Chapter Ten

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Caleb Pierson POV:

Most of the drama has died down now, thank God. We're obviously all still very wary around Percy, and we've been keeping an eye on Annabeth, but there's been nothing out of the ordinary. At least, out of the ordinary for Annabeth. She's always been weird, a little mysterious even, and never has an explanation for it. She disappears constantly without a good reason, but I've learned to live with it.

I look up from my lunch, shooting Annabeth a smile. She has a bored look on her face, which makes sense, given that Jordan has been talking about the dance coming up. I could feel the slight blush growing on my face. Annabeth looked so pretty out here, with the wind lightly blowing her curls around.

Every year I've been too scared to ask her to the dance, but after going head to head with Percy, I'm not too scared of asking a girl out. How hard could it be?

Well, I guess I'm about to find out. Here comes Boy #3. Annabeth has already been asked to the dance twice, and this guy was definitely going to be next. They all think that just because they have one or two classes with Annabeth, they should be able to ask her out. It's ridiculous. By that logic, Annabeth and I should've been dating for a while by now.

"Sorry, Eric, I'm just not really interested." Annabeth sighed, giving the guy a sympathetic smile. By the look on his face, he wasn't going to take a no that easily.

"Come on Beth, you never know, you might have fun." He said, smiling at her and resting his hand on our table. I glanced over at the rest of the group, watching as they all tried to hide smiles or ignore the situation altogether. Emma watched Eric for a bit before turning her head slightly to look at Percy. His jaw was clenched, and his gaze flitted over to Annabeth, a mix of jealously and concern written on his face.

Geez, he and Annabeth are just friends and yet another guy can't even talk to her without him getting riled up. No wonder he attacked me, I'm too much of a threat to him. I slide a bit away on my seat, not wanting to be too close when Percy inevitably lashed out.

"Beth, you know we're going to have fun if you just say yes," Eric reiterated, sitting down next to Annabeth and placing his hand on her knee.  If this goes any further, I'm going to have to say something.  Who does this guy think he is?

Percy beat me to it, scaring the hell out of all of us as he shot up from his chair and balled up his fists, looking down at Eric, eyes blazing. But just as quickly as he jumped to arms, he relaxed, watching in confusion at the pained look on Eric face.

Annabeth leaned slightly closer to Eric's face, pressing harder against his middle finger, bending it back and staring him down. "Don't ever touch me again." She spat, disdain in his voice. Eric nodded quickly, pulling his hand away as soon as Annabeth let go, standing up and grabbing his bag, speed walking away from our table.

"You alright?" Percy asked Annabeth, grabbing her hand gently.

Annabeth chuckled, rolling her eyes playfully. "Please, I've dealt with worse." She got quiet after that, sharing a knowing look with Percy for a second. I glanced down at his hand on top of hers, gritting my teeth. Let go, dude.  Let go of her hand.

"That bitch is crazy." We heard Eric say from a few tables away, complaining to his friends and gesturing to us. Percy growled, standing up from the table and bending down, picking up a hefty stick off of the ground. He bent his arm back, throwing the stick with perfect precision, knocking it against Eric's head. I would've been impressed if anyone else had done it, but Percy was just showing off.

"You want to go, Jackson?" Eric spat, slamming his hands on the table and shooting daggers at Percy, who looked equally angry.

Percy opened his mouth to retort, put Annabeth grabbed the sleeve of his hoodie, pulling him back down to his seat. "Yeah, right, like you need to get in anymore fights."

Percy groaned in frustration, leaning back in his chair and putting his arm around the back of Annabeth's. "You know I could take him if you want me to." He whispered back, earning another eye roll from Annabeth.

"I'm sure you could Percy, but you don't need to stoop to the level of some senior jock."

Percy shrugged, continuing to joke around with Annabeth. Are you joking? He practically just admitted that he gets in a lot of fights, which is good evidence that he attacked me! He knows I'm his biggest competition, and he wants to take me out!

I turned back around to the rest of the lunch table, giving them a look. They return my stare, making it obvious that they know exactly what I'm thinking.

"What the hell was that all about?" I asked in a hushed tone.

Emma opened her mouth to respond before hesitating. "I don't know, Percy was just protecting Annabeth. Maybe he's not the villain we all think he is?" She said in a small voice. Are you kidding me?

"That's not being protective, it's being possessive! Huge red flag, Em! And why are you on his side all of a sudden anyway, I thought we agreed that he was bad news." I snapped.

"Yeah Em," Jordan started, "is there something you know that you want to share with the group?"

Emma scrunched her eyebrows together, stammering for a bit. "N-no, I don't know anything! And I'm not picking sides! I just...want us all to know both sides of the story before we jump to conclusions, that's all."

"Emma," Andrew muttered, glancing over at Percy and Annabeth, who were lost in their own conversation, "we do know both sides of the story. Annabeth has mysterious bruises that we've never seen until Percy showed up, and Caleb got jumped right after an argument with him. I'm pretty sure that's sufficient enough evidence."

"Well maybe we just never noticed the bruises before, maybe they're from something else..." Emma said quietly, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

What was her problem? I literally ended up in the hospital, and now she's defending the guy that put me in there in the first place? She has to know something, there's no way she doesn't, otherwise she wouldn't even be arguing with us.

Whatever, that's a problem for another time. For now, I just need to focus on asking Annabeth to the dance. Everything will work out in my favor from that point on, I'm sure of it.

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4/24/20

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