Nico di Angelo

Arts and Crafts was my favorite class so far, but swordfighting was definitely a close second.

Yesterday we started a pottery unit on vases to give to people for the winter holidays, and I was excited to see if mine survived the kiln. It was really hard to make it the right shape, but Travis was able to help me since he's done this before and the Apollo kids seemed scared of me.

I don't think they wanted me to know that they were scared of me, but I could tell that they were nervous whenever I asked a question or tried to ask for help when Travis was busy.

It's not like they were ever mean to me, they just... Weren't really nice, if that makes sense?

Anyways, after breakfast we went to arts and crafts, and my vase survived getting fired! So I was able to take it and start painting the first layer of glaze on it.

"Excuse me," I said to an Apollo camper who was standing in front of the glaze that I wanted to use. "Can I please..."

The child of Apollo gave me a side eye, then crossed their arms and walked over to another sibling of theirs.

Looking down, I tried to not think about it as I grabbed the underglaze.

I was excited that my vase had survived the kiln— I've never made anything that had to get fired before, but after I opened up the glaze and got my supplies ready to start glazing, I like... Couldn't.

I mean, I could do it. But when I sat down, my head started to feel tingly or staticey and my head's never done that before so it was really overwhelming and I know that you need to see to make art but the lights were really bright and everyone was talking and so many things we're happening and it's just making the static fuzzier and my hands started to feel fuzzy—

"Nico?" Travis' voice cut through some of the static, though my brain was still on the wrong channel as he spoke to me. He looked worried. "Are you okay? You zoned out for a bit there."

But the hand on my shoulder was almost unbearable, so I pulled away from the son of Hermes. It made me feel bad.

"I am buzzing but like in a really fuzzy and staticey icky bad kind of way."

Travis squinted his eyes, but I couldn't tell if he was confused or annoyed.

It's hard to tell those two apart.

"Buzzing? Did you drink something with a lot of caffeine or sugar in it for breakfast?"

Sealing my eyes, I shook my head.

"Did you sleep okay?"

I shrugged.

"I... I thought so," I tried to answer his question while also trying to block out everything else because it was really overwhelming and it made me want to cry a little bit. "I was... I was okay this morning and at breakfast and the I was okay coming here and I was okay and I was excited to see that my jar survived but then I got my glaze and I sat down and when I sat down it like... It started to tingle and now it's really a lot and I don't remember this happening before because usually when I'm overwhelmed it feels different and not like this but I'm also overwhelmed so—"

"Woah, woah, slow down there." Travis cut me off. "Let's go for a walk, okay? Maybe if you get some air away from a lot of people, it'll help."

Nodding, Travis told me to just get outside and he would make sure my stuff was cleaned up.

And as nice as the walk was, as much as it helped with not being as overwhelmed, it didn't make the feeling go all the way away.

Is this what anxiety feels like?

Maybe it's anxiety because that kid acted weird when I was just trying to do something that everyone else was doing.

I'm not sure.

All I know is that I spent the rest of the day doing the normal activities and routines, but feeling like I was a half step off from everyone else for the rest of the day.

It sucked.

•••
Percy Jackson

Since the car we'd hijacked was almost out of gas and we were starving, we decided to stop at the Hoover Dam on our way towards San Francisco.

A part of me was sad that we were here or at any big piece of construction without Annabeth— the one person who would enjoy it and appreciate it for what it really was.

The other part of me was still in the isolated desert, watching Bianca run back into the junkyard.

It's been... Hours. I'm not sure how many, but the sun would be going down in a few hours, so quite a few of them. I slept on and off on the way here— when my body would let me.

Thankfully, I didn't dream while I slept, but I still felt sluggish and exhausted when we abandoned the car in the Hoover Dam parking lot.

"Alright, so that car is done." Thalia said, closing the drivers door behind them. "What's next? Get food? I could go for a dam meal right now."

Grover cracked a smile, and I didn't get it at first.

"I'd like to check out the dam snack out." He agreed. "And use the dam bathroom."

I didn't laugh, but the joke was able to pull me away from my head for a minute.

"I wonder if there's anything good in the dam gift shop." I added on, trying to prevent myself from getting worse today.

After all, it's only been around a week since I got out of treatment.

There's a party to go to when I get home. A meeting on Olympus and one with Luke and... That's if Luke survives holding the sky for much longer and then if Artemis lets him live after the fact, but then my little sibling is going to be born soon and...

And they're probably not going to have any memories of me, but I'm trying to not think about that.

I can't go back to the hospital so soon. I told myself. That's not fair to my parents.

They can't find my body in southern Nevada. There's people that are relying on me to get all the way to California and all the way back to New York.

You might as well throw yourself over the dam wall.

As Grover and Thalia laughed at the awful pun, I squeezed my eyes shut, feigning a smile.

