Something stirred in the darkness, another monster was tracking us.
Being powerful was great, but the constant pursuit from monsters and evil forces that the power brought sucked.
I heard another noise; the monster was closing on us.
I tried to shake Percy awake but it was no use; it was like he’d been knocked out. I couldn’t see his face because he was facing in the opposite direction, but I was sure that he must have been drooling.
“Come on, Percy.” I urged him, furiously whispering.
I looked in the direction of the noise and I saw a drakon, barely a few meters away from us.
I felt exhausted, but if I didn’t run away with Percy now, we were both going to die. The problem was that he wouldn’t wake up.
“Percy, please. PEEEEERCY!”
I managed to steer him towards my direction and what I saw made me die inside.
Percy’s sea-green eyes were opened, unfocusedly looking around. He was dead.
“NOOOO! PLEASE, WAKE UP! PERCY, WAKE UP!”
I took him into my arms and rocked him. I couldn’t stop the tears. I just wanted to die, die by his side.
The drakon attacked.

~

I woke up screaming, my back full of sweat.

“Annie, you’re okay. It was only a nightmare.” said Malcolm, my brother.
“Yeah, that’s right.”

I stood up and grabbed my towel. “I’ll go take a bath now. The water will surely help me clear my mind.”

I stepped outside the cabin, and before walking to the showers I decided to pay Percy a visit.
As I entered the Poseidon cabin, I was really surprised at finding it empty.

Odd. It was really early and Percy loved to sleep. I didn’t know why he would have woken up so early in a day like today; a normal day.

Maybe he had some nightmares about Tartarus, just like me. I hope to find him soon, because every time I dream about something bad happening to him I feel the urge of making sure he is okay.

I exited the cabin, and as I was walking toward the showers I caught a glimpse of Nico, carrying multiple cardboard boxes.

“Hey, Nico” I jogged toward him.

When I screamed his name, I startled him, causing him to drop the cardboard boxes.
“Oh, sorry! Let me help you pick those up.”

“No” He replied, way too fast. Something was going on. “I mean, I can do it by myself.” He forced a laugh.

“O-Okay…” Everyone was acting weird today. “Anyways, have you seen Percy?”

“No, and I would really love to stay and chat with you, but you know… I’ve got some things to do. These boxes contain decorations for that awful Hades cabin. Being head counselor sucks. Bye!” and he was gone.

He was lying. How did I know? Well, you know… Being the daughter of Athena had its perks… I was born with a lie detector included…

No, but really… I could tell he was lying because he claimed that he was going to take the boxes towards his cabin, yet he walked towards the opposite direction.

I decided not to bear in the matter and finally went to take my bath.

After bathing with some soothing bath salts that Piper gave to me as a gift, I felt way more relaxed.

As I exited the showers, I saw a pitch-black braided hair that I would have recognized anywhere. What was Reyna doing here? She left just a few days ago.

Something smelled fishy around here.

I hid behind some bushes and carefully watched her. She seemed strangely nervous. Each time she was going to take a step, she glanced sideways, as if making sure that no one was following her.

I decided to surprise her. I jumped at her, knocking her to the floor.

I put my drakon knife against her neck.

She was about to shred me to pieces, but then she found out it was me. She seemed annoyed.

“What on Hades do you think you’re doing, Chase?”

“I ask you the same question. Everyone is acting weird today. Percy got up early. Nico lied to me. You show at Camp after having left for New Rome a couple of days ago. Something’s up and you’re going to tell me what it is.”

She rolled her eyes. “May I at least stand up so that we can talk like civilized women?”
I pondered her request.

“Alright. Don’t try anything at all unless you want me to skin you, hun.”

She stood up and swatted away some dirt from her clothes.

“Gosh, Annabeth… That’s surely a nice way to greet one your best friends.”

I grinned. “You know I love you, Reyna. Now tell me what you’re doing here.”

“Well… I…” I crossed my arms. Her voice was full of doubt; she was trying to make something up.

“I…” she mumbled

“She’s here because I asked her to help me.” A deep voice said from behind me. Jason.

“Jason Grace you better be telling the truth or else you’ll be the one that’ll get skinned.” I threatened.

“I needed her help to design the shrine for Bellona”

I raised an eyebrow. “Since when is Reyna an expert in decorations?” I stabbed.

“Since today. Bye, Annabeth. See you later.”

