Thalia and Annabeth started out as almost enemies, let alone friends.
Thalia was a sharp girl with a spiky attitude, and spiky hair to match. When Luke stole clothes, she requested men's sizes, and preferably black items. She had a spray of freckles splattered across her nose, which was frequently wrinkled in disgust. Her eyes were a bright, electric blue, often narrowed as she considered her next move. She was still harnessing her inherited powers but gave Luke enough accidental static shocks for him to be constantly on his guard.
And she hated Annabeth.
Luke couldn't understand how she hated the little blonde girl, but Thalia couldn't understand how he in turn could tolerate her.
Annabeth was insufferable.
They'd found her behind some bins in a dirty alleyway, clutching a stick like it was her lifeline. Pathetic, honestly (Thalia ignored the fact that she had been no better; when she had been 7, she'd been cosied up at home, weapons reserved strictly for TV).
Annabeth had honey blonde hair and huge grey eyes that were practically begging to be punched. What? She'd suit black better than grey, and black as in a black eye.
She screamed when Luke tried to separate her from her Hello Kitty pyjamas, wailing loud enough to wake the dead. Seriously, who does that? The clothes were stained with blood, sweat, tears, dirt and juicy monster remains. Any rational person would want to strip, wash, and then burn the clothes. Luke tried to explain that it was extremely unsanitary, and didn't she want something warmer?
Annabeth, shivering so hard that her teeth clanked in her skull, shook her head vehemently.
Thalia had shared an eye roll with Luke, pulling her jumper sleeves further over her hands as they ploughed on through the rain. Annabeth could freeze for all she cared.
(The little girl was finally persuaded to change out of her pyjamas only when they found a special Harry Potter jumper. What a snob.)
She refused to eat Dairy Milks and Fudges. Instead, she made Luke steal the poshest, most expensive protein bars she could get her grubby hands on.
Oh, and that was another thing; she was by far the cleanest out of the three, so her hands weren't actually ever grubby. Nearly every time they passed a restaurant or café, Annabeth would dart inside and scrub her hands until they were red raw. She'd then prance outside, announcing that a clean body fuels a clean mind. Where she'd heard that corny slogan, Thalia never wanted to know.
She really, really disliked Annabeth, and didn't think that would ever change.
It was another typical wet and windy day when Thalia felt the beginnings of a cold. It started with an achy head, a stuffy nose and a scratchy throat, but quickly escalated to her bending over a grate in the road and throwing up, the insides of her stomach twisting in agony.
Luke guided them into a library. It was dry and warm in there, and Thalia couldn't help but stop and stare at all the kids splayed out at the desks, tapping away on laptops, so unaware of how lucky they were. Luke pulled her away from the entrance, where she was still stood stock-still, shivering, because she was getting some funny looks from the stringy librarian positioned behind the desk. He plopped Annabeth down on a beanbag, and arranged Thalia on a chair, before sitting next to her.
"What d'you need?" he whispered to her anxiously. Being sick on the run is never a good thing, because being sick involves necessary supplies and lots of rest and recuperation, and they had the time for neither.
Thalia sniffed, momentarily closing her eyes as her head swum. "I don't know," she croaked eventually, her brain not sitting still long enough for her to think rationally about what would help her get better.
Luke tried to hide the expression of helplessness that washed across his face as he leaned forward in his chair, dropping his elbows onto his knees, desperately trying to come up with a plan.
The last time one of them had been this ill had been before they'd found Annabeth, when they'd managed to slip into a motel room. The previous people had seemingly dropped the key card on the threadbare carpet, and all they'd had to do was pick it up and find the appropriate room. Luke could vomit in peace there, and it had been Thalia who'd had to steal food and the stuff he required.
As if on cue, Annabeth piped up, "when can we get dinner?" Could her timing be worse?
"Shut up," Thalia moaned, her whole world spinning now as she miserably fought the urge to throw up again.
"Sorry?" Annabeth had stood up and was looming over the older girl, hands on her hips. Luke had scraped her blonde hair up into a ponytail that morning, but it had fallen out since then, and the tendrils of escaped hair kept blowing into Annabeth's face. Impatiently, she blew them out of the way before staring at Thalia, curiosity scrawled all over her face.
The daughter of Zeus didn't try to mask her dislike of the blonde girl, and occasionally felt a stirring in her gut when Annabeth peered up at her with those huge, dumb eyes, before it was drowned by the desire to just punch her.
But this was one of those rare times where she did feel a semblance of guilt as she tried to summon the energy to sneer, and Annabeth's lips quirked down.
"Go away," Thalia muttered.
"Thals," Luke mumbled, still cradling his head as his mind whirred.
"What?" Thalia retorted, voice complaining as she tried to push it past the volume she should in her current state.
Luke didn't reply, just kept thinking.
"I'm hungry," Annabeth bleated, like a lost baby sheep.
"Deal with it," Thalia spat, her voice cracking with the strain.
Luke didn't say anything this time.
