Destiny (Heroes of Olympus AU)

The "pit"

Third person POV

Present day

It was dark. Pitch black. And empty.

      The room was windowless, with no escape except for the door at the front, but it was bolted shut by various locks of all different shapes in sizes. Hope had already started draining from Percy. There was no way his friends would be able to find him and he had no idea where in the world Annabeth was. He had given up fighting back. He just lay on his back, waiting as the hours ticked by. Broken both physically and mentally by him.

     Percy wasn't tied to anything, but he still couldn't move. Whenever he did, it felt like all of his bones had broken. But that wasn't far from the truth. And it only got worse with every passing night.

   He couldn't believe his life had come to this. He couldn't believe he was now with him, the one person in the world he wished he would never have to see again in all of his life. The person he had thought he got rid of. The person who had hurt his mother and the person who had hurt him. Gabe.

   Filthy and exhausted, Percy stayed huddled in the corner, trying his hardest not to think about anything at all. Especially his family and friends. Especially Annabeth. After all, she was with him when he had gotten kidnapped. Percy wasn't sure if she had escaped or if she was captured too or if.... no, he couldn't think of thoughts like that. It would only make the pain worse.

   A rotating click suddenly pulled him from his thoughts as the door was slowly opened. Percy  expected to see his single meal, or his...torture, but what he didn't expect to see a shadow being shoved inside, stumbling and nearly tripping over their feet. It was another person. Someone other than Gabe and his "henchmen".

   An ounce of hope surged through him, and he was unable to stop it from rising. Maybe he could finally escape with this person's help, or at least not die all alone in who knows where.

    Light abruptly flashed in the room. Since Percy had been surrounded by the dark this whole time, he had to blink a few times before he could see anything. The person was holding a flashlight. A small ray of light that lit up the room with a white glow. The hand that clutched it froze and he looked at the person's face. Sea-green eyes met a stormy grey.

Annabeth.