Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE
I Try and Fail to Kill a Guy with a Hammer
I made a mistake…. Maybe running away in the middle of the night because I was angry with my family was a bit of an overreaction.
Running through some dirty back alley in Richmond by the old iron works, half-starved and shivering. Because I’m stubborn and I would rather starve, die of hyperthermia or be eaten by a monster than go crawling back to my dad.
Maybe I’ll make it out of this alive. Stranger things have happened to me…
My name is Annabeth, Annabeth Chase. I’m seven and a half years old and I ran away from home.
I’m not exactly normal….
Not in the weirdo, oh I’m such a werido kinda way. More like most seven-year olds don’t get attacked by monsters on a weekly basis.
Most seven-year olds can’t ‘accidentally’ set their stepmothers’ minivan on fire (it was an accident I swear!). And I can promise you that most seven-year olds also don’t get terrorised by hordes of spiders every night when they sleep. Or maybe they do… am I being over dramatic?
I’ve never understood what made me so different from the other kids… what all this… weird stuff stemmed from. I mean Dad blames my Mother.
Whenever anything bad happens he blames me first and foremost (of course) and then he blames her.
I remember a time when I was suspended from my old elementary school 2 years ago for fighting… At least that’s what they told me… I don’t really remember what happened. One minute this older boy was picking on me for my dyslexia calling me names and stuff (I can hardly recall what he said), then he was on the ground with a busted lip, clutching his wrist. I had blood on my knuckles, but I don’t even remember hitting him… I just remember feeling angry. Apparently, I broke two bones in his hand, he was twice my size and 2 years older. No one could figure out how I’d done it, I couldn’t figure out how I did it.
The principle had already suspended me then and there on the phone when they called Dad at work. He was so mad when he picked me up, I remember him cursing and swerving when a guy in an SUV cut him off on the way home seemingly forgetting I was even there (I was getting the silent treatment) “I never asked for this, I told her I never wanted this”.
‘This’ meaning me of course. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots. But I kept silent, one thing I learned was to never ask dad about my mom. He got sad, but most of the time he got angry.
He was only young when I came into the picture, just finished his masters at Harvard about to go on with his life as an adult.
I ruined it for him.
All I ever got told was that mom didn’t even show her face when she dumbed me on his dorm doorstep as a new-born. I’ve never met her; she’s never checked in on us or even tried to contact me. Dad won’t even tell me her name, says I’m better off not knowing.
Part of me always wondered if she hated me as much as he did. Maybe that’s why she decided I was his problem instead of hers.
I wouldn’t blame her I suppose… I am a difficult kid. I’ve seen it plastered all over my report cards since Kindergarten.
‘Annabeth is a very bright but ‘troubled’ girl’
‘Annabeth doesn’t get along with the other children’
‘…such a smart girl who wastes her potential…’
Maybe it’s a good thing I’m too stubborn to go back. Dad and Hellen could maybe get some piece of mind that I’m not around to ruin their perfect family anymore.
Though part of me feels guilty about not getting a chance to say goodbye to my stepbrothers… they were innocent in this whole mess… just babies. But I’d like to think I’m doing them a favour, they’re safer without me around anyways… they might get a normal childhood. Something I don’t think I’ll ever have even if I somehow survive out here.
So now I’m stuck in this terrible situation no seven-year-old should find themselves in and you’re probably wondering what my plan is… or was…. And I wish I could tell you I had one…
Three nights ago, after another argument, another monster that no one believed me about… Helen had said that I bring nothing but misery to her house and she wasn’t having it anymore with the boys being at risk. I remember correcting her that it’s actually my dad’s house not hers. And for some reason dad was angrier at me for saying that. Which honestly didn’t make sense, I mean he owned the house way before he met her, so it was technically his.
I had been sent to my room after he told Helen I wasn’t ‘worth’ arguing with, looking at me like he would a problematic student in his class rather than his own daughter. I remember feeling grateful to be dismissed from my scolding I felt so small that I could sink into the floor and disappear if I had to look at his disappointed face for another second.
On the way there I had passed Dads study, I wasn’t technically supposed to be go in there… Apparently, I’m annoying to have around when he’s grading papers, something about not needing a ‘child’s input’ on papers written by oh I don’t know children? … and he says I’m the know it all…sure old man I wonder who I got that from.
I knew my luck would only get worse that night… the spiders… they had come more and more frequently over the last few months.
So… I had slipped into the study thinking to sleep on the big comfy armchair dad kept in there… I’d probably get in even more trouble but… I’m already the ‘problem child’ as it is, so I thought why not…. thinking that the spiders wouldn’t find me if I wasn’t in my own room.
Wandering over to Dads desk, I went for the big old blanket Helen kept across the back of his chair for when he fell asleep doing research when I saw them.
