Chapter Text
Nico di Angelo didn’t sleep a wink that night. But really, who on earth could possibly blame him? Each time he closed his eyes, he saw the image of Travis’s bloody face beneath him, or saw the Peacekeeper, gagging and clawing at the walls as the spider approached. He spent the night inside of the bathroom with a scrub brush, desperately scrubbing at the dried blood beneath his fingernails until his fingertips were red and raw.
The next morning, when he arrived at the Assembly, Hermes was talking to Gaea. His face was confused, his brows furrowed. He seemed to be trying to speak, but Gaea kept interrupting him. Finally, after several rounds of this strange dance between the two of them, Gaea glared at him viciously until he went quiet, bowing his head and nodding in assent.
As he sat in his usual seat, Nico looked up at the screen anxiously. The Arena looked virtually the same; the poisoned water bottle was near Percy’s corpse, untouched. This only served to make Nico more nervous. As students took their seats, Hermes shook himself off, plastered on a smile as the cameras turned back on.
“Welcome, one and all! Welcome to Day 3 of the 10th Annual Hunger Games! Now, while we were all sleeping soundly in our beds last night, some action happened, and so Travis Stoll is no longer with us. He was slaughtered savagely by another Tribute, and as such, we now have only six Tributes remaining!”
District Seven’s Mentor, Commodus, frowned. He looked at the screen, where Travis’s body was still fully visible in the Arena, his face confused. Nico held his breath.
“I don’t understand… he… he was killed in the middle of hundreds of cameras to see. Why aren’t they showing footage?”
Nico’s palms began to sweat. He shut his eyes tight, fought down a wave of nausea.
Hermes cleared his throat, glared at Commodus. Commodus looked around helplessly, then slunk back towards the stands, his eyes downcast. He kept glancing back at the screen, as if waiting for a video of Travis’s death that would never come.
Hermes turned back to the cameras, perfectly poised once again. “Our remaining Tributes! Both Tributes from District One, Clarisse and Luke, remain alive and well! The power machine from District Two, Jason Grace, is still kicking. The scrawny girl from Three, Miss Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and the smart girl, Annabeth Chase from District Four, are both apparently alive, although we have not seen either of them in a good long while. And finally, the darling boy of the Capitol, our little songbird, Will Solace!” Hermes shook his head with a laugh, as if he couldn’t believe Will had made it that far. “With any luck, the Games should wrap up today, with-”
The sound of rocks shifting on screen made him cut himself off. Everyone leaned forward, eyes on the screen.
Jason appeared, something held in his arms. He walked slowly, his sword secured in his belt.
There was a person in his arms.
Annabeth.
Nico had thought Jason looked bad. Annabeth looked even worse.
She was clutching her stomach and whimpering. The entire front of her dress was stained with dark red blood, seeping between her fingers as she clutched her stomach. Her arms were covered in deep lacerations, dripping onto the tile ground. She seemed dazed, as if barely clinging onto life.
Nico glanced over at Bianca. She bowed her head, buried her face in her hands.
Annabeth’s injuries would not get better. She had lost so much blood, it was shocking she was still conscious. Annabeth was dying, Nico realized. Jason was carrying her in her last moments.
Jacob carried her towards Percy’s body, set her down next to it so gently it hurt. He swallowed, rubbed Annabeth’s back.
Annabeth opened her eyes. When her eyes landed on Percy, she froze. She stared down at his corpse, apparently at a loss for words.
“I.. I’ll be back,” Jason promised, his voice filled with pain. “Just… hang on, okay?” He ran over across the Arena to Piper’s body, who still lay beside the pile of rubble she’d fallen from.
Annabeth snapped out of her trance, lifted Percy’s torso, cradled him to her chest. She cupped his face, smearing the blood on her hands onto his cheek. Her brown eyes filled with tears, and she began to stroke his hair, moving it back from his face. She smiled, tears beginning to form in her brown eyes.
“Funny, Seaweed Brain,” she laughed, wiping fruitlessly at the blood she had smeared on Percy’s stony face. “Real funny. Knock it off. You gotta… Sally’s waiting for you back home. Blackjack’s waiting. Grover too. They…” Tears began to flow. She tried to wipe them away, tried to keep smiling at Percy. “…you have to wake up, okay? Don’t you leave me here alone.” She kissed his forehead, and then, upon feeling his cold flesh beneath her dry and cracked lips, began to sob, wracking her whole body, curling over him and weeping pitifully.
“W-what about our plans, huh?” she asked, almost angrily. “I can’t let you back out of those, dammit! Percy, you coward, answer me! You promised!” She fell forward, burying her face into his neck, and let out a wail so agonized that people in the assembly jumped, looking away from the screen.
She lifted her face, kissed the corner of his cold lips.
And her eyes landed on the bottle.
Nico’s heart sank.
Her brows furrowed, and she studied it, looking at the empty bottles scattered around it. Nico could practically see the gears turning in her head.
Her expression changed.
She knows.
She hardened her jaw.
She set Percy down, crawling weakly to the bottle. With shaking, blood-soaked hands, she unscrewed the cap, and took a long gulp from it.
With a shuddering breath, blood poured out of her nose, and she collapsed, twitching for a few moments, and then going still.
Her screen went black. Bianca screamed.
“Annabeth?” Jason called.
Annabeth didn’t move.
Jason ran up to Annabeth’s side, rolled her over to face him.
“Annabeth?!”
Her eyes were still and glassy. Jason let out an agonized scream, not of fear, but of deep pain, and collapsed on the ground, scrambling back from Annabeth’s body as if he couldn’t stand the sight.
