It's hard to believe that we're already at chapter 11. The more I post, and the more I reread through this, the more I know that I do not like this fic. Like. At all.

I might like Chapter 18 but not the rest of it. :/

Chapter 11

Calm. Cool. Water.

This was no time to lose his head. He'd dealt with plenty of precarious situations before, why did this have to be even different? Sure the fear was raging around his body with cold bursts of panic, but that shouldn't hamper him. Right?

It didn't stop him from sprinting down the fifty or so flights of stairs. He convinced himself he was totally collected and calm when he threw himself over two lanes of traffic. Sure a car may have smacked him slightly, but really it was more of a gentle bumper kiss that made him fly.

The car was helping him, okay?

He was just peeling himself off the frigid road like a piece of velcro when he came to the realization that he needed a reason to be in her office. These office building people weren't just going to let anyone in. He'd seen the front desk, the security that hovered around the elevators. When he was set on killing her he'd already learned that he needed a visitors pass to get through the turnstile.

And that's when he was suddenly two doors over at the quaint little plant shop, holding a succulent with one hand and violently throwing his wallet at the cash register girl with the other. Vaguely, he remembered her shrill scream and the square of leather thunking her straight in the face but it was all a blur.

When he finally came to, he was standing in front of her office door with his heart beat in his throat. Holding a slightly damaged succulent in one hand and gripping his visitors' pass in the other. Breathing so hard it felt like his lungs might pop.

A passing intern had kindly told him that Miss Chase would return to her office in a second. She was one floor down yelling at a technologist for some minor screw up.

"Percy?"

Percy nearly collapsed in relief. Annabeth looked confused, and scoped his entire form over and over.

She was alive.

She was still alive.

"What are you doing here?"

"I brought you a succulent." Percy held out the little plant. The succulent, apparently aware of good timing, dropped a thick leaf a moment later with a decent smack as it hit the ground. Annabeth stared at the dejected piece laying on the floor. Trying to jigsaw things together in her mind.

"I'm sorry, what?" She shook her head. "You're freezing, and bleeding, and out of breath and you brought me a succulent?"

Percy's eyebrows went up. "I'm bleeding?"

Annabeth dabbed the side of his head with her finger and showed him the gloss of crimson. A sting from the contact zapped over his skin, but Percy tried to play it off.

"Oh, well that's nothing. I just got hit by a car."

"You what?"

"Because I was running, because… I only have a limited amount of time on my break and this succulent wasn't going to deliver itself." Percy lied.

Smooth Jackson.

Annabeth looked like she was between smacking him, laughing herself into a mental state, or simply walking away because she didn't have time to deal with his shenanigans.

Instead she pushed her office door open and waved for him to follow.

"NO!" Percy yelled and grabbed her by the arm before she could go in.

An entire office of faces started peeking out into the hallway at him, and Percy shriveled up slightly. Especially under Annabeth's glare.

"I mean… allow me." Percy pushed the door open again and went in first. Holding it open for her while he scanned the room.

She had bookcases and filing cabinets lining her walls. Cheap ones with large laminated labels taped on each shelf and each drawer. In the center of her office, put in the command position, was her thick wooden desk. Clean, simple, and minimalistically decorated with her laptop, a reading lamp, and a simple cup of pens and pencils.

There. Behind them. Percy had to crane his neck. Behind the door. Between the architecture desk and wall, he could just see the assailants' foot peeking out. Crammed into a little place and effectively hidden behind a wooden model base.

Percy felt for his gun in his pocket.

"You're acting weird." Annabeth deduced. "Really weird."

"I might've gotten a concussion from all that running."

"... You mean getting hit by that car. "
"Right. The car. It hit me." Percy said. Not letting his eyes off that one spot.

Annabeth crossed the room and opened one of the drawers to her work desk, her back to the window. With her expression all twisted up she burrowed through it.

Should I tell her? Percy glanced in her direction solemnly. But then she'll want to know how I know… why I've been watching her.

"Aha." Annabeth produced a small first aid kit made of fabric and stitched with a red cross.

"Now sit down. Let me bandage that head." Annabeth said briskly while patting the space on her desk next to her computer. Percy let his hand slide into his pocket. He gripped the handle of his gun and tried to calm the deafening roar of his heart. Warily, he backed up into the desk and sat down. Eyes glued to the corner still.

Water. Cool. Calm. Water.

