Sorry, sorry! I have no excuse. Absolutely none for updating so late. I have been suffering from writers block and a severe case of…laziness. Sorry. But I'll try my hardest to post more frequently.

Thank you for all the reviews! And a hundred and twenty six followers, WHAT?

I don't deserve it, but thank you all the same. I LOVE YOU, GUYS!

Half-Blood High

Chapter 7

~0O0~

"A very warm evening to one and all present here. I do hope you have all had a rather satisfactory term so far." Chiron's voice was soft but commanding, so much so that Annabeth ceased her fidgeting and sat up straight, though she already knew what was coming up, having quietly been nodding off inside for the last four years whenever this speech came up "Just one or two matters to clear up. First, I would like to introduce two new members to our family. Mr. Beckendorf, if you may please step forward?"

Whispers broke out in the hall as the large boy who entered the hall with Chiron lumbered into the centre. He wore the standard Academy uniform, but one could tell he worked out a lot from the muscles rippling through his shirt.

" had very recently been a top student at his previous school, Goode Academy and is particularly reputed for his skill full hands…" a lot of girls erupted into giggles and it took Annabeth a few seconds to get the joke "…in the field of wood work. After much deliberation, he has been placed into the West Tower where I hope he shall be treated with utmost respect and companion ship."

Chiron's warm brown eyes gazed thoughtfully in their direction before he asked the Beckendorf to join one of the West Tower tables. Annabeth looked on sourly as an overly enthusiastic Alicia nudged up in her seat and started chatting up the new boy, who if she were to be honest, looked quite uninterested.

"Next we have a former student of Clarion Girls Academy, Miss. Atlas." Chiron continued as a girl stepped forward. She had milky pale skin and long, golden brown hair tied into an elegant French braid. She had a haughty look on her face and her caramel eyes were scanning the room almost hungrily. Suddenly the girl looked quite stricken before she wrenched her gaze from the East Tower tables. Annabeth, seemingly the only one to notice the queer behavior, immediately turned back and her eyes zeroed in on Jackson, who looked completely horrified at the sight of the new girl. And as though feeling her gaze on him, he met her eyes for a second, before his face assumed the cool indifference it always wore.

Annabeth watched on as the new girl walked over to the South Tower table, her eyes alert for any more glances between the unlikely duo, even as Chiron trudged on through the contents of the Annual Ball, but the Miss. Atlas barely looked up from her plate of lettuce leafs and tomatoes the rest of the evening, and flounced out the door as soon as dinner was finished.

"I say, isn't it a little late for these people to join a new school?" Jason asked as they made their way back up to the West Tower. "I mean, it is practically exams next month!"

"They probably brewed up some sort of trouble at their last schools and got kicked out for it. That girl is definitely not some walk in the park, looking down on us as though we were a bunch of puny peasants. The nerve!" Piper quipped haughtily, which quickly morphed into one of despair "And speaking of trouble, Mr. Salt will have my head tomorrow if I don't turn in my Chemistry homework. Annie, you wouldn't be a darling and lend me your notes for a few hours?"

Annabeth stifled a yawn, her mind now solely focused on the warmth of her bed and a goodnight's sleep. "Sure"

~0O0~

The next morning, Annabeth was shaken awake by an annoyed Piper.

"What?" the drowsy blonde murmured, turning over in her bed and pressing her face deeper into her pillow. She peered at the clock on her bedside and was a little surprised to find it had just gone half past six.

"Annie!" Piper wailed miserably, her hair disarray and still clad in her pale nightgown "You forgot to lend me your note book last night and I've got chemistry first period. Mr. Salt is going to fucking drown me in a can of sulfur if I don't turn mine in today. I turned your bag upside down and it isn't there!"

Annabeth reluctantly got up and stared at her messy table, her lower lip jutting out and her grey eyes glazed over. She tried to wrench her mind to the present and recall where she had shoved the bloody book. She hadn't used it…since that horrid lesson with Jackson as her partner. She had stormed up to her room in a rage that day and had dumped her things in the drawer.

"The second drawer on the right." Annabeth exclaimed suddenly and was grateful when Piper rushed over to her table without waiting for an explanation.

