Chapter Eleven:

Maggie found me and we had a conversation along the same lines as the one I'd had with Lucas. It was dark and past curfew so she snuck me into the Aphrodite cabin and let me crash in her bunk, kind of like a sleepover. I couldn't believe the last sleepover I'd had I hadn't even known about the whole demigod world. A month and a half ago I was just a normal girl in middle school now I was Bianca di Angelo, the daughter of Hades Lord of the Dead.

I didn't sleep well. Horribly in fact, I didn't know demigods had such vivid dreams, or nightmares in my case. My nightmare showed me Nico, but he looked a lot younger, maybe ten or eleven, three years ago. He was standing over a grave throwing chicken nuggets into it and a Coke. Something was standing next to him but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was, a ghost maybe. Nico looked horrible, like he hadn't slept in a week. Souls began to pour into the scene and Nico let them eat from the grave of happy meals. I was so heart broken watching him work wearily through the night and it only got worse when I heard what he was saying. Nico was looking for me, not me, Bianca. He wanted to talk to her so badly and was willing to do anything to find her. I hoped this was only a nightmare and Nico had never really done any of this.

The scene changed and Nico was fighting Percy Jackson on what looked like a ranch. This time I couldn't hear anything they were saying but they stopped suddenly because of something. Then, without meaning to I glided over to them like a ghost and felt myself begin to disappear almost instantly. I said something I mean Bianca said something because I realized that's who I was. Nico and Percy could both see me but even after I said something the memory became more and more vague. The scene changed again to more horrible scenes of Nico searching for Bianca everywhere so that it started to feel like deja vu, like I'd watching this all before but a very long time ago.

I awoke feeling very depressed. I'd had a brother who only wanted to talk to me one more time. It was horrible trying to push down the dream before I awoke any of the others. My watch said it was 6am and I knew the Aphrodite kids didn't wake until 8 when breakfast started even though most other cabins got up earlier. I realized I was still wearing the hunter of Artemis gear from last night since I'd been too tired to take it off and so I strapped my sword to my waist, put my hair up in a ponytail and snuck out of the Aphrodite cabin.

Some of the other cabins were up doing some early morning training. The Demeter cabin was doing their morning yoga and I could hear the Apollo kids shooting arrows in the nearby archery range. It was just my luck that at that moment the Hermes cabin came out from across the commons. Mary and Georgia came up to me and asked if I'd stayed in the Hades cabin that night.

"No, it gives me the creeps," I explained. I was glad their first question didn't have anything to do with weather I remembered them or not. I had a feeling that would be what most people asked.

I was surprised that the Hermes cabin welcomed me back so quickly. Even Travis and Connor Stoll who had known Bianca when she was alive wanted me to stay with them. Now that I was claimed I felt stupid for requesting it for so long. I didn't want to sit at the Hades table at breakfast and after my dreams from last night didn't feel like I'd have the heart face Nico. Instead it was one of the Hunters that welcomed me to their table, Thalia.

I was invited to sit with them but welcome I soon found out was not the right word. The hunters regarded me coldly and mostly talked about seeing Zoe last night. Some of them asked me if I remembered them but my answer was the same answer I was going to give every one. No. No I didn't remember anyone and I didn't want to. I had my own life and my own memories. I didn't want Bianca's even if I was still her. At first I'd wanted to be a huntress but now I felt like doing everything the opposite of Bianca. I wanted nothing to do with her and I wanted people to see me as a different person.

"You have the same personality," Thalia commented out of the blue. "Almost identical features."
That was all that was said to me through the whole meal. I didn't know if I was going to go back to the Hunters or if they would even invite me back. Even if Bianca was a hunter I didn't know if that automatically made me one as well. No one had asked me about taking the oath yet since Artemis wasn't here but if I did it would mean no boys and eternal life. I wasn't even sure if I wanted that anymore in the first place. Lucas might not be allowed to even be my friend and would I ever get tired of living for ever? I would have to watch Lucas and Maggie age and die while I lived forever in some eternal girls club. Then there was Zoe. She made it sound like she was doing me a favor but was I to return it by joining the hunters. I didn't know if that what she'd wanted me to do. It was all too confusing.

Chiron rings the bell for camp activities to start and I'm caught up in a flurry of people passing by and lose my bearings. Soon I'm left alone in the dining pavilion with no cabin to escort me to my daily activities and no Nico to help me either. Where am I suppose to go? I can't go with the Aphrodite cabin, I think I've overstayed my welcome. Hermes might take me but I kind of just ignored them right after they welcomed me back. I'm not really a Hunter so I don't think the Hunters would want me to tag along with them so all that's left is Nico's cabin, my cabin. I don't know where Nico di Angelo spends his days. He doesn't participate in camp activities like the other cabins, mostly because he's always alone. I don't even know where to look for him.

