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The After School Special: B

    Next on The After School Special!

    Is the gang involved in illegal activity? What got them in detention in the first place? Will our detainees come to see eye to eye? Find out here!

      The Mid-Season Special Finale!

The tires crunched over gravel and several decrepit buildings loomed around them, looking a little bit like drug deal locations. He saw a flash of red up ahead and noticed Rachel's yellow BMW parked on the side of the street, a beacon of better things in a shit show of a neighborhood. It would have been smart to worry about it getting stolen or keyed, but the universe wouldn't dare hurt Rachel.

"I'll pop the trunk," Piper said as she jerked the car into park.

Percy warily opened the door, flinching against the cold as he dragged his bag out behind him. Voices echoed from inside one of the buildings and somewhere, an engine revved around the block. It was only three thirty but the clouds impressed a darker hour and he made sure his location was on, just in case his mom decided to open up a missing person's file when he inevitably disappeared.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he looked over the hood of the car. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Annabeth snipped, searching his face.

"What," he wheedled.

She pursed her lips for a second and the chill down his spine wasn't due to the cold. "You better not mess anything up."

"What would I mess up?"

"You'd find something," she slammed the door.

"You'd find something," he whined mockingly, trudging to the back. "You'd find- wow, what's that?"

Piper paused in lifting the contraption from the trunk as her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and then flipped her choppy bangs from her eyes as she said, "Something you can carry while I take this."

Gray eyes said he was absolutely not carrying the strange rig, but he insisted on helping bring it out. They carried it behind Piper as she walked, holding it from each end. His fingers were cold and he cast a careful eye around them. Dogs barked in the alleys and trashcans clattered and the wind rifled painfully through his hair.

"What are you looking for?"

"The reason you decided to do shady business at a place like this," he grunted, adjusting his hold.

"I needed a shady place for my shady business."

He had to check to see if she wore her Trademark Smirk before snorting.

"I guess I can't blame you," she shifted her grip, a curl escaping from her pony tail. "You've always been...careful."

"That was almost a compliment."

"Almost."

"Funny, though," he side eyed her. "I distinctly remember you saying how careless I was during the fight."

She lifted her side just enough so she could jab him. "Careless with certain things, I still stand by it."

"I wasn't careless, I was being honest."

"Honest about something you shouldn't have even known."

"Then you shouldn't have told anyone about what happened last summer."

"It was only Piper."

"It didn't matter."

"It wasn't like I told the whole school."