I'll be honest this was suppose to be updated on Percy's birthday, but I lost inspiration. Sorry guys. But look! Two different stories updated on the same day! Yay!!!

Percy's body felt like lead. Every limb weighed down like he was just going to fall through the floor, then through the classroom below them, then to the center of the earth.

He could barely see with his black eye. Every movement, no matter how small, sent spikes of pain through his body.

His breathing was ragged. He'd never been more terrified in his life. He felt like a little kid again, hiding in the closet and praying that Gabe wouldn't find him, that his mother would come home, that everything would just be okay.

Percy almost managed a snort.

Since when was anything in his life "okay"? Percy wasn't even sure what being okay meant.

But he knew it wasn't hopping from state to state as his deranged, mostly drunk step father fled the law. It wasn't being terrified of coming home when he knew he would most like be beaten until he was an inch of Death. Not being under house arrest while his real father attempted to do the impossible or distancing himself from everyone he knew. And it definitely wasn't pretending everything was alright and fine when things were just about as far from that as they could possibly get.

"Well I figured what these could be used for!"

Percy could just barely see the sneakers of another person suddenly in the room. The Monster woman who called herself Pasiphaë was toppled to the floor. Her gun clattered away.

For a second everyone just started at the new guy. He held a chemistry textbook, probably from the rooms down the hall. His pointed ears stuck out from the brown curls on his head. His wrists were red like he'd ripped ducktape off of them recently.

Well of course he had. Everyone was tied up. Everyone except Percy. But that was because Percy wouldn't be able to do anything anyway. Even if he wasn't black and blue with bruises, a bullet to his head was all it took to stop him.

All at once people started to move. Hazel screamed again, gunshots went off. Someone kicked Percy's side and he saw stars as his vision tunnelled.

Darkness swept over him, threatening to drag him into the depths of pain that he would never wake up from. Red dots appeared behind his eyes like splatters of blood from the gun shots. Nausea swirled through him winding up Percy's throat.

Percy didn't even realize someone was helping him up until he was upright. Voices surged to his hearing. But everything sounded swampy.

"Percy?" The voice said, "Can you hear me?"

Percy managed some type of groan. The red dots subsided briefly, leaving only the pain.

"Percy?" Percy found himself looking straight into Annabeth's eyes. Her grey eyes were wide with concern, concern for him. Watery tears fell down her cheeks and she was shaking from the effort not to just burst out sobbing.

"Annabeth..." Percy moaned. Frank held him up, Percy was leaning entirely on him. Percy doubted that if Frank accidentally dropped him, he'd be able to catch himself.

Behind them Hazel was sobbing into a guy dressed in black, clinging to him like she would never let him go. The scrawny guy with the textbook was helping a girl with a jacket ducktaped to her side sit down. While a girl with dark spiky hair and a polar opposite blond haired hair guy shoved the unconscious Monsters into a pile to the side. Percy didn't recall seeing any fight, but it seemed that The Monsters hadn't even stood a chance.

"Oh Percy..." Annabeth reached out and touched his face. Her hands were cold, which had a strange cooling effect on his burning skin.

Then all at once Annabeth flung herself around him. Frank made some type of protest but Annabeth didn't seem care. Percy shifted off the taller guy and practically fell on top of Annabeth but she held him tightly. Percy gasped in pain.

"Sorry!" She whispered in a quiet tone, "I'm so sorry."

Percy didn't reply. Her touch felt like lightning. Igniting all of his nerves into a fire. She let out a choked sob. Tears falling down her face hit Percy's neck as she buried her head on his shoulder.

She was crying.

Something tore in Percy. His own throat dried and his eyes burned with unshead tears. He felt like someone had ripped his heart out it was worse than any bruise or broken bone.

Annabeth was crying.

Percy took a deep breath and pushed his feet under him. It burned like Hell. But that was nothing compared to what he did next.

Percy stood up.

