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Rage pounds in her skull, a war drum.
After ten years of playing Capture the Flag, Annabeth finally gets stuck in jail with Percy Jackson of all people. The gods must be laughing. Or at least the other campers. She wants to go ahead and say that this is another one of Percy’s tricks but he seems as incensed as her. Still, Annabeth is weary. Anything is an opportunity to get the upper hand for him.
Percy bangs the flat side of his fist twice against the locked door. “Hey! We literally saw you guys drop us both in. You gotta let us out!”
But nobody answers.
The rules for jail are that if you’re captured, your opponent can stick you in jail. You can only be taken out of jail if you’re freed by another member of your team. Which should’ve happened considering Annabeth and Percy are on the opposite teams and they were both taken to jail at the same time. Assholes.
It’s a surprise that they even managed to get captured. They’re not the leaders of each team for no reason. But they were dueling, her dagger against his sword. Sweat and trickles of blood dripped from both of them. Annabeth felt alive; she reveled in the way Percy was wholly focused on her, the way his body moved.
They were too entranced in each other to notice that they were both bodily thrown over someone’s shoulder and carried kicking and screaming to jail. Some days she wishes maiming wasn’t banned. This is one of those days.
Annabeth lets out an irate scream and sticks her knife into the door, right where Percy was before his head moved. He chuckles. She turns around and leans her back against the rough woodgrain of the wall, watching Percy do the same on the other side. Riptide is back into a pen and he’s twirling it in his long fingers, knuckles pocked with old scars. Annabeth tries not to stare. It’s unfair that he grew up so attractive.
“I bet this is Clarisse and Silena’s idea,” Percy offers, ruffling his free hand through his hair.
The jail is no more than a wood shed stuck in the middle of the forest. Ten by twelve feet with a dimming yellow light bulb flickering in the middle, there’s nothing inside but a stack of nonperishables and water canteens jammed in the corner collecting dust. Annabeth has never been closer to Percy in her entire life. Well, fights withstanding.
She blows a noisy breath from her mouth and grits out, “Probably.”
Percy raises a brow, his fingers stopping their movement. “Oh, the mighty Annabeth Chase agreeing with me? That’s a point in my column.”
“Everything’s a game to you.” Her tone is harsh.
He keeps track of all her failings and her pride smarts every damn time. He makes her blood boil. And it doesn’t help that she’s in here with him. Antsy from being trapped like this, Annabeth starts pacing, an animal prowling the inside of their cage. When she’s close enough to see Percy, he gives her a searching look.
“And you keep playing.” With a shake of his head, he continues, “I think they’re pissed off about yesterday.”
Yesterday meaning the stunt they both pulled when they were arguing about who knows what near the bathrooms. Annabeth made Percy angry enough to burst the pipes. Again. There was always something so satisfactory seeing his expression darken and feeling the power that rolled off him in waves. As it turned out, Clarisse and Silena were in the middle of taking a shower and they’ve been mad about it since.
“You’re the one that ruined the pipes,” Annabeth says churlishly. She’s back near the door and removes her dagger, sheathing it in a fluid movement.
Percy crosses his arms. “Yeah, but you’re the one who got on my nerves enough to make that happen.”
“Problems with control, huh, Jackson?” Her lips twist up. “Not something I needed to know about your personal life.”
He snorts. “You know way too much about my personal life.”
Annabeth can’t exactly repute that. Back when they were both twelve and the same height, Chiron asked if he could bring down some of Percy’s things to ‘improve their relations,’ because they had been at each other’s throats since he came to camp. Annabeth bared her teeth but acquiesced and met the kindest woman on the planet. Sally Jackson thought she was Percy’s friend and, to this day, sends her letters sometimes to tell her about her life or her current novel idea or another story about Percy. Annabeth doesn’t have the heart to tell her that her son is one of the most annoying people she’s had the displeasure of meeting even if some of those stories make her heart warm.
“I can’t believe you never told your mom we’re not friends.”