I was about to protest when he grabbed Reyna by the waist and flied away.

UGH! Why did all my friends decide to ignore me at once?

I decided to go back to my cabin and read a book, but as I made my way to my house I got sidetracked again.

Percy was snakingly heading towards the same direction that Nico, Jason and Reyna had gone.

I started to follow him. I was incredibly bothered by the fact that my best friends and my boyfriend were hiding something from me.

I had been following Percy for like three minutes, when he finally turned around.
He moved his head sideways in disapproval. “You’ve been a sneaky bad girl, Annie.” He said and then took out some kind of controller from his swimming shorts. He pressed one of the buttons and a trap set off. A Celestial bronze net descended from out of nowhere and trapped me, knocking me against the hard floor.

“Sorry for that, Wise Girl” and he disappeared.

“OH I AM GOING TO FRY YOUR SEA WEED ASS, JACKSON! I PROMISE!” I yelled.

“You’re not going to do anything.” said Piper.

“WHAT? Piper, you too? I never thought you would side with them! I trusted you!”

“Oh, don’t be such a Drama Queen, Chase. Our plan is almost done and you must not spoil it!”

“What are you talking about? Please free me! This is humiliating!”

She sat down, cross-legged and stared at me. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you go. Captain’s order.”

“What captain?”

“The plan’s captain, of course.”

I let out a sound of exasperation. I was utterly annoyed at her and the rest of the others.
I closed my eyes, trying to calm down.

“Look, Piper. I couldn’t sleep last night. I can’t stop having nightmares about Tartarus. I am not the same Annabeth as before; look at all these scars. In my dream, Percy died. All I wanted to do was make sure he was okay. I wanted to have a normal day.” My voice was shaky, I felt exposed and fragile being trapped in a stupid net in broad daylight.

She patted my head. “It’s okay Annabeth. Help me in.”

“What?”

“Help me into the net with you; I want to know how humiliating it is”

The net was really heavy, but working together we were able to lift it so she could come inside.

“I see what you’re saying. Very oppressive.” she said.

“What’s the point of coming inside my prison?”

“I wanted to comfort you. What you told me a few minutes before is exactly the reason why we’re making the plan.”

“What do you mean?”

“We know you’re having a hard time. Percy is too, but he is stronger than we all figured out. You were even more affected by going to Tartarus because of all the trauma you suffered during your quest to get the Athena Parthenos. You deserve a break.” She touched her forehead to mine, reminding me of the time when we were at the temple together. “We love you, Annabeth. You’re stronger than you think, you’ll get better.” I didn’t know if she was using charmspeak or not, but I believed her. She gently caressed one of my numerous scars.“These are your battle scars; they serve as testimony of your strengths.”

I hugged her, and she hugged me back. She was so good with emotions, I immediately felt better after spending a few minutes with her.

Our moment was interrupted when a horrible whistle pierced its way through the morning’s silence. Will, for sure.

“That’s our signal. Everything’s ready. Come on, help me lift this so we can get going.” I obliged.

“After being trapped I appreciate my liberty much more.” I told her, standing upright.

“So… You trust me, right?” she asked.

“Of course I trust you, McLean!”

She produced a blindfold from one of her pockets. “Great.”

“What? No! There’s no way you’re going to blindfold me!”

“Annabeth!” she reprimanded me. We had a staring contest. She won. She gestured me to turn around, and I did. She blindfolded me.

We started walking towards an unknown destination.

After I tripped for the fourth time, I yelled at her. “GODS, PIPER! Can you please be more careful? I almost fell back there.”

“Stop whining, Annabeth. We are here.”

I could tell that I was standing inside one of the camp’s buildings, yet I didn’t know where exactly.

“I’m going to take off your blindfold on three. One, two… THREE!” she yelled.

“SURPRISEEEEEEEEEEEE!” yelled my favorite people in the world.

I was so surprised I almost fell backwards, but Piper caught me.

The room was filled with the people I loved most.

Percy was there, holding a huge birthday cake. Chiron was throwing confetti around. Everyone was here! Piper, Jason, Reyna, Hazel, Nico, Will, Rachel, Tyson, Ella, Clarisse, Coach Hedge, Chuck, Grover, Travis, Connor and my brothers and sisters from the Athena cabin. They were all wearing some weird personalized birthday party hats: Jason’s had lighting bolts, Hazel’s had jewels, Nico’s had skulls, you get the idea.