"What are you looking at?" Annabeth followed his gaze but apparently missed the foot he was staring at.

"WHAT. No. nothing. I got hit by a car Wisegirl. Maybe I'm just in shock."

"Should I take you to the hospital?"

"NO!"

Annabeth winced at his sudden shout and Percy cringed back sheepishly. A stormy look darkened her eyes when she settled her hands on her hips.

"Yell again and I'll cut up the other side of your face, you Seaweed Brain."

"Sorry," he murmured.

Annabeth garbled something under her breath and turned to his right to rifle through the kit. While she messed with gauze and tape and disinfectant, a small squat face peeked out from behind the architecture desk. Latching his little beady brown eyes onto Percy with a violent realization that he had been seen. A muffle of movement followed when he lifted his weapon, a large black fiberglass stick with two pointed prongs on it like venomous snake fangs.

An electric eel baton. Percy had seen these on the blackmarket before. It didn't just shock their victim, it cooked them. Silent, stealthy, and completely deadly.

Before the assassin could make any move closer, Percy whipped out his gun and held it steady. Aiming between the eyes. Lividly, he flashed his teeth and made a few cut throat motions at him. Move towards her and I'll kill you.

In shock the man sunk back into his hiding place. Swimming in perplexion as to why Percy wasn't sounding the alarm at the sight of him.

But Percy knew how assassin's worked. He was a sinner after all. Any witnesses to a crime needed to be disposed of as well. If he told Annabeth the man was in the room now, he would attack them both. With a weapon like that, Annabeth stood little chance if she was even touched.

Her ignorance was her safety net.

"Here." Annabeth twisted back to him. Occupied by a little stretch of cotton she was soaking in alcohol.

Percy slipped his gun back inside his pocket before Annabeth's eyes shifted up to him. Making it clear that he was still keeping it pointed in the intruder's direction. The glint of eyes behind the architecture desk shifted from Percy's face to his pocket over and over nervously.

"This might sting a little," Annabeth whispered. The heat of her voice drifted over his lips and only then did he realize how close they were. How her sharp grey eyes were focused on the side of his head, and their lips barely a decimeter apart.

Percy's heartbeat shattered into a million splinters of fire that ricochet over his body. He couldn't even feel the sting of his wound being cleaned.

Not the time. NOT THE TIME. Calm. Cool. Water. CALM. WATER.

He kept his focus over her shoulder. One sinner sizing up another.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Annabeth asked while tossing away a red soaked cotton ball.

"No." Percy lied.

A blossom of pain was still spiraling in his thigh. Either a bruise so bad it felt like a kiss from satan, or a hairline fracture so thin it was like a papercut to his bone. He didn't care.

"Why are you so tense?" Annabeth lightly grabbed his jaw with a soothing hand. Running her fingers along the tight skin as if she could massage the worry away. Percy instantly unclenched and tried to drop the fight out of his shoulders.

"I got hit by a car, Annabeth." He tried to sound normal. It didn't feel like it was working.

"I still think you should go to the hospital. You could have a major concussion."

"I told you. I'm fine."

"Are you allergic to doctors or something?"

"And if I am?"

"Prick."

Percy feigned shock. "Uncalled for!"

"Totally called for. Being allergic to doctors is to be allergic to self care. And those who don't take care of themselves always end up unable to care for themselves, forcing others to take care of them."

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that without being a confusing self entitled maniac?"

Annabeth grabbed his nose and twisted it. Making Percy hiss a series of 'ows' as she tutted at him.

"Take care of yourself, you neanderthal."

"No-" Annabeth's glare darkened. Percy had to hold her at a distance to keep his nose safe. "Not until I take care of this little thing first," He innocently lifted the slightly crooked succulent off her desk and held it up. "Could you get him some water please? I've named him Burtwis."

Annabeth scoffed and rolled her eyes. For a moment she looked like she was going to slap him upside the head and then thought better of it. "No. Go get it yourself. Vending machine is two floors down."

"Really? You want me wandering around your workplace unattended, concussed, and bored? I don't want to ruin your day, but that sounds like a recipe for disaster."

Annabeth sighed heavily. "You know, you could just promise to be good for once in your life."

"Not happening."

"Again. Prick."

"Eh. Deserved." Percy shot her a winning smile as she backed up towards the door.

Holding his breath, he watched as she unhooked her grey purse from the coat rack.