"But I'm hungry," Annabeth complained, and two simultaneous bolts of emotion shot through the dark-haired girl. One was anger, because Annabeth needed to stop complaining. But the second was familiarity.
She remembered her own little brother, Jason, grumbling about the same thing, his own hunger, in the same high-pitched tone, when one evening their mother had passed out on the sofa, punch-drunk. She had left Thalia to look after Jason, even though her son was only a toddler, and her daughter was barely 10. Thalia had just about managed not to burn the house down as she made toast, but Jason had sobbed his heart out all the while.
(She'd run away not even a week later.)
She shook thoughts of her brother out of her mind, focusing on the blonde-haired girl in front of her now.
"I really don't care," she snapped. "Just go away."
The girl whose bottom lip was now quivering.
"Why are you always so mean?" she shot back, startling Thalia with her blunt honesty.
"I'm not mean," Thalia forced her own lips to move into a smirk, narrowing her eyes. "You're just a stupid little kid."
Annabeth gritted her teeth, the edges of her eyes sparkling with tears, which she fiercely scrubbed at, but Thalia was past the point of remorse. "You're not that much older than me!"
"I'm much smarter than you, though," Thalia arched an eyebrow, lying through her teeth. As much as she hated to admit it, Annabeth was incredibly clever, much more so than herself.
"You're not," she frowned.
"I am," Thalia sang unkindly, before sharply inhaling as bile suddenly rose up her throat.
"You're not!" Annabeth repeated. "Shut up!"
Thalia opened her own mouth to retaliate.
But instead she threw up all over the carpet.
Annabeth cried out in alarm, leaping out of the way. Luke finally looked up from the floor, eyes wide, then groaned loudly.
"Thalia!" he shouted. "You-"
He didn't get to finish because the librarian was storming towards them, her face matching the thunder rumbling outside (The thunder matching Thalia's tumultuous emotions, because she seemed to be able to do that now, influence the weather with her feelings).
"I need you to leave," the librarian growled, her thin eyebrows pulled down into a disapproving line. Several teenagers gaped at them, agog. Phones were whipped out and cameras flashed.
Luke was already on it, grasping one of each girl's arms and dragging them out of the building, dumping them outside. He yelled that he'd be one moment, before diving back into the library.
There was silence for a few moments, save for the pouring rain and grumbling thunder. Occasional strikes of lightning lit up the sky, illuminating their dirt-streaked faces.
"Do you hate me?" Annabeth said unexpectedly. voice quiet and melancholy.
Thalia groaned, resting against the wet wall, scrubbing at the vomit that was seeping through her ratty T-shirt. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," she sighed huffily. It felt like something was attempting to burst out of her head, like the birthing of Athena's children (so, like the birth of Annabeth, whose parentage they'd discovered a few weeks back).
"Are you sure?" Annabeth repeated, her voice so unlike her usual tone.
"I already said I'm sure," Thalia snapped, bored with replaying her answers.
"Then why are you so mean?" Annabeth asked, echoing her earlier question.
This was what made Thalia snap, a jarring flash of temper shooting down her spine, making her forget the sick splashed across her T-shirt. "And what happens if I do hate you, huh?" she bellowed over the roaring rain. "What are you gonna do about it? Cry?"
Annabeth took a step backwards, scrubbing at her huge eyes, so as not to let the tears fall.
"Shut up!" she cried out, and Thalia was reminded of how she'd been when they'd found her behind those bins, small and grubby, pretending to be tough when she so clearly wasn't.
"Don't be a baby," she yelled back, sneering.
"Shut up!" Annabeth screamed, face red, fists clenched.
"Go away!" Thalia countered, her own face colouring with anger. "We don't want you here anyway; you're useless, stupid and so, so boring!"
Annabeth stumbled backwards again, shooting one last look of pure despair at Thalia before turning around and sprinting down the street.
Thalia slid down the wall, all the energy seeping out of her, too tired to even call after Annabeth's retreating back. She spluttered out a cough, thumping her chest.
Luke found her a minute or so later, huddled on the floor.
There was no sign of Annabeth.
"Get up," he said, tone harsh and cold.
Thalia looked up at him, and he took a step back in shock. Her face was soddened, with both tears and rain, running tracks through her dirty cheeks. Luke had never seen Thalia cry, not once.
"Where's Annabeth?" he asked, swallowing.
Thalia sniffed, then shrugged. "I dunno."
"W-what does that mean?" Luke said, both panicked and annoyed.
"She ran away," Thalia said through another sniffle.
Luke let out a hard laugh. "We all ran away, Thals. That's why we're here." He gestured to the rain-soaked street, and their torn clothing.
Thalia stood up straighter, pushing her shoulders back. "That's not what I mean. She ran away from me, just before you came outside."
Luke's mouth opened and closed uselessly. "What?" he eventually managed to choke out.
The dark-haired girl shrugged again.
Muttering under his breath, Luke grabbed the rucksacks, shoved one at Thalia and then stalked away, expecting her to follow.