"Wh— what's so funny?" Zoë Nightshade asked as even Pheobe seemed to get a kick out of the joke. "I don't understand what everyone besides Percy is laughing at. Are you all so hungry that you're becoming hysterical? If so, then we must find whatever food is served here at the Hoover Dam."

The other three calmed down after another minute of laughing. Thalia smiled.

"Yeah, more or less," he figured. "let's go get some dam food."

Walking away from the scene of our most recent crime (the car), Grover gave my hand a squeeze as we stayed back a little further from Thalia, Zoë, and Phoebe, who were trying to explain the joke to Zoë.

The daughter of Atlas didn't understand it at all.

"Hey," my boyfriend broke the silence between us, forcing my brain to give him a fraction of its attention. "Are you okay? You've been... Quiet since we left the junkyard."

I tried to smile, to reassure him, but I couldn't even fake it anymore.

"I'll... I'll live." I answered his question in what may be the worst possible way to break the news to him. "Not because I want to. Not because I think I deserve to. But... Because I just... Have to."

Stopping where we were, Grover seemed to know that words didn't exist that could magically stop me from having a mental disorder, so he just pulled me into a hug.

Stopping let the quicksand take hold of me again, though, and I could feel it rising in my chest, threatening to fill my lungs until I couldn't breathe anymore.

"I'm sorry that you felt obligated to come on this quest." Grover apologized for something that wasn't his fault. "Or to Maine, even. As much as I loved that hug, you should be at home right now, baking Christmas cookies and going to therapy and healing after spending multiple weeks in the mental hospital. Not... Here."

Resting my head between Grover's horns, I smiled a little when I felt them just barely poke into my skin.

"Our friends were kidnapped, Leaf, I wanted to come," I reminded him, taking a deep breath as I focused on how it felt when he hugged me. "but if my therapist could Iris Message, that would be cool. My parents will owe her a lot of money after this."

He smiled into the crook of my neck.

For a minute or two, we stayed there, holding one another while Grover helped me calm down.

While it didn't make things better, it made it less frantic.

"Better?" Grover asked as if he couldn't sense how I was feeling through our empathy link.

I nodded slightly.

"Calmer." I answered, grabbing his hand for comfort. "let's go raid the dam food court, I'm starving."

To the credit of any monsters in the area, they let us eat despite four half bloods and a satyr sitting together, somewhat defenseless with so many mortals around.

Yeah, it was packed inside.

As Grover and I joined the other three, Zoë Nightshade looked up, casting me a look that I could barely recognize as concern.

"You good, Jackson?" Thalia asked.

"Good's a relative term, Pinecone Face," I reminded them, sitting down and eating one of my fries. I was glad to be able to eat some greasy food again— a classic cheeseburger and fries. "As long as Poseidon doesn't try and end my life in San Francisco, I'll make it back to New York, if that's your worry."

Usually I don't eat meat around Grover, but they were out of their vegan burgers and I haven't had a burger since before I was admitted to the hospital, so I was letting myself do it this one time.

Not that Grover ever seems to mind when I eat meat around him— I'm not sure if he notices that I try to avoid it when we're together, but I still try to be mindful of it when we're together.

"You better," the child of Zeus responded, taking a bite of her taco. "if not, I'll get Uncle H to bring you back from the dead so I can kill you again."

"Uncle...? Thalia, I hate to break this to you," I said. "but Hades is not exactly my biggest fan. I doubt he'd being me back from the dead."

Thalia shrugged.

"Ok, and? Then I'll just get Bianca or Nico to do it."

I rolled my eyes, taking a bite out of my burger and letting the others chat amongst themselves.

After eating, Zoë said she was going to get some air with Phoebe, while Thalia, Grover and I figured we'd hit up the gift shop and see if there was anything worth stealing*.

*legally buying (maybe).

After all, if Annabeth isn't here, it might be nice to bring her something. Shed some light after being kidnapped.

Of course, almost all of the merchandise was tacky, which meant that Grover loved it and so would Annabeth.

"Do you think they'd accept drachmas?" Grover asked as he held up a yellow sweater that had some sort of writing on it (I don't know what it said, I'm dyslexic). "What's the conversion rate from dollars to drachmas?"

"Babe, if they don't accept pesos, I doubt they'll take drachmas." I said, pointing out the sign that said, in big, bold letters PAY WITH: VISA, DISCOVER, CITI, CHASE, OR USD (CASH). NO PESOS.

He frowned.

"Here, let me see the sweater," Thalia said, taking the sweater and walking towards the cash register, which is the last place I expected them to go.

Before I could figure out the scheme she was conspiring, I looked at a magnet they had here and decided that my parents would like it.

So naturally, I took out my wallet, checked how much cash I had, and put the magnet in the wallet when I put my wallet back.

