Through the Burning Fires of Hell // A Nico Di Angelo Fanfiction (On Hold)

Chapter 13

Hi so uh. Yeah. I'm still alive. Sorry about not publishing for like, a year. Schools been busy, I've been busy, but those are all just excuses. I've just been like...not that invested anymore? I'm not sure hot to put it, but this goes more for my Luke FF than this one. Hence why I wrote this during winter break. But I swear to god I will finish this, even if it takes me another year to do so. Happy new year everyone, and thank you so much for reading!

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Raven

Raven couldn't think. Couldn't focus. Her stupid, frustrating, ridiculous brain was, for the first time in her life, screwing her over. She couldn't think about anything except how nice it had felt when Nico had clutched her to him after he'd nearly killed himself to save her life. She also kept on thinking about Elian. Elian, who had somehow appeared as she drifted between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and told her to return to Nico who was waiting for her.

And then, again, her thoughts jumped to the son of Hades and the look in his eyes during that brief moment he'd stared at her, the two of them ensconced within her wings before she'd stupidly blurted out that he was mortal and stepped back. And now she couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened had she kept her mouth shut. At the same time, she also couldn't stop thinking about how much shit she would have landed both of them if she hadn't stepped back.

Oh, and, of course, the raw, twisting emotions of pain, anger, loneliness, and anguish inside her that belonged to Nico, again thanks to the fact that he'd nearly killed himself to save her. They had flowed into her the way his blood had flowed into her, and in the hour it'd taken them to trek here, they had mixed with hers until she couldn't sort out which were his and which were hers. The scariest thing was that she knew he had felt her too, and she was honestly surprised he didn't go running in the other direction. Instead, he'd hugged her as if his life depended on it. And when she'd exploded at him for almost killing himself, Nico had just shrugged, smiled, and said he'd do it again.

I'm just mad at him, Raven told herself as the curtains to the hut pulled back. Yeah. That's it. Mad at how foolish that was, mad at how he nearly died for me, and mad at my father for making him do something like that.

Did your father make him, or did volunteer? Her brain whispered unhelpfully.

A long-dead, nearly forgotten emotion twisted inside her, and Raven felt her chest constrict as the intense relief in Nico's brown eyes flashed in her mind again. No, no, no, she thought in a panic as that buried ache flared. I can't. The memory of white, gleaming bones and blood-splattered walls behind a mangled, gruesome corpse flashed in her mind again and the metallic scent of blood rushed down her throat, threatening to choke her with it and drag her down into the depths of Hell.

But it was gone as fast as it came and Raven managed to draw in a shallow breath. This time, instead of feeling like the world was collapsing down on her, she felt . . . a little lighter. As if that dream where Elian had appeared had lightened the shadow on her heart. "I love you, so live, Raven," Elian's voice whispered through her head again, chasing away the dark memory that plagued her footsteps everywhere she flew.

She'd never forget, never forgive, but . . . perhaps, after nearly a hundred fifty years, she could stop living in the past.

She felt a squeeze in her hand and glanced down to see that she'd unconsciously reached for Nico and was now gripping him tightly like a lifeline. As she held on, she found the horrible memory slithering back into the dark as if driven away by his cool touch.

Nico. Elian. Nico. Elian. Nico. Elian. Nico-

Luckily, she was saved from the mess inside her head as Damasen emerged from the hut, his hulking figure shoving away all the jumbled pieces of thought and memory in her brain. Man, Raven had never been so glad to see her friend in the two hundred twenty-or-so years she'd known him.