Percy shrugs. “She looked happy when you came down with my stuff. She’s had a hard life. Didn’t want to add being friendless to the mix. She’d be so worried about me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Annabeth swallows thickly, thinking of her own dad and how his reaction would be. She can’t imagine anything besides feigned interest at the most, indifference at the least. She shakes her head, changing the subject. “How long do you think they’ll keep us trapped here?”
There’s a long pause, as though Percy’s mulling over her own response. “Until it’s over. I don’t think anyone’s coming here anyway. Pretty sure jail’s usually a revolving door.”
Annabeth kicks at the door lightly, but for all its deteriorating charm, the Hephaestus kids built it, meaning that it’s impossible to break out. “Silena probably bribed most of them to keep away and Clarisse threatened the rest.”
Moments pass by and the sounds of distant war cries and blades clanging against each other puncture the air. Annabeth’s still by the door, her hand coming up to play with her camp necklace, twisting her dad’s ring.
Her emotions today have been walking on a tightrope. Chiron called her over to the Big House earlier today to tell her that her dad called and Luke sent her something in the mail—probably another letter apologizing for abandoning her—and she is sick of it, sick of them, sick of everything. Being locked in a room with Percy just takes the cake.
“Chase—” Percy starts but Annabeth can’t take another minute of this cycle of fighting and bickering and bantering.
“Can you please just shut up,” she grounds out. A second crawls by and it’s then when Annabeth realizes that she had been waiting for Percy to say something like What’s got you all pissed? or Bet I can keep quiet longer than you. But he’s silent. The lack of response makes her nervous. Her fingers twist her fathers ring over and over and over before she turns her back to the door to look at him.
His expression is solemn, his gaze roaming over her—her eyes down to her lips to her fidgeting fingers and back up again.
Pride stops her from apologizing for bursting out like that. She’s done worse, said so much worse to him, but there’s something about him in this dimly lit shed secluded from the outside world that makes all their problems seem smaller. His face is half-shadowed, his normally bright eyes dark.
She won’t apologize but she says, trying to bring more levity back into the space between them, “You’ve been obsessed with me since you came to camp.”
The first time she met him, she saw him collapse to the ground, Grover in his grip. He was a sorry sight, sopping wet and bleeding. But even half-conscious, when she came near, he tugged a lock of her hair and called her princess. Annabeth gaped at him, but before she could rail on him, then he fully fainted. When he woke up, she shoved the pudding he was supposed to eat in his mouth and said You drool in your sleep with a sneer on her face. They’ve been at each other’s throats since. Just the thought of it makes her annoyed in that special tween-angst way.
Percy doesn’t even hesitate. “Of course I’m obsessed with you.”
Shock startles the frustration right off her.
Apparently he notices her reaction because he laughs, a sharp thing. “You think I’d keep this up for anybody? I think about you all the time, Chase. How to be a better swordsman, how to beat your time at the climbing wall, how to say just the right thing to make you so angry your face turns red and your hair starts frizzing.” He steps away from the wall and twines a stray curl of her hair around his finger and pulls, a shade of the little boy she met all those years ago. “You can’t tell me you’re not as obsessed with me as I am with you.”
Any retort catches in her throat.
His lips curl into that infuriatingly crooked smile that sends tremors down her spine. The entire foundation of her is unstable.
Obsession fuels Annabeth’s relationship with Percy from the very start. An acute sense of despair clouds her when he leaves and she actively never wanted to understand why. They’d send each other sparse emails, mostly pictures of them doing things that the other would be jealous of and maybe Annabeth stares too long at the old computer Chiron keeps at the Big House to be normal, but they’ve never really been normal about each other. She cherishes every single one of Sally’s letters but her attention hones in on the ones about Percy more often than not. And every summer he comes back, her heart restarts as if she's been half-asleep, waiting for someone to wake her up.
But she can’t let him know that.
Lying, Annabeth says, throat a little hoarse, “You’ve got such a massive ego, Jackson. I don’t think about you at all.”
