ANNABETH

She could smell burning and heard The Hindenburg creaking above her. It's just a shell now, a metal skeleton of what it had been merely five minutes ago. Annabeth and Grover had jumped from the window in the cockpit and she was almost certain she'd busted her ankle when she landed, but adrenaline was pumping around her body too fast for her to feel it.

Someone was crying a few feet in front of them, a young girl with two blonde plaits. Immediately, Grover picked the girl up and carried her off. She went to follow him but as soon as she stood upright, someone was in her face.

Luke Castellan.

The video footage she had been shown at Olympus Industries really didn't do the man justice. He was stunning in a ruggedly handsome kind of way, but his image was ruined by the ugly scar that ran over his eye and down one cheek. Annabeth became very aware that she was in no position to fight. Castellan was a foot taller than her with broad shoulders and a gleam in his eye. She was terrified, untrained and no longer armed and likely had a broken ankle.

"We need to talk." His voice was croaky, she noted. "You don't understand who and what you're dealing with."

"I understand that you're a psychopath that's trying to make history worse than it already is."

"That depends on your point of view, Annabeth."

She freezes. "How do you know my name?"

"I know everything about you." Luke purses his lips as though he's deciding what to tell her. "You're father's useless. You're trying to follow in his and your mothers footsteps despite not wanting to. And you don't really know what those footsteps are. All you have are those two boys back home that rely on you to make an income. You know how I know?"

He doesn't wait for an answer. Of course she doesn't know.

"We're good friends, Annabeth. Family, even. This was not my first trip into history."

Their are tears building in her eyes under his glare. What was going on?

"Why should I believe anything you say?"

His jaw tenses. "We're family, Annabeth. I wouldn't lie to my family."

Suddenly, Castellan grabs her shoulders and shields himself behind her. Percy was on his way and she was the only barrier between Percy's gun and the terrorist they followed here. Brilliant.

Hoping that he can read her eyes, Annabeth flashes him a pleading look.

"I know for a fact you won't shoot." Castellan brags. Oh, but he's so wrong.

Her heart is in her mouth when she hears the bang and feels the air besides her part as the bullet whizzes past her, narrowly missing her head and making Luke step back to regain his composure. Another bang and Percy ducks. It doesn't matter that it was aimed at him.

Kate falls.

Percy is by her side in an instant, muttering reassurances. Annabeth can only watch in horror as Kate sobs in his arms, begging for her life. She feels a hand on her shoulder, Grover.

Kate's eyes go glassy and she goes deadweight in Percy's arms. She watches has he sets her on the ground and backs away, lip quivering, and is reminded of what he'd told her in the cell. Kate reminded him of his mom and now she had bled to death from a bullet wound in his arms.

Not wanted to rush him, Annabeth looks at Grover and they seem to understand each other. It's time to go home.

~~~

The feeling of her stomach churning doesn't disappear when they land this time. Grover slams his hand onto a button on his control panel and the door to the Argo II opens slowly and allows her and Grover to exit the ship almost as if they were in a trance. Percy falls out with very little grace as always but she doesn't have the heart to find it funny after what they'd just witnessed.

Chiron, Leo and several of the tech crew are surrounding a computer. "May 7th, 1937. Correct me if anything's wrong." Chiron starts talking before Annabeth can even grasp what's going on. "In the early morning, The Hindenburg was bombed by the Anarchist Black Cross. The ship had begun to land when it went up in flames and there were only two casualties."

The trio stumbled over to where everyone was reading articles. "Two casualties, a reporter by the name of Kate Drummond and a man with burns so severe that they couldn't recognise the body." Annabeth pretends not to notice the way Percy flinches when he catches the photo of Kate in the article.

"You're shaking your head." The girl with choppy hair says to Annabeth from where she stands hunched over the table. "What's different?"

"Everything's wrong. The Anarchist Black Cross? That's us, escaped prison and disappeared without a trace."

Chiron raises an eyebrow but Grover just shrugs.

"So, Castellan got away?"

Annabeth clears her throat, still unsure whether to laugh at the tension in the room or cry. "There were only two casualties. But there were supposed to be 37. And Luke was trying to kill everyone on the ship. We were lucky to do what we did."

Everyone in the room stays silent. There's a scratch of a pencil as Jason scribbles some notes down into a notebook and the tap of a keyboard as the girl with the choppy hair and colorful eyes types into a search bar.

The first person to interrupt them is Chiron. "So, do we know the motive? Why does he want to kill everyone on board? What's the intention?"

Annabeth can practically hear the cogs turning in her head as she considers everything she knew. Luke had been trying to take out some very influential people before they had a chance to do their part in history, he hadn't wanted them to follow through. But why? America was built on the foundations that those people helped build so why would he do that unless he didn't want America to be the way it is.

"He's trying to kill America in the crib. Rewrite history before it's even written."