Nico shut his eyes, squeezed back the tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes.
Jason looked around, panting with distress, his eyes locking on something.
The angle changed, and Jason was looking directly into a camera.
Nico sat back in his chair.
His blue eyes were angry. So incredibly angry. He seemed to be on the verge of climbing through the screen and strangling each and every Academy student who was watching, mocking their pain.
He let out a noise of anger, then stood, shaking himself off.
He gathered Percy up in his arms, carried him to the center of the Arena.
Ethan, his Mentor, frowned. “What the hell is he doing?!”
One by one, Jason lifted each dead Tribute, carrying them in his muscular arms. Annabeth, Reyna, Hycinthus, Beckendorf, Daphne, Silena, Travis. He retrieved Calypso’s body from underground, carried her to lie with the others. He tucked Piper’s choppy hair behind her ears and held her gently against his chest.
When he picked up Leo, he paused, took a moment to stare at his frozen face with an emotion that Nico couldn;t recognize. Leo looked so small in Jason’s arms, so much like the child he was. But the emotion passed, and Jason carried him gently to the center of the Arena with the rest of the dead Tributes.
He began to arrange their bodies gently. He clasped Annabeth’s hand in Percy’s. He covered the visible injuries on the Tributes the best he could, folding their hands over their injuries, wiping blood away from their face using the corner of his shirt. He closed the eyes of those who were still open.
Nico remembered primary school, the mandatory nap time. Little five-year olds would take out their mats, lie them on the floor, curling up and falling fast asleep upon the ground in large groups.
That’s what they looked like now.
The Tributes looked like children, curled up beside each other to sleep.
Jason stormed over to one side of the Arena. A large black Capitol flag hung, the size of a small house. He grasped the edge and yanked it down. Sounds of horror filled the assembly. It was a crime punishable by death, to show such disrespect to the Capitol’s flag. But what could they do? Jason was already inside the Arena. He was already facing the greatest punishment that could be given to the Districts.
Jason had nothing to lose.
And because of that, he was now the biggest threat.
Jason stalked across the Arena, still clutching the flag in his bloodied hands, which billowed behind him like a large cape. His eyes were stony, and slowly, he pulled the flag over the group of dead Tributes like a funeral shroud, the symbol of the Capitol clearly printed across the fabric.
Jason glared up at the cameras. He gave a mocking bow, scowling up with a quiet fury that portrayed the exact message he was sending without saying a word.
The blood of these children is on the hands of the Capitol.
Gaea growled, switched off the feed.
Noises of protest rose among the students; Nico’s heart pounded as she stepped in front of the cameras, addressed the Capitol.
“Don’t let this foolish boy get the narrative twisted; those Tributes in the Arena are savages. They torture each other and laughter each other, because that is their nature. They are not like us; they’re animals, and they deserve to die, each and every one of them, as animals.”
Each and every one of them?!
Gaea grinned maniacally.
“Yes, you heard me, citizens of the Capitol. There will be no Victor in these Games; I won’t give the Districts the satisfaction. Before the sun sets, each and every remaining Tribute shall be slaughtered in a glittering destruction. Mark my words; no one comes out of that Arena alive.”
Noises of protest arose. Mentors stood, started talking angrily. Nico sat back in his chair, stunned.
That was it.
Nico had wanted to see Will again. He had wanted to hold Will again, to talk to him again. Each time he had seen Will in that Arena, Nico’s whole body ached, ached to touch him, to reach out to him and tuck the curls away from his eyes and comfort him.
He wanted to know what the kiss meant for Will.
Now he’d never know.
Nico squeezed his eyes shut, fought back the tears.
And his mind flashed suddenly.
“It gets easier, Di Angelo. I promise you that.” Gaea wiped his mouth with a tissue, smiled at him sweetly. “Isn’t it beautiful though? A glittering destruction.”
Nico’s mind began to spin.
The cream color of the fur of the spiders… the gold…
Like Will’s shirt.
An exact replica of it.
Nico’s mind flashed again.
Nearing the front of the aisle, Will placed his hand in his pocket. He pulled something out, grabbed the collar of the shirt of a boy sitting in the front, and stuffed it down the back of his shirt.
It was a spider.
The spiders had been made specifically to murder Will.
A mockery of his Reaping.
Nico ran out of the assembly, past the hordes of cameras and students, and stumbled into the bathroom. He heaved bile into the sink, then collapsed against the wall, tears streaming down his face.
Will was doomed from the start.
Nico wanted to cry. He grabbed the soap container from the sink, threw it against the mirror with a furious cry, cracking it. He was so angry, so furious, that Gaea had strung him along, had used him-
There has to be a way out for Will.
Nico paced back and forth, his mind wheeling frantically. He couldn’t let what happened to the Peacekeeper happen to Will. It wasn’t fair.
“Don’t put your hand in there, Nico. They won’t recognize your scent the way they do mine.”
Scent.
Nico pulled the square of fabric that Will had given him out of his pocket, held it up to the light. The gold thread glittered beneath the bathroom lights. It was on Will for days; surely, it had Will’s scent on it. It was a long shot, but it was the best idea that Nico had.
A spark of hope lit through Nico, but quickly disappeared. He needed to get access to the tank of spiders, drop the fabric in. But it was locked inside Gaea’s lab. Nico couldn’t go there without looking suspicious.
Unless…
Nico pulled off his shirt, turned to see his stitched-up shoulder in the mirror.
You can do this, Nico. Just breathe through the pain.
He grabbed the black thread, and gritting his teeth, began to yank.
