Phase Five

When Will asked where we should go, I smiled. "There's a little cafe a few blocks from here that awesome sandwiches," I told him.

He grinned. "Perfect."

Four blocks and two sandwiches later, Will and I were sitting at a table near the windows of the cafe catching up with the finer details we might have missed the first time.

Retelling stories was always fun with Will because no matter how many stories I had to tell about school and quests, he always had something to share, too. Like how will had to argue with Chiron for three days about leaving camp and coming to visit me in the city. Eventually, Will gave up and went straight to Mr. D about it. Dionysus gave him permission, claiming it would save time and further headaches. And—thank the gods—I was relieved to find out that Mrs. O'Leary was still alive and well and not is a dog pound yet.

"So these girls actually like Percy?" Will asked I had finished updating him about Cara and her band of snobs.

"I know," I agreed, twirling my soda straw. "It's crazy."

Will shook his head. We were sitting at a table by the windows (ready to make a sudden getaway, if needed), finishing our drinks. "Obviously they haven't had a full conversation with him," he replied.

He already knew how stupid the Snobs were—did they need another reason to like Percy? "Cara sort of did," I said. "I mean, the conversation only lasted a few minutes but that still counts, right?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not sure. I wasn't there."

"Too bad you weren't," I said,

He sighed dramatically. "How do you stand it all without me? First Percy and Annabeth, then Nico, and now Thalia, too!"

"I did try to kill Percy today," I admitted. He laughed.

"I'm serious! Well, almost serious. Percy's the one who threw things, I just yelled at him. Anyway," I said, looking in the mirror on the wall behind Will. "That's not important, the point is—" My eyes widen. "Oh, my gods."

Will recognized my expression instantly and set down his cup. "Monster?" He asked under his breath.

"No! Worse," I hissed, quickly moving my hair so it fell around me, covering my face. "She's here."

"The mortal?"

"Yes! The mortal and her friends—they are at the table literally right behind us." I cursed. "How did it take me this long to notice them?"

"Here," Will quickly stripped off his hoodie and handed it across the table. "They don't know who I am and this will hide you better than your hair."

I stuck my tongue out at him for that last comment—but thanked him and took it anyway. "There's mirror on the wall behind you," I said, pulling the sweatshirt on and pulling the hood up. "I don't want to risk looking at it if any of them are looking this way."

Will's eyes drifted behind me for a second. "No, they're all huddled together. It looks like they're reading."

They can read? I wondered. "Okay, this is weird," I muttered.

"Yeah," Will agreed. "They sound a little nuts, and don't exactly seem like the type of girls to get coffee and read in their spare time..."

I narrowed my eyes. "Can you see what it says?" I asked.

He shook his head, picking up his cup again. "Sorry. It's too far away. But from here it kind of looks like... A file or something."

My internal suspicion radar spiked. Carefully, I leaned back in my chair, hoping I might be able to catch some of their conversation.

"...expelled two months early for hitting a school bus with a Revolutionary War cannon ball," Cara said in her high, obnoxious voice as she read aloud to her friends. "Percy's class took a trip to the Saratoga Battlefield where him and his sister were seen playing around with a cannon causing it to fire and hit the school bus."

"It's our files," I whispered in horror as the three girls behind me practically howled with laughter. "Will, they have a copy of my and Percy's permanent records."

Will almost dropped his cup. "WHAT?" Will exclaimed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes! Chiron had to break into the permanent record database to change a few things like Percy blowing up Goode high school or killing our pre-algebra teacher. Normal kid stuff, you know? Percy and I got a chance to look over some comment from pervious schools," I explained to Will. "Man, I will never forget how hopeless some teachers sounded."

"Alright, do you want your file back?" Will asked.

For a moment, I imagined getting up and confronting the Snobs face to face. I could demand my file and slap them while Will planned out our quick getaway. I sighed as reality mixed into my fantasy. Jail, here I come, I thought, thinking out the rest of my not-so-planned-out plan. "Probably not a good idea," I decided.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. "They can't keep your file Leila"

"I know, but honestly, there isn't really anything important in it. At least, not you know, normal-natural," I said, using the term Will and I made up for the super-but-actually-very-normal-natural demigod world we live in.

"That doesn't matter. I mean, that's good, but they have your file. Whether it has anything normal-natural in it or not—they shouldn't have it!"

"Let's hope Annabeth will have an idea to get it back then," I said, standing up.

"You're leaving?" Will looked so miserable, I almost changed my mind, but if I stayed any longer, I knew this encounter would probably end with monsters.

"We can't stay," I told him firmly. "With monsters and mortals on the loose, we'll be shark bait in less the ten minutes."

"Interesting choice of words," Will muttered, tossing some cash on the table. "And sadly, you're right. We should get going."

