NPOV
Track: Come A Little Closer, Cage the Elephant
I wake up to the sound of my alarm the next morning, and I feel oddly refreshed. Normally, I wake up sore from the previous night's fight. Why does it feel like my entire body has gone through a healing, calming yoga routine or something? I don't think I've woken up feeling this good since I first became the Ghost King.
I go about my morning as normal at first—brushing my teeth, getting changed. I'm not going to school today, but I pack my backpack anyway in an attempt to fool my mom—
I'm slipping my math textbook into my bag when I remember it all. My stomach drops, and suddenly I dread going downstairs to face my mother. I mean, she found out that I'm the Ghost King. That's terrifying enough on its own—but of course she also had to find out about Luke and his cronies at the same time. I mean, I think she probably suspected that something was going on, but I was so not ready to have this conversation.
I get ready a lot slower after that. I'm dragging my feet because I really don't want to have to go downstairs and face her. I mean, is she going to kick me out? She let Will take me into the house, so maybe not—but I was beaten pretty badly, so maybe she was just giving me time to rest before making the decision to get rid of me.
Or maybe she won't kick me out, but she won't be the same around me either. I mean, does she think I'm evil? I am a supervillain. I break into people's houses. Is she right to believe I'm evil?
I finish packing my bag, and I have nothing else to postpone going downstairs anymore. I have to face her. This feels an awful lot like going into a fight.
I creep down the stairs, trying very hard not to draw attention to myself. She's waiting for me in the kitchen, and she has breakfast on the table for me: eggs, bacon, and toast. She doesn't look angry, per se, but her eyebrows are stitched together with worry.
She looks up at me as I hover in the doorway. "Good morning, Nico."
I lick my lips nervously. There's a glass of orange juice on the table, and I'm so thirsty, I could down the glass in one gulp. But I don't move quite yet—I just hover in the doorway.
"Are you angry?" I ask, and my voice comes out more quiet and afraid than I'd planned. I can't really help it—my heart is beating in my throat, and I'm sweating everywhere.
Her eyes are gentle. "Niccolò, no, I am not angry." She gestures at the table to beckon me over. "Come eat—we don't have to talk about this now. You have school—I don't want you to be late."
I slowly sit down, trying to gauge if I'm going to be grounded or something when I get home. She actually doesn't look surprised at all. Did she suspect me before this? What gave me away? Maybe she wasn't as blissfully aware of my sneaking out as I thought she was.
I scarf down my breakfast—breaking into people's houses works up an appetite, and I didn't eat dinner last night due to being nearly murdered. Then I'm back on my feet, more than happy to postpone this conversation until this afternoon.
"Ti amo, Niccolò," my mother calls as I grab my back and head for the door.
"Ti amo, Mamma!"
I slip out and walk down the driveway. My mother will be heading to work soon. She's a cook at an Italian restaurant nearby, but they're more of a lunch and dinner place than breakfast, so she doesn't have to get there to start prepping meals quite yet.
Which is inconvenient for a rebellious teenage son who's trying to skip school, but where there's a will, there's a way. I've found methods of getting around her. Today's method is to wear baggy clothes over my suit, keep my mask in my bag, and head to a public park where I can change without neighbors pointing out their windows and going, "Uh, I think I just saw Nico di Angelo change into the Ghost King's outfit!"
After changing, I head to my next destination: Hermes Stoll's house. I wonder vaguely if there's any relation between Hermes Stoll, an infamous thief, and Connor and Travis Stoll. It's a big city, so the answer is most likely no, but I'll be careful anyway.
I find the last name ironic. Did Hermes become a thief because of his last name? I mean, Stoll. Was it a happy coincidence? The satisfaction I get from the last name is enough to keep me in the air for the entire flight.
When I get close to the Stoll's house, someone wearing a disgusting amount of yellow is sitting on the porch, waiting. I hover—how did Sunburst know I would be at this house today? Is this a trap?
I land quietly, but Will looks up anyway; my feet rustled the grass, and he must have picked up on the tiny sound.
"Hey, Nico!" he says cheerily. "Fancy seeing you here!"
