Shoot an Arrow Through His Heart

Nico's Dam Present

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Bianca goes home.

BEGINNING NOTES

Word Count: 2967
Content Warning: Violence (mild)


Hey guys! Sorry for the break, but between the holidays and moving to NYC (!!!) I've had absolutely no time for, like, anything.


And all the characters are owned by Rick Riordan.

Credits at the end.

K, Bianca, time to wrap this up.

You got it. I'll be quick.

I was terrified when I stepped up into the archery range for the championships. All I could hear was the roar of the crowd chanting my name. Curse of being from a famous family--they all knew who I was even if my name wasn't displayed in lights. I hadn't been following social media, but I'm sure I'd been trending at some point.

I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. I was on TV and in front of thousands of people. I wasn't a superstar, I was just Bianca, the shy girl from the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Zoë and Coach Artemis watched me from the sidelines. I shot them a nervous look. Coach Artemis smiled at me encouragingly. Zoë had a grim expression on her face (like always), but she nodded to me. Zoë had gotten a perfect 20. There were three other schools with a perfect 40, but none of them had gotten a bull's-eye. If we wanted a chance at winning, I needed to get a perfect 20 too.

You can do this, I thought. If I was going to the Olympics, I had to get used to competing in front of a huge crowd.

I stepped up to the target and notched an arrow. The skirt of my brown dress fluttered in the wind. My hair and green hat flew behind me like someone had pointed a fan at my face. My hair was out of my eyes for the first time in a very, very long time, even though all I wanted to do was hide behind it. It felt like a encouragement from Mamma up above, like she was telling me I could do it, that I didn't have to hide anymore.

I grabbed my first arrow. My hands shook as I notched it. The roar of the crowd was deafening.

Think of something else, I thought.

I closed my eyes and I was back in our apartment in Venezia. My family was sitting around our T.V. Mamma had streaks of grey in her hair. Papà had his arm around her and was smiling. Nico was crouched on the floor, watching me with an intense expression.

My family back together again. Home. All of us the way we used to be. That would always be my dream, no matter how far I ran. But I didn't long for it anymore. Instead, it filled me with strength. We would always have each other; they would always be the fire in my heart. If we could get past the plane crash, I could do this.

"Shoot straight," Nico whispered in my mind's eye. He always told me that before every competition. It was his way of telling me to break a leg.

I said it in real life, too.

I opened my eyes. Wind was pushing slightly to the right. I adjusted my stance. There was the target, 70 meters away. I pulled back the bowstring and fired my first arrow. It hit the inner circle, slightly left of the bull's-eye X. I took another deep breath and notched my second arrow. I adjusted my stance and fired.

Bull's-eye.

The crowd screamed. On the screens above me, the perfect 20 flashed with a single star signifying the bull's-eye. The world spun around me. Half-Blood High rose to the top of the leaderboard.