Two feet away from where her wannabe murderer hid.

"No more running about, okay? A high heart rate makes concussions worse."

She was almost out the door.

"Got it," Percy's smile was weakening.

The door to her office clicked shut behind her and he was alone.

"You." A gruff voice rang from the gap. The assassin rose to his feet like a drunken pirate waking up to a red sunrise. "You're like me."

Percy whipped out his gun again. Eyes level. Pulse controlled. Rigid with focus.

Water. Cool, smooth, clear, water.

His headspace swarmed around him like a heavy fog. Emptying him, poising him, preparing him.

"And you're a dead man," he uttered mirthlessly.

"Half a million is too much money to play with." The man had a perpetual snarl in his voice. Grating almost. Percy didn't doubt that he was a heavy smoker. Most sinners didn't care for their physical health after a certain threshold was passed. "But I can see why you would want to play with this one. She's got a body like a Vegas showgirl. Boobs and ass and face to match."

Percy cocked his gun. Taking a tight step closer with a lick of fire surging in his gut. "I don't play."

The man had his electric eel baton ready. A triumphant smirk on his saggy face. He glanced at Percy's gun as if he were pitying the little device. Guns, guns are loud. No matter the silencer. Electric eel batons on the other hand were praised for their silence.

Being in an office building full of people within earshot, Percy was not holding the advantage here. They both knew it.

"Yeah right. You young studs play like excited lions. Fuck em senseless then out come the claws." The man backpedaled to the door. That smug gleam still in his eyes, a haughtiness in his lips that Percy wanted to shear off. "But since I'm here, playtime is over. Don't get in my way and I won't kill you. It's that easy."

"You'll be caught." Percy tried to stall. "There are security cameras everywhere."

"Security cameras I shut down an hour ago." The man let out a raucous and ear curdling laugh. "Young blood are too jumpy these days."

"Leave and I shoot," Percy finally said in one breath.

Shivering from uncertainty as he regripped his gun. At least his aim never wavered unlike his commitment to his threat.

The Assassin tilted his head at this. A sensitive curiosity lighting in his eyes. "Who do you belong to? The Mccormick's? The Olympians? The Angel crime family?"

So this one is part of an organized crime ring. He's a pet.

He acted like one. Once this was over, if he got his way, he would return to a cushy house in his sports car. Dial up orders for drugs, booze, and strippers. Drift into a void of barely existing because his every whim and need was taken care of. Protected by a hoard of mafia members.

"I'm no one's leashed puppy," Percy hissed. "I work for myself."

"Yeah. Sure you do." The stubby assassin opened the door behind him with one cautious hand. Holding that steady look of self satisfaction that made Percy want to hang him with his own intestines. "Be a pal and lock the door when you leave, aight?"

Percy's finger twitched on the trigger. For a heart-rending moment he felt like it would fire. Like the bullet would tear through flesh and veins and scour a hole right through this sick man's chest.

But it didn't.

He couldn't.

The door clicked closed.

Something was still hesitating. Something inside of him was still wondering, suspended, unattached. If he fired, he'd be caught. He'd be sentenced.

Would he be okay with going to jail for life for Annabeth?

Is the person worth the pain?

As amazing and as wondrous and as endless the ocean was, there were few people out there willing to die for it. Percy wanted to be one of those people. He wanted to believe that if it came down to it, he'd throw himself at the law's feet just to save her. But he was a sinner. An assassin.

Generosity didn't come easy. Selflessness was not an act he was familiar with.

Frustrated, he stomped his foot childishly and swung around. Glaring out the window as he raked his hands through his hair. Churning with thoughts of how he could get her out, or disable her attacker, or sound the alarm to her fellow colleagues.

I'll most definitely get caught.

He could see the other building from here. The one he had been sitting on when he was tactfully spying on Annabeth. Brown brick, fifty stories. So different to the sleek glass and steel structure this office building was. An eve that overhung the brown building just hid the spot where he'd been perched exactly. Framing it was the ever grey beyond of the sky. Swirling with darkening clouds and alive with tempestuous emotion.

Are you sad? Can you change it?

No. No. NO. I can't change it. I can never change it.

Can you change it?

NO. No. No.

