After Luke walks away and vanishes into the shadows, Annabeth is left alone, holding the weight of the world on her back.
When she was five, a teacher asked her to help him carry a pile of chairs into the classroom because there were kids from the class next to them coming over. She’d propped up the plastic blue things against her back, using one hand to support them and the other to keep them from falling. “You’re strong,” he’d said. “I need someone strong.”
And boy was she strong, stronger than everyone else in that preschool class. But this hadn’t stopped her from straining underneath the weight of the chairs. The legs dug into her bones and hands, but when she finally set them down on the ground after trudging through the hall from one classroom to another, she’d felt like the strongest person in the entire world. The chairs were the heaviest things she’d ever carried, even heavier than Zeus’ lightning bolt two years ago or a bag of hay for the pegasi back at Camp Half-Blood last summer, and she’d prided herself in being able to do all of that as a kid.
The problem is, she’s stilla kid, even if the world hasn’t treated her as one. And the sky is no pile of plastic blue chairs, no pity prize made for a child to carry.
Her palms face upwards, misty and cold from the clouds above. Her entire body is shaking, making her feel like a leaf tumbling in the wind. She wheezes and pants like she never has before, ignoring the black spots that dance in her eyes and her screaming body. She’s so impossibly small, nothing but a girl holding out between heaven and earth. And ‘nothing but a girl’ is never enough—it never has been. But it’s only now that she’s realizing it. It’s only now that she’s realizing that she’s nobody’s weak and helpless little girl who just isn’t strong enough.
She’s never been strong enough. And she never will.
Yet the sky still miraculously lifts against her ebbing strength, somehow. It rolls against her back and shoulders, pushing her closer and closer towards the ground. Her knees, once proudly stretched, fold into themselves. Her back crumbles, too, leaving her face inches away from the stone she kneels on. Every breath she takes is absolute, incandescent pain, but this doesn’t stop the cries from leaving her throat and echoing around the empty room.
Luke did this. Luke, with his short blond hair and his baby blue eyes that she still trusted.
The Fates had predestined that she’d perish to the hand of her pride, but maybe they had been wrong. Maybe a bigger sin than hubris was her lack of affection, her profound need to be loved and her weakness to trust.That’s what had brought her to leap in the way to protect Luke, after all. That’s what had left her trapped under the Titan’s Curse.
Luke knew her. He knew her weaknesses, her fears, her dreams. And he knew enough about her to be able to trick her into holding the sky. And she’d fallen for it, like the stupid idiot she was.
She’s supposed to be smart, but the fact is, she’s not. It’s all been a big, wonderful ruse, because at the end of the day, it’s the only thing she’s ever truly had.
The good news are, she won’t have to worry about it anymore, because she isn’t getting out of San Francisco. The thought relaxes her, and she doesn’t even stop to think about how worrying this is. She can’t think, not when her body and her heart are burning, not when her bones are shattering into a million pieces, not when—
“... Annabeth? ANNABETH!”
The scream snaps her out of her thoughts. She told herself that she wouldn’t trust anymore, that she couldn’t let herself get carried away by naive hoping, and yet, she still makes the attempt to look up. Thankfully for her, it’s fruitless. Her neck refuses to move. It hangs limp from her shoulders, and all she’s able to muster is a broken groan.
Who are you? What do you want? GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU—
She feels cold fingers against her chin, tilting her head upwards. She’s scared of what she’s going to find, but as much as she wants to, she can’t fight it. Her eyelids flutter, and a second later, she finds herself staring into her father’s deep brown eyes.
The shock washes over her like a tidal wave. The pain courses through her body, stopping the words dead in her throat. But she reaches into the deepest parts of her chest to be able to say something, to react, to use the last bits of strength she has left.
“D—... dad?”
In a flash, she finds herself wrapped in a hug…. or, well, as much as that can be called a hug. Frederick’s arms wrap around her shoulders and neck, and he holds her so impossibly tightly she begins to think he’s part of the sky too. Then, he pulls away, and his lips strengthen into a scowl of fiery determination.
“Give it to me.”
Annabeth blinks once, twice, thrice, and it takes her injured mind some time to understand what he’s telling her. But the moment realization crosses her eyes, she backs up, tightens her hold on the clouds above. She swallows, hard, and after a few moments, a single word leaves her mouth.
“No.”
“I’M NOT ASKING! GIVE IT TO ME!”
“NO!”
Her scream echoes against the walls, oh so differently from the pained cries and sobs from before. It might alert the monsters lurking in the fortress to the fact that something’s off, she thinks, but she can’t bring herself to care. She signed her death contract the moment the sky fell on her palms, but she won’t let her father do the same, despite all of the pain he’s caused her.
“GET OUT OF HERE!” She lunges forward, attempting to somehow make him leave, but the sky holds her firmly in place. It digs into her like the world’s biggest spike, makes her scream in pain. She becomes smaller, if that’s even possible, and tears begin filling her eyes yet again.