It took just about everything he had not to scream out in agony. Pain twisted all sound him like someone continually stabbing him with daggers all over his body. His knees shook, but he forced himself to stay up right.

It was like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Black spots danced in his vision but he refused to let them blind him. Annabeth sniffled profusely, but when she looked up at him worryingly, confusingly, Percy swallowed the vomit threatening to come out of his mouth and smiled.

Always an actor.

The one thing he might've learned from his father, the only thing he had left of him. How to act happy even when he was far from it.

"Hey," Percy rasped to her, "I'm okay."

Annabeth stared at him like she couldn't believe him. He was almost positive she was going to slap him. Percy couldn't believe himself either. But he could stand to see her cry. Annabeth bit into her lip so hard Percy saw her drawing blood.

"You're an idiot." She cried finally. Her arm slipped around his back, and he fell back onto her. So much for being strong. "You're a real idiot Percy Jackson."

Percy gasped in pain again at the sudden movement. But Annabeth didn't let him go. Instead they held the weight of the sky together.

"Piper, are you okay?" Hazel pulled away from the guy in black. She wiped away the rest off her tears and knelt next to the Cherokee girl. Percy could see perspiration on her forehead, and her white blouse was stained pink around the sweatshirt.

The girl managed a soft laugh, "Peachy, Hazel, just peachy."

Percy's saw the bond boy look over concerned. He recognized the boy. Jason. From gym that morning. Had it really only been that morning? Just a couple hours ago?

Jason ran a hand through his short hair and the girl beside him rubbed her wrists like she was missing the weight off something on it.

Frank stood awkwardly next to Hazel, and the boy in black glared at Percy briefly. Something in Percy tightened, like he should recognize something about the boy. He was pale, like a ghost, with obvious black clothes that made him appear translucent. He wasn't someone you would immediately find in a crowd. More like someone who secretly drank his problems away in the middle off the night.

Percy had no doubt he was wishing he could drink this one away as well.

The group of them, the ten of them stared at each other. A lapse of silence crested over them. The scrawny kid looked about to say something when the gunshots broke the silence.

Everyone paled drastically. Percy shook hanging onto Annabeth tightly. The sound was distant but also close and Frank who'd been closest to the window stumbled to the side, looking sick.

"No." The scrawny guy murmured, the Cherokee girl, Piper, stiffened, Jason ran to the window cursing. Hazel cupped a hand over her mouth, covering a silent scream. Thalia turned away slamming her fists on the nearest desk with a loud thud.

Annabeth turned so they both could see out the window around Jason's form. Percy wasn't sure he wanted to see.

Six kids. High schoolers. Percy recognized two of them from his classes. Clarisse La Rue, the girl who'd tried to give him a swirly the first day there, and Travis Stoll, who's tried to sell him alcohol disguised in a Coca-Cola can.

They were running across the school lawn. Gun shots shattered the glass off the Windows from the classrooms nearby. Clarisse shoved Travis and a short blond girl forward when they both almost slowed down. The others kept running, a red head girl, and two boys- one with charcoal hair and the other with Sun reflecting blonde.

Percy could see the police behind the reinforced perimeter shooting back at the school, but it didn't seem that any hit the impossible targets.

Then the boy with blond hair fell.

He didn't move and Annabeth screamed. The world seemed to swap for Percy. His throat made a gasping sound. The boy with the black hair stopped running turning back, his face pale distorted by the distance, his mouth open.

He was dead before the shout escaped his mouth.

"Micheal!" Jason slammed hit fist against the glass window, rattling it.

Clarisse shoved the short blonde girl forward the last few feet and they caught hand of emergency assistant. Travis was absorbed in a hug by an identical looking boy and a girl with dark brown hair. The red head was caught by a doctor and they immediately dragged her to the nearest ambulance set up. She didn't look back. 

Clarisse on the other hand flung herself around shaking off the police officer trying to guide her to a group of nurses scrambling about. She yelled something at the school building, and Percy could hear the bare whispers of it. The scariest thing about it was he knew...he knew she was crying.

