The Bread Thief | Percabeth | Victorian Era AU

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖋𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖍

Percy wakes the next evening after dark and sees Anne bending over Annabeth's body. For a minute he forgot about everything that happened last night, but it all came back to him when he saw the bloody rags Anne used to clean Annabeth's wound.

"Everything good?" Percy asks her, sleepily sitting up.

Anne looks over at him, and her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. "No," she whispers.

"No?" Percy repeats. "What does that mean?"

Anne sits back on her heels. "She isn't going to heal as well as I thought."

He rubs his eyes. "You're the one who said you didn't like it when people beat around the bush. Please stop talking in riddles and start making some sense."

"She's dead, Percy."

His face goes hot and his tongue turns to leather in his mouth. "What?" he whispers. "But you said she'd be fine. You said she would be okay." He looks closer at the lines on Anne's face. "Did you . . . know she wasn't going to make it?"

Anne looks down at the ground. "We have to leave town tonight."

"Have you no guilt?"

"I wasn't the one to kill her!"

Percy stands up. "You're the trained assassin! Do something," he begs.

Anne stands up. "I kill people. My job is to make sure unwanted people stay dead. I don't keep them alive!"

He runs his fingers through his hair and turns around, forcing himself to look away from Annabeth's body. "Fine," he whispers. "Let's go."

Anne cocks her head. "Are you okay?"

"No!" Percy yells. "I'm not, fucking, okay! She saved me from so much unhappiness in my life. She was the only one in that entire house that treated me with any ounce of respect. She made me happy. She made sure I didn't starve on the streets. She stole so I didn't have to. Now she's dead, Anne. She's fucking dead."

He couldn't get his emotions in order. He just figured out what he felt for Annabeth and now she was gone.

Anne was shoving supplies she had acquired yesterday into a bag and slings it over her shoulder. She pulls a blanket over Annabeth and grabs Percy's hand, leading him to the end of the alley.

She looks at him. "Grieve when the danger is gone. Hold it together until we are out of here. It's going to be hard, but shut your emotions until you have the time to acknowledge them. Can you do that?"

Percy nods. "I think so," he says, taking a breath.

Anne sighs and by the look on her face, Percy can tell she feels bad about having to be so harsh. "You can't think so. You have to be positive you can handle it. If you aren't, we will get killed."

"Okay," he says, forcing his emotions into a little box in his mind. "I'm ready."

Anne nods once and signals for him to follow her. They spend the entire night dodging guards and hiding in the shadows.

Percy's toes were frozen in his old boots. His fingers hurt when he moves them as the cold bites him.

By the time they reach the woods, the sky is a series of gray and pinks as dawn begins.

"We will stay here for the day," Anne says. "Tomorrow we will start our quest back to the Queen. We'll figure you out when we get there, but I'm not letting you die too."

"Do you think they found Annabeth yet?" he asks, sitting by a tree.

"Nobody goes behind the gentlemen's club during the day," Anne says. "They won't find her until tonight."

"I still can't believe she's dead."

Anne sighs. "The best people always die. Remember that."

The end.