Gone Girl.¹

𝟬𝟭𝟰. family dinner

gone girl.
━━━ chapter fourteen

❀

"You're my sister, Amaryllis. You're a daughter of Hades."

The blonde stared at him for a good minute, before pressing her lips together as to not make obvious the laugh rising in her throat. She was unsuccessful and ended up letting out a snort that evolved into her wheezing while laughing. Nico looked at her in disbelief, half-confused and half-disappointed at her reaction. 

When she saw his expression, her laugh slowly stopped. The boy didn't seem to be the kind of person that went around telling jokes or pranking people, but there had to be a first time for everything. Amaryllis expected him to smile or at least smirk mischievously, but it never happened. 

"Wha- You're kidding, right?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Nico asked her, putting his hands inside the pockets of his jeans. 

"Look, you're wrong," she tried to explain it to him, though his words didn't seem to leave her mind. "I was claimed the moment I arrived at the Camp. Apollo is my father."

"Do you have any powers? Has Apollo ever talked to you? Have you ever felt a connection to him?" Amaryllis opened her mouth to reply, only to realise that she had nothing that linked her to Apollo other than the fact that she was claimed by him when she was eight.

Nico continued. "I figured out when we were still inside the Labyrinth. There was something... off about you, a certain type of darkness not anyone can notice. Remember the fight with Minos in Daedalus' lab? I tried to summon a portal to the Underworld, but then I lost my sword. Yet, the portal opened anyway. At first, I thought I had done it until I realised that I wouldn't have been able to do it without my sword and that it was you. You opened the portal."

"I froze mid-battle."

"That was why. You used your powers unconsciously," he said, unable to stand still as he elaborated. "You said you hated heights, which is Zeus' domain. The children of the Big Three typically don't do well in the other two gods' domains. Once you told me you have no powers, I started thinking it over. Then it was Pan - before he died, he told you you weren't aware of your true identity. The Pegasi only had a problem with you and me. There were too many signs, it- it couldn't be a coincidence!"

Amaryllis didn't realise it, but she had been holding her breath as Nico was talking. She didn't want to believe him, it went against everything she ever believed in. She couldn't be a daughter of Hades, a child of the Big Three. There was no way something like that could happen. There were still too many unanswered questions, but whatever Nico was saying made sense, a bit too much sense. 

"That doesn't mean anything," she whispered. She was trying her best not to spiral. "I- If I was a child of Hades, then wouldn't I have powers just like you? Wouldn't all the gods, especially Zeus, constantly try to kill me? Wouldn't that be against the pact?"

"All the gods broke the promise they made. They swore that they wouldn't have any kids with mortals, but Zeus had Thalia, Poseidon had Percy and Hades... he had you." Nico took a breath. He seemed hesitant to keep talking, but he did. "I have talked with father. I needed to make sure my theory was correct before telling you. He... confirmed it."

"What the fuck?" Amaryllis muttered, suddenly feeling too dizzy to be standing up. She sat on the sand, her hands going through her hands in a panicked motion. "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck-"