a story as endless as the ocean . pjo / allie jackson

the titan's curse . prologue

prologue.

"Where are you?" Danny demanded over the phone the moment the call connected.

I looked around at the mass amount of people around me. "... Nowhere?"

I could hear Danny scoff over the call, despite the blaring music from speakers around the club I was standing in. "Was that a question or an answer?"

"... An answer?"

Instead of a scoff, this time it was a sigh. "You're out drinking again, aren't you?"

I paused. "I'm inclined to lie to you, just so you have plausible deniability if I ever get caught and kicked out for underage drinking."

I wasn't really sure when I'd decided going out drinking was the best course of action for the night.

To be honest, I should've known better than to let my friends take me out. I should've known better than to let my guard down. I should've known better than to think everything would be okay.

I should've known better.

My night had been shitty well before the end of it. I had locked myself in my at-home studio about three days prior, refusing to be dragged out and only allowing Danny in to bring me water bottles and food. With album finalizations due by the end of the month and three songs still needing to be written and two needing to be produced, I'd decided the best way to finish things up as quickly as possible (mostly in order to have more time to fix any mistakes and make everything perfect) was to lock myself in my room and forbid myself from coming out until everything was finished.

To the surprise of many (read: Danny), it was actually working. The two songs that needed to be produced had been finished, and I was pretty satisfied with two of the songs I'd written, but things hit a bit of a roadblock whenever I'd gotten to the last song. Normally I was pretty good at being able to write lyrics to an already-produced song, but this one was odd.

No matter how much I ingrained each cord into my brain, no song lyrics could come to the forefront of my mind. There was no way only three albums into my music career I'd run out of things to say, right?

Well, that wasn't exactly fair. I had a lot I felt like I needed to say, but most of it had to do with the Greek side of my life— the side I wasn't really allowed to mention while out in public. Plus, how many times could I curse out the gods before they finally realized I wasn't just singing in hypotheticals?

I wasn't sure what exactly Danny had told my group of outside-world friends, but they'd managed to drag me from my self-imposed lockdown when they mentioned that our friend, Minnie, was in town. She was a K-Pop Idol and hardly had any time to be in the States with us, but she just so happened to be in between comebacks and had a little bit of time off to spend in her home state. Since I didn't know when I'd get to see her next, I hadn't put up much of a fight. Plus, I kinda needed the drink.

I had simply... forgotten to tell Danny where I was going. So when he arrived back at my at-home studio to check on me and bring me dinner, all he found was an empty desk chair and a pile of trashed pieces of paper containing failed lyrics.

"Are you at least out with the girls?" Danny finally asked, in the small bit of silence between songs.

I nodded, even though I knew he couldn't see me. "They'll keep me safe. Plus, I know my limits."

His silence told me everything I knew he wouldn't say aloud to me. "Just be safe. If you aren't back here by three, I'm coming to get you and the girls. Take care of them, too."

Aside from the fact that Danny had my location tracked through Find My Friends and Life360, I knew he would be able to find me because I always went to the same club— it was the only one I knew I'd be able to drink at without being 21 and knew I wouldn't get caught by paparazzi.