I pulled the hood over the side of my face as we passed the Snob's table. Will came around and put his arm across my shoulders, blocking me from mortal view and making me have another girly-heart-flip moment—total win, if you ask me. I'm not really a big supporter of public displays of affection. Actually, I kind of hated all PDA in general but I still like having Will act like my boyfriend in public. Over the years, we seemed to have formed a nice middle ground between over-the-top PDA and stone cold friend-zone. Arm around the waist was okay, but since Percy seemed to have a big problem with this, an arm over the shoulder was ideal. (Will claimed holding hands never worked because I was always to busy throwing things everywhere. I don't agree, but I don't really disagree either.)

"Ok," I said once we were safely outside, "you know my mom offered but if you come, are you actually going to stay this time?"

As we starting walking, he adjusted his arm into a more comfortable position around my shoulder. "Actually," he said, "I promised Mr. D I'd be back by midnight."

"Poor Cinderella. Cut off again," I teased. "You'll have to come up and say hi, though."

"I'll come back and hang for a while," he agreed, nodding profusely. "It's been a while since I've seen everyone and Travis and Conner already promised to cover for me if I'm late."

I stopped walking and looked up at him. "Then you can stay late," I told him. Will was a few years older than me, but having someone more mature and still completely understanding to fall back on was exactly what I needed. The fact that he just happened to be thoroughly gorgeous and also taller than me was just a perk.

Honestly, I'm still not sure how he hasn't gotten tired of me after all these years. He claimed it was mutual love between the both of us right from the beginning; not exactly love at first sight, though. "Love at first sarcasm," Will always jokes. He's an idiot, but he just happens to be my idiot—even if I do want to strangle him sometimes. But gods, I love him.

"Doesn't matter," Will stated. "I'm staying until you kick me out."

"Not going to happen," I warned him. He pulled me closer into his side and gave me a quick kiss on my temple, short and cute enough to displayed in public. I shot him a quick grin. He knows me well.

Lately, my mom and my stepdad, Paul had been spending most nights packing up Paul's old apartment and moving everything over here. Between the two of them, my mom ended having the bigger apartment with more floor-space for demigods. I hadn't seen much of either of them very much since a bunch of teenagers took over our home apartment, but they hadn't been married very long and we were all quite annoying so I didn't really mind.

After all, I totally understand why a house full of teenagers wasn't exactly an amazing place for serious talks. Yes, I am speaking from experience.

Mom always makes sure we have food and Paul does an awesome job of making sure we avoid killing anyone at school—normal family stuff—but other than that, we demigods pretty much run the apartment by ourselves.

Anyways, considering this, it wasn't a surprise that the only people to greet Will and I when we got back were understand the age of eighteen—even though Nico should technically be like really old since he was born during the World War II era.

The first thing I noticed was that Annabeth wasn't dressed up anymore—but in my girlish opinion, she looked even more fabulous in her sweatpants and worn-out Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. She glowed in a thoroughly kissed sort of way and gave me a knowing smirk when Will and I came into the living room. I scowled at her while Percy scowled at me. I had a feeling I would hear hell later for leaving—silly, overprotective brother—and leaned against the wall as Will said his hellos.

Unlike Annabeth and I, Percy and Will never really had problems. Yeah, when Percy found out that Will and I were officially—and in my boyfriend's opinion, finally—dating he had a "talk" with Will, but we'd been friends for years so Percy was used to seeing Will hanging around. They weren't best friends, but they weren't ready to kill each other, either, so it was cool.

Percy untangled himself from his girlfriend and got up from the sofa to greet Will. The two guys quickly did the complicated "bro" handshake that every boy in the universe seems to know and briefly caught up with each other.

"How's it been, man?" Percy asked, grinning at Will. "Everyone at camp surviving alright?"

"Things are good," Will said with a nod. "How's school going?"

My brother shrugged. "Pretty good."

"Cool."

...And they were done. That's it.

What would have take some girls hours, the boys just accomplish in ten seconds using no more than twenty words. I'll admit, Thalia and I did kind of do a sort of boyish-hello (Annabeth really likes to think things through), but hey, I did say some girls.

We all got comfortable on the couch. An action movie was playing and characters were running across the screen doing wild ninja like flips. I snorted. The characters looked ridiculous. Hollywood, I thought to myself. What a joke. "Sorry to ruin the night," I said, breaking the silence—I could take so much of this crazy movie. "But we've got a bit of a problem.

"The mortals were at that little sandwich place tonight," I continued, mostly talking to Annabeth and Percy since I knew this would interest both of them the most.

"The same one you went to?" Annabeth asked while Percy said: "What sandwich did you have?"

I gave them both a long look. "What do you think?" I stated.

