Phase Three

"Hey, Death Breath! Wait up!" I called. Several people standing in the near-empty hall turned or reacted to the name—werdos—but none them were who I was looking for.

"Hey, Leila," Nico said, emptying yesterday homework into his locker. "What'cha need?"

"Actually, nothing," I admitted, while I leaned against the wall next to his locker. "I just needed someone to talk to while Percy and Annabeth make-out before class."

He shuddered and shut his locker. "I understand."

I shrugged as we walked down the hall toward my own locker, "Yeah, well, it's better than them constantly screaming at each other."

"Amen," Nico agreed, nodding.

"Anyways," I continued, "they're going to some restaurant in center city for a date tonight, so it should be better after that."

Nico face got all funny looking, and I knew he was thinking of the possible danger. "Is that smart? I mean, monsters have sort of been after us since the war."

"Do you want to explain it Percy—or better yet—face Annabeth if we try to stop them?" I asked, shoving my way past a couple of laughing teenagers.

"Facing the wrath of an Athena child is definitely more dangerous," Nico decided, helping me shove the kids away.

When the two of us finally reached my locker, I was surprised to find Percy, Annabeth, and a very familiar looking girl in black. "Thalia," I said in disbelief, recognizing the Hunter of Artemis while breaking into a crazy looking grin. "Oh my gods! I can't believe it!"

"Leila!" She said, smiling in her own Gothic-girly way. "Hey!"

Unlike Percy, I had gotten along with Thalia right from the start.

Okay, so that might be a bit of lie. It did take a few near-death experiences and arguments to get us to cooperate, but we really got along rather quickly.

"I can't believe you're here," I said in shock. As happy as I was to see her, she was supposed to be running around in the forest somewhere—not showing up at Goode High School looking like as other average Goth wearing shorts and a strange looking hair piece.

Thalia scowled and messed with her bracelet, as if considering whipping out her shield and spear to take down everything and everyone in sight. "Neither can I."

"You're almost as bad as Percy," I commented, knocking in the shoulder with a friendly punch. "Come on, it is not that bad!"

She raised an eyebrow, obviously wondering when I became so optimistic. "What?" I asked innocently. By everyone's expressions, I could tell they were not going to let this go but I shrugged. "It could be worse."

"I need to run to my locker before first period," Percy said, holding up a massive pile of books. "So can we walk that way if you guys are done being girls?"

Thalia grinned and ruffed Percy's hair. "You totally missed me."

I laughed and shut my locker, knowing she right. "He totally did."

"What's your first class?" Annabeth asked, twisting a curl around in her finger with her other hand securely in Percy's.

"Just a second," Thalia replied, digging around in her bag. "Let me find my schedule."

As we all watched Thalia's hopeless search, I eventually figured it was a lost cause. Thalia had never been good at keeping things in order—just look at her cabin for an example—so I was sure we'd be making an emergency trip to the office.

"Bet she lost it already," Nico said, echoing my thoughts.

"I don't know," I said, as she dug further down into her bag. "It's only the first hour. She'll probably lose it in first period."

"I give at the least 'til Lunch," Percy cut in while Thalia reached elbow-depth.

"Got it!" Thalia announced triumphantly, holding a very crumpled piece of paper out for us to see. "You stand corrected!"

Percy shrugged. "I still say you won't have it by lunch."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and took the schedule. "All right," she started in her battle-planning voice. "You have third period Biology with Percy, and fifth period History class with me. Then we all have Lunch and gym together. After that there's just Greek, which you also have with me."

"Cool," Percy started. "We're learning about the ocean in Biology, so that should be an easy class this year."

"Unless they get all their facts wrong like in Greek class," I remarked. "Then we're all screwed."

"Pretty much," Percy agreed, smiling and pulling open his locker.

"So Thalia, why the heck are you in high school?" I asked. Annabeth and Percy start struggling to fit everything inside his locker. I couldn't believe Percy had already managed to clutter up his locker, but hey, the boy had skills.

"Complications," Thalia stated, taking a few steps away from the lockers as some strange liquid started dipping from Percy's locker. She briefly tried to explain the high school situation—but was interrupted by Annabeth, who was yelling, "WHAT IS THAT?!" over and over again at Percy.

"All I need to do is spend a semester or two here, then I should be able to make up some excuse," Thalia finished, glancing back and forth between the locker and the mess that now covered most of the hallway floor.

"Um," I said, stepping away from the stuff and pushing Nico in front of me just in case anything from Percy's locker decided to attack. "Where are staying?"

"I'm not sure yet," she replied. "Artemis talked about maybe getting me an apartment or hotel room until the end of the semester, since I only need to stay—"

"No way," Percy interrupted, finally shutting his locker. "You're staying with us."

