Absolute Mortality

Chapter 4

While Annabeth and I were talking about our classes for the school year, I spotted a tall blond boy next to a shorter, curly brown-haired boy over her shoulder.

I stood up, possibly a little too fast. "I'll catch up with you at lunch, okay?" I said to her.

"What—?" Annabeth started to say.

"Later," I interrupted and hurried toward Jason and Leo.

They spotted me.

"Hey, beauty queen," Leo said.

I gave him a quick, sibling-like hug. "Can you stop call me that?" I said

"What's up, Pipes?" Jason said. I hugged him too, but it was less platonic.

"What's up is that I've been at school for two days already and this the first time I'm seeing you."

"I'm sorry," Jason said. "I only just got here late last night. I assumed you'd have been in bed already and I didn't want to disturb you."

"You mean you didn't want to risk angering Clarisse," Leo said.

"That too," Jason said. I laughed. "So is she still your roommate? For future reference."

"Yep," I said. "She still goes here. Try not to be too disappointed. She's been a lot more tolerable since she started dating Chris Rodriguez."

"I'd still rather avoid any late night encounters with her," said Leo.

"Anyway, when did you get here, Leo?" I asked.

"Yesterday morning. I looked around for you for a little bit, but had no luck. So I just tinkered in our dorm for the entire day."

"As always. Invent anything amazing?"

"As always," he said proudly. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a tiny metal cube.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I call it the LeoCube."

"Creative name."

"Why thank you. I had the Stolls in mind while making it. I bet I can get at least a hundred bucks off them for it."

"What's it do?"

"Watch." He pushed a very hidden button and a lockpick popped out the top. He pushed the button again and it retracted to reveal a different lockpick. He cycled through several lockpicks, all presumably with a specific purpose in mind.

"So it's basically a lockpick multitool," Jason said.

"Yep. And there's a button on the other side you can push for it to retract whatever lockpick you're on without having it popping up the next. That way you don't have to cycle through them all to make it inconspicuous again."

"Aren't you afraid they'll use it on you? Steal back the hundred dollars they paid you?" I said.

"Don't worry. I already switched out mine and Jason's lock for a combination one."

"And the school's okay with that?"

"The faculty never go in the dorm building, except the janitors. I don't see why they'd care."

"Anyway, what classes are you taking?" Jason asked.

"Spanish and Culinary Arts," I said.

"Ah," Leo said. "Por fin vas a ver los beneficios del mejor lenguaje del mundo."

"I just needed a foreign language credit," I said. "What about you two?"

"Engineering and Computer Science," Leo said.

"Business Management II and Computer Science," Jason said.

I gave him a questioning look.

"I couldn't decide what to do about my second elective, so I just did what Leo did."

"So your dad's still wanting you to go into his business then?" I said.

"Yeah, and to be honest, I'm warming up to the idea."

"Really?" I said, surprised.

"Well I've had experience with it now, and I actually like it."

"Hmm."

"What?" Jason said defensively.

"Man, you were hella pissed at your dad for forcing you to take Business Management I. Now all of a sudden you're telling us you actually want to go into his business?"

"I had a change of heart, what's so strange about that?"

"Did you seriously just say 'hella'?" I said to Leo.

"Words are words, Beauty Queen," Leo said. "If they exist, I'll speak them."

"Oh, there's Reyna," Jason said suddenly. A pretty girl with glossy black hair worn in a single braid and piercing black eyes was walking toward us. "I'll see you two later."

Jason walked over to her and kissed her. She then grabbed his hand and the two walked off.

Sadness suddenly enveloped me.

Leo looked at me with a knowing, sympathetic look.

"What?" I said, trying to sound casual.

"You've got to say something to him," Leo said.

"About what?" I said, putting on a fake confused expression.

"Drop the act. You and I both know you like Jason."

"So what if I do?" I said. "He's dating Reyna."

"He's got to know. He has no idea right now."

"What would me telling him accomplish? Is he just going to randomly break up with the girl he's been dating for almost all of last year to be with me?"

"But—"

"Just drop it," I said flatly.

I checked the time and headed back to my dorm.

A/N: Extremely short chapter today, I know. I just wanted to get these characters introduced. I'm going to focus primarily on Percabeth here in the beginning.

Also, I'm working on a little side project, so if you want Leo, look out for it. The first chapter should be up later today. I call it a side project because I'm going to be giving Absolute Mortality priority.

I might even be able to fit in another Absolute Mortality chapter today, but I'm not going to rush. In all likelihood, it'll be up tomorrow.

And again, I'm not entirely happy with this story's title, so if you have a better one, review and tell me so I can change it.