ꜱᴘɪᴅᴇʀ ʙɪᴛᴇꜱ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴇʀᴄᴀʙᴇᴛʜ/ꜱᴏʟᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏ ᴘʀᴏᴊᴇᴄᴛ

xxxɪ ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ | ᴀɴɴᴀʙᴇᴛʜ ᴘᴜʟʟꜱ ᴀ ᴏɴᴇ-ᴇɪɢʜᴛʏ

Percy stands there staring at the door for a minute. Should he leave? Annabeth will likely see this as a direct intrusion, and Percy can't disagree that this might be an invasion of privacy.

He turns around to face the rest of the room but doesn't dare sit on the bed. That would be super invasive, wouldn't it?

Despite trying not to stare, Percy can't help but notice the trash bag in the corner of the room, no doubt containing Annabeth's ruined clothes from this morning. It's a little obvious; black goo seeps from a small hole. Should he clean that up? He wouldn't want Annabeth and Will to get charged for a ruined carpet, but that would involve touching her things. He won't do that.

A sketchbook sits on the nightstand. Percy smiles. He guesses it's full of new ideas for buildings and landscapes or whatever it is she's working on. That's his Wise Girl, bringing work with her to a vacation.

Is this a vacation? He's not so sure anymore. Something or someone is clearly out to ruin this wedding, he knows this for sure. And things keep getting more confusing by the hour. What were Nico and Will doing in here?

Screw it.

Curiosity gets the best of him. Percy takes the sketchbook and turns to a random page, hoping for just a glimpse of what's going on in her mind.

Well, if it isn't... a drawing of a mouse held in some sort of bird's talons. The drawing may be unfinished, but the fear on the mouse's face is haunting and so very real. The image jumps off the page, it's that vivid.

As this clearly isn't Annabeth's, Percy closes the sketchbook. He notices, however, the name etched into the front cover: "CHASE".

Well, now Percy just has to learn more. The first page is blank except for a million eraser marks and stray lines.

The next one has a cartoon tiger on it.

A few pages later, Percy sees the same tiger, except it's more realistic and sort of scary. She's good. She's really good at this.

Another drawing is a portrait of Will Solace. He's wearing a goofy grin and some scrubs.

Percy's stomach churns with feelings of regret. He knows, of course, about Annabeth's passion for designing buildings; everybody knows that. But how could he date her for so long and not know of a hobby like this? She's too good at drawing not to have put in so much time. It would certainly make him feel better to think that this is something new she started doing perhaps quite recently, or maybe even right after they broke up.

But that can't be so, can it? All those times she'd been scribbling away in a sketchbook, Percy had assumed it was buildings she'd been designing for Olympus or maybe just for fun.

"Whatcha working on?" he'd ask like it was a job she was completing.

If she vocalized an answer, it was always a grunt, or maybe the occasional "nothing much." He always just admired her ability to become completely immersed in her work.

Were there pictures of him? Maybe she'd been pouring her heart out onto a piece of paper and Percy hadn't even bothered to look.

Percy also hadn't bothered to listen for the water to turn off.

"What the hell are you doing with my shit?" Annabeth asks.

"I'm sorry! Will and Nico let me in and then left and I wasn't sure what to do 'cause I was waiting for you, and then I saw this sitting here and I wanted to see what kinds of buildings you were working on but then there weren't any buildings and I wanted to see and... well, you're really a great artist..." He trails off.