νεκρός || Annabeth Chase x Fem!OC

Vol. 2-20: Bianca is my ride-along

TEMPEST

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At the edge of the dump, we found a tow truck so old it might've been thrown away itself. But the engine started, and it had a full tank of gas, so I took it.

"You're driving?" Bianca asked me, standing right next to the driver's seat.

"Yes," I answered. For some reason, Bianca didn't want the others to see her. Only me. As a ghost, I can choose not to be seen or heard, just like Bianca. Now, I was mostly choosing not to be heard as I talked to her. But aloud, I told the others, "The skeletons are still out there. We need to keep moving."

I crammed the girls in the front and stuck Percy and Grover in the bed of the truck. Thalia and I weren't as stunned as the rest of them. I was mostly angry. It should have been me, I thought. I couldn't die. Bianca could. And now, her ethereal form was somehow sitting in Zoe as I drove through the desert.

"I know, now," Bianca said. Nobody else was talking. Zoe was sobbing quietly, hiccuping every now and them. Thalia had her fist clamped over her mouth as she gazed out the window. "You're a ghost, too. That's why you wanted to go instead of me."

"It's not like it would've killed me," I replied. "But it did kill you."

"It was unavoidable," Bianca said calmly. "One shall be lost in the land without rain. Someone had to die."

"You sound awfully content with dying at the ripe age of twelve."

"How old were you when you died?" Bianca asked me.

I hesitated. I never talked to other people about my death. Bianca didn't seem so horrified with the fact that I've been existing under a lie, but maybe that's because she's dead. Why would she be mad that I'm dead, too? It's like the pot calling the kettle black.

"Fifteen," I answered. "They killed me and my whole family. I'm the only one like this."

"How come you're not like me?" Bianca asked. "Y'know, all blue and invisible and stuff."

"Melinoe," I answered. "It's her blessing. I'm very dead, but more like a reanimated corpse than anything else."

"Do you feel pain?"

"No."

"Do you breathe?"

"Do you?"

Bianca snickered and shrugged. "I guess you have a point. But, why do you smoke?"

I sighed. "Oral fixation, perhaps. It reminds me of a simpler time. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a drag. Just one real drag to feel the cancerous cloud destroying my lungs!"

Bianca wrinkled her face. "You're gross. So, the smoking actually impacts everyone around you more than it impacts you? That's terrible!"

"Says the dead girl."

"Right back at you."

I laughed. It felt kind of nice not to be living a lie anymore- not totally, a least. "So, why aren't you heading to the Underworld? You'll be guaranteed Elysium, y'know."