Breaking the Gods

chapter 8

It took Nico a week to get himself into the Blue Ward. It took a firecracker, a wad of gum in his math teacher's hair, two fist-fights, a flooded bathroom and adjoining hallway, and a minor explosion in his chemistry class before he finally succeeded. In the meantime, he checked in with Camp Half-Blood twice, and with Jason four times.

Poor Jason was bored to death watching and waiting, and very clearly wanted some action. Now, if anything went wrong, he'd get the action he so wanted.

Percy was worried. The rest of Camp Half-Blood less so, which was how Nico preferred it. It was nice to have people concerned about his well-being, but too many became over-bearing.

Brooklyn House was less worried than they usually were, in large part because they were getting ready for their own fight. When Nico had figured out the connection between Apophis's other attacks, he'd given them what they needed to figure out where the snake would be striking next: the Dallas Museum of Art. Nico had debated with himself whether or not to join them for that, but in the end, the decision was taken from him.

"That is it, Mr. diAngelo!" screamed his chemistry teacher when the smoke finally cleared. "I'll have you in the Blue Ward for this!"

That announcement was met by gasps of horror from the other students, who at first had been trying to warn Nico to stay in line, then lately, chose to ignore him, so as not to be associated with his bad behavior by any of their teachers.

"Big deal," returned Nico, while mentally thinking. About freaking time! I was starting to think I'd have to set someone on fire to get myself sent there.

He expected a reply from Anubis, but was only met with silence, and found that mildly insulting. Anubis was still in his head. He still possessed the god, and his powers. Anubis just wasn't putting as much of his consciousness into his demigod host these days. Nico knew he shouldn't be annoyed. Anubis was busy trying to save the world. And on top of that he was off plotting with Walt too, about that stuff that was going to get all three of them killed once Sadie found out what Anubis and Walt were up to.

So he squelched down his disappointment with Anubis's silence and spoke to his teacher instead.

"Oh no, not the Blue Ward," he said, and rolled his eyes. "Anything but that."

"You'll sing a different song once you're there young man!"

Nico responded as a true teenager would, proving that he was definitely thirteen now rather than twelve. "Fuck you!"

That would have gotten him drug to the dean's office by his ear back in the day. Now it just got him marched there with his teacher gripping his arm and muttering under his breath about the youth of today. Nico didn't improve his situation any by laughing about this. Not that he was trying to improve his situation. The Blue Ward was where he wanted to end up.

He had a meeting with the dean, who was a gray eyed man, on the old side, but not anciently so. Those eyes reminded him uncomfortably of a child of Annabeth's eyes, but considering the sort of organization he was working for, Nico thought it unlikely that the guy actually was a son of Athena.

Rather than yell at him, like Nico was expecting, Dean Landin regarded him coldly for several moments, locking eyes with him. Then he opened up a folder and thumbed through it.

"You've been quite busy these past two weeks, Mr. diAngelo," he said at last.

"Not as busy as your mom," countered Nico, still playing the rebellious teen. It was more fun than he expected.

Landin stiffened and his gray eyes grew stormy. Then he looked back down at Nico's rap sheet. "Heart of Liberty was founded to help special needs children, as you and every other child who we welcome into our walls knows. We expect a certain amount of acting out. We know that children like to test limits. But you have tested those limits excessively."