Nobody was there to stop me from doing something I'd regret. I thought numbly as I dragged myself out of bed. I picked up my Stygian Iron sword, running my fingers along the blade. A few beads of blood ran down my hands. I paused for a moment, contemplating my life choices, before walking over to the dresser. I picked up the photograph of Bianca, Mom, and me. A lump rose in my throat and my lips twisted in that way that means if you don't do something quickly you're going to start crying. I swallowed hard, kissed my bare fingertips, and brushed them across Mom and Bianca's faces. I held the photo to my chest as I clutched my aviator's jacket closer to my skin. The air suddenly felt freezing and the slightest breeze cut through my skinny jeans like ice. I picked up my sword and sat down on the bed, hunched over. I ran the edge of my wrist across the blade and, watching the skin slit open and blood seep out, did the same several more times on my arms, ankles, anywhere I could reach. Tears so salty they may have come from the ocean itself dripped and stung as my lips trembled and I shook. Holding the photo to my chest as I watched drops of my lifeline get swallowed up by the black of the sheets.

"Not again- not anymore, not to me, not to anyone…"

I kept muttering nonsensically, like the words were a chant. The concept of death was always something that scared me when it came to other people, but honestly?

I wasn't afraid of dying young.

Nobody cared, anyway. Tartarus flashed through my mind, as vivid as if I were still there. The humiliation, the torture, the feeling of utter helplessness. At least Percy and Annabeth had each other! I had plunged into that pit, my knuckles scratched up and bloody from scrabbling at the sides as invisible hands grabbed me and pulled me deeper, faster. So many nights I screamed.

Nobody ever heard.

I buried my face inside my slashed open hands, my blood staining my skin, my lips, my everything. A tainted soul, I thought miserably. I kissed the picture one last time and held my sword to my neck. What I was thinking, I didn't know. Remorse makes people do crazy things. Things they don't understand. It was nightfall. I pressed the blade harder to my neck, choking and sputtering. I didn't hear the door being pushed open. But I was aware of someone whispering," Nico?"

I ignored it. I sobbed harder. Go away! I wanted to scream. Let me die in peace! I curled up in a ball, my sword still pressing against my throat.

"Nico, what are you doing?" The voice seemed horrified. "Stop that- stop that!"

The voice made a strangled sound and wrenched the sword out of my hands. My head lurched forward; I didn't know so much pressure was being used. I willed the tears to stop coming, though I was making no noise. Someone else was with me. I couldn't cry in front of someone else. The demigod was currently checking my arms and wrists, fingers trembling. With a wave of nausea and terror I realized it was Will Solace.

"Let go of me, Solace!" I hissed, tearing my arms away from him. A bloody streak was left on his hand. I stared at it in horror. Will shook his head and walked to the bathroom. He came out with several cool, wet wads of napkin and some antiseptic. I instinctively backed away, and my fingers found the hilt of my sword.

"You can take your napkins and antiseptic and get out of my cabin, buddy," I growled, hoping my eyes were flashing as dangerously as I wanted them to.

"And leave you to bleed out here alone? To end your own life because of some stupid delusions that you aren't good enough?" Will spat bitterly. "Yeah, right."

"You know nothing about why I'm doing this." I suddenly felt very dizzy and collapsed on Hazel's bed.

"It's the blood loss," Will said worriedly. "Gods, Nico, what have you been doing to yourself?!" He dragged me over to my bed and started mopping up blood with the cool, wet napkin and spraying the gashes with antiseptic. I hissed slightly, but Will persisted. When he was done, he sang a quick hymn to his dad and my skin stitched itself back together, leaving only the faintest scars. I stared at them in silence.

He was silent too. After a while, he said one word: "Why?" I looked up at Will, trying to figure out the answer.

"I don't know." Will said nothing but wrapped me in a hug.

"Nico, why didn't you tell anyone about this?"

"I'm a freak! I couldn't burden Hazel with this and nobody would understand. Nobody knows, nobody heard, nobody cares."

Tears rushed to my eyes and blood to my cheeks and I hated them for coming.

"You need sleep, di Angelo. It'll help. You have to sleep." Will sighed as he tossed a blanket at me. I spread it over myself and sank down onto the pillows, not wanting to sleep but needing to. I faintly heard Will whisper," You're wrong, Nico. I care." Slowly, I rose.

"No you don't," I said numbly.

"I do. I do care." His eyes glistened. "Why don't you believe me?"

"Because it never lasts!" I rose my voice a little and it broke. A tear slipped down my cheek. "It never lasts."

Will pulled me into another hug. "This time it will. You're so brave, Nico, such a brave boy. Why don't you let people love you and take care of you so that maybe you wouldn't have to be so brave all the time?"

