Thalia let out a quiet moan as Luke pinned her into the wall of the alley.

"Luke, my dad..." She whispered, closing her eyes.

Luke ran his tongue along her collarbone, and she bit back another pleasured noise. Then she jumped.

"Gods, Luke, did you hear that?"

He backed off of her.

"Stay here."

He inched closer to the trash can where the noise had come from. Thalia zipped her jacket back up over Billie Joe Armstrong's face and followed him despite what she had been told.
He looked at her and simply raised his pointer finger to his lips. She nodded, watching as he silently counted on his fingers, 'one, two, three'.

He threw the lid off and was knocked backwards. Thalia blinked, seeing a child.
A girl, with tangled blond hair and flannel pajamas. She felt her fear melt away as she pulled the girl off of him, but the blond struggled, dropping her defense hammer in the process.

"No! Let me go!"

Luke kneeled in front of her while Thalia held her tightly.

"Hey, we're not going to hurt you, calm down."

She still kicked the air slightly, but she was tiring.

"The monsters... they're still coming."

Thalia looked at her.

"Hey, we know about the monsters."

The little girl stopped fighting altogether, her grey eyes growing wide. "Y-you do?"

Luke nodded and smiled at Thalia, then her.

"Yeah, we fight them too."

She stared at him in admiration, then spoke again.

"I ran away... you can't take me back."

Thalia smiled. "We ran away too, we won't take you back."

Luke took the little girl's hand. "What's your name?"

She smiled shyly at him.

"Annabeth."

"Annabeth? Well I'm Luke, and this is Thalia. We're half-bloods, as you might have guessed."

Annabeth nodded. "I'm a half-blood too."

Luke held out a bronze knife to her, and Thalia started to say something, but Luke beat her to speech.

"Here, you'll need this when we run into monsters."

She hugged him tightly, and he smiled, picking her up.

"Come on, we'll find you some better clothes."

Thalia followed him back to where he had kissed her, then opened her backpack, trying to find something to fit Annabeth.

She pulled out a pair of jeans, though they were hers, and hoped they were small enough. She continued to root around, and dug a military jacket and her American Idiot shirt.

"Here, if the pants don't fit, maybe I can hem them."

Annabeth stepped into the jeans and buttoned them.

"You're skinny." She said flatly, seeing as the jeans fit her near perfectly.

Thalia smiled weakly. "Thanks, I guess."

Annabeth exchanged her flannel shirt for Thalia's tee shirt and jacket.

Thalia held Annabeth in her lap and began to brush out her hair gently. Annabeth never flinched, even when Thalia's brush nearly broke on a tangle. Thalia pulled a ponytail holder off her wrist, figuring she wouldn't need it after Luke had cut her hair a week before.

She molded Annabeth's hair into a braid that hung over her shoulder, and smiled.

"There."

Annabeth grinned and looked at her reflection in Thalia's broken mirror.

"Thank you."

Thalia nodded. "Sure."

Luke looked at the sky. "I think it's pretty late, maybe we should get to sleep."

He pulled their blanket out of his backpack and Thalia curled up next to him. Annabeth blinked, and Thalia quirked her mouth up in a small smile.

"Well come on."

Annabeth crawled onto the blanket and positioned herself just under Thalia's arm, burying her face in the leather of the older girl's jacket.
Thalia charged the monster that was snarling at her, its claws buried in the soil.
She ran straight at it. She screamed as she did so, not a scared scream, but an 'I'm going to kill you' scream.

Luke slashed at it, and Annabeth hurled herself into its side, sinking her blade into it. It let out a low growl and tossed Annabeth away, slamming her into the ground.

She whimpered and Thalia ran to her side, scooping her up as Annabeth clung tightly to her knife, which was now coated with yellow sulfurous dust.

Thalia dropped her into a patch of grass.

"Please stay here." She whispered, and ran back at the hellhound Luke was now taking alone.

She yelled, and the bronze Medusa of her shield gleamed, making the dog back up.

It batted at her and she winced, crying out for Luke as she fought to keep holding it off.

Luke stabbed it finally, and it disintegrated. Thalia coughed at the sulfur and blood mixture filling her nose, and Annabeth appeared above her.

When she woke, she slowly sat up, studying the gash in her leg. Luke touched her arm."Thalia? Are you okay?"

She nodded. "I'm... fine."

He bit down on his lip. "Come on, we need to find a safe house."

She noticed his eyes were clouded with conflict, but he finally nodded. "I know one."

She sighed. "Is it close?"

He nodded. "Yes."

Annabeth wandered over, rubbing her eyes. "Thalia... are you-"

Thalia smiled. "I'm fine."

She looked down at her leg again and chewed on the inside of her lip, hoping to the gods they wouldn't run into any more monsters.

Luke grabbed her hand and pulled her up. She bit her lip to hold back a pained noise.

"What are you doing?"

"We have to go now," He began to gather their things. "Your leg won't get any better if we don't get to a safe house and fix it."

She sighed nervously and nodded. "Okay."

Luke wrapped an arm around her waist and slung their backpacks on his shoulder, beginning to walk.

Annabeth gripped Thalia's waist as well, and they started to their safe house.

Thalia tried not to slow them down, she really tried.

"Hey..." She had whispered to Luke when they had stopped to rest. "Maybe... you guys should go on without me... I can find you later."

Luke held Thalia's face close to his.

"I am never going to leave you."

She closed her eyes and let his lips sink into hers. When Luke had fallen asleep, she glanced at Annabeth, and though her grey eyes quickly flitted closed and heavy breathing begun, Thalia knew she had been watching them.

She squeezed her eyes shut as well, and moved closer to Luke, who had started to snore softly.

Notes

This one's a tiny bit longer. I can't seem to fill them up enough! UGH. But. Please comment. O:-)