My Best Friend's Brother (The Finale)

Chapter 11

Annabeth

"Now what do we do?" Nico asked, tapping his forehead. I took a deep breath.

"I'm going to call the number that Luke gave me, then I'm going to book a plane. The quicker it happens, the more we know."

He nodded "What will you tell Percy?"

My lip curled "That there's a family emergency back at home. It's technically true."

"Right...but what will you tell him when we've gathered enough proof?"

I pondered on that "I don't know. It's going to be hard. Even I still can't believe all of this. It seems totally unreal."

"Well, we won't know until we find out." I sighed, pulling out my phone. "C'mon, I've got the paper in my room."

"Oh, you-you want me to be there when you call?" he asked, his eyes widening a little bit. I shrugged.

"Of course, we're in this together aren't we?"

"Oh. Yeah. Let's go." he said with a small smile. I could tell that he wasn't used to being included in things, and that made me sad. He was so easy to talk to and a little hard to understand. We headed into my room where Nico plopped into the same chair he used earlier. I picked up my pillow and pulled out the piece of paper from it. He smirked and nodded as if to say, 'well done.' Unfortunately, just then Apollo came peeking from outside.

"Hey Ann-oh Nico, you're here too."

"Yeah, we're just chilling. We were talking about-about books." Nico blurted, suddenly going pink. Apollo grinned at me.

"Ah, I see that you've found out that Nico is a total book worm," he said, looking proudly at him "Anyways,  I wanted to tell you that my brother Will called, and he's coming over."

"Is-is something wrong?" I asked, feeling a swooping sensation in my stomach. He waved his hand.

"Oh, nah. He says he wants to chill...but he did sound a little nervous on the phone. Anyways, just informing you." he said, shooting a finger gun at us before leaving. I looked at Nico curiously.

"Book worm?"

"Oh," he twisted the skull ring on his finger "Well, I like books." he said simply. His nervous expression made me laugh.

"Nico, from one book worm to another-" I pointed to the stacked books on my shelf, night table and desk "you could've told me. We never really talk you know."

"I-yeah." he seemed to relax a little bit. Laughing lightly, he said "I'm glad to see that I've got someone to talk to."

"Totally. Now-"  I held up the piece of paper and he cleared his throat "Right, right." he said, holding up a thumbs up. I smiled as I dialed the number. He was alright, that kid.

Percy

"But why?" I asked, my heart pounding, a bead of sweat trickling down my forehead. He leaned back, rubbing his temple as if this was frustrating to him too.

"I'm worried about her. She's been through enough and she's going to suffer immensely if she finds out everything all at once."

I wanted to argue but I shut up for once "Fine. Now tell me who is Athena."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair "It's...very complicated." He looked around, the look in his eyes reminding me of a man searching for a strong drink to gulp down. "We were friends in college. But we had a falling out."

"Why?" I asked. He shrugged.

"Maybe because of the company that I kept. She didn't like them, all for a good reason. After all, they committed arson after arson with me by their side." He took a deep breath "I didn't mind it that much, but when my...friends found out, they wanted to do something."