Chapter 79 79
Annabeth's POV:
I started with the wrong thing. Grabbed my biology textbook off the desk and shoved it into the duffel bag like I was gonna be studying cellular respiration in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Old habits, I guess. Or maybe just the fact that letting go of normal was harder than I thought it'd be.
The periodic table poster stared at me from the wall. I'd had that thing since freshman year of high school, taped it up with scotch tape that had turned yellow and crusty at the edges. Hydrogen, helium, lithium. I could recite the first twenty elements in my sleep. Useless information for someone running from people who wanted to drain her blood, but there it was, still on my wall, still real.
I left it.
Clothes. I pulled open drawers and grabbed whatever was on top: jeans, two hoodies, underwear, the thermal leggings I wore for training with Marcus, socks that didn't match because I hadn't done laundry in... okay, I didn't know how long. A sports bra with a broken clasp that I kept meaning to throw out. Threw it in anyway because who was I kidding, I was going to need every bra I owned in a house with no Target within three hours.
My phone charger. The laptop charger too, even though Marcus would probably tell me electronics were traceable or whatever. My toothbrush was in the bathroom and I went to get it, saw myself in the mirror, and stopped for a second.
I looked tired. Not the cute kind of tired from movies where the girl has perfect under-eye circles and tousled hair. The real kind, where your skin looks grayish and your lips are chapped and there's a spot forming on your chin because stress and hormones were apparently best friends.
I grabbed the toothbrush, a pack of tampons, my deodorant, the half-empty bottle of shampoo. Left the conditioner because it was almost done and honestly my hair was going to be a disaster regardless.
Back in my room I zipped the duffel halfway and sat on the bed.
Call your aunt. Just do it.
I picked up my phone. Sarah's contact photo was from two Christmases ago, both of us in those ugly matching sweaters she'd bought at Walmart, the ones with the drunk reindeer. She was laughing in the picture. She was always laughing in pictures, this big open-mouthed thing that made everyone around her smile too.
I pressed call.
Three rings. "Annabeth? Sweetheart, is everything okay?"
"Hey, Aunt Sarah."
"You sound weird. What happened?"
See, this was the problem with Sarah. She could detect bullshit through a phone line like some kind of emotional sonar. I'd been planning what to say for the past twenty minutes and now my whole script evaporated.
"I need to tell you something and I need you to not freak out."
Silence. The kind that meant she was already freaking out internally but giving me the courtesy of pretending she wasn't.
"Marcus says the Order is sending more people. A lot more. We have to leave Emberdale tonight."
"Leave and go where?"
"He has a place up north. Three hours, in the woods, off the grid. He says it's safe."
"He says." Her voice was tight. Not angry, just... compressed. Like she was squeezing everything she wanted to scream into two very controlled words.
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds like a man I barely know is taking my niece to an undisclosed location in the middle of the night, Annabeth. That's how it sounds."
"He's my father."
"He's a stranger who showed up a couple of months ago."
She wasn't wrong. That was the worst part. She wasn't even a little bit wrong, and I couldn't argue with her because I would've said the exact same thing if our positions were reversed.
"Kaelen's coming too. And his brother and sister. It's not... I'm not going alone with Marcus."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better? You're eighteen years old."
"I know how old I am."
"Do you? Because from where I'm standing it looks like you're about to disappear into the woods with a group of people who attract very dangerous attention, and I'm supposed to just stay here at Helen's and, what, knit? Watch Jeopardy and pretend my heart isn't in my throat?"
My eyes burned. I pressed my palm against my forehead and breathed through it.
"You need to stay at Helen's. Marcus said the Order doesn't go after humans, you're not a target. But if you're at the house and they come looking for me..."
"I don't care about me."
"Well, I do." My voice cracked on the second word and I hated it. "I care about you, and I can't do this if I'm worried about you being here alone when they show up."
She was quiet for a long time. I could hear Helen's TV in the background, some game show, and the clink of dishes.
"How long?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"That's not—"
"It's the only answer I have right now."
I heard her take a breath. A big one, the kind she took before parent-teacher conferences or doctor's appointments or any situation where she needed to be braver than she felt.
"You call me every day," she said. "Every single day, Annabeth. I don't care if it's thirty seconds, I don't care if you have nothing to say, you call me so I know you're alive."
"I will."
"And if anything, ANYTHING feels wrong, you get out. You hear me? I don't care what Marcus says or what Kaelen says or what anybody says. If your gut tells you something's off, you leave."
"Okay."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
Another pause. I heard her sniffle and I almost lost it, almost broke down right there on my bed holding a phone and a toothbrush and a bag full of mismatched socks.
"I love you more than anything in this world," she said. "You know that, right? More than anything."
"I know. I love you too."
"Be safe. Please, God, be safe."
"I will."
I hung up and stared at the phone for a minute. The screen went dark and I could see my reflection in it, distorted and small, and I thought about how Sarah had raised me for eighteen years in this house and now I was leaving it with a duffel bag and no return date and she wasn't even going to be here to watch me go.
I wasn’t ready for that goodbye. No, I certainly wasn’t...