She did, dragging her feet, head still spinning.
They searched for what felt like days but must have only been a couple of hours. They checked in shops, in dingy alleyways, even in the bars they came across, although they got kicked out pretty quickly.
But Annabeth was nowhere to be seen.
And though Thalia didn't exactly love the girl, this wasn't what she wanted.
They jumped over a set of gates leading into a park and collapsed behind a tree. It was still raining, icy bullets pelting their skin.
Luke's stomach growled as he closed his eyes.
"So, what happened?" he said after a few moments, eyes still shut.
Thalia hesitated. She knew she was to blame, but she didn't want to have to tell Luke. "Not sure," she lied. "She just took off. Maybe she was bored of hanging out with us."
Luke shook his head slightly. "Nah. She liked us. Or me, at least."
There was a silence.
Thalia sniffed.
"I hope she's okay," Luke said quietly.
The rain beat down as Thalia's eyes fluttered shut.
It was a few weeks since Annabeth had gone missing. Luke and Thalia had stumbled from one town to another, unable to settle.
One grey morning, the rain that had been so relentless lifted, and they ventured out to a newsagent. Thalia examined the newspapers sitting outside the shop while Luke darted inside to try and find something to eat.
Thalia screamed.
Luke raced back outside, dropping the packets of crisps he had been trying to stuff into his pockets. His companion was stood poker-straight, staring at the paper in her hand.
"What is it?" he asked breathlessly.
Wordlessly, Thalia handed him the paper.
The main story was something about the government. There was other stuff on the storm that had been making its way across the country. And there, on the bottom left of the page was a tiny box, headed with the words, "7-year-old girl found dead in a dumpster".
There was a short piece about how the body had been discovered early one morning, when a shop-owner was opening up their store. A funeral was to be held, for close family members and any members of the public who wanted to join to mourn.
"That's sad, Thals, but-" Luke started, but Thalia cut him off by jabbing a jagged fingernail at the photo, sat beside the article.
Luke stared at it uncomprehendingly. The girl had blonde hair tied in two ponytails on the sides of her head, and she was dressed in immaculate school uniform, so she was clearly young. Her cheeks were pink, but her mouth was pulled into a firm line, as if smiling was beneath her. The most striking thing about her was her eyes; even in the black and white print they seemed to glow with a certain power, staring out at Luke with flames dancing in the pupils.
His heart seemed to stop as he realised who it was.
"A-annabeth," he choked out.
His heart started again, but it was out of sync, beating raggedly and pathetically.
Thalia was staring straight ahead, her electric-blue eyes strangely dull.
"No, no, no," Luke's words tumbled out of his mouth in a long string, a stream that he couldn't stop from gushing. "No, no, no. This can't be right. It's fake. It's-"
"It was me," Thalia whispered, interrupting him. Her eyes were fixed on a point in the middle distance, now as cloudy as the sky above them. "I killed her."
Luke's head whipped around as he gaped at her.
"You killed her?" he exclaimed, voice hoarse. "What, you pushed her in the dumpster? Or you shot her? Or you-"
Thalia cut his ramblings off by turning to him with pain splashed across her face.
"Not like that," she said miserably. "I told her to go away. I told her-" she took a deep breath. "I told her that she was useless, and we didn't want her around."
"You lied to me?" Luke said incredulously, clutching the paper tighter in his hand.
Thalia bobbed her head, eyes sparkling.
Luke couldn't even summon any anger to answer to that confession; he was too racked with grief.
"Oh," was all that came out of his mouth.
They stood in silence for minutes.
Memories of Annabeth crashed through Thalia's mind, and good ones, too.
When she'd eaten an avocado for the first time, one stolen from a market stall, and spat it out all over Luke's jeans.
When she'd pleaded with Thalia to try some of her makeup on, and, in a rare moment of kindness, Thalia had given in. Annabeth had smeared so much eyeliner around her eyes she'd resembled a baby panda.
When she'd slept with Thalia in the same sleeping bag, after she had complained that she was cold. She'd wriggled for about ten minutes before settling down, and Thalia had gotten to sleep faster because of the warmth her lithe body provided.
It was funny; Thalia didn't seem to hate her as much now.
Her shoulders shuddered as she took a heaving breath. "I'm sorry."
Luke wanted to spit that sorry wasn't good enough, that sorry wasn't going to fix anything, that sorry wasn't going to bring Annabeth back.
But he couldn't force anything out of him. No words could paint the despair he now felt, the aching feeling in his chest, his irregular heartbeat.
"Whatever," he mumbled. "Come on, we need to get out of the rain."
Numbly, he shuffled forwards and Thalia followed in the same manner, as if she was in a trance.
The newspaper fell out of Luke's hand, still open on the page with the article about Annabeth. It fell into a puddle, and the water soaked through the photo of her. She couldn't have been much older than 5 there, but she still looked so stern, so much like her mother.
The puddle water drowned the paper, acting as tears sliding down Annabeth's cheeks.
Luke and Thalia walked away and didn't look back.