Can you-

Percy stormed out the door with a muffled 'fuck it' under his breath. Slipping on his gloves again because there was no way in hell he was going to be one of those idiots cornered by their own fingerprints. If he wanted to be the one who would lay his life down for Annabeth then he was fucking going to be the one laying his life down for Annabeth. He didn't have time for doubt. He didn't have time for hesitance. Selflessness was not an assassin's trait, but was he even an assassin anymore? He didn't care. She couldn't die.

So what if he was caught?

Regret was so much more bitter than pain. Percy had his taste of both and knew which one would eat him alive if he didn't do something.

In the dead of the hallway, he noticed two things immediately. One; both elevators were on the ground floor. And two; the door for the stairs had a slight shine on its handle. Almost as if someone with sweaty palms had just gone onto the stairwell.

Stairs it is.

Silently, slowly he opened the door and slipped inside. Already he could hear the labored echoes of someone descending meticulous steps. The pale grit of the cement floor seemed to amplify the gentle padding of his own footsteps as he cautiously made his way over to the metal railing.

Shifting, he had to blink away the vertigo he got from staring down forty stories worth of stairs. A single square of grey at the bottom of a tunnel of metal railings swam in his vision. A shadow lurched one level below him.

His target.

Cool water. Cool clear water. He was ready for this. Nothing could stop him. Not an ounce of rage, or pinch of fire was left in his body. He was empty. A weapon. A thing.

With one fluid movement, he leaped over the edge and caught the base of the banister bars in his hands. Swinging himself under to the stairs below.

His foot connected with his victim's head first. Cracking his ankle and sending a shock of pressure bolting up his leg. A flash of black floated towards him while still in mid-air.

The baton.

Grunting, Percy twisted and kicked it out of his hands before his body collided with his victim and they crashed into the wall. A firework of pain fizzed out from where his head connected with cement stairs. White specks danced in his vision. Percy thrashed himself free of the crumpled pile of skin and clothes.

His fingers had just closed on the baton when a wall of meat and heat crashed into him. The world turned sideways. Pressed against his target, they tumbled down the stairs. Stair edges rammed into him as they twirled. His hip, his back, his neck, his head. Spirals of boiling pain when arching through his body at every contact. Still, Percy held a firm grasp on the baton. Despite the desperate clawing of the clammy hands fighting to get it back.

Gritting his teeth, Percy rolled willingly with the momentum then sprung up. Thrusting himself off the man before he hit the stairs again. This time his footing was secured as he landed in a crouched position. The baton safely in his fingers and poised above his head. For a moment he regrouped his bearings, refocused on his target then sprang.

It was quick this time.

One strike.

The teeth of the baton sunk into the soft flesh of the man with barely a crack of sound. For a moment, their eyes connected.

Then Percy hit the button.

The victim went stiff. Forced up onto his tippy toes as every ligament, every tendon, every muscle went tight in his body. There was a hum as if a nest of angry wasps were raging inside his intestines clamoring to get out but no screams. It was as quiet as it was praised to be.

An etchwork of dark red started to spill away from the stab site. Darkening every vein in the man from toes to scalp. When the smell of singed hair and burning grease came, Percy released the button.

It was done.

The man was petrified rigid. His final pleading expression immortalized on his face. Eyes open, yellow, wide and glassy but empty of any life. Percy sneered an expression of distaste and averted his gaze. The remnants of his headspace was starting to pull away.

Water. Cool water.

He needed to scramble the crime scene. Apparently the security cameras were out, but for how long? How much traceable evidence had he left already? Surely some DNA on the staircase. Maybe some clothing fibers too.

Cool. Calming. Clear. Water.

Mindlessly, Percy hauled the body upwards. Surprised to find that it hardened and the texture of wood with weird bubbles skirting under the skin. He could stand him up again awkwardly, and used the corpse's own weight to teeter it over the edge of the railing. He dropped like a bullet through water.

SHTAACK, clapped up the shaft of the stairways when the body made contact with the bottom floor. Splattering a tattered fan of brown away from the crushed head. Weakly, Percy released the baton over as a second thought. It clattered against the pavement with a sharp ring.

He didn't have time to properly dispose of the murder weapon. Annabeth could be back in her office at that second, wondering where he went. If he wanted an alibi, being next to her was his best bet.

But he stood there a minute longer.

Electric eel batons. He recited. I just killed electric eel batons.