Annabeth ran a hang through her hair in frustration and collapsed down into the sofa. Percy just nodded. "You had peanut butter."

"Forget the sandwich, Percy!" Thalia told him, throwing the TV remote at him. "We've got bigger problems!"

"That's not all," I said as Percy ducked away from the flying remote. "They had our school files."

"They... had your files...?" Annabeth asked in her strangely I'm-still-calm-on-the-brink-of-murdering someone voice.

Nico sat up. "Sorry—I'm not a daughter of Athena. You're going to have to explain more to the rest of us. What do you mean?"

"Look," I continued, "they were huddled around reading a file about my and Percy's fourth grade experience with the canon. There's only one place that kind of information would be."

"Your permanent record," Annabeth said, nodding. "Of course! The brunette—Amy! I'm almost completely sure she works in the office. She could have access to that kind of information."

"Why didn't you get it back?" Thalia asked me.

"I thought about it," I replied, "but you'd probably be picking me up from jail for assault charges."

"I'm not saying you had to start a fight, Leila," she said. "You could've just calmly walked and taken the file back. It's yours, not theirs. They could get into major trouble for this; maybe even kicked out of the school."

Will snorted. "Since when does Leila do anything calmly?" I elbowed him in the ribs as Percy laughed and nodded in agreement at Will.

"Besides that," Annabeth said, "I checked the high school's archives earlier. All three of their families donate huge amounts of money to the school. Getting them kicked out of school would be nearly impossible."

"Whoa—hold on," Nico cut in, motioning in a time-out gesture. "What experience with the canon?"

"Leila and I sort of set off a Revolutionary War canon during a field trip in the fourth grade," Percy explained.

"Perce, what do you mean 'Leila and I'?" I said to my brother while Nico practically had seizures of laughter. "That was completely your fault!"

"You were the one standing there going: 'come on, Percy! Just try it! It's not like it's loaded or something!'" Percy said in a bad imitation of my voice.

I shook my head. "That is not how it happened!"

"HEY!" Annabeth shouted. "Stop it! Honestly, who cares? It happened years ago. We need to focus on the problem we're currently dealing with right now."

"She's right," Thalia said, sending a couple glares toward Percy and I. "The canon doesn't matter."

"But the file does," Annabeth finished. "Now, do either of you know what was in the file?"

Percy shrugged. "There wasn't really anything demigod related if that's what you mean."

"Yeah," I agreed. "They're mostly just records of how we got expelled every year from every school we tried to go to."

"Maybe that will be enough to scare her away," Will said.

"I doubt that," Annabeth said dryly.

"You have no idea how determined she is to have Percy," Nico told Will. "She's basically stalking him."

"Holy Hephaestus, Nico!" Thalia yelled. "Shut up! You're not making things any better!"

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" he said. "Short of killing her—we can't do anything!"

"You know," Will muttered, "I'm really hoping you would transfer schools before you tried offing her like that, Nico."

He blinked. "And leave her to hunt down someone else? No way! Actually, she'd probably follow us to another school if it meant more Percy-stalking."

I rolled my eyes. "What are we going to do, Annabeth?"

"As long as there isn't anything super important in it, I'm not sure there is anything we can do," she admitted reluctantly. "Not including the demigod-related parts, let's assume for now that Cara Kray knows everything."

"Sorry I kind of ruined your date last night," I said to Annabeth, as we got ready for school the next day. Annabeth, Thalia, and I had kicked Percy out of his room for a while we talked for a few minutes.

At first, Percy had argued, throwing nervous glances towards us when we suggested he leave for a bit. Of course, Thalia kept telling him there was some very vital no-boys-allowed girl's talk that needed to happen. This just made him more nervous—but he left did not want to hear about my relationship with Will anymore than I wanted to hear about his with Annabeth. He was convinced that if he learned more than what was necessary, he would have to leave Will in a ditch full of hungry piranhas. Since I loved my boyfriend, I gladly kept silent. Percy actually liked Will. I was happy to leave well enough alone.

Annabeth sighed. "Don't worry about it. I don't want you to regret telling me, you know? I'm glad you told me. This is important. I would've wanted to know."

"I know. That's why I told you," I winked and grabbed my gloriously normal backpack—I'm never using a purse again. "How did the date go before Will and I got back, though?"

She smiled, her eyes dancing with happy memories. "I'm not sure you could handle it," Annabeth teased.

"I don't even think I could handle that," Thalia told her as I nodded in agreement.

When we joined the rest of the gang in the kitchen, I turned to Percy. "Is she coming home with us after school?" I asked, knowing that he knew exactly what I meant.

He shook his head as we filed out of the apartment. "No. She said she wasn't going to school today, so we were meeting at six."

"Not going to school?" Annabeth repeated in horror. "The third day of school and she's not going? Why on Earth not?"

