Will's Mortal Friends

Built-up Insanity like a tower of blocks

Nico's POV

That girl was sort of getting on my nerves. I knew how important she was to Will, them being good friends and all, and that was the only reason I helped find her.

"What do we do now?" Percy asked, running a hand through his hair. He only did that when he was stressed. Don't ask me how I knew that.

I shrugged helplessly. "I can always shadow travel somewhere."

Will shook his head. "You can't shadow travel without knowing where she is. Your energy might be shot by then, which means no way back."

I slumped, knowing he was right.

"Maybe she went home?" Percy suggested.

Will and I face-palmed our foreheads.

"Yeah, that's probably it," Will nodded. "When she gets stressed or something like that, home is the first place she wants to be."

"I thought she was social," I sputtered.

Will shrugged. "She will talk to her friends, but otherwise she's an introvert. I tried to make her go to the varsity volleyball game, but she complained about wanting to stay home and read."

"And you don't have your license, so you didn't have a ride into town," I guessed.

"There's another clue she isn't the demigod," Percy snorted. "She can actually read."

"Without issues," Will laughed. "She finished a five hundred page book in one night about two weeks ago."

"Enough about Jasmine liking to read," I interrupted. "We need to get to her house."

"No car," Percy muttered.

"Shadow traveling is our only option," I concluded. "Nobody is going to take us home in the middle of the day."

"I'm the only one with a license," Percy said. "But I don't have my car here."

"Stupid Gods," I muttered, causing the sky to turn a little gray. "I didn't mean you, Zeus. Don't worry about it." The sky returned to its natural blue color.

"How long has she been gone?" Will asked.

"Not long," Percy said. "Maybe five minutes."

"So she won't be there when we arrive," I shook my head. "We can't leave until we're for sure she's there."

"It would be suspicious if we got there before her," Will nodded. "That's one more secret she'd want to know about."

"So what do we do for the next ten minutes?" I asked. "Just sit here? Someone might see us."

"Not with the mist," Percy responded. "We can be anywhere and everyone will still think we're inside."

We just sat on the lawn of the school, waiting enough time until we knew Jasmine was inside her house.

I grabbed both of their hands and instantly thought of her country house.

In seconds we landed on her lawn.

Behind us, we heard someone scream bloody murder.

I turned instantly, thinking Jasmine was being attacked by a monster. But instead, she was looking me dead in the eyes, her entire body frozen.

She'd seen me shadow-travel there. Maybe the Mist was just feeling lazy, so it let that part slide.

"Schist," Percy swore under his breath.

Jasmine fell backward, signaling she had fainted.

"Jasmine!" Will knelt to her side and picked up her head with his head, getting it off of the rocks. "We need to take her to the doctor."