Disclaimer: All rights to Rick Riordan. I own nothing, but the plot.

Themes of self-harm, anxiety, and depression are expressed within this story. TRIGGER WARNING! Please do NOT read if these themes upset you. TRIGGER WARNING!

Criticism is appreciated, but please no hate. Please review and leave me suggestions! Enjoy!

Nico's POV:

For the second time in the past twelve hours, Nico appeared in the throne room batting at the smoke that surrounded him.

"Fuck OFF Alecto!" He screamed. He turned to find his father looking concerned at him. "Do you mind? I was in the middle of something important!"

His father ignored him. He walked up to Nico and grabbed his arms.

"What are you doing?"

"We went to your room and saw the shattered glass on the floor. We were concerned that you hurt yourself," Hades held up Nico's arms. "Which, apparently, you have."

"Who is we?" Nico asked. The clicking of hooves on the marble floor gave the answer away. Nico felt his heart rate increase as he tried not to panic. "Why is he still here?"

Chiron spoke up. "I was concerned about your well-being…"

"Had you really been concerned with my well-being; you wouldn't have let that monster continue to reside within our camp." Nico interrupted. He realized that his father was still tightly gripping to his arms. "Can you let me go?"

"We need to heal these wounds first." His father was relentless. "Chiron, if you wouldn't mind."

He felt the panic building up, especially with his father continuing to hold his arms. "No! He is not allowed anywhere near me!"

"I understand your fear…" Chiron began

"No, you don't!" Nico yelled, energy expelling from him into his father, breaking the grip. Nico rubbed his wrists, backing away from his father. "You don't understand. Neither of you do. You may have experienced fear greater than I have, but your immortal brains have the capacity to deal with such terrors. You do not feel emotions in the same way that I do. My mind was compromised by Tartarus. I did not have the capacity to deal with the terrors that I saw. I was shattered and as I was trying to build myself back up, this- this- this bully decided to ruin that for me and almost kill me. So no, do not try to pretend that you understand my fear, because you don't understand; and you never will."

"Please allow me to explain, Mr. di Angelo," Chiron tried. "I have my reasons for keeping Aaron at Camp."

"I don't care; I do not want to hear them. They do not matter to me. You let Aaron continue living in camp, even though he claimed that he was going to be kicked out of camp. You did not follow up on your promise. You compromised my safety. That is all that matters." Nico said with certainty.

"Listen to Chiron, son," Hades ordered.

"No. This- this is insane. You shouldn't be on his side. He is protecting my attacker! Aaron shouldn't be protected. He—he should be killed!" Nico's fury caused him to admit something he hadn't revealed to anyone; that he wanted Aaron dead.

"Nico—" his father's voice was shocked.

"I don't care!" Nico screamed. "I don't care if it's 'not his time to die'. I don't care if that makes me a terrible person or a murderer. He almost killed me! I want him to die!"

The rational part of Nico's mind was gone, filled with fear, distrust, and hate.

"I will not kill Mr. Stevenson; he was not in his right mind." Chiron asserted.

"Yeah, because he's a fucking psychopath!" Nico yelled.

"Because he was being controlled by a god!" Chiron revealed.

"What- what are you talking about?"

"Aaron Stevenson has been under the influence of some god for some months now."

"Bullshit," Nico didn't want to believe it.

"Let me explain," Chiron urged.

Nico looked at his father who merely looked at Nico, indicating that it was his decision. Nico crossed his arms over his chest before looking back at Chiron. He nodded for him to go on.

"After the trial, I was fully prepared to send Mr. Stevenson away, just as we did with Miss Tanaka, but Dionysus intervened…"

"Blaming it on your boss, nice." Nico interrupted. Chiron waited. Nico nodded. "You can continue."

"Dionysus took the information provided by Miss Tanaka and Mr. Stevenson, as well as his siblings. He believed that Mr. Stevenson acted extremely out of character. He believed that he was being manipulated." Chiron explained.