"Yeah," I agreed. "We've got plenty of room!"

Thalia threw us a writhing look. "Your mom already has for four teenagers to deal with. I highly doubt she wants another."

My brother snorted. "Thalia, my mom would take in the entire camp if she had the floor space."

"Look," I said, noticing the expression on her face, "at least come home with us so we can ask."

"Fine," Thalia caved. "But if there is even a little hesitation from your mom—"

"Yeah, yeah," Percy finished. "You can find somewhere else to stay."

The shrill sound of the bell abruptly interrupted our conversation and I'm 100% we all simultaneously groaned at the thought of class. It wasn't even 10AM and I was ready to quit. Who needs high school anyway? It's not I would actually be able to get in college!

"I've got math first," Thalia stated, scowling.

"At least you're near your classes," Nico grumbled. "I have to go all the way back down the hall."

"Then get going!" Annabeth told him waving a hand in the opposite direction.

"I'm going," Nico grumbled, hitching his bag up higher on his shoulder and heading away from us.

"My first class is near the math rooms, so I'll show you the way," Annabeth said while Thalia nodded.

"Meet you in Art," Annabeth told Percy, kissing his cheek.

Thalia made a small noise of disgust but Percy's smile was big enough for him, Thalia, and me so I guess it didn't really matter. I waved as Thalia and Annabeth made their down the hall and out of sight.

"And then there were two," I said, sighing.

Percy grinned and flicked my ear. "Where's your first class?" he asked as I batted his hand away from my head.

I pointed at the hallway going straight away from us. "All the way down that hall and to the left."

Percy frowned. "Aren't you going to be late?"

"Yep," I stated. "It's the second day so I figured I better knock the teacher's expectations down a bit."

"Leila, it's a miracle Paul managed to get us back into Goode for another year," he said. "It would probably be better if you took this more seriously."

"I know," I replied. "It's not like I'm skipping class, I'm just a little late. Sue me."

"I think I might," Percy told me seriously. I laughed and headed off toward my class.

"Well, this sucks," Nico commented, flipping through his English book.

"Let me see," Percy said, holding out his hand. After a few seconds of flipping pages and scanning of pages, my brother tossed back onto the table in front of us. "It's definitely written English."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Thalia said sarcastically, while Annabeth picked up the book.

"It's probably a Shakespeare," she said, studying the cover.

"It is," Nico confirmed. "I paid enough attention in class yesterday to know the teacher said something about starting with Shakespeare plays."

"You're probably starting with the famous ones, so we can pretty much assume this is Romeo and Juliet," Annabeth concluded.

"That sucks," Percy said, repeating Nico's words from earlier.

"Hold on," Annabeth said, "you said you paid attention in class yesterday, what did you do today?"

Nico blinked then said in a very confused voice, "I'm... not sure..."

"Okay," Thalia laughing in a bit of a nervous way, while moving her chair away from Nico. "Moving on."

"What are staring at?" I asked Percy, setting my hands on the table space in front of me.

"That sign," he answered, pointing at a poster hanging on the wall across the room. "I can't figure out what it says..."

"Oh my gods," I stated, gazing at the poster. "Please tell me I'm reading that wrong."

"Why?" Nico said, tossing his book aside and looking up. "What do you two think it says?"

"Does that say 'Old Foreseeing Urinals'?" Thalia blurted, staring at the sign in shock.

"That's what I see," I said, unable to stop my staring.

"Guys," Annabeth said through her laughter, "I'm pretty sure it says 'Lose Yourself in Reading'."

"Guess that makes more sense," Thalia admitted. "Since this is the library..." After that we all end up laughing so hard, the head librarian had to come over and tell us to stop because we were making too much noise.

"I'm going see what books we can actually read in this place," I said, pushing my chair away from our table.

"I'll come," Percy volunteered, standing up.

The two of us wandered around long enough to make my head spin, but eventually we made it over to the foreign language section. "Libraries," Percy huffed, searching along the walls for anything written in Greek. "These places should be re-named: 'Demigod's Worst Nightmare'."

"I don't think it's should be named our worst nightmare," I said, flipping open a book I was pretty sure was written in French. "Maybe our worst headache," I continued, shoving the French book back into place.

"All right, this place is officially named: A Demigod's Worst Headache Room... Place... Area...," he finished awkwardly.

"Forget it," I advised him.

"No problems there," Percy said, shaking his head.

"Here!" I announced a few minutes, pulling a book off the shelf, "Something written in Greek—finally."

"Greek Mythology in its Original Form," Percy said, reading the cover over my shoulder. "Why would they have this in a high school's library?"

