Help From A Golden Boy (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Ch. 29

Annabeth's POV

There was an awkward silence at the end of my stories. I looked down at my shirt and started picking lint off of it. Truth be told, I'm ashamed of how I naïve I was. I've been told countless times that none of it was my fault. But sometimes, I believe I could've saved my parents from dying. If I hadn't wanted to get ice cream than neither one of them would have been in the car during, therefore not getting crashed into by someone who shouldn't have been driving. But I shouldn't have made my parents get me ice cream at 8 o'clock at night. I mean, come one, who eats ice cream that late at night, at that age. I should've been in bed, not begging my parents for ice cream.

I cleared my throat, trying to get rid of the awkward silence. "Will that help win the cases?"

"We already have a solid case for the kidnapping and assault charge, so it shouldn't be too hard to convince a jury of abuse along with them," Mr. Chiron said. "But Rachel and Octavian are going to be a lot harder to prove. And, most likely, Rachel will get off anyhow because of her dad."

"What do you mean?" I asked him to elaborate on that.

"Rachel's dad is Jeff W. Dare," He tells me like I should know who that is.

"Who's that?" I voice my confusion.

"I don't know of any official title for it, but Mr. Dare used to cut down forests to build shopping malls. That's how he got so rich," Mr. Chiron explains. "But... then he got involved in politics."

"Why is that a bad thing?"

"Because... it gives him more power than he already had," He explained.

"What exactly is his job?" I asked hesitantly. It couldn't be that  powerful of a position... Could it?

Mr. Chiron didn't seem to want to answer my question.

"Well..." He started reluctantly. "He's apart of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct."

I let a sharp gasp leave my mouth in shock. This isn't going to end very good for me.

"What does that mean?" Percy speaks up for the first time, obviously confused as to what Mr. Chiron is talking about.

"It means that he has the power to fire judges. Any of them. Even Article III Judges, which is one we're going to get because of the charges," I explain.

"What's an Article III Judge?" He asks.

"To put it as simple as I possibly can: Article III Judges are federal judges who are protected by the third article of the Constitution to enforce the judicial power of the United States without fear of loosing their jobs," I explain to him.

"Jeez, Annabeth!" Percy exclaims. "Who are you? Wikipedia?"

I giggle at the disbelief written on his face. "No I am not. Wikipedia says it in a much more complicated and confusing way than that."

Percy just stared at me for a few moments. "How do you know that? Are you Google?"

"Maybe I am," I say with another giggle. Jeez, I giggle a lot around Percy.

"Seriously though," Percy says. "Where did you learn all of that?"

"I learned it in Government class at school," I tell him with an eye roll.

"I thought that they taught about that stuff in U.S. History or Social Studies or something, I didn't know they had a class for it," Percy admits.

I let out a laugh. "Percy, during our freshmen year it was like that. But then they combined History and Social Studies and made a Government class."