I wandered aimlessly around camp feeling more and more lonely. Campers actually started looking at me and then running away like I've got some contagious virus. Sure they were eager, almost happy to see me at the beginning but now they realized I'm a dead girl, who's father is the god of the dead. That would creep even me out. I walked past the Demeter cabin as they were gardening the strawberry fields and some of the vines literally died as I passed. That's not the kind of thing I want to have happen. One of the little girls squeaked, the same one who I'd helped at the campfire not a week ago. Man, how does Nico cope?

I felt like I wasn't suppose to be wandering so free so I headed over to the archery range to see if I'd magically gotten better. No such luck. I can't even hit the white rings around the target anymore. Will Solace, the Apollo cabin counselor came over to aid me.

"It's okay," he said. "Archery isn't for everyone. Even me, the son of the archery god can't do it perfectly."

"I've seen you hit the bullseye from here," I said.

"From here sure," said Will. "Any kid from Apollo can, actually most campers from any cabin can. Sorry," he muttered. "Anyway, even though my skill is suppose to be archery because of my dad, I'm actually better at healing. Apollo was also the god of medicine."

"I don't need healing," I said defensively and immediately regret it.

Will smiles, a radiant but sad smile. "That's exactly what your brother told me," he said.

This time I don't resist. I don't resist to Will calling Nico di Angelo my brother. I don't know why but I feel like I owe it to him. Something had changed in me after seeing those horrible images of Nico searching for me, I mean Bianca. Ug, this is so complicated.

Will Solace is about fourteen and although I doubted it at first but is actually a really sweet guy. He's the first one I've met who speaks highly of Nico, I mean really highly, not like other people who cheerfully comment about his war efforts against Gaia and the Romans. He reminds me of the sun, if that makes sense. I don't really know why but if the sun had a human kid, it would look like Will. I could he was about to tell me tell me something about Leo but we were interrupted by Annabeth Chase.

"Can I speak to Ella privately Will?" Annabeth said and Will got up to leave.

Annabeth took a seat across from me on one of the picnic tables. She had on a serious expression and her stormy grey eyes looked like a rainstorm was brewing.

"I never knew her, well only actually met her for a brief second," Annabeth said as if she was trying to clear away a thick cloud in the air. It didn't really help.

"You've come to talk to me about the prophecy," I said because I'd half expected it all morning.

"Well yes," said Annabeth, an amusing smile playing on her lips. "You've been chosen."

"I didn't want to be chosen," I said darkly.

Annabeth sighs. "The fact of the matter is Ella, you don't choose your fate according to the greeks. The prophecy says you and Maggie and Lucas are suppose to go on the quest together. Believe me, it's not a bad thing. When I was younger I would have died if a prophecy commanded me to go anywhere. I mean of happiness," Annabeth said when she saw my expression.

"What am I suppose to do exactly?" I asked.

"You heard if best from Zoe, the stars are falling, we just need to find out what that means," said Annabeth.

"The oracle wasn't very descriptive," I commented pitifully.

I remember hearing the five lines of the prophecy and wondering exactly how someone was suppose to form a quest out of it. The next line had something to do with angry kids, or children born mad, I remembered.

"I don't know our next move just yet," Annabeth said. "I'm still strategizing our plan. I just think you and your friends should be on the look out, if anything were to happen."

Annabeth's words didn't bode well with me. She made it sound like any moment we could be attacked and it would be up to me to defend the entire camp. That's something I didn't think I'd ever be able to do. She fixed me with her grey stare and chills went down my spine. I suddenly realized why nobody ever wanted to cross Annabeth Chase.

I didn't see Maggie and Lucas again by dinner and by then I'd grown even more shut in and quiet. The day had gone by with more and more people avoiding me. Crowds would split as I walked through leaving me the only one going in the opposite directions. Rumors about me were going through camp, I could just tell. There were girls whispering who would turn away and pretend they hadn't been talking as soon as they saw my face, Bianca's face. Even soldiers I'd seen train and were as hard as a rock could be caught talking about me. I never learned what they were saying though.

