I have a friend who's away right now and so im going to update a new chapter of this book every day for the next three days until he's back. Surprise!

Chapter Twelve

"Are you sure he's missing?" It was late at night, and, unable to sleep, I had finally made that call to Chiron, locking myself in the bathroom with the shower on.

"Pretty sure, yeah. Thanatos didn't know where he had gone either, which is a pretty big red flag, and then there's the whole vision thing."

"Vision thing? Nico, did you have a dream about your father?"

"No. That's the thing, it happened in the middle of the day. One minute I was fine, the next I was standing in the middle of some desert road, and I could hear Hades talking to me. It was really weird. The people I'm staying with thought I had a seizure." I had already briefed Chiron on my new living situation, making sure to leave specifics and names out of the explanation.

"Hmm. What did Hades say?"

"He told me I was in danger, and that I had to come find him, but he wouldn't say where he was. He told me I didn't have much time."

"Ominous indeed. I'll have the Athena cabin do some research on this 'vision'. Stay safe, Nico." Once the call ended, I tossed another drachma into the rainbow mist, and asked for Percy. He was, predictably, sleeping.

"Percy," I whisper-shouted, not wanting to risk waking Tim in the room next to me. "Percy, wake up!" He jolted awake and fell out of bed.

"Nico?" He asked blearily, wiping at his eyes and squinting. "Why are you calling so late?"

"Why are you asleep so early?" I countered.

He turned his head, presumably to look at the window or a clock or something. "It's eleven fifty-three, Nico. What the fuck."

"Do you want to talk or not? 'Cause I do have better things to do–"

"No, wait, I'm sorry, don't hang up, I'm just- shit-" He tripped over something and fell out of view for a second before popping back up. "I'm awake, I'm awake."

"How are things at camp, then?" Percy settled back against his bed, sighing. "As good as ever, I guess. The prophecy got leaked, and now everyone is bad-mouthing you. We're trying to keep the worst of it under control, but what can you do, really? Oh, and you'll never guess who beat up some Hephaestus cabin kid who called you a really homophobic slur!"

"Was it Will?"

"No, but I wouldn't be surprised. It was Clarisse!"

"Really? I always got the impression she kinda didn't like me." Percy shrugged, glancing at something out of view again. "What? Are we waking Annabeth up?"

Percy turned bright red. "You are surprisingly dirty-minded for someone so tiny."

"I didn't say anything, you were the one who interpreted that as being dirty."

"Oh my Gods," Percy groaned. "I hate you."

"Aw thanks, I hate you too."

A soft knock interrupted the conversation and I swore. "Shit. I've gotta go, Percy, I'll call again in a few days." I swiped my hand through the mist, cutting off his reply.

It was Jason. He was standing outside my door, looking ready to burn a hole through it with his glare. What is it with people in this house glaring all the time? "Can I help you...?" I asked.

"Who were you talking to?" He demanded and I stiffened.

"No one. I was getting ready to shower."

Jason raised a single eyebrow. "In the middle of the night?"

I shrugged, leaning on the door frame. "Couldn't sleep. Why is it any of your business?"

"Because I don't trust you. How did you know I died? How did you recognise me?" He leaned in and lowered his voice a little.

Another shrug. His eyebrows twitched in annoyance at my refusal to answer. "What are you not telling us!" He seethed.

"What if I told you that what I'm not telling you is something you wouldn't believe if I could tell you what it was, which I can't, so even if I was able to tell you, I wouldn't?"

"What the fuck is your deal?" He snapped, leaning close again. "You think you can keep your secret, but it's only a matter of time until we find out."

I tipped my head to the side a little. "But I'm not the only one keeping secrets in this house, am I? And maybe some secrets are better left alone." I shut the door in his face. When I was sure he was gone, I slumped down with my back against the wall.

Shit. Shit shit SHIT. If Jason was onto me, how long would it be before the others were, too? As soon as they started trying to find me or my family in any kind of government database, they would know something was up.