"Who cares? It's good enough," I stated. Percy shrugged and we both went to find a place to sit.

After we were sitting in between two unused library (or The Demigod Worst Nightmare Room-Place-Area-Thing) book rows, we started reading. The pictures were probably the most offending part of it all. For the better part of six minutes, the two of us seriously considered cutting them out of the book, but in the end we decided the crazy librarian (The Demigod Worst Nightmare's Person-Guard-Nazi) we met earlier, wouldn't appreciate that.

"Go back!" I commanded my brother, trying to grab the book from his hands.

"Hold on!" he told me, moving out of my reach. "There," Percy said, opening to the page I wanted to see.

"There!" I repeated, pointing at the picture and paragraph I had been in the middle reading when my idiotic brother had turned the page.

"What about it?"

"Dad's married to Amphitrite, right?"

Percy's eyes narrowed, "Where are you going with this?"

"Guess who Amphitrite's dad is," I stated, tapping the picture.

He glanced down and his eyes widen, "Oh, man, no wonder Nereus didn't want to help us."

"Yeah," I laughed bitterly. "We're the spawn of his son-in-law's not-so-hidden affair." Percy frowned a little, while I continued, "I can't believe Dad married Nereus's daughter!"

"I know," Percy responded, shivering. "When we saw Amphitrite that once, I couldn't even tell! That's so strange... and wrong," he added under his breath.

"I will never get the image of you trying to catch Nereus out of my head," I told Percy, remembering him tackling the Old Man of the Sea.

"Shut up," he mumbled, turning the page.

Too soon, the bell rang, indicating it was time for our next class; which in my case was English.

"Oh, man," Percy groaned, standing up. "I'm stiff!"

"We are definitely sitting at a table next time," I decided, stretching.

Percy nodded in agreement and we headed for the check-out.

The librarian (The Demigod Worst Nightmare's Person-Guard-Nazi) eyed off with a dangerous glare when we walked up to the desk. Both of us were pretty much used to adults hating us, but that didn't stop us from being as polite as we could. (Our mom had drilled manners into at a very early age. It's impossible to forget something that traumatic.)

"Hi," I said to the librarian. "Can we check-out a book?"

"You go to this school, don't you?" she asked snidely.

"Uh... yes..." I was almost sure that was a rhetorical question, but I had a bad habit of answering them anyway.

"Of course you can check out a book," she said, pushing her grasses higher up on her nose. "Do you have a certain book or do I have to guess what you want?"

"Oh, right," Percy said, handing the book over the counter to her. The Demigod Worst Nightmare's Person-Guard-Nazi raised an eyebrow when she saw the cover.

"We're studying Greek this year," I stated in an important voice—like it explained everything and I actually knew what I was talking about. The lady nodded and continued checking-out the book without any other questions.

"I'm going to go see where everyone went," Percy said as the lady took my ID card and finished checking out the book.

"And by 'everyone'," I said, "you mean Annabeth?"

"Yep," Percy confirmed with a smile. "Be right back with your bag."

"All right."

"Here you go," the librarian (The Demigod Worst Nightmare's Person-Guard-Nazi) said, handing over my ID and the book.

"Thank you," I told her. Percy came back with my things, and then I began my struggle to stuff the book down into the purse. The stupid thing wasn't big enough, darn it!

"I got to go," I said, once I was done. "I can't be late for English again."

"Well, I get an assigned current events partner in History today," Percy replied, shaking his head.

"Oh," I commented. "That's sound like... fun."

"More like torture."

"It's only the second day of school, Percy," I said. "Your teacher can't be that bad!"

"I wasn't talking about the teacher or even the project," he told me. "It's the partnering up part I'm worried about."

"Annabeth is going to school with us this year," I started, "does not give you the right to be unsocial-able."

"Can you guess who's in my History class?" he asked, staring at me like I was missing the whole point of this conversation.

"Wait," I said, picking up on the part embarrassed/frustrated/lost expression on his face, "Cara is in your History class?"

Percy nodded slowly with a dark look. "And if they go by last names..."
"It's possible you guys could be partners," I realized. "Oh, man."

"What if I am partners with her?" he continued in a slight panic. "I'd have to... like talk to her and stuff!"

I cursed. "Annabeth is not going to be happy about this."

"I know," Percy assured me. "That's why I didn't bring it up last night. I don't to tell her until I know for sure if that girl—"

"Cara," I filled in.
"—is my History partner!" he finished.

"Good idea," I advised him. "Maybe you'll get lucky and score a guy as your partner."

"Maybe," Percy exhaled, thoroughly frustrated, "but when have we ever been lucky?"