He tilts his head, moves even closer. The scent of him makes her head spin: sea-salt and sandalwood. She has to look up at him to meet his gaze. Stupid boy growth spurts.
“That’s a damn shame,” Percy says, low and warm.
They’re close enough to touch. For some unmistakeable reason, Annabeth mentally maps the trajectory of her mouth to his, just so she can wipe that smugness off his face, of course.
He continues, “Because I’ve worked my ass off to get your attention, you know.”
To bring some semblance of normalcy back into her brain, she says, “You need to try a little harder than that. Don’t worry, though, I’m used to your failures.”
A self-satisfied smile stretches across his face.
“There she is,” he murmurs and rests a finger under her chin, tipping her head up.
The brief outrage that should fill her doesn’t come. Everything gets swept away in the vibrancy of his eyes. Annabeth has a funny feeling that she’s dangerously close to a rip current, all smooth and dark and unassuming, ready to whip her out into the sea, into the unknown.
His thumb is an anchor. He rasps, “Your mouth.”
Unconsciously, she licks her lips. Rationality flees her head.
Annabeth doesn’t know who moves first.
Their lips crash together, waves on the shore. Percy steals the breath right from her lungs, his large warm hands cupping her face. Hers move on their own accord, gripping his arms. She sinks into his touch. Time swells and every second is riddled with urgency. The hatred—all that arguing and tension slides into an unfamiliar territory.
Percy’s palms slide down her body until they grip her waist. Annabeth locks her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. Her pulse thunders in her ears and she hears the way they sound, panting and desperate.
His tongue brushes against her lips and Annabeth shivers, letting him in. Want tears her mind to shreds. He leaves her, gasping for air, and a whine hitches in her throat, becoming a sigh as he moves down to her neck. Percy’s teeth scrape over her pulse point and Annabeth’s arms, which have found their way to his chest, grip at his shirt.
“Annabeth,” he breathes.
The intimacy of her first name makes her knees wobble.
“Percy,” she whispers.
Annabeth urges his face to hers again, needing to capture his lips again. Her fingers dance a path towards his jaw to the nape of his neck. He groans, deep and it settles into the base of her stomach.
A large cheer razors through their awareness.
They jump apart, chests heaving, lips raw and pink.
“You kissed me.” Annabeth feels like she’s washed ashore.
He shakes his head. “You kissed me.”
But it’s as though he never spoke because she asks, touching her lips, “Why’d you do that?”
“I didn’t. I—I wouldn’t.” Percy’s eyes are dark, fathomless as they track her movements to her lips, like he’s mesmerized. It flusters her. His reply feels forced. “I hate you.”
“Ditto.” The silence is heavy. Annabeth can hear two sets of footsteps crunching to them. Clarisse and Silena. Panic crawls up her throat. “Let’s never speak of this again, Jackson.”
Percy’s lips purse. She can’t believe she knows the taste of them, the feel of them against her skin. She flushes at the memory, all fresh and tender and new.
“All right.” His voice is tense.
Her fingers tremble as she ties her hair again, thin wisps making her brush them away from her forehead angrily. The door opens and they both step back as light blinds them.
“Huh.” Clarisse huffs. “I thought you’d stab each other by now.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Percy rolls his eyes and comes up behind her.
The awareness Annabeth has of him has heightened.
Silena gives her a look but doesn’t speak.
Annabeth storms out, giving them all a middle finger, and asks, “Who won?” She doesn’t turn around, just stomps back to camp.
“Does it matter?” Percy asks.
No. “Yes,” she grounds out.
His reply is immediate, softer than it should be. “You did, Chase.”
Annabeth doesn’t know what he means. She keeps walking, but after a few minutes, she glances back at him. Percy’s face is stormy, his head tilted down to his feet. Her heart stumbles. Any closeness is gone. The shed might as well be in a different solar system.
With her face turned toward the sun, Annabeth continues her descent away from Percy. Away, away, away.