Saving a Hero

CHAPTER 21

I remembered the two white liquids in the mason jars. One would heal, one would take something away. 50/50 chance. That was good enough to for me. I looked around for Nico's black book bag. It was on the ground a few yards away. I ran over to it and got the jars. I felt something else, it was sharp. I pulled out the black blade that Hades had given me before. I looked to Annabeth. I had to kill her, Hades said that I had to. I'd loved Annabeth since we were twelve. Even if we weren't dating I still held her close to my heart. As a friend and even as a sister. But this was a quest, I had to do it. I approached her. She fluttered her eyes opened and looked at me. She grabbed my hand with the dagger in it. She moved our hands to her chest, hovering over her heart. I shook my head no, tears were rolling down my face. I was weak, Achlys was right, I can't kill Will's captor, I can't kill Annabeth. I looked back down to her, she smiled and pressed my hands down. She let out a small gasp.

"You have to, Percy. I love you."

She whispered to me. A tear slipped out of her eyes. I wiped it away and held her tightly. The dagger punctured her skin, straight down, to her heart. I held her lifeless body and cried. I remembered nico and gathered the jars and took them over to his body. I made a quick decision and opened one of the jars. I cradled Nico and opened his mouth. I lifted his chin up and slowly poured all of the liquid down his throat. I opened the other one and downed it as fast as possible. It tasted sour, but other than that, bland. Nico's face contorted into a grim expression. He was alive! Tears went down my face again, this time they were because I was happy! I hovered over Nico. I can't believe he's alive! But if he's alive, then I must have drank the liquid that did something bad. I pushed that though out of my head, I was just glad Nico wasn't dead. Nico opened his eyes and grabbed my hands. We both smiled. I picked him up and helped him stand. We had completed the quest. The sun had already set so the sky was dark. Nico and I mourned Annabeth and Will's deaths by praying to the gods for them. We buried them in shallow graves. We figured that we could shadow travel to camp or someplace close and walk or get a taxi the rest of the way. Nico and I finally left. He grabbed my hand and shadow traveled us away. My ears popped, I could hear faint screams and my body heated up immensely. Shadow traveling was a quick way to get around, but I would hate to do this all the time. My body started tingling and my ears popped again. My feet landed on solid ground and it took me a second to ground myself. I looked over to Nico, he was paler than before and there were beads of sweat running down his face. He fell onto me. I looked around, we were still in some woods. Up ahead I could see cars riding by. I dragged Nico over to the road and looked around for details as to where we were. There were four lane highways, a bunch of exits onto different roads, giant buildings and so, so many lights everywhere. There weren't any defining signs, so I had no clue where we were. Nico stood up.

"I don't know where we are but I can shadow travel one more time to New York."

Nico grabbed my hand again. My ears popped, the heat, the tingeling, and my ears popping again.