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“Oh, Annabeth, you look so old!” an older lady squealed, coming close to pinch her cheeks. “Last time I saw you, why, you were barely six or seven years old.”
Annabeth gritted her teeth. She was seriously regretting her decision to come. But she was trying to make an effort to have a closer relationship with her dad and her stepmom, even if that involved going to her stepmom’s stupid family reunion.
She hadn’t been to one of these since before she ran away.
Percy squeezed her hand. “Are you okay?”
She nodded tightly. “Let’s go to the other room, and hopefully there will be less people in there.”
Unfortunately, no such luck.
“Who are you?” a little girl gasped. “I don’t know you and I know all of my family.”
Annabeth forced a smile. “That’s because I’m not your family.”
The little girl frowned. “Oh. Then why are you here?”
“Do you know you’re Aunt Helen?”
The girl nodded seriously. “Yeah, she’s my second favorite.”
“Yeah, well, she’s my stepmom.”
“So you are family?”
Annabeth sighed. “No.”
“Oh.” The girl looked severely disappointed.
“Annabeth, you apologize to Sienna right now,” one of her step-aunt’s scolded. “There is no need to lie like that.”
“I wasn’t lying,” Annabeth muttered.
Her step-aunt gave her a murderous look. “How dare you?”
“I wasn’t lying,” she said louder. “I’m not her family.”
At this point, the little girl Sienna was crying from all the commotion.
Annabeth wanted to scream in frustration.
Her step-aunt stood up.
“Hey, don’t be rude to my girlfriend,” Percy warned venemously. “She has been unwelcomed since she got here, and it is unfair of you to say that she must pretend like she is your family after how you all have treated her.”
Annabeth slid her fingers through his. “Percy, I think we should go to another room.”
He shot one last threatening glare at her aunt before walking with her to the kitchen. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just leave?”
“I’m going to try. Just this one time. And if it doesn’t go well, I don’t need to come back again. That was the deal.”
He cupped her chin. “If you’re sure. But I don’t want you to overextend yourself.”
A boy a few years older than Annabeth slid into the chair beside her. “I am shocked to see you here. You’ve been the talk of the town. I thought you ran away.”
“I did,” Annabeth gritted out.
“Really,” he remarked. “Interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. Annabeth, is it?”
Her eye twitched. “You know that it’s my name. Of course you do. You’ve been listening to all the gossip about me.”
He tsked. “How rude. My name is Aaron.”
“I don’t care,” she said, turning back to Percy who was looking between the two of them with something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite place.
“You know, it’s remarkably shameful that you have tried to run away,” Aaron remarked.
“I didn’t try to run away, I did run away.”
He reached out a hand to grab her arm, but Percy immediately shoved his hand away.
“Regardless,” Aaron said pointedly, “you shouldn’t have done that. You’re so ungrateful. It’s such a shame that Aunt Helen had to have someone like you for a daughter.”
“Stepdaughter,” Annabeth corrected.
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Like I care. A disappointment, more like.”
Percy grabbed his arm. “Enough. You don’t get to treat Annabeth like that.”
Aaron raised his eyebrows. “And you do?”
“No,” Percy said, his voice dripping with venom. “No one gets to treat her like that. And if you lay a finger on her or say another word, I will break you.”
Aaron laughed. “Wow. Overprotective much?”
He smirked and placed his hand firmly on Annabeth’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze before she instantly jerked away.
“Get away from her,” Percy ordered.
“Why should I do that?”
There was a loud sound as Aaron reeled backward. Annabeth stared at Percy’s blood-stained knuckles.
Annabeth grabbed Percy’s hand and together they hurried out of the building and back to his car, leaving in a rush. She felt dizzy from how fast everything had changed.
It was like a battle had just occurred.
“You didn’t need to do that,” she whispered.
“I know. You could’ve done it. But I want to protect you and love you, Wise Girl. That’s what real family does.”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” she told him. “I just really didn’t want to do this alone. And I’m kind of glad I wasn’t.”
He drew her into his arms. “Hey, I get it. Don’t apologize. I would have done the same thing. And I’m definitely glad that I came with you. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened?”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I can protect myself, you know.”
“I know,” he agreed. “But you deserve to be protected by someone else.”
“You’re my family,” she whispered against Percy’s shoulder. “I am trying to give them a chance, but they are not my family. Not yet, at least. And especially not after how they treated me today. You and Chiron and Grover and the rest of Camp Half-blood are my family. Your mom is my family. But none of those people are in any way my family.”
Percy pressed a gentle kiss against her forehead. “You’re right. Don’t worry about what they say. You will always have a family, no matter what. Blood doesn’t signify family.”
“These people aren’t even related to me by blood,” she pointed out. “If anything, I’m related closer to you in that case than I am to them.”
Percy shuddered. “Let’s not talk about that.”
She found herself smiling. “What, that my mom is your cousin?”
He wrinkled his nose and she couldn’t resist placing a kiss there. “I really do not need to be reminded of that.”
She laughed. “It doesn’t matter, Seaweed Brain. Gods don’t have DNA.”
“But still,” he insisted. “That’s freaky.”