Pretty Poison ━━ Percy Jackson

001 . . . Late Spring

The girl's fingers close around his wrist and he's getting ready to start kicking and running in the other direction, but her touch is gentle as she pulls him back into a sitting position, and when she offers him a tissue and tells him, he shouldn't scratch with his hands because it'll cause infection, it occurs to him that she's not going to hurt him.

Shoulders slumping slightly, Percy takes the tissue and uses it to smear away the tears that are mixing with the sand from his eyes.

"Thanks," he tells her.

Behind them, there's a kicking sound— when Percy turns around, there's a lump of sand with a dent where Nancy must've kicked it just moments ago.

Percy is careful not to raise his voice because he doesn't want the girl to think of him as rude or anything and abandon him, but he frowns anyways as he tells her, "Nancy, that wasn't very nice — I've been working on that sandcastle since I got here."

Wrong statement. Nancy scowls, kicking up some more sand for good measure, and Percy reminds himself, don't get into fights.

He turns to avoid the sand flying through the air, and he hears the girl speak, "Leave him alone."

(He can't help but think her voice is awfully pretty, and that it's unfair for her to have to waste it on Nancy.)

"Got yourself a girlfriend, haven't you?" Nancy sneers, hands on hips. "Pathetic! Go away."

"You're so mean," the girl says, raising her voice. "He hasn't done anything to you!"

It's true, so for lack of a better comeback, Nancy shoves out her hand to push the girl away, pulling on her hair as an afterthought. The girl dodges Nancy's fist, but her fingers close around her hair and she stumbles into Percy.

The two of them both crash down onto the sand, destroying the second sandcastle he's just started on.

She turns to him, the look on her face one bordering on devastation. "I'm so sorry!" she blurts out, getting to her feet. "I really didn't —"

"— It's okay," he tells her, but Nancy is already snickering, and the girl doesn't smile.

"You can't even stand properly! And let's not start with your weird eyes."

At that Percy turns to look at her eyes— they're a fathomless black color that reminds him of looking at the night sky in the darkest hour, of tumbling down an endless abyss . . . a timeless kind of beautiful, like Death.

"They're not weird," he says. "I think they're pretty."

"They're black!" Nancy exclaims. "What kind of blonde — if you can even consider her dumb, weird hair color blonde — has black eyes?"

At that the girl looks like she's about to cry, and Percy feels horrible— she'd come over to help him, and now she's being harassed too.

"I think we should go," he says, taking her hand and squeezing it lightly in consolation. "You can build sandcastles with me if you want," he adds when she sniffs, continuing to look upset.

"Losers," Nancy scoffs, but she actually looks hurt, as if she, too, wants someone to offer to build sandcastles with her.

Percy briefly considers inviting Nancy to play with them, but the redhead's been nothing but mean to him and his new friend, and so the notion is pushed from his mind as he watches her stick her tongue out at both of them and leave.

"Hmph," Percy declares at her retreating figure. "Good riddance."

The girl doesn't bother to correct him, and he turns to her, hand extended and waiting to be shook.