"Manipulated by his homophobic beliefs, yeah."

"There was some godly interference. Mr. Stevenson was being manipulated. His mind had been compromised." Chiron revealed.

"Manipulated by who?" Nico questioned.

"Dionysus was called back to Olympus before he could delve deeper into his mind. He gave no instructions on how to handle the son of Ares." Chiron informed.

"So you decided just to keep a camper who attempted to murder me in the basement without informing me? Or anyone at camp, much less?" Nico asked, venom filling his voice.

"He was being controlled…"

"That doesn't matter! You should have told me, and yet you didn't. I deserved to know about the status of my attacker. And you should have included my father, who was a member of the sentencing board, in the decision to keep him at camp." Nico advocated for himself.

"I promise that you are in no danger with him there." Chiron reassured.

"You don't know what he is capable of."

"Actually, I do. His mind was completely compromised. Dionysus was working on reconfiguring it when he was called to Olympus."

"He seemed perfectly clear in the head when I talked to and confronted him." Nico pointed out. Chiron said nothing. "Why did you even come here Chiron?"

"To explain what had happened and to ask you to return to camp. We need your leadership more than ever with these disappearances. And Mr. Solace is worried about where you are right now. I wouldn't be surprised if he had torn up the camp looking for you by this point."

"You are asking me to come back to camp? Are you serious?" Nico was incredulous.

Chiron didn't laugh.

Hades spoke up. "You did say you would stay at Camp until the disappearances stopped or the demigods who are missing returned."

"The circumstances have changed!" Nico said, waving his arms. "There is a monster living in the basement."

"He is incapacitated."

"He incapacitated me for months! I will not return to camp while he is there."

"Where would he go instead?" Chiron questioned. "He is in my care. I cannot abandoned him."

"Abandon him? You have abandoned me!" Nico lamented. "Who can I depend on if I can't even count on the person who is supposed to protect me at camp? Who is supposed to make sure I'm safe?"

"You are safe..."

"No. I will not return to camp until he is gone. When I leave camp after we solve these disappearances, you can bring him back. But I will not be at camp with him there. Those are my terms. Him or me." Nico declared.

Chiron looked distressed. "If I find a new place for Mr. Stevenson, will you return to camp?"

"Yes, but only for Will to help him. Only to try and find the missing demigods." Nico said. "Get rid of him."

"I have one request of you." Chiron said carefully.

"And what would you like?"

"Please, do not inform the other campers, especially Mr. Solace."

Nico laughed at the request. "Oh, so you want me to cover up your fuck up? You want me to protect you?"

"Please, Mr. di Angelo."

Nico rolled his eyes. "I wasn't planning on telling anyone anyways. I don't need the pity and sympathy to come back. I don't want to be viewed as weak anymore. I'm trying to erase Aaron Stevenson from my life."

"Thank you, Mr. di Angelo." Chiron inclines his head to the son of Hades. "Will you be returning with me to camp now?"

Nico shook his head. "I will come back when Aaron is gone and not a moment before that."

"Understood. You can return within the hour then. It will not take long for me to remove Mr. Stevenson from camp." Chiron explained.

"And Chiron?" The centaur looked up at his name. "If I find him there when I return, I will kill him."

Chiron's eyes widened but he said nothing. Nico looked to his father, who snapped his fingers. Chiron disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Nico allowed his façade to drop, collapsing onto his knees. He was on the verge of a panic attack the entire conversation. But he had pretended like he was okay. But he was the opposite of okay.

"Son?" His father asked.

"I'm exhausted." Nico admitted. "I need to sleep."

"Before you go, we should talk about what happened."

Nico waved his hand at the question, showing he wasn't going to answer.

"Do you really want to kill this boy?" His father asked.

Nico felt a surge of guilt run through him. Honestly, he didn't know what he wanted to do to Aaron Stevenson. He had enough hate for the boy that he did want to kill him. And that scared him. He thought back to Bryce Lawrence and Octavian. He had killed both of them. He started shaking. He dug his fingers into his hands.

