It All Started With The New Students... And The Murder

Chapter 5 : Catching Up - Thalia

Reyna's POV

Reyna awoke suddenly to the noise of something crashing to the ground. She shot up, pulling out the gun that was hidden under her pillow.

A moment later, she relaxed, seeing that it was just Percy, who'd fallen out of bed. Somehow, he'd managed to stay asleep, but Reyna had to wake him up.

Not only did he need to prepare for his swim team tryouts, which were happening that day, but also because, even though he was sleeping, Reyna could see that he wasn't relaxed. His muscles were tensed up and his face was contorted slightly.

"Hey, wake up Perce." she said softly, putting the gun back under her pillow and shaking his shoulders lightly.

Percy shot up into a seated position with a shout, shaking violently for a moment, before Reyna met his eyes and he visibly relaxed.

"Nightmare?" she asked him. He nodded in reply, gulping.

Neither one said anything else. Reyna knew she didn't need to, and she didn't want to either. She just leaned down slightly and hugged him tightly, touching their foreheads against each other.

"C'mon Percy. You have tryouts today." she whispered, getting up and offering him a hand, which he gladly took, pulling himself up.

"Did I wake you?" Percy asked, looking at her pillow, gesturing to the muzzle of her gun, which was pointing out from underneath her pillow.

"Yeah, you did." Reyna replied, knowing there was no point in lying. "It's 6:30 Percy, I would've woken up by myself anyways." she assured him.

"Are you coming to watch?" he asked quietly. Reyna knew he meant his tryouts, but she wondered why he even had to ask her if she was coming.

Before Reyna could slap some sense into him and tell him the she wouldn't miss it for the world, her phone rang.

Who the fuck calls me at 6:30? Reyna thought. No one she knew was usually awake at this time apart from Percy every once in a while.

"It's Thalia." Percy told her, giving her the phone, being closer to it.

Reyna picked up and put it on speaker, as the two always did when they were alone together. They'd learnt from an early age that there was no point or advantage in keeping secrets from each other.

"Hey Reyna!" Reyna heard Thalia's voice through the phone. Reyna wasn't quite sure why, but Thalia seemed to sound a bit nervous.

"Hi Thalia, what's up?" Reyna asked.

"So... I've been thinking," Thalia began.

"That's always good." Reyna chuckled. "Didn't you get stuck in a tree the last time you tried thinking outside of school?"

Percy was visibly trying not to burst out laughing, putting a hand over his mouth and turning away from her.

"I- nevermind. I wanted to ask if you had time to talk today? Like around 1p.m.? I wanted to catch up with you." Thalia asked.

Reyna froze. She wasn't exactly sure what Thalia meant by that, but she did want to catch up as well. There was just one problem.

"I'd love to, but Percy has his tryouts for swimming today, and I'm not missing that." Reyna said.

She looked up from the phone and saw that Percy was smiling. Not his usual lopsided grin or idiotic smirk, but a smile of genuine happiness.

"Oh... you two are really close, huh?" Thalia said, her voice sounding a lot sadder than it had before.