I search his figure for any sign that he's carrying a weapon. I'm not sure why—he could kill me with his powers alone. What does a gun matter when you can summon the heat of the sun?
I don't get any closer to him. "How did you know I would be here?"
I'm trying not to look too far away from Sunburst while also keeping track of my surroundings—if this is a trap, maybe he has other people working with him to capture me. The police? Is Sunburst bait here?
Why is he here already?
"You had a map on the wall, and your mom let me take a picture of it," he informs me, and he's smiling brightly. He takes a step closer to me, and I take three steps back.
"Of course she did," I mutter. "So...what, have you notified the police of where I'll be? What's the point of coming here yourself if you could have just let the police set up a trap for me? What is happening?"
His hands are in the air, and he genuinely does look harmless right now—it's a good thing that I know better. "Well, what's not happening is everything going through your head right now." I start to protest, but he continues, "It's not a trap. I haven't given your map to the police. You're safe, Nico."
Safe. No, I'm not.
But he does look harmless, and he hasn't made another attempt to get closer to me after seeing me try to put distance between us. If this was a trap, wouldn't he be ignoring what I want? What is the point of showing kindness if I'm about to be arrested?
Slowly, I relax. He must be telling the truth. For some reason, he really decided not to send my map to the police. I guess that means I need to get in the house and search it before the neighbors call the police.
"Listen," he says, "about last night—"
I push past him. "We're not talking about that. Is there anyone in the house?"
He glances at the house. "Uh, I don't think so. Don't you normally figure out before showing up that no one will be in the house?"
"Yeah, I do. And then I double check once I arrive that I was correct, and the house is empty." I head to the back window of the house. I've seen a figure in a hoodie climb out of this window several times over the past week. Probably a rebellious teenager sneaking out of the house—that's familiar.
The hooded figure probably leaves the window unlocked 24/7 to have a guaranteed method of getting back inside the house.
"I wanted to ask if Luke was telling the truth," Sunburst says as he follows behind me. "Does he really know you in real life?"
"That's a personal question, Will." I reach the back window and put a finger over my lips to signal to Will to be quiet. He's not smiling anymore—he looks kind of concerned, actually. If he goes on another rant about how breaking into people's houses is illegal, I'm going to throw up.
I peek through the window. It's a bedroom—and judging by the navy blue bed sheets, it's probably a teenage boy's bedroom. There are a few band posters on the walls, mostly rock. The room was empty. Good.
"I'm serious, Nico. Does he know you in your other life?"
His tone is still concerned. I'm not really sure why he's so worried about this; in fact, I'm not really sure why he stepped in yesterday to help me. Wouldn't it benefit him if Luke killed me? Is this just a matter of his hero morals getting in the way of his ability to let me die? Why not bring me to the police instead, then?
I don't like Will—I think he might be planning something.
I'm so suspicious of Will that I don't have any brainpower left to be suspicious of my surroundings—I chalk up the fact that the hair on the back of my neck is standing on end to my distrust of Will.
Will tumbles through the window behind me, and it makes a lot of noise. I turn and glare at him. He stands up and brushes himself off and gives me a sheepish smile. "Sorry."
I roll my eyes and turn back around. I don't really want to turn my back to Sunburst—he could attack me more easily if I'm not facing him.
But if he wanted to attack me, why did he save me? Nothing makes sense.
I need to stop thinking about Sunburst.
"Nico, I'm just worried about you," Will tells me. "I mean, I didn't know Luke was like that. You could have told me, you know."
"Sunburst. Do you know what it means to be enemies with someone?" I ask because I'm really starting to think he doesn't. Has he never hated anyone before?
I'm checking the bedroom's drawers. I lift a red rug in case of, I don't know, trapdoors or something. There's nothing. There's a closet in the corner of the room. I open it, but there's nothing but clothes. I tilt my head at the closet. I feel like I vaguely recognize a couple of these shirts, but I can't really place where I've seen them. Maybe just a commercial or something. Honestly, even if the teenage boy who lives here is Travis or Connor, I couldn't care less.
"Please answer me."
