Estelle

Chapter 28 ( I have a plan, a very reckless and stupid one)

Hiya!!

I have published in over a month...  and I feel kind of guilty... especially because this chapter is pretty short... but at least I updated! 

Anyway... do you think they're going to escape soon?? Hopefully because I feel like this plot hasn't been going anywhere while they've been on this hunk of floating metal.

Who's P.O.V should I do next? Whichever pov gets the most votes will be the next chapter or the one after.

I hope you enjoy the chapter, and pls remember to vote and comment! 

Sincerely, Percyjacksonobsesed with one S!

I woke up in a cold sweat, expecting to be sitting in the metal chair in Fury's office. Instead, I was laying on my little cot in my cell. I groaned and slowly sat up rubbing my wrists... I looked down and there were no red marks or bruises... I checked my ankles too. What the Hades?!

I glanced at the small electric clock beside me. Shock coursed through my veins... 5:30am? Had I slept through the whole day and night? That didn't seem likely, someone would have come to check on me. I glanced at the top corner of the alarm clock... Saturday? But... That was the same day that I visited Fury aka Tart... nope. I remembered him squeezing my chin and saying sweet dreams. Did he send me back to the start of the morning? Was that something he could do? Or... was all of it just a dream? Part of me wishes it was. But... it was too real to be a dream, and even if it was, Demigod dreams were usually real.

I got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, my brain replaying my conversation with Tarta..., over and over again. The impact of his words crushing me, making it harder to breath every replay.

"I will make everyone and everything you love die. And you will be more alone than I ever have been."

I already felt so alone. I already felt broken. I didn't want to feel the pain that he felt, because unlike him, I didn't have an eternity to fix myself. I felt like that little girl alone in an alley, surrounded by hellhounds, helpless. Unwanted. Luke and Thalia had saved me, took me in. Then the first person that I had ever loved was taken away from me. Luke was dead, and there was nothing I could've done about it.

And now... It was as if it was happening all over again. Percy, my... I didn't know if there were any words that could capture what he was to me... the closest word was 'everything', although that still didn't come close to how I felt about him.

Now he was taken away from me, so close yet so far. His presence was like water and fruit to Tantalus. Maybe if I just reached far enough...

I splash water on my face. 'Get yourself together Annabeth!' I thought, scolding myself. He's still alive, and on the ship. That means I could still reach him. I ran my fingers through my hair, my fingers getting tangled in knots and grease. There wasn't a shower, but there was an extra hand towel... That would have to do. I turn the faucet from cold to hot and it took a minute to heat up. I flip my head over and lay my hair in the basin of the sink, letting the warm water smooth my hair, as well as my anxiety. There was no shampoo, so I took a little bit of hand soap and lathered my now soaking wet blonde hair.

I ran my fingers through the knots, trying to separate them. It felt almost therapeutic doing a tedious task. I could just let my thinking brain rest for a second as my subconscious took over. The heat from the sink created steam that filled up the bathroom, making every breath I took fill me up with warmth. My hair definitely would be brittle and dry after this, and my curls would be sad and unshaped, but it was better than having a dirty rat's nest. I rinsed the soap out of my hair and turned off the tap. I wringed the water out of my hair and started towel drying, and doing a half kind of curl routine, without any product.

I felt bad for Hazel... I had seen what she needed to keep her curls intact and I don't think she could ask for a silk pillowcase and fifty different hair products.

After I finished, I wrapped my hair up in the hand towel, hoping it would dry quicker that way, and walked back into my room.

Without anything to do with myself, I just sat there staring at the clock, trying to formulate ways to find Percy, and escape without my least favourite primordial catching us. I was coming up blank.

I tried to think from his point of view instead. What did Tartarus want most, what did he have to lose? And what did he have to gain? I would try to approach this like how I approached Arachne. I would use his weakness against him and trap him, hopefully.

What did he want most? He said he wanted me and Percy to feel the loneliness and agony that he felt. But that couldn't be it. Revenge was always a coping mechanism, something to distract you from the real pain inside. He was lonely, he said it himself. His favourite children were still a formulating pile of goo, and his wife was in an eternal slumber.

Maybe I could use his loneliness against him. Because the thing about being lonely is that you will desperately try to get rid of that feeling, which means that he might trust me more easily if I tried to convince him I was on his side.

I twinge of guilt twanged through me at the thought of taking advantage of him, but then I reminded myself of all of the things he had done to Percy and me, and that his loneliness was mostly self inflicted.

I spent the next while trying to figure out ways to deceive him. It wasn't easy. I distantly remember Hazel, Frank and Rachel coming to get me for breakfast. And I distantly remember grabbing food that I wouldn't eat, sitting down, hearing the hushed chatter of my friends around me. Feeling the stare of my niece. Her stare sparked something in me... Fury/ You Know Who, knew everything about me and my friends, whether Fury had a file or, He Who Must Not Be Named (Maybe I should stop with the Harry potter references) had been watching us during the war, which meant that it would be nearly impossible for us to surprise him. But there was one person that neither the possessor nor the possessed knew much about, and it was the Twelve-year-old girl staring at me from across the incredibly big circular table. I did not want to put her in harms way... but it might have been the only chance.

I hadn't realised I had met her gaze until I felt her sea green eyes boring into mine, eyes so similar to the man that I was about to put her life in danger for.