No not the usual 8-legged monsters…. Pamphlets…. all spread on my dad’s desk across his stacks of ungraded papers. My ADHD got the best of me… I looked and I wished I hadn’t.
The tears I had been holding throughout the entire screaming match downstairs broke free.
Boarding schools, Delinquent programs and Disciplinary summer camps. Every single pamphlet was a one-way ticket to exile. And reminders that he genuinely thought that this was all my fault.
Something inside me felt like it had shattered. I felt both pain but also a numbness deep down in my chest. I thought of my father’s smiling face as he looks at Helen, the adoring way he picked up Bobby and Mattie throwing them into the air. And I tried to remember the last time he had even looked at me with anything other than annoyance and regret.
That was the moment I decided I wasn’t doing this anymore. I wasn’t wanted here… I was a mistake after all, the product of some fling my father had had in college… everything would be better if I wasn’t here.
Suddenly the numbness faded as I stared blankly at the pamphlet for an all-girls catholic school or more accurately a convent which even offered summer accommodation for ‘special needs’ girls. Meaning brats, troublemakers and I quote ‘those who have strayed from god’. We weren’t even catholic!
And then all I felt was anger. Blind rage, that made me see red in the corners of my eyes. I felt like this when I knew I was going to do something stupid. Like I was going to do something so dangerously impulsive and not even bother to think of the consequences.
Looking back, I don’t actually remember throwing the stale day-old cup of coffee across my dad’s desk and ruining his important paperwork. I don’t remember grabbing the hammer he had placed on the half-constructed IKEA bookshelf in the corner of the room and I certainly don’t remember using it to smash his wedding photo in the hallway leading to my bedroom. Like I was some kind of brat that belonged in those delinquent programs and reform schools.
I do remember crying, pitifully so and hating myself for it as I grabbed my school bag, flinging my notebooks across my room in my rush to empty it. I was so angry I didn’t even think as I grabbed my favourite storybook by my bed side. Myths and Monsters. As if by muscle memory.
Nothing else but my beat-up sneakers which I threw on in my rage, I ran to my window, it overlooked our low garage which then overlooked my dad’s car parked in the driveway. I couldn’t tell you how I managed to ninja my way down without breaking a bone.
The next thing I remember I was sprinting down our suburban street. My feet sweating and slipping in my shoes, I hadn’t even put socks on… I was still in my pyjamas. I just ran, the hammer I had used to smash the photograph still clutched in my tiny shaking hand.
I’m starting to think that all those teachers who said I was so brilliant and smart for my age where playing some cruel joke on me when they said those things. What I did was very very stupid….
And I’m probably going to end up getting killed because of it.
Now as I duck behind a dumpster in the alley way I’d ran into, I find the smallest space I can fit into curling up in the tiny stinky gap between a dumpster and the wall of one of the old iron factories.
3 days later here I am still trying to make a plan, which let me tell you from experience is very hard to do when running for your life. Monsters must smell fear, because I’ve run into too many to count since then.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure if that man that had been following me all morning had been a monster or a human… it was hard to tell sometimes. But he was scary enough to make me run ether way. ‘Stranger Danger’ alarms ringing in my skull as I did. In my 3 nights out on the streets I had experienced a lot of stuff like that, and I could only expect more to come. I looked an easy target for them, for monsters and for people as small and tiny as I was.
I shivered against the brick wall in my little crawl space thinking of that scary old man who had asked me if I had wanted to share his sleeping bag with him under the bridge that first night after I had ran, his sinister smile made my skin crawl and I wanted to cry just thinking about the way he had looked at me. The way even I knew no grown adult should look at a child… I don’t think I had ever been so scared in my life, not even the spiders compared to the fear I had felt when he had taken a step towards me. And when he had yelling at me to come back as I fled as if my life depended on it. It probably had.
What was going to happen to me… I couldn’t run away from the monsters (the human and non-human ones) forever. I hadn’t slept since I left home too scared of who would find me even if I closed my eyes for a second. Yesterday I had managed to grab a few free samples from a food stall by the market. Small things, two slices of apple, a few grapes barely enough to fill a hand before I had scurried away from the shop keepers reproachful look.
This morning when I had crossed the square in the centre of town, I smelled the doughnut stand parked by the Ride-Aid I passed, and my stomach growled so painfully that it actually made me sob a little as much as I didn’t want to admit it.
I cursed myself every night for being so stupid curled up alone in the freezing cold wondering when I was finally going to slip up and end up dead. I didn’t even take the money my aunt Natalie had mailed me on my birthday. It was still probably tucked away in my dresser. I could have made that $20 last me a while at least. Played the cute little kid spending their pocket money act. No one would have said anything, they never do.
