Annabeth's Mortal Friends

Chapter Thirty-Three

Caleb Pierson's POV:

This entire school week has felt like a fever dream. Everything's normal with my regular friends; none of them have any clue what happened at Annabeth's house. Percy and Annabeth have been acting extremely weird around me for the past few days, which is understandable. I DID just figure out they're not entirely human.

I still can't get over how weird of a concept that is. I mean, being half-god? You hear about it in old stories and myths, but the thought of it actually being real is too mind blowing to even comprehend. I've had a rough time figuring this all out.

I'd chosen a different seat in Greek class today. Normally I'd sit really close to the pair, but I wasn't feeling too eager to do that now. Given the looks that they've given me today, it's safe to assume they don't want to be around me either.

That didn't stop me from trying to figure out what they were saying. They always spoke is hushed Greek to each other in this class, which usually made them hard to hear, but our teacher was giving us quiet time to work in this class period, so there wasn't much noise to drown out their voices.

They were talking about leaving. I heard the word "camp" followed by a term I'd never heard used in class, so I assumed it was half-blood - the name of the camp. An entire camp... how many of these half-blood people were there?

I closed my eyes, resting my chin into the palm of my hand. I'm only making myself feel worse by paying this much attention to them. I sighed quietly, nodding off a bit.

I felt a pencil poke me in the back, jolting me out of my sleep. I turned around and faced the girl behind me, who was leaning over her desk. She pointed her pencil at my desk with a raised eyebrow. "Can you pass them back?"

I frowned, looking down at my desk. There was a small stack of papers sitting there. I shot the girl a quick apology, passing back all but one of the packets of forms. I glanced through them, discovering that they were for our class trip this year. New York...isn't that where Percy is from?

I glance over at Percy and Annabeth again, watching them whisper excitedly. Something about it made me nervous for the trip...

Wait, isn't their camp in New York?

I could feel the gears clicking into place in my head. Holy shit.

This is perfect.

I can follow them to their camp! I can finally see everything that they've been hiding from me!

It's not too late for Annabeth. She's smart, and I know I can convince her to leave that insane place. I just need to know what I'm dealing with. She'll come around. I know she will.

The bell rang, and the teacher clapped to recollect everyone from their excited side conversations. "Don't forget to return those permission slips!"

Everyone responded with a quick "thank you!" before clambering out the door.

I threw my stuff into my backpack, pondering over my plan to get to this camp. Would I have to follow them as they snuck off? Or, now that I know their secret, would they want me to come?

...Probably not.

A shoulder knocked into mine and I stepped a foot forward to catch myself, my book smacking to the ground. I turned around and saw Percy and Annabeth standing behind me.

Percy bent down, picked up the book, and held it in my direction.

"Sorry man, it was an accident," he said, gesturing at me to take the book. I snatched it out of his hand, although that was probably a little harsher than I meant it to be.

I couldn't really come up with a good answer, so Percy just gave me a weird look, grabbed Annabeth's hand, and continued toward the door.

Of course he just HAD to hold Annabeth's hand right in front of me. He knows exactly what he's doing... He probably ran into me on purpose too.

Walk it off, Caleb. We've got the trip to New York coming up. That's all I need to figure this out once and for all.

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i don't necessarily have a plan for my next story after this one, so i think i'm going to write some miraculous ladybug one-shots to hold me over. tiktok is refueling my old obsession with the show lol. if you watch miraculous, leave some suggestions for one-shots, headcanons, etc that you want me to write about! if you don't watch the show, uh....

go watch it :) it's really good

2/8/21