With that in mind he sprinted back up the stairs. Clenching away the stabs of pain radiating from his ankle and hips, and holding a hand to the back of his skull to at least try and cease the deep rooted throbbing. Two flights up and chasms of black started nibbling at the corner of the vision. Everything felt robotic and programmed. Like he was detached from his body and was simply watching through a tv screen. Pressure behind his eyes grew and with a gurgled moan he finally made it to the hallway.

Stumbling, he barely pushed himself into Annabeth's office before the black consumed his vision. Forcing him to his hands and knees until even the strength to stay upright dried away. Part of him just wanted to give up the fight for consciousness.

Is the person worth the pain?

Percy bared his teeth. Spacing his breaths one after the other to try and calm his heart rate. He could make out the carpet he was face planted in, the edge of her desk near the window and a filing cabinets to his left. On fire, he pushed himself up and dragged his butt onto the desk. Wavering with every dizzying movement. Sitting upright made it feel as if his brain was a helium balloon seconds away from untying and drifting off and his head was a cage of lead.

"Fought the thing like a devil woman. All it did was eat my money," Annabeth barked as she stormed in the room. Just in time.

Percy straightened.

"And all I got was angry."

He nodded along sympathetically. Trying to pinpoint Annabeth's face, but her features kept swimming around. That didn't seem normal.

"You'd think a reputable architecture firm would have reputable vending machines, right?"

The strength waned in him again. He had to grip the desk for support.

"Percy?"

Why did she sound like she was at the end of a very long tunnel?

"Perce? Are you okay?"

Percy looked back up at her. The only thing coming into focus was the sharp grey of her eyes. Concern pinched up her cute eyebrows and simmered in her irises.

He didn't have the strength to keep this up.

Percy dipped forward, falling face first into her shoulder. A numb darkness reached up to claim him. Carrying him down into a deep slumber.

.:oOo:.

"Yeah, I know where he lives. I just didn't trust his roommate to keep an eye on him, okay?"

It was like a hangover. Everything was too bright, too loud, too overbearing for his sensitive head.

"No, I couldn't dump him at the hospital… What do you mean why? I know a private doctor who didn't ask questions, why should I bring him to a nosy hospital?"

There was something cold and melty on his forehead. A bag of sorts. With every little shift of his body, its contents would swish around. He cracked open his eyes, wincing at the artificial yellow light that engulfed the room.

"No he's not shady. It's not… NO Piper. He got hit by a car, Pipes. If he was jaywalking and caused damage to the car then he'll have to pay for that which I assume he doesn't want to."

The rest of his body was draped in a luxurious grey blanket patterned with black triangles. Something plush behind his head soothed the dull ache kneading pain through his skull.

Where am I?

"Well he's not exactly rich like you, Pipes. You can't just expect him to pay every fee because he made a simple mistake."

Everything was sore. Getting hit by a car and fighting a person to the death while falling down cement stairs really did a number on your body. Who knew?

Groaning quietly, Percy shifted his head to survey the room. Immediately coming face to face with that ugly twisty statue on Annabeth's glass coffee table. He couldn't tell, but he swore it was frowning back at him.

Annabeth was pacing the hall, a phone pressed to her ear and a serious expression gumming up her face.

"Are you implying that he got hit by a car on purpose?"

Night stared in through the windows. A swirl of wind was clattering the bare tree branches together in a chorus of offbeat taps. Percy was thankful he was warm and inside.

"I don't understand you, Pipes. One minute you're all gung ho about me making a friend and the next- wait… I gotta call you back Pipes,"

Percy lifted the plastic bag off his throbbing head and squinted up at it. Frozen peas, misted with condensation, was sagging through his fingers.

Annabeth rushed towards him a second later while pocketing her phone. A dutiful look of business gleaming in her eyes.

"You're awake." She started with the obvious.

"How did I get here?" He probably looked terrible. He felt it at least.

"You passed out in my office and you said you didn't want to be brought to a hospital earlier so I brought you here instead. A neighbour who's a doctor looked at your head and said if you throw up you should go to the ER."

Splinters of pain were radiating out the back of his skull when he tried to sit up so he allowed Annabeth to gently push him back into the softness of the cushions. A knot in his chest at the spasm of warmth it gave him.

Being cared for.

That wasn't something he would never think would happen to him.

"Percy," Annabeth said with a quiet seriousness. "You haven't been honest with me."

Fuck.

What happened to the body in the stairwell? Did she figure it out? Did he mumble something in his drifting state of consciousness that tipped her off? What did she know? What did he do? Panic clutched his lungs in an everlasting moment of stress. What if she'd connected it all?

