Time to Meet Percabeth

Tripp Walker Part 2

I sighed in annoyance but turned to look at the intruder. It was just a young Latino boy, scrawny and messy. How underwhelming.

I said, "Look man, you're kind of intruding here. If you want your own, you're welcome to pick one. But the blonde stays with me."

"You're disgusting," he hissed. Stepping towards me in a way that I assumed was supposed to be threatening, he demanded, "Now let Annabeth go."

I laughed, looking Annabeth over again. She seemed to be looking at something behind the scrawny boy and smirked unnervingly before looking at me with amusement. But I just tightened my grip, cutting off her airways. She choked.

"Hey!" The Hispanic kid shouted. "Don't make me use this on you."

I looked over to him in annoyance, mildly surprised to find that a hammer had materialised in his hands. But I looked up and found someone even more terrifying. Behind the scrawny boy emerged two more figures. One was a beefy, muscled Chinese man who had stepped in beside Hazel and taken her hand. The dude was intimidating and all, but he's not the one who stunned me into submission.

Beside him was a man with a daunting, unearthly look on his face. His green eyes grew dark, completely terrifying, swirling whirlpools of anger. He was eighteen at most, but I had never felt so intimidated and threatened. The wind seemed to be picking up, rippling through his black hair.

"Yeah, that's what I thought!" Yelled the scrawny boy, completely unaware of the two men behind him, but noting my change of demeanour.

"Let go." The scary man sounded out every word individually, the deep grumble of his voice reverberating through my bones. The man stepped forward, pushing in front of his smaller friend.

In my shock, I released Annabeth from my grip. She fell to the floor, coughing and spluttering. I kept my eyes on the man, but saw that the other girl, Piper, had leapt forward to grab Annabeth. She scooped Annabeth to her feet, without coming too close to me, and pulled her so that they stood behind the male line of defence.

The man didn't even spare a glance at the girl, keeping all anger focused and locked on me as he asked forcefully, "Are you okay?"

Annabeth muttered a quick yes. She stood tall; one arm hooked around Piper's shoulders as she swayed slightly. Throughout the short interaction, the leader had reached out a brief hand, which Annabeth had taken and squeezed. She released it almost instantaneously, as if already aware of what this man was planning to do.

Piper smirked at me unsettlingly. "If I were you, I'd start running."

Glancing between her and the terrifying man, I decided I'd be best to oblige. If I knew these girls would have gotten me into this much trouble, I'd have never approached them.

I began to sprint away, but it didn't take long for the man to catch up to me and tackle me into an alley. He grabbed me by the shirt and shoved me against a wall that was sticky with something questionable. He wrapped one hand against my throat and thrusted my head against the wall, a perverted distortion of how Annabeth and I stood together.

"You think you can mess with those girls, huh?" He spat at my face, repeatedly forcing me against the wall. "What makes you think you deserve them?"

I blacked out for a second as his fist connected with my nose. He was shouting at me, repeatedly asking me about why I thought it was okay to assault people and about how sick it made him.

He eased up on his attack for a second, and I gathered the nerve to say, "Well, I guess that the sexy blonde chick belongs to you then."

The man threw me to the floor. "Annabeth belongs to no one."

He pressed his weight down onto me and held me shoulders to the floor. "You disgust me. Those are some of the most incredible girls on this planet and they deserve more than to be treated as any man's object, especially yours. Nobody belongs to you- they don't owe you anything, no matter how sexy you think they are." He spat the word out as if it were venom, and I felt the fire of guilt rise within me. Was it really so bad what I was doing? And yet-

"I'd do it again." I hissed up at him. "If you weren't there, I would have gotten away with it."

The man had the nerve to laugh. He glanced behind him as calls and shouts emerged from behind him. He smiled as his friends came into view. "I highly doubt they needed me at all."

He hopped off me and gripped my shirt, lifting me to my feet. Restraining my arms behind me, he brought me face to face with Annabeth, Piper and Hazel.