As Piper started to furiously scribble on her side of the room, Annabeth stretched lazily and let out a relaxed moan, letting the pale sunrays dance across her face. She smiled to herself, glad that systematically going through her school work gave her such rare moments of relaxation.

A string of curses broke the peace, and Annabeth turned to face its source, but Piper had not bothered to look up from her work, which evidently going by her choice of words, weren't exactly easy. Deciding she had had enough sleep Annabeth slipped out of her blankets and padded off to take a shower, making sure to close the door softly to not wake the sleeping Hazel.

Twenty minutes later, the blonde had slipped on her uniform and had just finished toweling her hair, letting it air dry, when she noticed the state of her satchel. Piper, true to her words, had turned it upside down, and her texts and papers lay scattered on the table.

With a resigned sigh she started to stack them back in order, and as she grabbed a few sheets of paper, a small emerald green piece of parchment fluttered down to the floor. Curious, she bent down to pick it up. Her blood ran cold when she read the neat hand printed on it.

"Annabeth, aren't you coming down to breakfast?"

Annabeth whirled around, her heart pounding in her throat, the note clutched behind her as she stared at Hazel, who stood by the door.

"I'll be there in a minute." She managed to choke out.

When the curly haired girl left, Annabeth took a deep breath and her hungry grey eyes swam over the note again. She felt her knees weaken, as the few words engraved on it, seemingly so harmless, brought to surface the mixture of dread and anxiety that she had managed bottled up for the past one day, since that fateful encounter with the devil.

Meet me at the same spot as Wednesday night at 9 tomorrow.

And don't even think about running, Annie. I'll chase.

-PAJ

~0O0~

"Yo! Earth to Annabeth." Leo's hand waved across the startled blonde's face "Giant spiders marching in through the door."

"I'm here." Annabeth mumbled, staring down at her plate of mashed potato, as she was pulled away from her jumbled thoughts and back into the loud bustle of the dining hall at lunch. She hadn't, even with all her will power, been able to push that note away from her mind. She figured he must have slipped it in with her stuff yesterday at Spanish when he had helped her. She wished she hadn't seen that note, at least not today, so by the time she did notice it the meeting would have been pointless.

But with a wry turn of her lips, she realized that the scenario of her missing the message would have been highly unlikely, considering the fact that it had been so inconspicuously slipped into her school work, and it was the one thing which she would never leave unchecked. Her breathing turned haggard when it struck her that Jackson had been counting on it as well and it made her warily question just how long he had been surveying her.

He had known of the time she'd punched Chris in the face, though it had been so long ago that the memory was hazy in her own mind. He had seen right through her act that night, his reasoning of her unusual behavior had been so astute, she wondered idly if he was psychic, or something more…..Jackson had always been a mystery, an incomplete puzzle her mind was desperate to solve. Every action of his made her itch to find the source. He was worshiped everywhere he went, and though he seemed to bask in his unfair popularity, did no one ever notice the way his lips would turn up mockingly, clearly outlining the fact that he saw everything as a game he had to win in and the consequences of his victory held no regard to him?

There was of course no question of her going. He could wait there till midnight if he wanted to and she wouldn't bat an eye. In spite of her assured absence at the meeting with Jackson tonight, it did little to calm her worrying nature. She wasn't going to be able to have peace until all this passed away for good.

"Ok-ay. As I was saying, the chics completely crazy!" Leo banged the table for good measure, and Jason cursed when his glass of water topped over. "I mean, normally I would be all for being alone with a hot girl in an empty corridor, but fuck, there's so much a man can take!"

Leo breathed in deeply, his fists unclenching below the table. Annabeth frowned in worry and turned her direction at Piper, who quickly filled her in on what she had missed thanks to imaginary Jackson.

"Some girl assaulted Leo when he was returning from detention last night" the brunette scoffed slightly, turning her fork around in her plate. She leaned in closer to Jason, who eyes had a slight glazed look in them. Annabeth felt something prick her mind, as though there was something she was missing, a tiny memory that was refusing to surface from the deep pit of her mind, something important that she had to know.

"I think I'm going to leave now." Leo suddenly declared sharply, straightening up with a blank mask neatly set on his face. But his façade bore cracks, and the blonde could clearly see the pain that twisted his visage.

