Nico's Quest

Chapter 15

Walking away from Nico and returning to the battle was one of the hardest things Zia had ever had to do. And she could tell just by looking at Percy that he felt the same way, even though she still didn't like the sea god's son.

They couldn't leave him where he was, since the east wall might be breached again, so Percy carried Nico to the infirmary, despite Nico's protests that he wanted to go to his room.

"You're too used to your room," Percy told him. "You might fall asleep there. And if you fall asleep . . ."

He'd probably never wake up.

There was only one other person in the infirmary: a girl who seemed to be in a coma. Percy put Nico in the bed next to hers, then cranked it up so that Nico was sitting, so that he'd be less likely to fall asleep.

"Here," said Percy, holding a can of something to Nico's lips. "Drink this. All of it."

"What are you giving him?" demanded Zia. "Is that more of that nectar substance?"

"No . . . it's Red Bull," said Percy.

"Gives you . . . wings," muttered Nico. He tried to take a sip, but Percy tilted the can too far, and Nico ended up spluttering the beverage.

Zia fought down the urge to brain Percy with a bed-pan and started opening drawers until she found one with bending straws. She yanked the can away from Percy and put the straw into it before offering it back to Nico. "You'd think you were trying to drown him, sea god spawn," she muttered.

As Nico drank his Red Bull, the sounds of battle reached their ears, and they knew that they were under attack again.

"Go," Nico told them, as Zia and Percy looked at each other, then down at him.

"I don't want to leave you alone," said Percy. "If something happens to you here, there'll be no one to help you -"

"There's nothing . . . they could . . . do anyway," said Nico. And that was the truth, however grim it was, and hearing it still made Zia's heart feel like it was in a vice.

Percy knelt down so that he was at eye level with Nico. "Hold on, okay? Don't you give up on me, cousin. I've come too far for you to just bow out now."

Nico reached for him weakly and they clasped hands. "I'll . . . hold on. I promise."

When they released their hands, Zia noticed that both of them had white knuckles. She stepped forward and gave Nico a quick kiss on the forehead, before she could think better of it. "Hold on," she echoed what Percy had said, then quickly turned away before she could see what his reaction would be.

She fled from the room, but every step seemed harder to take than the last. More than anything she wanted to stay . . . but she knew that she couldn't. She and Percy were both needed elsewhere.

______________________________

Staying conscience was harder than Nico thought it would be, considering how much pain he was in, and how Percy had left him so that he was sitting up-right. Thankfully, Anubis was in his head and wouldn't let him sleep. Whenever he started getting too drowsy, the jackal god started shouting at him, causing a racket that only Nico could hear, and jolting him back into awareness.

He tried to make sense of the other sounds that he was physically able to hear. Magic explosions and the roar of flames and waves kept reaching his ears, but it was impossible to tell what was going on just by that. The most he could gather was that the defenders seemed to still be holding their own.

How much longer? he asked Anubis for what must have been the tenth time since Percy and Zia left.

Not much longer, answered Anubis. Just hold on.