I'm about to say "Fuck you" when I swear I hear something in one of the other rooms of the house—I freeze, listening. It sounded like a footstep. Footstep, singular—not more than one. I don't hear anything else. Was it my imagination? Or just a sound that Will made somehow?
"Nico—" Sunburst starts again.
"Fine! Yes, he knows me, and yes, he's an asshole. Can you shut up now? I need to listen," I whisper-yell, creeping toward the wall closests to where I heard the sound. Will was standing between me and the wall, so maybe he was the source of the sound. Still, I can't be too careful.
I put my ear against the wall and listen. For once in his life, Sunburst is quiet, too. He's frowning at his hands. Maybe thinking about how he should not have saved me yesterday. If he's not, he should be.
I listen.
And I listen.
And I listen.
I must stand there for an excruciating amount of time because Will begins tapping his foot while he waits. I shoot him a withering glare, but he just rolls his eyes at me.
I don't hear anything anymore. Maybe I really had just heard Will then. I think I'm just paranoid because I left the make-sure-the-house-is-empty task to Will, and he could have lied. But I remind myself that if he had wanted to arrest me, he could have just brought my unconscious body to the police yesterday, or told the police where I lived and let them come to me. He doesn't have a reason to lie about this if it's not a trap—the house must really be empty.
My hair is still on end, though.
I step away from the wall and whisper, "I think...I think I imagined it."
"Great!" Will says loudly. "Now, let's discuss trusted adults in your life who you can contact about the bullying issue. What about school counselors?"
I think I've finished my exploration of the bedroom. There's nothing here but normal teenage boy things. I'm ready to move to another room.
The door to the teenage boy's bedroom was closed when we came in, so now I stand with my hand on the doorknob.
My gut screams at me to leave. It must be a trap. What if I really had heard something? If I leave this room, I leave behind my fastest escape. Maybe I should just come back another day—?
I shake my head and try to be logical. There's no one home because I would have heard more than a single footstep. Or, they would have contacted the police, and I would hear sirens. As it is, the house sits in complete silence.
I throw open the door and—
And nothing happens. There's no one out there. I exhale slowly, relieved. I had just been overthinking something tiny. Maybe it's because of the attack last night; now I'm on edge.
I take a step into the hallway. There's no one here. There are some picture frames on the wall, but weirdly enough, all the pictures have been taken out of them. They're just empty frames on the wall.
Why would someone remove all the pictures? They're probably just family photos. My gut is yelling at me again.
I check both directions of the hall again. To my right, the hallway opens up into a larger area that contains a foyer and living room, plus a stairwell to the next floor. to my left, the hallway heads to a sunroom that no one ever uses—I would know, I watched them for weeks.
Except—there are documents on the table of the sunroom. I tilt my head. I watched that room for weeks and only ever saw it accumulate dust.
I head toward the sunroom. It consists of glass paneling for the exterior walls, bookshelves on one side of the room, a chess table on the other, and a couch with a large black coffee table that is now inexplicably covered in what looks like blueprints. My heart beats faster. Have I finally found something? It's weird that they so rarely use this room for anything, and now there are blueprints.
I move slowly, scanning the room for anything that might look like a trap because I still kind of have the eerie feeling that something is irrevocably wrong with this house—but I'm desperate, and this could be the first time that I actually find a clue.
I take my first step into the sunroom and immediately feel my muscles tense as I prepare for the worst.
Nothing happens.
I exhale again.
"Oh, and Nico! We'll come back to which trusted adult you're going to contact—I forgot to tell you some important news. I learned to fly!" Will tells me cheerily.
I sighed. "Great."
I approach the back of the couch and look over it to the coffee table. The blueprints are of this house. Why do they have blueprints of the house sitting on their sunroom coffee table?
"You know, you could at least pretend to be happy for me," Will grumbled.
"You're my enemy, Will. How was I supposed to react?"
"I don't know, a 'good job' maybe? Perhaps a pat on the back? But instead all I get is a sarcastic 'great.'"
I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. "Fine! You did a great job figuring out how to fly, Will. Happy now?" Can this guy not be quiet? I swear to God, he doesn't seem to feel any sort of wrongness in this house at all.