I had thought about stealing, even if I knew it was wrong. But I quickly gave up on the idea I knew I wouldn’t get away with it, by the time I was so desperate to consider it, I already looked like a warning sign for shop keepers, the scruffy Pjs, ratty hair, unwashed face. Even if my appearance wasn’t so obviously ‘runaway child’, I probably would have gotten caught eventually, dragged into a police car and shipped straight back to my dad’s.
Which I wasn’t going to let happen… no way. He’s probably wayyyy happier with me out of the picture, they all are.
I leaned my head forward against the cool metal of the dumpster and I could see a distorted version of myself look back at me in the shiny surface. My features where blurry and weird in the dinged-up aluminium but I looked pale and small. Dirty, messy hair fell across my forehead curled in all sorts of directions; I was due a haircut even before I ran away although it had never made much of a difference since my hair always looked like a bird’s nest anyway.
Here I was, Little Annabeth, small scrawny runt who would never amount to anything… Bird boned and weak, that’s what I saw when I looked at my reflection and I hated it… I think in that moment I hated myself more than ever.
Honestly the only thing I had ever actually somewhat liked about myself was my eyes, some of the kids at school had said that they were creepy, and adults said they made them uncomfortable. But that’s what made me like them. Sharp steely grey, no hints of blue or green, just pure grey. I remember a vague memory of one of my dads’ female co-workers once saying it was a shame, I didn’t inherit his blue eyes; I would have looked like a little angel. Apparently the very un-angelic scowl I had given her straight afterwards had changed her mind about that, I don’t recall her ever saying it again.
But now in this moment I looked truly pathetic I could see the tired rings under my eyes even more prominent than after sleepless nights of spider attacks. Maybe I was imagining it, but I looked even smaller (if that was even possible) maybe the beginnings of the hunger setting in. Hollowing out my face, making me look like some very well CGI’d ghost girl from a horror movie. The big round owlish eyes didn’t help that horror vibe ether if I’m honest…
As if on cue, my stomach growled loudly and I clutched my hand to it, it hurt. I was so hungry it hurt.
It was only a matter of time until the exhaustion caught up with me. If I couldn’t run, I’d be easy picking for anyone who wanted to try. My arm gripped around the dirty canvas of my backpack, the hardback cover of my book sticking into my bony forearms through the fabric.
I had to do something… I had to think. How could I make it out of here? Maybe I could train hop? Maybe play the scared little kid, get a free ride from some nice lady to somewhere else? Maybe I coul-
The sound of footsteps startles me. I sit ridged up right my back flat against the wall. I count to 30 and hold my breath, listening to the pound of more than one set of feet thunder down the concrete of the iron works echoing against the tall brick walls.
Blood was thumping in my head and I tried to keep myself from hyperventilating. After a moment they stopped, unfortunately they hadn’t faded, just stopped. I couldn’t hear anything, but alarm bells were ringing in my skull. My fingers twitch and I have to mentally stop my leg from bouncing. I felt like an animal backed into a corner scared and helpless. If I was found here cornered in this tiny crawl space, I was dead.
Slowly I push my backpack off my lap careful to not make a sound, pushing it back into the small crawl space and my other hand curls around the hammer still in my lap. I creep forward on my knees. The hard-concrete rubs painfully against the flannel material of my tattered PJ bottoms but I ignore it. I peer between the gap, keeping myself in the shadows for once thankful of my scrawny size, I’m practically invisible! I couldn’t see anyone, nor could I sense any immediate threat.
I liked to think of my ADHD as a sixth sense sometimes. Being able to feel danger, like my body knew automatically when to run and my instincts would take over. Honestly though that was probably just my brain trying to convince me a wasn’t such a freak.
The only sound I could hear was the faint traffic from the busy construction yard not far away. I counted again this time to 60, waiting, not chancing anything.
Still nothing. But I felt uneasy and I had the impulse to leave my small crawl space, move on quickly and not test my luck any more than I already had. If that man I ran from earlier had found me I was in trouble. I remember vividly seeing blazing red eyes staring at me from under his baseball cap. No, I wasn’t taking that chance of another encounter.
I slowly move back still on my knees and felt behind me blindly, until I found the strap of my bag with the tips of my fingers. I kept my eyes on the entrance to the alley way as I slowly pulled it towards me.
That was a mistake. When I had shoved my bag back into the crawl space it had pushed up against the corrugated metal that had been dumped there against the bricks and the aluminium frame. When I pulled the strap, sheet slipped slightly and tapped against the metal of the dumpster.
Ping!
Oh no… oh no no no… I was sure my heart stopped for a second as the metallic sound bounced around the alley way. It was loud, alarmingly so.
Stupid! Stupid! I froze and didn’t move. Praying that whoever those footsteps had belonged to had already moved on.
They hadn’t.
I strained my ears, and I heard it after a moment of silence. A muffled voice. Then another, it sounded closer than I had expected. Around the corner of the brick wall. I finally understood what animals felt like in hunting season. I was cornered. They had me… this was it.