"I don't want you to see me cry," I replied, shaking. Will let go of me momentarily. He wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and held me like I was a child. "It hurts. I know. But maybe if two people shouldered the hurt, it wouldn't hurt so bad."

"You act as if you're my boyfriend," I said sleepily, before realizing it and panicking internally.

Will simply said," Wouldn't you like me to be?" Before brushing his lips over mine. "Sleep, Nico." And I did.

The plunge into the pit the called Tartarus was long, hard, and painful. It reeked of what I loved and hated most. I smelt lightning like the fatal bolt that had taken my mother's life. I smelt my sister, a familiar and haunting smell. I smelt Camp Half-Blood, the last place Bianca and I had both called home. I smelled the ocean, a symbolic reference to Percy Jackson, the lover who could never be mine. My hands were torn apart from hanging onto the edge and were prevented from scabbing over from the acidic air. I was falling alone, completely and utterly alone. There was nobody to hold or to hug, or to comfort or to grasp onto as we fell together. It was just me. When I hit bottom, I started trekking. The 'days' were terrible, but better than the nights. I knew if I said something, it would be lost to the valley of hell. If I screamed, it would become another bit of song in the chorus of the damned. Some long nights, I stayed awake, not trusting myself to speak. I still screamed at the top of my lungs, I sobbed, I shook, and I begged for somebody, anybody, so that I wouldn't be alone. I screamed for my mother, my mother who was torn away from me, I screamed for Bianca, the sister who was stolen because of a broken promise. Sometimes I didn't even scream for anyone or anything in particular; sometimes it was just one long, continuous wail, a calling to above so that they knew how miserable I was, a prayer for help. Nobody ever heard. That hardened me.

My consciousness shifted.

I was stupid. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins like a drug-of-choice as I gripped my sword and slashed down an approaching monster. But for every monster I slew, ten more seemed to pop up in its place. I needed to get to the Doors of Death. I couldn't leave my sister behind, not like mine had left me. For a while, my efforts seemed almost fruitful.

Then the giants appeared.

"Spunky, energetic little thing!" one of them said brightly.

"Indeed, Otis! He shall make a fabulous main attraction!"

The giants called back the rest of the monsters and plucked me off the ground. Even dangling in this giant's grip, I could feel the heart of Tartarus pulsing underneath me. I fought back the urge to puke. This place was a literal hellhole, and I was trapped.

"Let me go!" I kicked the giant in the face with my free leg. His brother frowned.

"We can't have you acting up, now can we? Save your energy for the downfall of Rome!" One of them plucked a bronze jar out of their pockets and popped the lid off. "Ephialtes, pass him over. In you go!"

"NO!" I shouted, struggling madly and swinging my sword. "I am Nico di Angelo, the Ghost King, Prince of the Underworld, Master of Shadows, Bringer of Death, Destroyer of Light! You do not control me! I am nobody's entertainment and nobody's pawn!"

I succeeded in swiping the tip of my sword across 'Ephilates' face, but that just seemed to irritate him. "We could make your death less spectacular, you know! Ungrateful whelp!"

I banged on the bronze of the jar, scraping my sword down the sides of the metal, tears spilling down my face, screaming into emptiness, "HELP! SOMEONE, ANYBODY! PLEASE, HELP ME!"

And surprise, surprise. Nobody heard.

Will's POV

I really could not get over what the actual hell just happened.

Nico really does look like a dark angel when he's asleep. He looks normal, like he hasn't suffered anything trauma in his life. I watched his chest rise and fall as he slept, when all of a sudden he started shaking. He flailed his arms and kicked his legs wildly and mumbled insane things.

What the hell is going on?! I thought wildly, but then I realized. Tartarus.

I shook him gently but frantically, saying, "Sweetheart, please, wake up, wake up, you're safe, you're not there, it's just a dream-"

Nico shuddered and shook and sobbed, tears running down his pale cheeks. His lips trembled as they parted, letting out a shaky ramble of words. "...no helpme someonehelpme please no I can't… not again pleasehelp don't leave me alone I don'twanttodiealone-" And my heart broke as I shook him harder. His eyes flew open, dark and wild. I clutched him and he suddenly stilled.

"Not again- not alone, always alone- nobody ever heard-"

"Nico, you're safe- this isn't Tartarus," I whispered sadly. He stopped rambling suddenly and looked up at me. A wave of protectiveness for the boy in a man's armor, washed over me, the compulsion to keep show the person putting on a show that he didn't need anyone, that he was a stone-cold, unfeeling creature that would never fit in that he deserved love, that he was entitled to it.

"Promise?" he asked quietly. I locked eyes with him and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. I laced our fingers together and brought his hand up, kissing the underside of his scarred wrist gently.

"Promise."

He soon fell asleep again. And this time, he slept soundly.