He grinned. "Yes."
I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to the blueprints, leaning over the couch to try to read some of the fine print written inside the rooms. Will remains behind me, and it sounds like he might be walking around the hallway. Maybe looking at the empty frames.
In blood-red ink, a creepy smiley face stares at me in the blueprint version of the sunroom. There's a message underneath: Don't turn around.
My heart pounds in my throat. This was a mistake. I'll come back another day—
From behind me, Will suddenly cries out, but his cry is stifled. I swivel, immediately calling shadows to my palms. I'm face-to-face with Luke Castellan—why is he here!
Travis and Connor are holding Will back. Travis has his hand over Will's mouth to quiet his protests—honestly, that's not all bad. He can be a little loud sometimes.
But they need to let him go. I summon a miniature ball of darkness—it looks like a black hole, but it doesn't consume.
"What are you doing here?" I growl at Luke.
"In my father's house? Why, I'm home from school. Too sick." He fakes a cough, then grins at me. "How odd that a supervillain has found his way into my home?"
"Stay away from me," I warn.
"Your guardian angel is being held back," Luke taunts. "Who's going to protect you, I wonder?"
"Shut up," I say, and I send my black hole hurtling at him. It knocks him back a few feet—enough space to give me room to breathe, but not enough to give me room to escape. There is no way out of the sunroom except the hallway, which is where Luke and his lackeys are currently holding Sunburst hostage. "What do you want from me?"
"Only a listening ear," Luke says, and suddenly his tone drops half an octave, and he sounds much more serious. "I have a message to relay to you."
"From who?" I ask. Who the fuck is Luke, a high school bully, communicating with that would want to leave a message for the Ghost King?
"That's not important." Luke takes a step closer to me and drops the volume just a small amount, but somehow it feels a thousand times more serious. "What is important is that you listen. You won't find her here—and you need to give up looking. My boss wants to let you know that if you continue pressing your nose into places you don't belong, you will not make it out alive. Do you understand?"
"Find her?" croaks Will—he had briefly managed to escape Travis's hand, only to get choked out a moment later. I ignore him for now—I have to deal with my own shit before helping others. Isn't that what they tell you on airplanes?
"I won't ever stop looking," I say. "I'll either find her or die trying."
Luke hums as if I was an interesting line in a book he's reading. Then he takes another step forward and says, "Did you know that if someone breaks into your home, murder can be labeled self-defense in court? If I kill you now, even the courts will agree that it was justified. Now—will you give this up, or will you join your sister in Hell?"
Word count: 3561
A/N: In case you're wondering, here's an explanation for all the weird things that Nico noticed in the house today, like the empty frames, blueprints, etc:
The reason that all the pictures were removed what because Luke correctly assumed that Nico would not draw the connection between Luke and Hermes. Luke took his mother's last name, and while Nico is aware that Luke is the half-brother of the Stolls, he assumed Luke lives with his mother due to the last name.
Seeing the pictures on the walls of Luke at this house would have probably made Nico just leave immediately as he realizes that something is wrong with what he saw when he was scouting this house. Why didn't he ever see Luke around? (Luke knew Nico was planning to break into Hermes's house sometime; he took his chances and for the last month or so, he has been living with his mother.)
When the Stolls noticed Nico watching the house, they estimated which day he would break in. Luke, who tracks Nico's fights, estimates that Nico spends about two to three weeks stalking a house before finally breaking in. They attacked Nico yesterday in the hopes that Nico would get revenge by picking today to break in, so now they've increased the probability of a specific day within the week to expect Nico. (Nico was already planning to break in on this specific day, but had he been planning to wait a few more days, it probably would have sped up the process.)
So when he attacks, they laid out the blueprint in the sunroom, knowing Nico would find it weird. He falls into their trap perfectly because he's been watching them for two weeks--but they have been watching him for much, much longer.
There is still a lot of mystery surrounding what happened in this chapter. I can't answer questions about why Luke is giving this message, who his boss is, or if Hazel is here or not. But you can feel free to come up with theories on your own :)