The only salvation came from the fact that my secret would be so bizarre to them that they likely wouldn't even consider it as a possibility. I just had to do a better job at keeping camp Half-blood a secret. Even if they did find my birth certificate or some other age-old thing, I could just tell them I was named after a great-grandpa or something.

Yeah. It would be okay. As long as I didn't fuck up then it would be okay.

...↞⇹↠...

I fucked up. Two days, I had been here for two days and had already screwed myself over. Not in a world-ending way, but the way that definitely didn't make me any less suspicious.

Tim had dragged me off to his room, wanting to show me something he called 'coding', that his brothers called 'hacking', that I had no idea what either of those meant, and turned out to be some kind of computer thing.

When he offered to let me try, I had maybe freaked out and refused to touch the thing, which led Tim to becoming vaguely concerned, which led to an awkward sort of suspicion, which led to a weirdly quiet dinner.

I still couldn't eat any of the food they served, which was a real tragedy since it all looked and smelled absolutely delicious. I was surviving off of nightly fast-food runs in the middle of the night and burning offerings in alleyways.

I could tell that Bruce and Alfred were both concerned with my lack of food consumption, but I couldn't very well tell them that I might get cursed and/or smote if I don't burn part of my meal as an offering. Staying with the Gods' favour is very important.

All together, I was likely painting a very bizarre picture of myself to these people. It was a wonder they hadn't already begun to question me. Jason hadn't spoken much to me since our midnight altercation, and I got the impression Damian wasn't one for words as much as he preferred glares and silent judgement, but Tim and Dick were nice.

This was the third meal we had all eaten together where I hadn't touched a bite, and when I deemed it acceptable to leave, I stood.

"Nico, are you sure you're alright? I haven't seen you eat anything since you arrived here," Bruce voiced, drawing most of the eyes at the table to me.

"Um. Yeah, I just, it's...kind of a...religious thing?" I stumbled over my words for a moment, before settling on the closest to the truth I could get.

"You have...religious dietary restrictions?" Damian asked doubtfully.

"Well, yes and no..? It's not a dietary thing, more like an...offering thing?" I was fucking up again, wasn't I? "I can't eat until I've burned a portion of the food as an offering."

"I didn't peg you for the religious sort of person," Jason says across from me. I raise an eyebrow. "I think there's a lot you don't know about me." He grit his teeth and looked away. Oblivious, Bruce continued.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"Because I didn't want you to think I was trying to commit arson and burn your house down. That has happened before." This, of course, raised a few eyebrows, but I kept speaking. "And it's no big deal, I've been getting my own food anyways."

"Where have you been getting your own food from?" Tim asked. I offered a shrug. "Downtown, fast food places, diners, wherever, really."

"When have you–"

"Usually when it's dark out. There's less people around." A blink of silence follows, and I look up from where I was separating the individual pieces of carrot from the salad on my plate to see everyone looking at me. "What? I don't like people."

"You go out, into Gotham, at night, by yourself?" Dick asked. I nodded. "And you haven't been killed yet?" I shake my head slowly. "Was I supposed to be?"

"Nico, you can't go into Gotham by yourself in the light of day, forget about when it's dark out! What were you thinking?"

"...That I was hungry? And that I'm not the only person in this house who sneaks out at night." The reaction is immediate. Everyone at the table stiffens almost imperceptibly. I had originally thought it was only Jason who went out at night, but last night when I came back from a McDonald's run, there were significantly less souls in the house than there should have been. I couldn't tell who exactly wasn't present, but it wasn't just Jason.

I wasn't overly concerned about it, and I'm still not, but the way they keep worrying about me going out alone when they clearly do is starting to get on my nerves. 

Just out of curiosity, how do you pronounce Nico's name? Nick-oh or Neek-oh? I've always said Neek-oh, because his name is Italian and Italian uses the 'i' as an 'ee' sound, like French.