Lams At Camp Half-Blood

Chapter Twenty-Three

Trigger warning: self harm

Nico's PoV

I'm allowed to see Alex once he's stable.

Apparently they had to do emergency reconstructive surgery, as something in his drink had destroyed his stomach lining, which explains why he was coughing blood. Will says he would bet anything it was ammonia or bleach.

Apparently he hasn't been talking to anybody, and nobody can figure out why. It's been about a week and a half since he's had surgery, and it wasn't his throat they operated on.

I push through the doors of his room in the infirmary. Recently they built a cabin for to house ill and injured campers with about 15 rooms for privacy. If you're sick when all the rooms are full up, I think they just give you a bag of ice and a bandaid, but don't quote me on that. I'll have to try it sometime.

"Hi there," I say, sitting next to his bed on a folding chair.

He just glares at me.

"So, how's your life been recently?"

He gestures around the room. It's basically a hospital room, all white with really nothing interesting.

"Well, what do you want to talk about?"

He continues glaring.

"Well, Eliza had the trial on Wednesday, she was found guilty. She'll be locked away for quite awhile. Creature is innocent, though, because they didn't know she took their bomb."

His eyes widen.

"Percy showed up yesterday after hearing about what happened to you. He came to check on you but you were asleep."

His face flushes. He looks away from me.

"Ohohohohoho are you still in the Percy phase? You were dating John weren't you?"

He sits up. "Shut up," he says, his voice slightly hoarse from not being used for awhile. "I'm allowed to have crushes, okay?"

"When you're dating somebody, though? That's pretty sketchy if you ask me."

"He's dead, so technically we're not dating now."

"Would he say that if you were dead?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything. I'm so stupid. I could've prevented his death if I tried, I could've not let him talk to her alone."

"No. She would've found some other way to get him alone. I heard her talking to Angelica once, she said she hoped that he'd burn."

"No, it's all my fault, I could've been a better boyfriend. I could've been more skeptical of Eliza. I knew she wasn't stable."

"Stop beating yourself up about this. It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault but Eliza."

He quiets down and breathes out his nose harder than usual, like you would if you saw a funny meme and commented 'lmao 😂😂😂 I laughed so hard at this' but without the weird little half smile.

He looks over at the side table, with a lamp and a...razor? Oh shit. I look back over at him. Why didn't Will say anything about this? Well, he really isn't very bright, and Alex seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping his arms under the blanket. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I was already suspecting this before the whole almost dying thing happened.

"Alexander, show me your arm."

He snorts. "Why? It's not like you actually care."

"I do care, and I will forcibly grab your arm if you don't show meof your own free will."

He gives me a menacing stare and slowly removes his arm from under the blanket wrapped around it.

It's so much worse than I thought.

There's red gashes all over and up his arm, almost to his elbow. Some look like they were done today, others look as old as three days ago. They all look pretty deep. I'm going to have to talk to at least two people. I look over at his other arm, the one with an IV in it. Some scars, but probably from before he almost died.

"Don't tell anybody," he pleaded, eyes wide. He looked scared.

"How are you keeping this a secret from the Apollo children?"

"None of them really look at me, and only one of them was qualified to do the surgery, so he's the one who knows. Will Solace, I think."

"I've got to go talk to some people," I say, standing up and leaving.