Percy noticed that I marveling about the hats so he stepped forward, giving one of them to me. It had owls… Or at least I thought they were owls… They were pretty poorly drawn.

“Yeah, I know I suck at drawing owls. Just don’t say a thing.” He teased, while he put the hat on top of my head.

I hugged him, making sure of doing it so hard his ribs might’ve broken. “I love you so much! I can’t believe you guys did all this for me!”

“You deserve it, they all helped… But you figured that out… I hear that you had an encounter with both Nico and Reyna. You attacked Reyna.”

“Sorry Reyna!” I yelled. They all laughed.

Suddenly I remembered that it wasn’t my birthday… “But guys… it is not…”

“… your birthday.” they complete, in unison.

“We know, but since you spent your actual birthday on Tartarus we decided to throw you a small party.” said Reyna, beaming.

“And I helped them!” called Chiron in. I hugged him, he was like a father to me.

“Thanks, Chiron.”

“Let’s get this party started!” yelled the Stoll brothers and so we did.

The party was fantastic! There were loads of food and the cake tasted delicious. Will was working as the dj, and we were all having a great time dancing and goofing around. There was even a seal dressed up as a clown who was performing an awesome show at a small plastic pool that somebody had set up. Hazel didn’t seem to like the idea of the clown seal so much… She seemed upset…

We were even singing karaoke, well… All except Percy, who was tone deaf and consequently painful to listen to.

Piper and Jason were now singing some romantic song and we were hauling with approval.
Then suddenly, a pang of guilt crushed my spirits. Not everyone was here! I forgot about Frank!

I ran towards Jason and Piper and yanked Jason’s mic off his hand.

“STOOOOOOOOP!” I yelled. My scream was almost as dreadful as Will’s whistling noise. “WHERE ON HADES IS FRANK ZHANG? WHY ISN’T HE IN MY BIRTHDAY PARTY?” I demanded.

Jason and Percy cracked; they were laughing hysterically. Hazel glanced daggers at them.

“Why don’t you guys tell her where my boyfriend is?” demanded Hazel.

All eyes were on them.

Percy cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Annabeth. Frank has been here the entire time!”

He and Jason high-fived each other and then it hit me. Frank was the seal. I stared at the seal with horror.

“Frank?”

As if on cue, he transformed into his true self just before the eyes of all of us. The crowd gasped in unison.

“Happy birthday, Annie!” he said miserably.

“JACKSON, WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH AN AWFUL THING TO FRANK?” I yelled at my sea weed brained boyfriend.

“Hey, take it easy Annabeth. He was only transformed into a clown seal because he lost a bet to Percy and me.” Jason explained.

“A bet? What bet?” demanded Piper, using her mic.

“Well… We bet that Nico and Will were going to be boyfriends soon… He bet against us.”
Another gasp.

Nico was bright red, and so was Will.

“So… Are you and Will dating?” I asked Nico.

He stared at Jason, throwing daggers at him. He looked towards Will and Will nodded to him, almost imperceptibly.

“Yes, we are.”

There was silence. Piper was the first to react.

“OH MY GODS, HOW CUTE! From now on, we’ll call you guys Solangelo! Come on, everybody! Solangelo, Solangelo! Solangelo!”

As the crowd started to chant “Solangelo” and Nico’s face got impossibly brighter, Percy grabbed me by the arm and directed me outside.

Once outside I punched his arm.

“A seal dressed as a clown?” I asked, with disdain. “You can be a real jerk at times.” I told him.

He grinned. “Jerk an all, you still love me.” He replied cockily.

I was about to protest when his salt-water flavored lips crashed against my soft ones. He kissed me passionately, and I returned the passion. There was so much going on that we hadn’t had the time to kiss like that for some time now. The kiss ended when we were both gasping for air.

He kissed my forehead. “I could always do another of my infamous bubbles, and sink us to the lake’s bottom so no one can interrupt us.”

I jumped at him, wrapping my legs around his waist. “Sounds great.” I replied against his lips.

And so he carried me towards the lake and then we sank and sank, until we were finally in one of our happy places.

Notes

The day is still not over in my country so HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNABETH!

I LOVE THE WISE GIRL WITH PASSION. SHE IS QUEEN

More awesome coming up soon!

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Lots of Love, Percabeeeth xx