Annabeth
I eyed the clock on my wall. I had about five minutes before I absolutely had to leave my house, or it would no longer count as fashionably late. I wasn't dressed, my hair wasn't done, and I couldn't find my left shoe. This was just the icing on the cake of a not-so-great day.
The sliding closet doors resisted me as I tried to pry them open at lightning speed. I scanned my options quickly and landed on my go-to black dress. This wasn't a public outing, so outfit repeating was fine. I pinned my hair up as I shimmied into my dress. The dress was my favorite for multiple reasons. Black was classy and timeless, but it was tight and the fabric hit at all the right places. Blond curls fell out of my quick updo, but that was a look, wasn't it?
I gave up on the hunt for my left shoe and resigned myself to a pair that was not my favorite. They were tall and uncomfortable, and I always felt a little off balance when I wore them. They looked good with this dress, though.
I almost made it out the door before realizing I was forgetting something.
"Ugh!" I shouted as I ripped my purse open and rummaged around inside. Where was my phone?
My shoes clicked against the hardwood floors as I ran back inside and proceeded to tear apart my home. Once it was thoroughly wrecked, I realized I must have left it at the office.
Fashionably late no longer applied to this situation, I was now full blown, carelessly late. I forced myself to take three deep breaths before returning to the street to hail a cab. Kennedy was going to be annoyed, but I had no way to remedy this situation without my phone.
In the cab, the anxiety of missing my phone for an entire evening started to set in. Hopefully nothing disastrous had happened. Hopefully no projects had fallen through. Hopefully the sky wasn't falling.
Hopefully my sky wasn't falling.
The irony of this situation was not lost on me. I didn't even have a cell phone for over half of my life, and now it was ruining my evening. That hadn't been by choice, of course. Demigods couldn't use cell phones. But once I stopped being a demigod it stopped being a problem.
The taxi sped through the streets of the city, which I was grateful for. Once we reached my office, I asked the driver to wait. Hopefully, it would only be a minute or two, and they could keep the meter running.
I tapped my foot impatiently as the elevator crawled upward. Being late was one of my least favorite things. I never took meetings if the other party was more than a few minutes late with no notice, and I was breaking my own rule now being so late to Kennedy's party. Being late in the wrong circumstances could end your career. Kennedy had worked so hard on this party too, and I didn't want to disappoint her just because I'd forgotten to turn my brain on today.
When the elevator finally opened, I ran down the hallway and stopped outside my office door. I paused in the doorway, searching for my phone and an easy fix to my problem. The phone was sitting right on my desk. I lunged for it and turned around quickly.
My shoes betrayed me. Too much momentum threw me off balance, which normally wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't been wearing impractical heels. My ankle rolled, I yelped in pain and lost my balance, crashing my opposite knee into a nearby side table. The contents of the table went crashing to the ground.
"Styx!" I yelled as I caught myself on the windowsill.
My hand came to my mouth in shock as I regained my balance. I never cursed in Greek anymore, I didn't even know where that had come from. It was part of the whole "no longer being a demigod" thing. I glanced at the phone still in my hand, and I was half tempted to toss it across the room. I listened to the background noise for a beat, hoping I didn't hear any monsters approaching.
Don't think about it, I told myself after a moment of silence.
I bent down to examine my rapidly swelling ankle. Maybe sprained, but I could put some weight on it. The contents of the table had been equally as unlucky. Several photos had fallen to the ground, one glass frame cracking. It was a photo of me and Grayson on one of our first dates. I loved this photo, which is why I kept it in my office rather than any more recent one. We were both younger then; I was 26 at the time and he was 28. I felt like I'd lived a whole lifetime in the six years since this photo was taken.
The photo of me and Kennedy fared better, so I set it back on the table. If the frame had cracked, it almost would have been funny to show up to her engagement party with it as a gift. Hi, I'm sorry I'm super late to one of the biggest nights of your life, here's a broken photo of us, best friend!
This reminded me that I needed to hurry, so I hastily picked the broken frame from the floor. Kennedy had been my best friend for almost ten years. No one had cared about me the way she did in a long, long time. She was there for me during one of the darkest autumns of my life, and she'd been there for all the good moments, too.
I would have to deal with the broken photo of me and Grayson later, so I opened the small drawer on the table to place it inside. My heart nearly stopped when I saw the contents of the drawer.
A necklace with eleven small beads, and a piece of pink coral. A photo of me, about sixteen, with my arms wrapped around two boys around the same age. One had horns and goatee, and the other had jet black, messy hair and green eyes.
When was the last time I opened this drawer? I definitely had put these items in here, but how long ago? I tried to remember, probably at least seven or eight years ago. Yes, that was right. I didn't want to keep any reminders of my past life in my house, but I couldn't bear to part with these two items, so I hid them away in this office drawer. My eyes lingered on Percy's face for a moment too long and I was overcome with sadness.
The phone buzzed, pulling me out of my trance.
Kennedy: Where are you? Everything okay? Grayson is here without you and hasn't been able to reach you.
I shot back a quick reply: Yes— lost phone, sprained ankle, long story. Be there in twenty.
I arrived outside the venue in exactly twenty minutes. It took the entire cab ride to sort through my missed calls and texts. There were a few from Kennedy earlier in the day, a few from Grayson, and a few work items. I was sorting through the last few items as I exited the cab. There were two calls from the same unknown number, which I would normally consider just spam but they came through exactly ten minutes apart.
I dialed *69, and it returned the number which I promptly typed into the search bar.
Delphi Strawberry Service
Rather than skipping a few beats, my heart completely stopped. I looked around. It seemed like no one was moving, no one was breathing. Was that just me?
There was a fountain to my right outside the building. I threw my phone into it and limped inside.