Her father stands up. The weight on her back forces her to keep her head down, and the only sight she has of him are his dusty brown boots.
“I’m not leaving. If you won’t let me take it, then I’m going to protect you.”
“NO, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” Her chest is heaving. She can feel her life force leaving her, but she can put up one last fight. “You don’t understand… they’ll kill you, they—”
“I don’t care.” Frederick’s voice is impossibly serene. And all Annabeth can do is sob even harder.
“I DO! I—”
“Ah, how touching.”
A gruff voice snaps her right out of her thoughts, makes her freeze. She tries to look at the stranger, but she can’t. Her body is in its final stretch now, and she can feel the cold darkness of unconsciousness biting at her edges.
Snake trunks join her father’s feet just a few meters in front of her. The dracaenae surround him, pointing their jagged spears at his body. Annabeth wants to scream, to fight, to do anything.
“How is our mortal guest?” the same voice says.
Someone else kneels next to her. Luke’s hand briefly combs her hair back, then looks at the man. “She’s fading,” he says. “We must hurry.”
“You heard the boy,” snaps the man. “Decide!”
“How dare you torture a maiden like this!” A third voice, one belonging to a girl. Annabeth thinks it sounds familiar, and then…
No. It can’t be.
“She will die soon,” Luke says. “You can save her.”
Suddenly, she understands what’s going on. Even her suffering has been nothing but a pawn in Luke’s game. And she can’t let it happen. She gathers her bearings, tries to protest, but she’s only able to weakly groan. She’s never felt so pitiful.
“Free my hands,” the goddess Artemis says.
Annabeth hears the swish of a sword, and a second later, Celestial Bronze cuffs cut in half drop at her feet. Artemis kneels next to her and holds her hands out in the same position as her. The moment the clouds leave her shoulders, she collapses on the ground.
Annabeth has never felt better, but at the same time, she’s never felt worse. Everything in her hurts. She’s shaking and bleeding and bruised. Her eyes flutter, and eventually, they close against her will. The only thing keeping her alive is her stubbornness, the way she holds onto that small thread of life in her hands… and for what?
She can’t figure that part out.
“You are as predictable as you were able to beat, Artemis.” The same shadowed voice moves closer to her—or at least, that’s what she thinks.
“You surprised me,” the goddess hisses with a strained voice. “It will not happen again.”
“Indeed it will not. Now you are out of the way for good! I knew you could not resist helping a young maiden. That is, after all, your specialty, my dear.”
“You know nothing of mercy, you swine.”
“On that we can agree. Luke, you may kill the girl now.”
Annabeth doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. She knew this was coming. Two other voices interfere, however.
“NO!” Artemis, and… and her father.
“She—she may be useful yet, sir. Further bait?” Her heart drops when she hears Luke’s voice, yet again throwing her to the wolves.
“Bah! You truly believe that?”
“Yes, General. They will come for her. I’m sure.”
“NO!” This time, she’s the one whose voice pierces the air. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who ‘they’ are. For a second, the image of Percy’s sea green eyes floods her mind. A ragged sob rattles her ribcage, but the stupid General and stupid Luke couldn’t care less.
“Then the dracaenae can guard her here. Assuming she does not die from her injuries, you may keep her alive until winter solstice. After that, if our sacrifice goes as planned, her life will be meaningless. The lives of all mortals will be meaningless.”
She feels hands wrapping around her body, lifting her up. Luke’s hands. She writhes around, uselessly trying to wrang herself out of his grasp. He doesn’t bat an eye, however; he simply throws her over his shoulder and tightens his grip the smallest amount.
“What about the mortal, sir?”
“Dad…—DAD!”
She opens her eyes, turning around and kicking Luke in the gut. He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. It didn’t hurt him the slightest bit—of course it didn’t. She’s staring Thanatos in the eye, covered up to her chin by the blankets of her deathbed.
The scene that she sees horrifies her. For the first time, she sees Artemis holding up the sky, and just a few feet away, her father, surrounded by snake-women and with their spears pointing to his chest.
Atlas, a gigantic man in a black silk suit, stands next to her and Luke. He stays quiet for a moment. “You’re an engineer, yes? Smart enough to gain Athena’s attention.”
Frederick doesn’t reply. Atlas smiles.
“Come, mortal. We have much to discuss. And, behave, will you? I’d hate for anything to happen to your daughter.”
Atlas flicks his hand, and the dracaenae flock back to Luke. “Leave us alone, will you?”
Luke readjusts his grip on her and begins walking down a dark hall. Annabeth screams, because she doesn’t know what else to do. She kicks and punches with the strength of a one year old, and with every hit, her body groans and screams.
After a while of this, Luke stops. “Come on, Annabeth. Be smart. Don’t make me tie you up.”
He continues walking, and with those merry words, she finally slips into unconsciousness.