Percy's hand froze halfway to the door. I knocked his hand out of the way and locked the door while Percy stared at Annabeth with a blank expression on his face—he had forgotten.

I held up Percy's keys. "Weren't you guys talking about Homecoming when I got there?" I said, trying to remember the conversation I had interrupted yesterday.

"Right! She was going shopping for a Homecoming dress," Percy remembered, taking his keys with a grin.

Now, shopping did not appeal to me at all, but it seemed to render Annabeth absolutely speechless. She almost she seem to be malfunctioning. "School – skipping – dress – buy – Homecoming – but – I – how—?" she managed to get out in between huffs of disbelief. Eventually, she looked at me, obviously trying to relate with the idea of skipping school.

I held up my hands in surrender. "Look, I hate school," I told her, "but even I wouldn't do that."

"She's a moron! How in Hades' name can Homecoming and Percy be more important to her than her education?" Annabeth screeched, stomping her foot in anger.

Thalia and I laughed while Percy frowned. "Hey!" he said.

"Sorry," she said to Percy, regaining in her anger. "You know what I mean. She doesn't care about you as a person, she just wants you because she thinks you'd look good together."

Percy frowned. He obviously wasn't finished. "I'm more important than education," he said.

Thalia nudged me and winked. I smirked at her while Annabeth attempted to explain herself. "Well, you are to me," she said slowly, "but that's because I actually know you."

Percy stopped walking and turned so he was fully facing his girlfriend. "You care about me more than education?"

That's about when Thalia and I lost it. We were laughing so hard people actually crossed the street to avoid walking next to us. "Yeah," I managed while Thalia continued laughing, "A daughter of Athena cares more about Percy than about education?"

Nico joined Thalia and I in our crazy laughter as Annabeth gave each of us a good, hard glare. "Oh, shut up," she told us, pulling a very smug looking Percy away from us. "And don't let it swell your head any more than it already is."

Thalia choked down the last of her laughter. "But, we'll have time after school before she gets here, right?" she asked, going back to the original topic.

"Yeah," Annabeth nodded—then narrowed her eyes. "Why? Did you guys not demigod-proof your rooms last night like I told you to?"

Nico shrugged. "We're too lazy to do things when you tell us to," he said simply.

"Yeah," I said, knocking shoulders with Nico. "We like to put things off until the last minute." I know Annabeth wasn't surprised. After all, that daughter of Athena had our patterns memorized better than anyone—probably even ourselves—but saying it aloud made the rest of us feel better, I guess. It made it less creepy when we realized Annabeth knew us really, really well.

Annabeth gave Thalia and I one last look that said: I would've appreciated some help. I smiled at her in a way that promised I'd do better next time—even though I wouldn't—and Thalia just shrugged like, what'd you expect?

"Fine," Annabeth stated, "but that means we won't have too much time to shop for Homecoming stuff."

I almost bailed on school and ran for the California Mountains. Monsters, Titans, and Snobs—I could take down any of those, any day with batting an eye. That was normal for me. Homecoming, on the other hand... that made me blink. Repeatedly. "Oh," I said, keeping my voice as normal as possible, "that's tomorrow?"

Of course, Percy totally saw straight through me, and he frowned. "Yeah," Annabeth continued. "You're going, right?"

"Well, I don't know..." I admitted. Since Will couldn't come, I didn't really see the point. I wouldn't dance with anyone else—except maybe Thalia for fun since she had that wholeno boys EVER thing going on—and I'd probably be bored-stiff the whole time.

Besides, before Will left last night, the two of us had started a plan about me visiting camp Half-Blood for the day.

Annabeth realized how close I was to skipping the dance. "Oh, come on! You know the devil will be there," she told me, using the only reason I would willing go to persuade me, "and I don't think I can handle her without some moral support."

"Hey!" Thalia objected. "What am I, chopped hellhound?" Percy and I immediately shared a look of horror, imagining Mrs. O'Leary. Thalia just scowled and more mortals scurried out of our way.

"Thalia, that's disgusting," Annabeth said, echoing our thoughts. "I don't think mortal sayings really work out with Greek mythological monsters. Also, chopped hellhound isn't possible – it'd be dust by the time you could chop it."

Annabeth's random facts used to bother me worse than fighting giant lobsters during a hailstorm while trying to tie my shoes, but I guess it faded with everything else. Daughter of Athena, I thought with a grin. Thalia rolled her eyes. "Shut up and let me have my fun, or I won't go to Homecoming either," she threatened.

"Fine, fine!" Annabeth relented. She obviously really didn't want to go to Homecoming without backup—and there's no way in Hades she would. I wasn't happy about it, but as usual, that didn't really matter. A demigod's work is never done.

As of now, I was officially going to Homecoming.