I couldn’t hear them, but I knew they had found me, they were creeping on me slowly. Every instinct in my body told me so. What could I do? I could bury myself further into this crawlspace stay still and silently hope that whatever it was, was human and eventually leave. But my instincts told me to run. If it was a monster, they’d smell me and no matter where I hid, I was dead meat.
I grabbed my bag, deciding to run was the safest option. I took a breath and pulled it fully free from the metal sheet.
CLANG
It was even lounder than the last. Cringing my fingers curled around the wooden handle of my hammer as I manoeuvred myself from my knees into a crouch. I would have to run towards the voices. The alley was a dead end. My only option was to run straight towards them. I prayed I was fast enough and small enough for them not to grab me as I fled.
I never got the chance however, two humanoid shadows appeared creeping along the wall towards me. I had been flanked from the shadows. That’s it I was dead; my body began to tremble. I could smell them now. The stench of monsters, sulphur and ash filled the alley as they crept closer. There was something else about them, something different than the normal monsters, a power that made my skin tingle like the air was statically charged. It screamed danger.
All my options were slowly evaporating…
I would have to fight… chances are what ever monster was creeping up on me was bigger, stronger and not half starved to death. My only weapon was this tiny hammer. I had no choice, fight or flight… and the option of flight had been taken. Tears stung in my eyes. I didn’t want to die…
C’mon Annabeth be brave! Don’t cry don’t cry! Fight!
I felt a weight grip the edge of the dumpster, it was light but pushed the rusted wheels slightly and my legs tensed, my fingers turning white with how tightly I was gripping the hammer.
Light came pouring into the crawl space and I leaped forward swinging my hammer for what I assumed would have been the monsters head.
It was, and I would have been on target had a hand not grabbed my wrist with un-human speed. My heart stopped as the shock of it made me loose grip of my weapon and it went flying from my hand and clattered to the ground far from my reach.
“-Woah!” a shaky voice called out and I heard the sound of metal moving. My eyes couldn’t process what was exactly happening in the moment. My instincts had fully taken over. Panic mode was in full swing. I screamed and kicked and fought against the seemingly iron grip.
“No! Leave me alone!” I screeched as loudly as I could, maybe someone would hear me maybe I wouldn’t die here alone and become some monster’s meal. “Go away! HELP!”
The one that held me gripped tighter almost painful on my wrist as it held on to me its owner dodging my fists and legs.
I caught sight of the other monster and I screamed louder when my eyes landed on the horrifying face of bronze directly in my eyesight.
The snaked hair and fangs bared, it stared at me unmoving and my blood turned to ice. For a split second it was as if I had turned to stone. That face, something about that face made every single cell in my body turn cold.
RUN! Run NOW!
“It’s okay!” the first monster shouted. A boy, at a glance he looked double my age, maybe 15. Shaggy blonde hair stuck in my vision (I knew better than to trust him monsters looked human, but they weren’t!). So, I screeched like a feral animal when his other hand reached forward a glowing bronze dagger glinting in its grip.
“NO!”
I lifted myself up pulling upwards towards the hand that gripped my wrist with a strength I hadn’t known I had possessed and sunk my teeth into the exposed pale wrist. Hard. I tasted blood. And the stench of sulphur filled my nose. I wasn’t sure where the instinct had come from, but I felt feral. Like all my rational thought had been thrown out of the window and I was in pure survival mode. I wasn’t thinking. Which was very dangerous for me…as we have already learned.
The male monster howled in pain dropping me and the knife by pure reflex. The bronze woman (I didn’t look I wasn’t making that mistake again) screamed, and I heard movement, knowing she was coming for me now. Instantly I kicked out. The boy was distracted, his lightning reflexes weren’t as fast this time. I land a kick to his shin, it looked hard and it must have hurt because he yelped, I wasn’t even sure how I had managed something with such strength.
I felt charged with the adrenaline flooding my veins. Dashed on my hands and knees like an animal through his legs and slipped my fingers around the handle of the knife he had dropped. A hand grabbed the back of my shirt and I swung at it connecting with the forearm it was attached to with the hilt of my new weapon.
CRACK
After a screech of pain from the monster I was released. I scrambled to my feet and ran from the alley way.
I ran so fast that I could feel sweat dripping down my face and my lungs burnt. Out of the Iron Works and then god knows where I hardly acknowledged the truck that came flying past me. Was barely an afterthought in my mind. The panicked HONK rang in my ears.
I ran for what seemed like an eternity until I collapsed against the unfamiliar grass that was under my feet. I barely was conscious of where I was. I crawled forward when my legs refused to support my weight dragging myself towards a vaguely treelike shape until my eyes refused to open anymore. There’s a blank spot in my mind after that.