"I- I don't want to talk about this father, please." Nico begged.

Hades considered him for a moment. "We can discuss it later, I suppose. You should get some sleep."

Nico nodded absently at his dismissal. "Thank you, father."

"But, I do have one more question."

Nico stopped in his tracks. "Which would be?"

"Alecto informed me that you went to Boston; why?" Hades asked.

"My friend needed help determining if her cousin was dead or not."

A smile twitched on the Lord of the Underworld's face. "She couldn't figure that out herself?"

"The circumstances were strange." Nico said shortly.

"So, was he dead?" Hades asked.

"Kind of. His body was dead, but his soul was alive. He had another body, identical to the first. It's like he was straight out of the Field of Asphodel. Any thoughts on that?"

His father started stroking his chin. "Hmm. An escaped soul?"

Nico shook his head. "No. I tried to command him using my powers as the Ghost King, but nothing. He had the aura of death but he was alive."

"What's his name?"

"Magnus Chase."

Hades nodded. "I will look into it; talk to Thanatos."

Nico nodded absently. "That would be appreciated. Now, I'm going to go nap."

Will's POV:

After Chiron had disappeared, Will and Kayla made their way to the Big House to try and find some trace of why Chiron had made Nico leave. They had started at the top of the Big House and worked down. So far, they had found nothing but Chiron's extensive music collection. He and Kayla walked down to the first floor.

"We've checked everywhere but the basement," Kayla informed.

Will nodded. "Then I guess we will head there next."

He led the way to the door that opened to the stairs of the basement. When he arrived, he tried to turn the handle.

"It's locked."

"Let me at it," Kayla said, taking a bobby pin from her hair. She started to try to pick the lock.

"Where did you learn to do that?" She shrugged.

"When you leave to visit your mom, I have to find something to do with my time. Even if that means hanging out with Connor Stoll."

"It's locked. That means whatever Chiron is hiding is down here."

"If he is hiding anything," Kayla pointed out. After a few more minutes, Kayla made no progress. "I think this is sealed with magic."

"We should get Lou Ellen then," Will suggested, turning to leave the Big House.

The front door opening stopped Will in his tracks. Chiron wheeled into the Big House. He stopped and looked at Kayla, with her bobby pin still jammed in the lock and Will walking toward him.

"What are you two doing?"

"Looking in the basement to find clues as to why you disappeared," Will admitted. "But it appears to be locked with magic."

"Yes, because there are dangerous things down there that I do not want campers getting mixed up in," Chiron explained.

"Like what?"

"You aren't supposed to be down there anyway." Chiron admonished.

"Well, I decided to go anyways because both my mentor and boyfriend disappeared without any indication of where they went. Especially since the last person Nico saw was you. How was your trip to the Underworld?"

"I- I didn't go to the Underworld." Chiron was lying.

"That cloud of smoke you disappeared into was Hades' signature; I've seen it before."

"Why in Zeus's name would I be summoned there? Hades has no business with me," Chiron asserted.

"Then who summoned you?"

"I do not have to explain myself to you, Mr. Solace. At any rate, in my time away from camp, I located Mr. di Angelo. He will be returning very soon."

Will's heart quickened. "You've seen Nico? Where?"

"I'm sure he will inform you when he returns. Now, if you excuse me, I have some business to attend to. Please go about your daily business." Chiron requested.

He wheeled past Will and Kayla. Will watched him go.

"I can see your mind working in overtime," Kayla said. "What are you thinking?"

"He was in the Underworld and Nico was there too." Will deduced. "Why is he lying? What did he do that was so bad that Hades was involved?"

"Can't you wait for Nico to tell you? When he comes back?" Kayla asked.

"We don't know when and if he is actually coming back. And even if he does, he probably won't tell us what happened. So, we need to take matters into our own hands."

"What are you saying?"

Will looked at his sister. "We need to get into that basement. Tonight."