I was well over an hour late, so the party was already in full swing. I was thoroughly rattled, and I searched for Grayson in a haze. I needed to go on autopilot for a second to figure out how to make sense of what had just happened. He could parade us around while I thought. He was used to doing that when I had a big project I was working on, or something important happening at work.
Kennedy found me first.
"Is your ankle okay?" she asked urgently. She glanced down at the colorful bruises on my ankle and knee. "Oh Annabeth, that looks bad. Did you fall?"
"Yes," I stuttered, still trying to piece together the last hour. I noticed a photographer circling, and this helped me remember who I was and why I was here.
"It's a long story, but I'm fine." My cheerful mask slipped back into place. If there was one thing I was good at, it was appearances. "Tonight is about you, though. Let me see your hand!"
Kennedy blushed and held out her left hand, adorned with a massive diamond engagement ring. I'd seen it before, of course, but I took her hand and let out a squeal, grinning widely. The familiar shutter of the camera rang out in the background.
"Have you found Grayson?" she asked. "I saw him earlier with Elliot and some of their golf buddies." Grayson and Elliot, Kennedy's fiancé, played golf together regularly. I actually met Grayson through Elliot, at the birthday party Kennedy threw for him a few years back.
"I haven't, but I should probably go find him. He sent me a text earlier that he had something important to tell me."
"Oh, exciting and mysterious. Just another day in the life of Annabeth Chase." She instructed me to go get a drink as she walked off to mingle with her other guests.
I took her advice and made my way over to the bar. After sitting down and ordering a glass of wine, I looked around the room. People were standing, laughing, and talking, most likely about things I didn't care about but had to pretend to. I'd been in this world for long enough; I knew how to put on an act. My mind flashed back to the picture of me with Percy and Grover. Annabeth at 16 was very different from Annabeth at 32. I had evolved from a girl with a rotating collection of orange t-shirts and battle armor to a rotating collection of dresses and mascara. I still couldn't walk in heels, though.
Someone sat down next to me. "You look amazing," the voice murmured and kissed my cheek.
I smiled at Grayson and gave him another kiss. "Hi, sorry I'm late. How has the party been so far?"
"Good. Elliot seems happy, and so does Kennedy. Although, if this is how they throw an engagement party, I'm a little nervous to see their wedding." We both laughed. Grayson loved a party, and so did I on occasion. But he was right, Kennedy and Elliot certainly went all out. I thought I remembered Kennedy mentioning there were 300 people on the RSVP list for tonight.
"Hey, can you do me a favor?" I asked him. "Can you have your assistant order me a new phone? And set up a new number?"
"Yes, but why?" He asked with concern.
"I think mine is gone." I left out the part about throwing it in the fountain outside.
He didn't press me on it, which was a quality I appreciated and hated about him. He let me be independent to a fault. He believed me if I told him I was fine, which could be incredibly annoying during a fight.
We chatted about small stuff for a few minutes before he redirected the conversation.
"You remember Brian, right?" He asked.
I thought back. "One of your managers?"
"You got it," he confirmed. "Well, he handed in his letter of resignation today. He'll be leaving next month, and guess who he's recommending to take his position?"
I beamed. "That's amazing! I'm so proud of you." After a moment, though, my stomach started to sink. Grayson already worked so much. It worked for us, because we were both extremely career driven, but working in finance in New York City was one of the most demanding jobs you could have. I respected him for it, though. When he was younger, his family house was destroyed and he had to watch his parents rebuild from scratch. He was one of the most driven people I'd ever met because of that.
My smile started to die at the corners. He asked me what was wrong, and I gave him a half-baked answer about not spending as much time together. I think it came off as more disappointed, but really I was slightly angry. I was getting older and I wanted him to prioritize me more. Kennedy often made comments about us being the next to get engaged. At first I thought she knew something I didn't, and I was excited, but then I realized she was just saying that. I had to ask her to stop eventually.
I let the conversation die. This wasn't the time or place to be having this discussion, especially after the night I'd had already.
We drifted away from the bar, and I took Grayson's arm as we wandered around the room. He talked finance and I talked architecture to the range of guests.
Grayson taking a new job continued to widen the pit in my stomach throughout the night. I tried to think of things I had coming up that I was excited about. There was wedding planning with Kennedy, a few new projects at work… oh, and I had a new designer handbag arriving in just a few days!
I sighed. Was receiving a new handbag what my life had been reduced to? I needed some air. I excused myself to go to the restroom.
The restroom was down a hallway from the main event space. It took some searching, but I eventually found it. I spent some extra time touching up my hair and makeup, trying to regulate my nervous system with these monotonous tasks. I glanced down at my ankle. It hurt, and these shoes weren't helping.
I headed back out into the hallway, and heard someone walking in from the opposite direction of the party. I didn't pay much attention to it, and I kept walking. My ankle was definitely sprained; I was having more trouble putting weight on it. Great, I would need to take time I didn't have to see a doctor soon.
I picked up on the footsteps again, they were getting closer and more rapid. I didn't want to turn around. I didn't have the capacity to deal with anything else tonight.
"Annabeth," the person said from behind me. The voice was familiar. Was it Grayson, or someone else I knew? I hadn't been in the bathroom for that long.
I turned around, nonchalantly at first, and was hit with the biggest shock I'd experienced in ten years.
He was close enough to touch now. His green eyes glowed. I had to be hallucinating. I had actually hit my head when I fell earlier, and was passed out in my office. That was the only logical explanation.
Except it was no trick of the mind. Percy Jackson was standing right in front of me.
"P-Percy?" I stammered in disbelief.
"Annabeth," he gasped as he caught his breath. "I need your help."
A/N: Updates will either be weekly or biweekly depending on how fast I can crank this thing out! Taking it week by week right now. TY!