"But lunch has only started!" Piper exclaimed, untangling herself from her boyfriend "And you've barely touched your enchiladas! I thought they were your favorite…"

"I've lost my appetite." He whispered softly and his eyes flickered fleetingly towards the entrance hall where Hazel and Frank were just leaving, before he strode out of the room.

"Annabeth, where are you going, now?"

"I-I remembered something I have to do. Something important." Annabeth muttered pushing her plate away, her mind resolved as she dodged into the relatively empty corridor outside and craned her neck to find the couple that was the cause of her friend's misery.

Leo's warm brown eyes popped into her mind, desperate and shiny with unshed tears off betrayal and her pace fastened.

She was going to get some answers today.

~0O0~

Calypso Atlas glared morbidly out a window somewhere along the fifth floor of the castle, her intense brown eyes never flickering as it drank in the vast lake sprawled out in the green, its shiny blue surface personifying a mirror, the horizon indistinguishable as the sky and lake, air and water blended in together in an unusual harmony.

He was here. She had known of course, a horrible month of pulling strings and growling at unreceptive feet had assured it, but still, it had been quite a shock, when she held his familiar gaze again, his orbs tortured as he drank in her presence as though she was a ghost from his past, highly dangerous and most definitely unwelcome.

No one saw her perspective though, when she had to face that crowd last night, all probing eyes judging her to the barest twitch of her eyes, never once realizing the pounding of her heart as she gazed at the man she once thought was her lifeline, her only savior, the one who would finally save her from her curse…who in the end turned out to be exactly like the others; his words had only been smoke, swirling away and disappearing around her hapless figure as soon as he ducked out of the picture, once his sentence was completed.

Calypso turned away after a moment, and her haunting footsteps echoed in the empty hallway and after a few minutes all was peaceful.

Except her mind, as the fiercest battle consumed her senses, her heart and mind warring within her body as she was still left undecided; was she ready to let go of her past and start a new life, a life that she had always dreamed?

Or would her thirst for vengeance, fueled on by years of betrayal and anger, take its hold on her and unleash her silent fury upon the unsuspecting souls of Half-Blood High, especially upon a certain green eyed swordsman?

The night wore on and as she tossed in her bed high up in the south tower, her mind still chaotic due to her indecision, the need of a new start and hunger for revenge refusing to settle down within her, she snorted when she remembered how she had thought she had been in love with him once upon a time.

Not anymore her mind came with the answer so clearly and distinctly she smiled wryly, content that she was able to agree on something that day before she fell into an uncomfortable slumber.

~O0O~

"You won't get away with this you know?" she spat at the figure, her gaze never flinching as she stared into the dark barrel of the gun.

It laughed, a strange sound that echoed around the dark room "Oh, but I already have!"

It pulled the trigger and the shot rang across the room.

She fell to floor, her blue eyes staring at nothing.

"And you're only the beginning."

~0O0~

Review!

And guys I've put up a story on Wattpad. It's on werewolves and since I saw all the lovely response to Luna Sanguinius I thought you guys would like to check it out. It's written in a different style than how I usually write, though, so your thoughts would be brilliant to have. Here's a teaser:

The Girl From Hell: "Thanks for rejecting me! Because mate or not, I do not want to die of AIDS!" And I punch him. In the face. Hard.' She is rejected, publicly humiliated and heartbroken. So what is a girl to do but strap on her heels and make his life hell?

Here's the link: myworks/148365313-the-girl-from-hell

And I shall try to update Luna Sanguinius soon. It is ALSO a werewolf story but this time, it's Percy who is playing the dark, mysterious, hot werewolf and Annabeth is at his mercy. Or so we think because unfortunately for him she turns out to be his mate.

Here's the summary

Luna Sanguinius: "Look who's come to join us boys! The little princess of Eviola" the green eyed man sneered. Annabeth bit her lips as he leaned in closer and whispered "Welcome to the forest princess. I doubt you are going to like it" Or the one where Annabeth is a princess and has been thrown to the wolves and Percy can't wait to sink his teeth into her neck. Werewolf! Percy Mate! Annabeth Percabeth!

Have a good day!