Death and Madness|| Nico di Angelo

Remind me to never shadow travel... ever

When the darkness cleared and the spinning sensation passed, I opened my eyes and found myself on the top of a tree. Quite literally. I was laying awkwardly on the top few branches of a pine tree and by the looks of it, the tree had scratched me quite a lot. 

A few feet below me, Nico lay sprawled in the branches too. I tried to sit up, but instantly regretted it when the branch snapped under me and I fell several feet onto the hard ground. I didn't even have enough energy to groan in pain. 

How had my life gotten so weird? Just this morning I was stressing about my upcoming test and now I had fallen from a tree. Then there was the question of how Nico had transported us from my living room, to wherever the hell we were. 

I looked around and saw that I was at the edge of a forest. To my right, the dense trees shot into the sky at impressive heights and to my left, there was a road. 

I slowly got to my feet, only to notice the branch cracking beneath Nico. I stepped out of the way and let him hit the ground as I had. Served him well, kidnapping random people. 

At least that knocked him into consciousness. He groaned groggily and tried too get to his feet, only to collapse. 

"Need... ambrosia" He mumbled. 

What the fuck is ambrosia? Is it some sort of herb? maybe a flower? I had no idea. 

"In the bag" He added pointing to a black duffel bag that was stuck on one of the lower branches of the tree. 

"Not until you tell me what the hell is going on" I demanded. But it was a stupid request really, because he almost passed out. Guess teleportation took a lot out of him. 

In the bag, I found some clothes and yellow squares of some kind. It hit me that Nico was probably homeless, hence his dishelved appearance and skinny figure.

I passed him the bag, from which he dug out the yellow squares. They must've healed him or something because he was up on his feet again- glaring at me. 

"How do you not know ambrosia?"

"I didn't even know Greek gods were real before this afternoon" I snapped back. 

Nico groaned and buried his head in his hands. "No need to be so snarky, I just saved you life- Your Welcome by the way"

"I didn't say thank you, and you didn't save my life"

"You would have been dead if you went with Luke"

"You don't know him..." I said, less certainly. 

"I don't. But what I do know is that my sister left on a quest because of him and never returned" Nico was full on yelling at me now and I wasn't one to back down. I didn't understand what was going on and him yelling at me wasn't helping. 

"I really don't know what's happening, but I do know that Luke would never hurt me" I yelled back. 

"Sure he wouldn't. Just like he didn't betray camp and his best friends" 

"Camp?" I faltered. Luke hadn't mentioned any camp. "Wh-what camp?" 

"You mean, he didn't say?" Nico chuckled although there was nothing funny. "There's a camp for people like you- people like us... sure I don't have the best past with them, but better Percy than Luke"

"Who's Percy?" Apparently that was a bad question to ask because Nico huffed and started walking away towards the road. "Hey, wait up..."

I caught up to him easily and began questioning him. Nico wasn't happy about answering the questions but he gave me answers and that's all I wanted. 

He told me how he was from the the 1930 (Tip: he does not like to be made fun of) And how Bianca- his sister and he spent the last few decades in the Lotus Casino. 

He told me how he had met Percy a few months ago when Annabeth- another demigod and Percy's friend had fallen off a cliff. Nico told me about how his sister joined the hunters who were these awesome-badass girls that travelled with the goddess Artemis and how Percy had promised to look after Bianca. 

Then he talked about Percy coming back with the news of his sister, that was when he discovered he was the son of Hades. He also gave me a lot of information about the gods in general and monsters. He also told me about who Luke had turned into and that made me want to punch the blond.

"I was chasing down a lead, for Bianca when I found you" He explained. 

"A lead?" I asked. I had realised the key to not offending him was to say as little as possible. 

"I can bring her back to life- I know it" Nico insisted. "I'm the son of-"

"Hades.. blah blah blah I get it" I sighed. "Let's talk about why you teleported us in the middle of nowhere"

I gestured to the empty road. 

"I meant to shadow travel to camp." Nico rolled his eyes. "I can't really control my powers that well"

"Kinda figured that out" I said sarcastically. 

Nico stopped. "What's your problem?" He turned to me. 

"My problem is that my best friend reappeared after eight years and tried to convince me to joining his side and then I got kidnapped by this random Italian, emo kid" 

"You're Italian too" 

"1/4th!" I really regretted telling him about myself. "And like I said- I've never even met my grandpa.. he died before I was born"

"At least you have family" He shot back. 

"You mean my mother?" I scoffed. I wanted to tell him exactly how much I hated my mother, but I swallowed my anger and tried to put a stop to the argument. "Can we work on getting out of here?"

"I.. I can try" I could tell that Nico regretted snapping at me. "Do you trust me?"

"Not really, but what choice do I have?" I answered truthfully. "Just don't shadow travel to an underwear store and we'll be fine."

Nico groaned. "Why did you have to make it weird?" 

"That's my speciality shadow boy" I grinned. 

He offered me his hand and I hesitated before taking it. Soon we were running into the woods as fast as we could, while holding hands. Just before we reached the shadows, Nico wrapped his arms around me again, but less like a hug and more to protect me. Then the world dissolved into darkness once more.

Hi, so I kind of forgot to mention that Luke has been de aged in this. In the Lightning thief, he was seventeen. Well in my literary universe, he was fifteen in the first book. So that makes him around 18 in this book.

I wanted to make him younger because I wanted Violet and him to be friends before he ran away from home. And that wasn't going to happen if he was 20 and she was 13. That would mean Violet had been 2 when he left home. 

I know that doesn't make any sense. Anyways, just keep in mind that he's eighteen in this book.