Instead of verbally accusing him, Annabeth held up a small square of leather.

His wallet.

"As we were pulling out of the parking garage this girl flagged me down. Apparently you left this when you bought me that succulent two minutes before you came into my office."

Percy plucked the slightly cracked object out of her hands and examined it as if it were an alien device. Confusion seared his delicate brain tissue.

"What does this have to do with honesty?" he said.

"You told me you had the succulent before you left on your break from work."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"No, I said I had to deliver it before my break was over."

"Which insinuates you had it before you left work."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."
"No it doesn't- Argh gosh Annabeth. I don't have the strength to argue about this." Percy rubbed a few circles into his raging temples and tried to sink lower into the cushions.

"Sorry," Annabeth's expression genuinely softened. "I tend to get caught up on little inconsistencies. I've been told it's annoying."

"Very annoying," Percy agreed, still rubbing his head.

Annabeth's eyes fell to the floor and her lips twitched up in an unnatural way. There was a lack of heart when she laughed softly as if she were laughing with him. Percy was suddenly wrought with the idea that Mr. BigMoney had installed into her mind the idea that she was annoying, and that he just agreed with it.

"But I guess that's what makes you a killer architect," he relented with a little bubble of warmth in his chest. "And it makes you nearly always right."

Which was true.

This time her smile was so real it had heart melting abilities.

"Nearly, huh?" She asked with a playful skepticism. When she smoothed away some of his hair from his forehead tenderly Percy had to stop breathing. The butterflies were choking his lungs and stomach with tickles. "Tell me when I've been wrong to earn such a pathetic nearly?"

He didn't know if she was doing that on purpose. Was she leaning closer? Why did her lips look so soft and full? Could he just lean in closer? Fill the gap?

What the fuck are you thinking about?

Diiiing-dong.

A sharp distinct chime rang over the house splicing the moment in half. Percy winced and covered his ears as if it would help. News flash: It didn't. It felt like a chisel in the back of his skull.

With his hands still over his ears, he could hear Annabeth's footsteps going to the door. The sharp click from the lock being thrown back followed and a whoosh of cold air that burst in.

"Pipes?"

"I was in the neighbourhood." Piper did not sound pleased.

"What are you doing here?"

"Playing chaperone. Now where is the concussed road pancake? I brought him some drugs. Drowsy drowsy drugs. Real knock out sleeper kinds." She appeared at the doorway. Cloaked in a burning yellow puffy coat matched with a bright blue hat and mittens. Fashionless yet somehow she pulled it off. Hanging from one arm was a grocery store plastic bag filled with little boxes.

"That was fast," Annabeth scoffed as she followed Piper into the living room.

Percy felt weak lying flat on the sofa as Piper gave him a raised eyebrow in hello. Suspicions in her potent glare. He felt like a little mouse staring up at a cobra that was enjoying its superiority.

"I was already in the drugstore when you called," Piper reassured. "And I figured if he was going to stay the night then I might as well bring him something that will make him sleep all night."

"Why are you talking about me like I'm not here?" Percy asked with a certain frailty he couldn't seem to shake.

"Awww, it's cute that he thinks I'll directly talk to him." Piper jeered while passing the plastic bag over to Annabeth. "I'll make us some tea, and while the senior concave brain here can sit and cry, we'll go upstairs and watch a movie."

Piper strutted out of the room. Very set on her plan.

Percy looked up at Annabeth as innocently as he could muster. "Why does she hate me?"

Well he knew why. He just hoped Annabeth didn't put any faith in Piper's intuitive reasons as to why.

"She doesn't hate you, she just hasn't warmed up to you. She will." Annabeth waved off. "She's protective."

"Just like how you'll warm up to Jason?" Percy said flatly.

Annabeth shot him an indiscernible expression before pointedly turning away from him with a slight frown. "I think Piper needs help with that tea."

"Aw yeah sure, leave the concussed road pancake to stew alone. I got the message," Percy snuffed.

Annabeth's not a smile-smile surfaced in the form of the edges of her mouth slightly twitching upwards. Just as her dimples started to appear she went out of sight into the hallway and Percy was alone. Staring after where she once was.

A flicker of blue and red lights were flashing against the window panes.

Police.

Ah fuck.

Why so many cliffhangers?