knitted together her trembling fingers. "Percy, I was only able to vomit up one of the pills…"

Reeling, Percy snapped his head to her. "What?!"

"I said-"

"We're going to the hospital." He glanced up at the floor display. Just ten more to go. He could rush her there. Get them to pump her stomach. They had to have an antidote on hand or something. It would be okay.

Annabeth took his hand softly. A tenderness in the way her fingers squeezed his made his heart bleed. "Perce… I can't go to the hospital… They'll have questions. Even if I pretend like I was trying to commit suicide, they would want to know where I got such pills. If the police get involved… that detective just made it very clear that he had evidence tying me to ShellBrooke. If I try and get any other officer to help me he'll expose exactly what I did and have me locked up."

"And you'll be a fish in a barrel in prison." Percy squeezed her hand back.

"Yeah."

He couldn't freak out. Not now. Not while she was looking at him like that. Taking a grounding breath, Percy turned towards her. "So, what's the plan?"

"I don't know."

"You aren't giving up, are you?"

"Never."

"So let's make a plan."

"It's kind of hard to think right now. I'm currently focusing on not panicking." Annabeth gripped his hand a bit tighter. An edge working its way into her tone. She was about to snap at him, he knew it.

"You're scared?"

"Terrified."

"Okay… okay…" Percy breathed deeply through his nose. Feeling the pressure to come up with a magical plan that would save her life. "NICO!"

"Yell again and I'll tear out your tongue." Annabeth hissed. "And what about Nico?"

"He specializes in poisons!"

Things are finally picking upppp. Probably the next three chapters are the ones I'm most concerned won't land well. No spoilers but there are some not great topics that come up.

Anywho.

Mr. BigMoney's name is such a hassle to spell and even worse to say. When I was first writing this I didn't want his character to be anyone other then 'the bad guy'. No name, no face kind of deal. Leave him dimensionless. But now that I'm going through all the chapters, editing and rewriting, I'm thinking of actually solidifying his character.

What do you guys think? Should I change his name? Keep it? Or should I bring in a character from the books to shoe horn into this character. Luke? Kronos? Octavian?

And if you're going to answer that, might as well tell me what you think of how this story is going so far and what your predictions are. :) It's been hard to get a good read on you readers because a lot of the comments are just like "YAAASSS AMAZING" or "Ooh no cliffieee" (Which I still deeply appreciate, but as a flawed writer some feedback would be so scrumdiddlyumptious right now)