RED » N. BOBOFIT

5 | loving him is like trying to change your mind

Will's POV

OK, to be truthful, Nico did go missing a lot. He sometimes disappeared randomly when shadow traveling and when he was in a situation that made him unconformable his fight-or-flight response was just to shadow travel out of there. But I was still worried. He would always come back quickly and say where he had gone (sometimes to China or New Rome, where his sister was), but it had been almost twenty minutes with no sign of him, so I went straight to Annabeth.

When I told her about Nico she started freaking out. He was a little brother to her and she cared about him a lot. We immediately started searching around the camp, leaving Annabeth's students to take care of themselves.

"We should maybe check the Hades Cabin!" Annabeth suggested.

"Already did, maybe we should check with Hazel at New Rome. He may be there."

Annabeth nodded in agreement. "I'll go call them." Annabeth ran off to find some money and a puddle of water to iris-message Hazel and realized I had just gotten the job of babysitter.

I looked at Jasmine and Nancy. "No trouble you two, got it?"

Nancy and Jasmine nodded. I then ran after Annabeth.

I found her near the lake in deep conversation with Reyna.

"You're sure... no sign of him?"

"Nope, none."

"Get Hazel. I need to talk to her."

"That'll take a while. I'll call you back, ok?"

"Fine," Annabeth sighed. "In no less then 30 minutes though, ok?"

"Good,"

Annabeth swiped her hand across the message making it disappear. "No luck." She sighed again. "What'd you do with Jasmine and Nancy?"

"Um... I left them at the Big House,"

"Oh no! It's my responsibility to take of them. Crap! My lesson wasn't finished..."

"Annabeth your lessons are never finished. You keep on talking till someone shuts you down."

Annabeth smiled, and then let out an uneasy chuckle. "Good one Will. I needed that. And I know. I never shut up."

I smiled, happy she didn't punch me in the face for the last comment, but with all the stress about Nico, she must've needed the laugh as much as I did. "Ok... now we just have to wait."

"No." Annabeth said sternly.

"Um... no?"

"Let's go get Percy and tell Chiron, we can get the whole camp looking for him."

I saw the tears forming in Annabeth's eyes. "Annie, you're having a breakdown. Just rest for awhile. Go back to your cabin I'll get you if Reyna or Hazel calls or if Nico turns up, ok?

"Fine... but you have to promise to wake me if anything happens."

"I will."

"Ok, bye. I'm going to bed." Annabeth walked back to her cabin.

I started back to the Big House to inform Chiron about Nico's disappearance, thinking about all the what if's: What if he's stuck in China again? What if he's stuck in the underworld? What if he's stuck in a prison slowly dying? What if he's dead?

I was too busy think about the what if's I didn't notice I walked right into a tree. "HEY! WATCH WHERE YOUR GOING!" I small tree nymph probably around the age of 10 stared me down.

"Sorry... sorry. I'm just a little distracted today."

"About the missing death child?" She asked.

"Yeah... how do you know about that?"

"Oh, it's just gossip. My friend Evelyn told me. He's trapped in the woods by the dead man."

"WHAT!?!"

"That's all I know you'll have to ask Evelyn."

"Ok, where's she?" I asked, looking around at the surrounding trees.

"She's the one with the burned bark, from a fire that you demigods started." Will remembered that night. The Stoll twins had put something in the fire which made it go out of control and burn part of the woods down. "She doesn't like your kind too much so she won't talk to you. But you may be able to get a satyr to talk to her, and that's a big maybe. So, good luck." Then she disappeared back into her tree.

Great, so all I needed to do was to find a satyr, and I knew someone who knew one.

Word count: 718. Sorry about the slow chapters. I've been busy! Please read some of my other stories, thanks!