We Olympians (A Percy Jackson AU) || BOOK 1

Chapter 21 || Thalia

Thalia stood next to Annabeth while she fidgeted with the blue cookie charm on her bracelet. She'd worn that everyday since she was in fifth grade and since she didn't take it off yet, Thalia knew Annabeth wasn't exactly 'over' with Percy. She wasn't either. No one was. Well, Thalia didn't know about Nico, but something told her Nico wanted more than both of them did with Percy.

"Annabeth, you haven't been talking as much since what happened with Percy... Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm good."

"Don't lie, Annie."

"Don't call me Annie." Annabeth glared at her. "And I'm not going to let Percy affect me. If he's gonna be a douche, let him be one. I don't care about a--oh my god, what happened?"

Thalia's head swiveled to face the school doors, where the group of students were walking in. Percy seemed like he was trying to hide a limp, but Thalia could notice that he never bent his left knee. There seemed to be a splint on his nose, too. Jason had his hood up, but for some reason, Thalia thought she could see a little place that was higher up than the rest of his head. Hazel wasn't moving her left arm, just walking with it held firmly at her side. Piper had a cut across her cheek.

They all seemed to be talking quietly, whispering to each other about stuff Thalia itched to know about. So she tried to peer in to listen. She could hear Percy's voice, but stuff was cut out of the whispers.

"...stupid...hide...water facility...dad...hurts...stay away...dangerous..."

"What?" Thalia whispered and they all turned to look at her.

She was expecting an annoyed look on Percy's face, or even an angry face, but instead, it flashed with fear before turning into an expressionless face. He whispered something to them that Thalia couldn't catch before the group all went somewhere else, away from her.

"What did you hear?" Annabeth asked.

"It didn't make any sense. I heard the words stupid, hide, water facility, dad, hurts, stay away, dangerous. And that makes no sense."

"Are you sure that was Percy talking?"

"One hundred percent." Thalia confirmed.

"Then something's wrong. Because Percy's dad is dead," Annabeth said, frowning.

"I know... Again, did he hit his head against something?"

"Okay, let's go over this stuff. I'm not gonna let all this weird stuff hang around. No. So they drive around with no license plates, Percy just talked about his dad, who's dead, they came in today with injuries they're not describing to us, and when they saw you they walked away."

"Don't forget the marshmallow quail thing," Thalia added.

"Either I'm just really picky, or this doesn't seem right at all." Annabeth bit her lip. "Because I remember very clearly that in fourth grade when it was parent day, Percy said he didn't like to talk about his dad at all, and preferred he never knew about him."

"And if he didn't have a license plate... shouldn't he be arrested or something?" Thalia asked. "That's what happened to my... mom." She winced at that word.

"It seems like they're hiding something," Annabeth said. "When they see us they always leave and talk somewhere else. It's starting to get a little weird."

"No shit, Sherlock."

Nico walked in, his gaze lingering on Percy's face before looking away sharply and walking over to them.

"Hey," he said. "I heard your name being mentioned in that group, Thalia."

Thalia's eyes widened. "What?!"

"Yeah, I didn't hear very well, but I heard 'Thalia' a couple times in their muttering."

"Okay, that Kelp Head is dead if he's talking about me behind my back--"

"It wasn't Percy who said it," Nico stopped her. "It was Piper, Jason, and Leo. Percy didn't even look at them when they mentioned you."

"Did they mention me?" Annabeth asked curiously. "If they did, I wanna know who to beat up."

"Well, I think they did, but it could've been either Percy or Frank. They were both talking at the same time. Or it could've been my imagination."

The moment class ended, Thalia marched over to Percy.

"Percy," she said.

He turned around and leaned against the lockers, wincing slightly.

"What's up, Grace?" It was a strained version of his voice.

"Don't call me Grace," Thalia growled. "You know I hate it."

"Which is why I did it." Percy responded.

Thalia wanted to punch the little thing so badly, but she stared into his eyes instead. The moment she hit sea-green, she wanted to cry.

"What happened?" she finally demanded.

"Personal, much?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

"If you're gonna walk into school with a splint across your nose--" She leaned down and rolled up one of Percy's pant legs. "--and a large splint around your leg, you think it's gonna be private? No! So shut the f**k up and tell me what happened!"

Percy didn't say anything and Thalia growled.

"Say something!"

"You told me to 'shut the f**k up'," he mimicked her voice.

"Oh shut--stop it!" Thalia groaned. "Can you just tell me what happened?"

He answered almost too easily... but Thalia could've been just nit picky.

"Eh, I went to the fighting club. Knocked three guys out, got this in payback."

At this, Thalia choked on her water.

"You went to a fighting club?! Percy, that's dangerous!"

"Dangerous is what I am," Percy responded coolly.

As he turned to walk away, Thalia grabbed his arm.

"No!" she exclaimed. "I'm not letting you go to that fighting club! You're gonna get yourself killed! Do you know the number of deaths that occur in the Manhattan Fighting Club?"

"Seven per year. Why?"

Thalia felt her blood boil. "Why? WHY? Because I don't care if you broke it off with us or if we broke it off with you! I still care about you and I always will! So if you're gonna be stupid enough to go to a fighting club and risk your life like that... of course I'll be mad! You're stupid!"

"Playing stupid's how I roll. I thought you out of all people would know that."

"Percy stop," Thalia pleaded.

"I'll stop talking--"

"No, stop this." Thalia motioned to him before her gaze hardened as her frustration took over. "You know what? I don't care if you go to a fighting club or if you wanna go wrestle a car. But I don't like what you've turned into. Before I thought you were nice. A great person to be around. Someone I loved. And now... you're a pile of shit. Just when I thought love actually existed... you let me down, Percy. You let me down big time."

With that, she ran away. But when she looked back, Percy was staring after her with pain in his eyes. And Thalia didn't know where it came from.