The Best Of The Worst

CHAPTER 16

WILL

After that night, everything changed.

It wasn't the night that he lost his virginity, but he did sleep with Nico. 

But he did one better thing that changed his life forever. 

He proposed. 

"What's with that face?" Angus asked, looking at him weirdly in Apollo cabin. 

"I'm engaged." he replied, grinning like a mad-man. 

"You are?" Caity asked. She was in the cabin to talk to her boyfriend, but suddenly she was less interested in him. "Nico?"

"Nah, my other boyfriend." Will joked, laughing faintly. 

"No, I mean; did Nico ask?" She said. 

"Nope. I did." 

"Congrats! I gotta take this info to my cabin!" the daughter of Aphrodite sprinted off. But as soon as the door closed after her, it opened again, and a very alarmed looking Katie stepped through the door. 

"Where's Nico?" she demanded. 

"Um..." the last he remembered of Nico was when they were having sex in a private, closed-up part of the infirmary. Then... "He said he was going to Hades cabin!" 

"Shit." Katie fell to her knees and mumbled something. "We need to find him." 

"But where do we look?" Will panicked. 

"Woods." Katie said from a sudden hunch. So woods it was.

They had torches in case they were there all day. They didn't get far when Will started to notice something; there was a popcorn trail leading from camp to... Wherever Nico was, hopefully. They followed the trail, and Will kept thinking about what it would be like to find that at the end of the trail there would be a suicide note with the engagement ring on it. Or maybe that they'd find his dead body. Perhaps he might come in to discover that he was cheating on him, which was the most optimistic he could think. But when they reached the top of the mountain, Will was very surprised. 

"Remember, Nico, you can't hold a grudge! It's the fatal flaw of a child of Hades! Not even a grudge against yourself!" a voice said. 

"I know, just... I'm feeling so... So... So claustrophobic even in open spaces. I feel hopeless... I lost my virginity last night, and it was a great experience. And not long after, I got engaged. Will Solace is the only sunshine in my life. When I'm not with him, I feel so... So empty. But... Okay, this has nothing to do with anger or holding a grudge. I don't have a fucking clue  as to what's going on." Nico replied. 

Will couldn't see who he was talking to, but it made the whole area seem gloomy. He saw packets from happy-meals freshly littered across the fields, with coke-bottles and milkshake-cups popping up here and there. The wind blew in Nico's face, making him look rugged and heroic. 

"I can tell Will loves you a lot, so why don't you just spend all your time with him?" the voice- it was a girl- asked. 

"I have social-anxiety, remember? Plus, I don't think that he would say yes to that." Will wanted to yell out that he would, but neither he nor Katie dared interrupt. 

"Nico... Why did you summon me here?"

"I don't trust anyone else."

"Not Hazel? Katie? Will? Jason?" 

"Not even myself. It has to be you."

It hurt Will when he said that. It felt like a rock to the stomach. He doesn't trust his own fiancé, who would take a bullet for him?

"I might have to go back soon. In fact..." The light shimmered away. The gloom lessened, but Nico's face showed more darkness than the forest had. Daylight bounced off the hills and really didn't fit the mood. 

"Who was that?" Katie's voice cracked, and Will looked at her to see that she was crying. He then discovered that he'd also been crying. 

"Who was that that you trust?" Will hissed. "Unlike me, of course."

"G-guys..." Nico's face got even darker, sadder, wetter. 

"Who?" Katie demanded.

"My sister." Nico told them. "That was Bianca di Angelo."