When Maggie and Lucas approached me at first I was relieved to see them but as we sat in silence for a few tense moments I knew they'd heard the rumors too. I'd gone from normal teenage girl, to normal demigod to just about the weirdest thing to walk into Camp Half Blood and that was saying something. We hadn't even received food yet and already I was feeling uncomfortable. I didn't want to give a burnt offering to the gods or sit with Maggie and Lucas for much longer if they were going to keep looking at me. Lucas looked at least like he was trying to speak but Maggie I knew had been in the pit of gossip the entire day and had probably heard more twisted stories about me than anyone else. I got up to leave.

"Where are you going?" Lucas asked.

"Away," I said. "And don't come after me this time." And I meant it.

Over the course of the day I'd lost my Hunter's gear. One of the girls had actually taken and I mean ripped the silver jacket from me so now I was left with the black t shirt under it and black pants held up by a glittering silver belt. I'd left the green cap behind on purpose. When my hair was up it was easier to tell the difference between me and the girl from my dream vision last night. We didn't have the same face type, my eyes were more brown than black and our teeth were different...

My thoughts trailed off as my reflection flickered in the river. Yes I was by the river again, the same one that bordered the capture the flag game that had changed everything. The marsh reeds that seemed to grow by magic hid me well from intruders and dusk was falling over Half Blood Hill. I watched the minnows swim back and forth for a long time and the water rippled a lot below my cheeks. When I was finished crying, I rocked back on the heels and let the reeds surround me. Maybe I could sleep here for the night, and maybe I would if I wasn't so scared a monster might come out at any moment and eat me alive. Sometimes it would be nice to have Lucas as a guard ready to throw fireballs at who ever tried to hurt me.

I heard footsteps in the grass and recoiled, thinking a monster really had come out to hunt me but it was a person. Someone sat down in the reeds next to me without saying a word and with shock I realized it was Nico di Angelo. His face looked even more ghostly at dusk and was once again reminded of all those awful visions I had of him searching for me, doing everything he could yet I could never reply.

"I did it too you know," he said softly. Nico still wouldn't meet my gaze.

"Did what?" I asked.

"Ran away from everyone," he said solemnly. "I ran from Camp Half Blood and never made any friends because I couldn't bare to be rejected. We're children of Death and no matter how things change, nobody will ever treat you like an equal again. They're scared of us."

I wanted to whine and protest that Nico wasn't making me feel any better but that deep dark hole in me that was getting wider and wider knew he was right.

"I spent years living in my own," said Nico. "Years in isolation, I even went to Tartarus the most dangerous and isolated place in the world before I realized I needed people to help me."

"You seem so grown up now Nico," I said but immediately don't know why. It was like I was remembering something about Nico's behaviour in my old life, I mean Bianca's life. He had seemed so happy and childish always playing a silly card game but I didn't know why I ever thought that. There was no way Nico di Angelo was ever like that.

"You don't have to exile yourself," Nico said. "You can't help being who you are... and what you are."

This seemed especially hard for Nico to say and sounded more like he was saying it to himself more than to me.

"Children of Hades have tragic lives," I murmured, remembering that line from somewhere.

Nico met my eye. "It's true you know," he said. "My own father told me that. Our father," he corrected.

There was an odd silence as the sun lowered even more into the earth.

"I can tell you don't see her," I said because the topic had been sitting over us for too long. "You don't see her in me."

"No," said Nico simply. "I don't. You're just Ella to me."

His face seemed to calm when he said this, almost like it was a fall back reflex when he shut down his thoughts so no one could read them.

"Come with me to the Hades Cabin," he said after a we'd spent time silently tossing pebbles into the river.

Nico offered me a hand to help me up which I took. It was ice cold and very pale but comforting all the same. As we walked through camp we took the shadows so no one could see us in the dusk and Nico lead me to the Hades Cabin. It was black as I expected and decorated with creepy animal bones, or at least I hoped they were animal bones. Green fire burned in the lanterns decorating the patio and the screen door banged open as we walked inside. Nico turned on the lights revealing a small house more than a cabin. Since there were only four beds, the cabin kind of went off in four different directions so there weren't really doors but there were four three walled sections with beds built into the floor so that you couldn't put anything under them. A great bone chandelier hung from the ceiling and there was a very bookshelves but other than that the cabin was rather bare. It hardly looked like Nico had unpacked.

"I should have brought you here last night," Nico said, looking ashamed. "It was just," he breathed, "a lot to take in."

"I understand," I said and dropped heavily on to one of the beds. It was a longer fall than I calculated.

I spent my first night in the Hades cabin and for the first time since I'd gotten here, I felt at home.