Code Black (Nico di Angelo)

Chapter 1 *Running

Running - to move with haste; act quickly
Nico di Angelo had never been so angry in all his life.

The son of Hades was bruised, battered and utterly exhausted, but regardless of that he marched on. Except for he didn't have a specific goal in mind. He didn't know where he was going and he wasn't in high spirits at all. Nico's strength was fuelled by pure hatred; hatred for Percy who failed to protect his sister, hatred for the hunters who took Bianca away from him in the first place, hatred for Bianca for leaving him all alone. After Nico had opened up that hellhole back at camp and run away, he began trekking through the dense forest with no set destination in mind. He just knew that he had to disappear, before anyone could even attempt to find him.
And search they did, several parties had been sent out over the past few days, Nico almost got caught once too! But luckily for him a monster attacked the group, distracting them for the few minutes it took to kill it so that he could sneak away a safe distance. Nico guessed it took him about twelve hours to walk from camp to Port Jefferson, although he had no way of knowing for sure. When he arrived, many of the people there stared at him weirdly. But he didn't get angry because he knew how strange he must have looked at this point. After spending a day in the woods, he assumed that he wasn't exactly clean.

His first stop was a nearby McDonald's so that he could use the washroom and order some food. Nico knew he would need to come up with at least a general plan sooner than later, and so after spending most of the afternoon walking around the streets of Port Jefferson, he entered a local library which he had miraculously found. The young son of Hades (though he was unaware of his parentage at this point) stumbled inside and was more than relieved to sit down at one of the many public computers. Though old and slow, they would surely help Nico. He didn't have any other options unless he wanted to spend another day in the area looking for a better library. With slow and inexperienced typing on the keyboard, and an undeniable desire to play games instead of doing research, Nico forced himself to bring up a map of America, and zoom into his current location.

Where can I go that's not too far away, and I won't be found? He thought desperately. He spent a few minutes clicking on random cities until he somehow came up with an idea. It was pretty unexpected for someone his age, but that is just what he needed, something unexpected. He was tired of always being the new one, the inexperienced one. For once the son of Hades wanted to follow his own rules and have the others play along to his game.

Nico's next move was buying a ferry ticket, which would take him from Port Jefferson across to Bridgeport. There was no way the others at camp would look him for that far away. Nico felt his heart clench at the thought of being alone for much longer, but he pushed these feelings aside. They wanted him to be alone, they took everything from him. So he'd disappear, just like they wanted. Unfortunately the single ticket had cost almost all of the money he still had at that point, but he decided to worry about that later. Even though he tried to stay awake, Nico ended up falling asleep on the ferry. He was still young after all and he hadn't gotten any rest since he first ran away. His dreamless sleep was uninterrupted and much needed and he woke up feeling refreshed. The son of Hades would need his energy soon, because his journey to find a new home was far from over; well, 100 hours from over to be exact.

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As Nico walked around the busy gas station, he found himself going over everything that had had happened during his past few days after stepping off that ferry. Oh there were many interesting memories alright, and not all of them were exactly pleasant. However a few of them were: for example how on the second afternoon after he arrived in Bridgeport, he walked into this seniors' care home and lied about having relatives there. Now Nico hadn't originally planned this, but he saw a good opportunity and he took it.