Tears started falling down Percy's face. He couldn't help it. His eyes fell on the bodies laying in the grass. The boys...darkness filled up in stomach and Percy shuddered. It was awful. Cold kept into his chest and suddenly he knew exactly how they both felt. Alone in the darkness. Lost in the dead zone. No one would be able to reach them until everything at the school was resolved, for better or worse. 

"They're dead." The boy in black whispered quietly.

They died.

"Oh my gods." Hazel whispered. She turned away from the scene, but Percy could find it in him to even blink.

The girl with the black hair let out a yell of anger. Her movements were a blur but the desks stacked up were knocked to the side hitting a ground with a dangerously loud sound almost hitting Piper.

"Thalia!" Annabeth cried to her. Jason pulled himself away from the window and pulled her into a hug.

Percy suddenly dropped to the floor. Annabeth yelled out to him but Percy found himself barely even hearing her. Horrid realization sunk in him, burning him up like a piece of wood. He didn't want to admit it, but the words tumbled out of his mouth.

"It's...all my...fault..." Percy choked out, pain erupted in his chest making it hard to breathe. But the only things he could even think about was the look on Micheal's face. The pain. He swore the boy's eyes had looked directly up at them, their little classroom window. All the pain they'd felt crashed down on Percy like a Tsunami of misery. Guilt welted up in his chest like an unbreakable rock. "It's all my fault." He kept repeating. He couldn't help it, "My fault."

"Percy!"

Percy couldn't think. His chest burned. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear the others crowding around him trying to help. But they seemed to be football fields away, again.

Tears fell down his cheeks, trailing down his face and dripping off his chin in ugly sploshes.

"Percy!"

"Percy, breathe!" 

"Jackson!"

All Percy could see was the white tile floor of the classroom. Chest chest shuddered, and his vision kept blurring out of focus. His breathes kept getting shorter. He knew he was having a panic attack, but all he could feel was the guilt crushing him, an invisible sword lodged right through his heart. My fault. He thought over and over and over, It's all my fault.

"Percy, please!" 

 His entire body shuddered, sending waves of agony through him. The floor came back into focus and Percy desperately clung to it. He managed a small swallow. His hands shook.

"Percy listen to me."  Someone said, their voice breaking through his murky thoughts, "Percy, you need to breathe. In and Out." the voice was memorizing, Percy grappled to do exactly as she told him to. Breathe...In and Out...the pounding his in ears dulled, the weight in his chest lifted like he was being pulled out from under a building collapse. 

"This is not your fault Percy." The voice said, slowly, confidentially. Percy wanted to badly to believe her, "This is not your fault at all. Now breathe." 

Percy looked up finding the eyes off just about everyone in the room towering over him. Piper was being held up by Jason, who was looking shocked, but she didn't mind him.

"It's not your fault." She repeated again.

Percy shook his head, which sent agony coursing through his viens. Annabeth tightened her hold around his shoulder kneeling next to him.

"You're wrong," Percy whispered, "It is my fault."

"No, it's not-" Annabeth started but she was cut off.

"No, he's right."

"Nico!" Hazel drew away from the guy in black who was glaring at Percy intensely.

"What?" The guy, Nico, snapped, "It is his fault! If it weren't for him the Monsters never would've come here!"

"You don't know that!" Thalia glared at him.

"Yeah I do!" Nico rounded on her. His black eyes were alight with a dangerous flame, "Percy Jackson- that's not even his real name! That's Perseus Olympian! He's the guy who the Monsters have been after an entire year! My sister DIED because of HIM!"

It hit Percy like he'd been slapped in the face. This boy, this kid in black...that was the boy last year. The one who's sister saved Percy's life.

Nico was practically shaking with anger. Frank and Annabeth looked at Percy like they wanted to confirm it. That Yes, he's the guy who ruined everyone's lives just by simply existing.

"You're-" Annabeth said, shocked, like she couldn't remember how to make words. Frank looked sick.

