All's Fair In Love And War

Mystery Guitar Man

Thankfully, I was allowed out of bed later that day, albeit with strict instructions from Apollo not to do anything demanding.

"That means no sparring, no roughhousing, no getting into fights with the other contestants, no pillow fights, no goofing off in any way that could aggravate your injury, no-"

"Apollo!" I cut him off. "I get it. I'll be careful."

"Reyna!" Lou exclaimed when I reached the floor that our room was on. "How're you feeling?"

I shrugged and flopped onto the couch, being careful not to bump my stitches. "I've been worse, I've been better."

"What happened? They wouldn't give us details." Gwen said. 

"Got attacked by some creepy skeleton things, got hit in the head, passed out. Not much more to it."

"And Nico saved you?" She pressed.

"As far as I know. Why?" I asked.

Gwen shrugged. "He seems attached to you, even though he's going out with Will now."

"We're friends." I frowned at her.

"But you can't just be friends with a guy!"

"Sure I can. I've been doing it for almost 2 months." I pointed out.

"Do you have a crush on him?" Gwen asked.

"We've been over this. No, I don't have a crush on Nico. He's nice, but he's just a friend."

"Gwen, leave her alone," Lou tossed a pillow at our friend. "It's totally fine to be friends with a guy and not like him."

"Reyna!" Nico bounded up the stairs, breathing hard. "I need you to help me with something, it's important!"

I stood. "You know Apollo's rules for me right now. Will it violate any of that?"

"No. Come on!" Nico grabbed my hand and began to pull me towards the stairs.

"I'll see you guys later." I called over my shoulder.

"Bye, Reyna!" Lou shouted after me.

"Nico, what is so important that we need to do it right now?"

"There's someone in the basement. They're in one of the halls that isn't a dead end and I need someone else with me so they can't bolt on me." He explained.

"Is it the guitar person?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Alright, let's go." 

We went down to the basement. I could hear the person singing again, and it was definitely the voice from the hospital room.

"Starin' at the bottom of your glass,

Hoping one day you'll make a dream last.

The dreams come slow, and goes so fast.

You see her when you close your eyes,

Maybe one day you will understand why,

Everything you touch surely dies."

"Stay here, I'm going to circle around." Nico whispered. "When we see each other at each end of the hall, we can start closing in."

I nodded and he slipped away, disappearing into the shadows of a different, dimly lit hallway.

It only took a minute for him to appear at the other end of the hallway. We nodded to each other, then started down the hallway, focusing on the voice and the strumming of an acoustic guitar.

"Only know you've been high when you're feeling low.

Only hate the road when you're missing home.

Only know you love her when you let her go."

'Start talking.' Nico mouthed at me.

"Hello?" I called. "Who's down here?"

The singing and guitar stopped. I felt a little drop in my chest, something about that voice made you want to just forget about everything and listen to it. Once it stopped, my head cleared a little bit more.

For good measure, I began to open doors, pretending to be looking inside them. Nico pointed to the door right next to him, signalling that was where our mystery artist was. I nodded and went to the door across the hall from it, walking fully in and turning myself away from the door.

Hinges creaked behind me and footsteps started down the hall, cut off abruptly by the yells of two boys and the sound of punches being thrown. Feet scuffed the ground loudly.

I quickly left the room I was in and closed the door behind me, staring at the mess in front of my feet.

There was no way to tell who it was at the moment, the two were just a mass of dark hair, obscenities, and flying fists.

"Alright, break it up!" I barked.

When nothing happened, I sighed and stepped forward. "Don't make me come in there!"

"You're not allowed to!" Nico shouted over his opponent's loud swearing. A bruise was already forming on his cheekbone, trailing up to circle around his eye as well.

"Try me, di Angelo." I took another step forward and pushed in between them, avoiding a rather sharp looking elbow and delivering a well placed punch to each of them. "Enough!"

Nico took a step backwards to avoid hitting me, as did the other boy. I turned to Nico and tore a strip of my t-shirt off for the cut on his cheek.

"Don't even try running off..." I turned around and trailed off when I realized who I was talking to.

He rubbed the back of his neck, his lip bleeding from a well thrown punch during his tousle with Nico.

"Hey, Reyna..."

"Jackson, you have some major explaining to do right now."

[A/N so most of you guessed right, it was Percy. I don't care if you think it's cliché, that's what I had planned all along, I'm not going to change it]