Indigo Eyes

Chapter 91

(A/N: I actually really love this chapter and I hope you guys do too. XxD)

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Percy knew he was in trouble when he entered the sword arena. Annabeth was sitting next to Mrs O'Leary who was chewing on the head of a warrior dummy while Cressida was standing in the centre of the arena.

It was almost as if she was punishing herself. She didn't fight with any of her weapons, instead, she had this enormous axe in her hands that looked way too heavy for anyone to lift. She'd hacked a dummy that was so battered it was now being held up with grapevines as she heaved, her arms lifting up the axe as she brought it down again, slicing through vines, wood and straw.

This time though, she let the axe fall to the ground as her shoulders rose and fell.

"You are either really brave, or really stupid to come here," she huffed as she turned to face him, her body covered in sweat. "And based on past decisions, my bet is on stupidity."

"Annabeth, can we have a minute, please?" he asked, and she raised her brows before standing.

"It's your funeral - oh, wait. We already attended that," Annabeth said sarcastically before walking out and he assumed that Cressida now knew everything that had been said at the meeting. How he'd been marooned on an island, how Hephaestus had found him and sent him back on a magical raft. How Percy had figured out what Hera meant; he did know how to navigate the maze - rather he knew the person who could navigate the maze. The mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

That pissed her off for sure, especially on Annabeth's behalf. Her best friend had been dreaming about leading a quest and she got to do it through a piece of architecture that she'd admired for years. And now, they were supposed to let a mortal lead them through to the centre. Not just any mortal but the one that Percy lied to her about.

But what pissed her off even more, what made her see red, was the fact that it took maybe three seconds for the two girls to figure out where Percy had been marooned for two weeks.

A little fact he'd failed to mention, and the gods only knew why.

"What do you want?" she said curtly after Annabeth left and she turned back to the dummy, whaling on it with her bare fists.

"To talk," Percy said. "Maybe hug my friend who I haven't seen in two weeks?"

"You don't get to do that!" she spat as she whirled around. "You don't get to just come back and act like nothing's wrong!"

"Then tell me," he said, his voice still calm. "I can't fix what's wrong if you don't tell me."

"Ok," she huffed, nodding her head but he could hear the sarcasm in it. "Ok, you want me to tell you what's wrong, let me tell you what's wrong. How about we start with the fact that I had to watch that mountain explode knowing you were inside? That my first friend, the first person who decided to treat me as a human and not some loon who couldn't control her powers, was dead after he forced me to leave him behind," she began as she took a step forward, one finger raised. "And then let's move onto the fact that I had to be the one to tell your mother what happened to you," she said, and his heart sank as he saw the tears welling in her eyes. "I had to be the person to tell Sally that her son was dead and part of me died doing that; when I saw the look in her eyes."

Another finger, another step.

"And how about we end, with the last little fact?" she asked, a coldly malicious expression on her face as she slowly raised a third finger. "The fact that you, Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon, had the audacity to kiss me and then you did something stupid that got you killed."