"That wasn't his fault." Thalia said in a deathly calm voice.

"Thalia-" Jason tried to warn her, but she shook him off.

"We all read the paper! The story was so big people in China knew what happened and Poseidon never even aired over there! It wasn't his fault! Bianca Di Angelo made her choice! And if you think you were the only one who was affected by her death you're wrong!" Thalia voice rang in the classroom, making everyone in the room flinch.

"You forget she was my friend too." Thalia hissed at Nico.

"Oh, like I was your friend too?" Annabeth cut in before Nico could retort. Percy could feel her nails unintentionally digging into his arm.

Thalia's face darkened, "That's different."

"Oh really? How?" Annabeth scoffed, "Because I'm alive and she's not?"

"Don't you dare-" Thalia threatened and Nico shouted something at her in another language. Italian, maybe?

"We don't have time to argue this!" Frank inserted, "For all we know the Monsters will be here any second! Especially with all our shouting and Thalia's desk job."

Thalia whirled on him, "Are you trying to blame me for this?" She was a couple inches shorter than him, but never the less she didn't back off, "You wanna go, Chinese, Canadian baby man?"

Frank scowled darkly, but Hazel stepped between them, "He's right we don't have time for this!"

"Oh really?" Piper snorted, "What are we going to do instead? Play hide-and-seek in a school building until we are all shot to death?"

"Pipes!" Jason said.

"No she's correct." Annabeth also cut in, "There's no way we can get out. They're watching the windows now. We'll be lucky if we make it five yards, much less to the police perimeter!"

"We're all going to die." Nico summed up.

"SHUT UP."

Everyone froze. Silence fell in the classroom like an extra layer of air.Percy could feel the tension tightening like someone was wrapping them in duck tape.

The scrawny kid stood in the middle of them. He'd been generally quiet before, but now he was shaking with rage.

"We are not going to die." He said so forcefully everyone flinched, "I have spent half my life running from these people, these monsters, and i am not about to just give up and die! When I die it'll be around people I actually like, okay?"

Percy looked around at everyone else his knuckles were curled into fists but he was in so much pain he was numb to it.

"Leo..." Jason said quietly, like the only words in his vocab were people's names.

"I was new to this freaking school, okay?" Leo, Percy assumed that was his name, met everyone's eyes squarely, "I get that I don't know your histories but that doesn't matter. Whatever problems you have with each other: Forget them. The people in this room cannot be your enemies, because if anyone is going to survive, we're are going to need to work as a team.

"We are all in this together." Leo looked at Percy. And suddenly he did the strongest thing Percy had ever scene anyone do-- he smiled. "And I swear if anyone starts singing High school musical, I will push them out the window."

Piper snorted, even Annabeth cracked a small grin.

Jason looked around at the circle of them. The nine of them. "For better or worse?" He said placing his hand in the center of them.

Leo managed to make his smile wider, and placed his hand on top of Jason's. "For better or worse." He agreed.

"I'm sorry, Annabeth." Thalia apologized placing her hand on top his, "I shouldn't have-"

"Save it!" Annabeth snapped, but her hand went on top of hers, "We've got bigger problems."

Frank went next with Hazel shaky following. Her other hand pulled at her cinnamon hair nervously.

Piper stared at them, and sighed. Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath. Her hand went next, her nails unexpectedly scraping Hazel's knuckle. Everyone pretended not to notice her trying to hold back tears.

Nico glared at Percy. His eyes were alight with furious anger that made Percy want to curl into a ball and die. He deserved to die. "Percy, you should know the only reason I haven't killed you is because Hazel is still here. If she dies, so do you!" Nico's pale hand slammed on top off Piper's hard enough to make her wince.

Percy shook involuntarily. His hand hovered over all of theirs. Everyone watched him. His voice was shaky, "I never wanted anyone to die." He whispered.

"Don't worry," Jason said, looking surprised with himself, "No one else is going to die."

If only they knew how big of a lie those words would turn out to be.