Life is Heroes of Olympus

Chapter III

"Annabeth... Hey...." Nico spoke nervously, sitting across from her at the local diner.

Annabeth grinned and nodded awkwardly, "Hey."

The photographer stared at them like a tennis match, wondering why, of all people, these two had something weird going on.

"I know we haven't really talked since-"

"I'm sorry about the Percy thing-"

They said simultaneously, making Piper jump back slightly from her spot beside Annabeth.

The Di Angelo cleared his throat, "What I mean to say is... I'm sorry about Percy going missing. And I- um.... I'm over the, you know, other thing we talked about. With Percy."

The blond/blue/green haired teen narrowed her eyes at his gesture of apology, as if she didn't truly believe it. Piper, on the other hand, was completely lost. Ah yes, more drama to add to the botchy fanfiction that is my life, currently.

She sighed in defeat. "Fine. Okay, I believe you're telling the truth-" She said in the most 'I don't buy your bullshit' way she possibly could while still making the forgiveness seem real, "-And we should try to get along for Piper. Right, babe?" Annabeth turned to her for a try at humor, but it came out dry, as if she regretted the words the moment they came out of her mouth.

Just forge ahead of the tension.

She opened her bag, pulling out a new journal, blank with the exception of a few notes:

Percy:

Missing since April 22

Popular, apparent enemies: Prescott's (both well known family)?

Bianca:

Missing since September 24

Fairly popular, apparent enemies: Prescott's (Wealthy family as a target)? Leo Valdez (Relationship needs further investigation)
Last seen at Vortex Club party (Ask Drew)?
Brother as target for shooting (Only one who was searching for her: Shooters don't want her found; involved in disappearance)

The two others at the table came out of their stupor and looked over the notes. "It's not much to go off of, but..."

Nico frowned at Leo's name, but wisely stayed in his seat. They didn't need a rogue going off and shooting their only concrete lead.

"The way I see it, in this town, there is no such thing as coincidence. So we need to find what these two have in common, and work from there."

Annabeth bit her lip. "They both are wealthy? I mean, Percy's dad owns the fishing companies that work around here- pretty much the entire workforce, with the exception of teachers and truckers. What about your dad... Hades, isn't that what they call him? He's like hella rich, right?"

Nico nodded along, and started going on about some record company his dad owns, but Piper had lost focus, because something Annabeth had said jogged her memory.

'Nah, don't worry about it. The Grace's are up there with the Prescotts and Jacksons, they can't touch us.'

She reached in her bag to see, thank god, or the gods, or whatever, that the letter was still in there. On a normal day, she would assume he was asking her out, but Jason was never that sketchy...

She used the index finger to rip the flap of the envelope off of where it was attached. The first thing she pulled out was a photo of Jason and his sister inside their house (mansion, more like), sitting with their father and his wife across the table. It looked to be taken from some sort of perch, through their window.