Run | TMR X PJO [ Editing ]

Fourteen | Group B

Chapter fourteen, in which Annabeth decides to embark on a suicide mission with Kathy and Aris—what fun!

To Kathy, the trip the three would make might as well have been a top secret army mission—after a second thought, it did rather seem like a top secret army mission. Strict was a mild way to put it. She would yell at them, go through the things they packed, and pretty much slow them down as much as possible even though she claimed it would speed them up eventually. 

Annabeth made sure her shoes were as nice as possible—not that puke orange could look pretty anyways. Why did Aris—who was breaking in his new shoes—get the pretty gray pair that was sleek and shiny? Gray was Annabeth's favorite color, and she was more than disappointed that she ended up with the ugliest shoes in the history of earth, or the universe, for that matter.

They had memorized the layout and knew what to expect. They were ready. But before anything, they had to Banish the one that started this all. Yvette was locked up in the Slammer for a day before Harriet decided it was time. They brought her out half an hour before the Doors closed shut for the night.

"Harriet! Sonya! Y-you can't do this to me," she sobbed, her hair plastered to her face due to the tears streaming down her face. The girl whipped around wildly, looking for someone, anyone to back her up. No one wanted to look at her and appeared rather interested in their own feet. 

Harriet payed little to no attention to her pleas for help and cries of despair. "We do what we have to around here."

The small girl turned to Sonya. "We were friends! Come on Sonya, good old times—"

But Sonya turned her head away and refused to even glance at her former friend. At this point, she was good as dead in her eyes, and no amount of sobbing could reverse that. The blonde's eyes were hollow. No tears leaked out nor did they threaten to spill, because if one dared to look into them, there would be nothing but an eerie nothingness that implicated a loss of caring. 

She collapsed on the ground with a loud thud, shaking furiously—the collar around her neck could've been a beacon for all the attention it received. Annabeth stood huddled with the other Gladers, her thin build hidden in the mass crowd if girls. She didn't want to see this, and neither did anyone else.

The Doors rumbled, the wind picking up quickly. Harriet stood tall and unmoving. "Keepers!"

The Keepers, including Kathy, stepped forward solemnly simultaneously. "We're here because somebody tried to kill the Greenie Annabeth. Let's get this over with," the leader continued in a monotone that suggested boredom to the very limits. 

The girl, oh she always was the crybaby scrambled back away from the advancing Keepers, though even she knew that it was futile. Tears, sweat, dirt, everything in between made a mess of her face and body, her dry lips trembling. There was nothing that could be done, and at the same time, there was something that could be done about it. At this point, Annabeth found herself unable to look away and found herself staring at Yvette in this sort of horrified fascination. She stared back in a rabid manner, fear radiating off of her as if she was Fear itself. 

The Keepers had these long poles that they used to nudge her in slowly but surely. There was no room for her to run except for the Maze—she'd be crushed by the sheer mass of the Walls otherwise. 

She backed into the Maze with a final series of whimpers, disappearing from view just as the Doors rumbled shut—it looked like they had never moved at all by the way they stood so stoically. Murmurs began to break out amongst them, Annabeth herself finally realizing that it was finally over.