"Did you just pocket a $10 magnet?"

And because my boyfriend wasn't the one who asked that, I might have assumed ill intent and panicked by taking Riptide out, turning to face the direction of the voice.

Which was met with a muffled scream as a red headed girl who I had never met before covered her mouth, staring at me.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I was going to offer to pay for it, please don't turn me into a shish kabob."

"Please don't—" and it was at this very moment that I would appreciate being able to control the Mist. So thank you, Chiron, for not teaching me or even mentioning that it was a possibility. You would think that as a demigod who's gone on multiple quests, the old horse would mention it at least once.

"I'm sorry," Grover cut in, looking at the red headed teen who was around the same age as us, then at Riptide, then at her. "You can see that?"

"What do you mean can you see that? It's a fucking sword, of course I can see it. The real question is why I can't feel it right now. You got an answer for that, Wise Guy?"

She had a New York accent, and while I filed that in the back of my mind, there was a larger issue at hand. And it wasn't just that she was clear sighted.

"Hey, don't talk to my boyfriend like that. He's just asking you a—"

She looked up, and at first I couldn't figure out what she was looking at.

"Do you have horns?" The red head asked a very personal question, I'd argue. "What are you, half goat? You some mythical creature trying to kill me?"

But sure as shit, Grover had taken off his hat earlier because it's warm in here and it's easier to shove a hat in a pocket rather than carry a coat around.

"Oh my gods, I—" I began, before feeling a hand grab my shoulder that felt a little too thin to be your average grandma.

Whipping around, Riptide slashed through a skeleton that fell to the floor, but was quickly reassembling itself.

"Where's Thalia?" I asked Grover, scanning the shop for the child of Zeus.

I can't go back to being the only human child of the Big Three.

Well, okay, Nico is camp, but... Still.

The only one on this quest.

"Outside," Grover told me, pointing towards the door, where Thalia was dealing with a few skeletons. "Let's go— the others are probably having the same issue."

The skeleton started to stand, and I kicked it in the head, cracking it's skull.

I looked back at the girl.

"You saw nothing, by the way." I let her know. "We were never here."

"Like hell, but if you think I'm telling any pigs about this, you're crazy." She insisted, following Grover and I as we left the gift shop. "You got any extra weird swords? Where are we going?"

"What do you mean where—"

I opened the door right on a skeleton, which took care of that one.

For now.

A few minutes of slashing and knocking skeletons away went by before they all seemed to settle, needing time to recollect themselves. Not being complete dumbasses, we took this chance to run towards what Thalia and Zoë had apparently decided was the rendezvous point earlier, when Grover and I had straggled behind the group.

It wasn't until we got there that Thalia registered this random teenage girl who looks nothing like our other quest members.

"Wh— who is this?" Thalia asked us. "You make a friend in the two minutes we were separated? You think Annabeth needs a girlfriend or something when we meet up with her?"

"You could ask me yourself," Ms. Red said. "Names Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and I wouldn't call us friends— your friend here tried to turn me into a shish kabob and his boyfriend looks like he might be part barnyard animal, but a sentient skeleton decided to attack us before I could get any answers, so I followed you guys because I'm tired of this happening to me without getting answers."

"Of what happening? You just followed two boys out of the gift shop because you thought one of them was cute."

Rachel Elizabeth Dare did a double take before looking at Thalia.

"I— that is the literally the farthest thing from the truth that I've ever heard." Rachel insisted, which meant that bending the Mist didn't work on her. Which, if she's clear sighted... Would make sense. "why would I do that? They're dating and I'm a lesbian. Don't pull a fast one on me, I know what I saw. Why do this keep happening?"

"Why..." Thalia began, noticing Zoë and Phoebe running towards us from behind Rachel. "You said your last name is Dare right?"

Slowly, the girl nodded her head.

"Like from Dare Enterprises?" Thalia continues, which is something I had never heard of before, but Rachel seemed put off by the fact that Thalia knew the name. "Your dad has a car here for you?"

"We... Well, yeah, my dad owns the company, but he's not here. Him and my mom are in Vegas, so—"

"Doesn't matter." Thalia insisted. "You want answers? We need a ride out of here. Call the car and we'll answer as many questions as we can— we're heading for San Francisco."

The two of them shared a hard look.

"The skeletons—" Phoebe said as the two girls caught up to us, but quickly cut herself off. "who is this?"

Thalia raised an eyebrow.

"Your ride out of here," Rachel Elizabeth Dare caved in to her curiosities, grabbing a phone out of her pocket, turning it on and typing something in before putting it back in her pocket. "Let's go."

•••
It's ok guys you don't need to applaud or get worried I'm still alive I've just been drawing a LOT lately

(you should check it out on it @artbybeck) ok byeeeeee or hi Rachel Elizabeth Dare