CHAPTER SUMMARY
Nico confronts Bianca about her treatment of Will.
BEGINNING NOTES
Word Count: 2222
Content Warning: None
I'M SORRY THIS ONE IS SO SHORT! It's another one of those "CH 14 & 15 were meant to be a single chapter but it was too long" things. I promise none of them will be this short again, but, hey, I did say each chapter would be between 2K and 3K and this one IS above 2K.
And all the characters are owned by Rick Riordan.
Credits at the end.
I'm going to quickly cover Luke before I focus on the real meat of the story.
Hey! Why do you get to tell it?!
You want to talk about Luke?
No, I meant the other stuff.
Because you weren't there for half of it, Nico, that's why.
So you jump in when I wasn't there.
Or you could jump in when you feel like you need to say something? You're good at that.
*fake crying* I thought if anyone wouldn't make fun of me, it would be my own sister!
Tell it to the judge.
Ha! Accidental courtroom pun. That segways nicely.
The last week of May, Luke got his sentence. He took a plea deal, and, in exchange for giving the police information about the Titans, he only got fourteen months. They also agreed to put him in a prison in Los Angeles where Thalia was close enough to visit him.
I know what you're thinking: "He was going to commit armed robbery, how could they only give him a little over a year?" Well, they couldn't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was going to be armed robbery, even if it's pretty likely. Plus he was blackmailed (we found out later Kronos threatened to kill Thalia if things didn't go well) and he never actually committed the robbery, so they could only be charged with attempted robbery. So when you look at it like that, fourteen months isn't as unreasonable as you might think.
Bianca... no one cares.
Is it so wrong to wrap up the subplots before we get to the main stuff?
Subplots? You're talking about the worst year of our lives like some psychotic sadist wrote the whole thing.
Yeah, well, for one year our life turned into a movie, so I'm going to use those words.
So, Luke went to prison, and we explained before what eventually happened to Thalia, so that's two subplots that were wrapped up by May: Jason and Thalia. That left Hazel and, of course, Nico and me. To put it like a movie would, my day of reckoning had arrived, and it was not going to be a pretty sight.
Sounds about right.
I was in my room, playing Sims 3 on my computer--because it's way better than Sims 4--when Nico threw open the door.
"What the fuck, Bianca?!" he yelled.
I spun my desk chair around. It's one of the turny chairs. I know he was yelling at me, but I was still calm because I knew that it was the best way to help Nico. He got angry a lot, and I'd gotten used to yelling. I knew he never meant it.
"What the fuck what?" I asked.
"Oh, gee, what shitty thing have you done that would make me this angry?!" Nico spat through clenched teeth. He shot me a perfect death stare, good enough that I flinched.
Then, I realized what he meant. My heart sank. My perfect five-point plan... it was over. "Nico--" I started to say, but he cut me off.
"Are you shitting me, Bianca?!" he cried. "How the fuck could you do that to Will?!"
"What?" I asked, stunned. "I thought you'd be angry I paid him off. What did I do to Will?"
"I am mad you paid him off!" Nico shouted. ""You saw a kid with patches on his bag and decided, 'hey, I'm going to give him money I know he literally can't refuse so he'll do something he's obviously not comfortable with and will hate himself for! That's not terrible at all!' Why would you do something that awful?!"
"That's not what it was!" I cried. "He got through to me so easily, and you wouldn't let me help you, and I just thought--"
"No!" Nico yelled. "You didn't think! You didn't think what this would do to him! Why would I give a shit that you set me up with a friend?! Why didn't you introduce us and let me warm up to him?!"
"Because I know you, and you wouldn't!" I shouted back. I stood from the chair. I was so furious, I couldn't help it anymore. "You want me to sit there and let my brother suffer when there's something I can do about it?!"
"It's not your job to force help down my throat!" he argued. "I'm allowed to be angry! I'm allowed to be depressed! You can't throw our fucking money around and take advantage of people in my fucking name! Life isn't some goddamn game you can win with gold!"
"Oh, you want to talk about who throws around our money?!" I cried. "Smoking, pot, drinking, vandalizing, stealing shit, you'd be in and out of jail as much as Luke Castellan if people didn't know Papà's name! The only damn reason you've got no record is that this town doesn't want the bad press about Hades di Angelo's troubled son! And, guess what? I don't want you on the side of the road somewhere because I didn't try hard enough. I'm trying to take care of you!"
"It's not your job to take care of me!" he shot back. "Bianca, you aren't Mamma!"
"I never said I was," I snapped, "but someone has to take control of things. Why else did I survive the plane crash when I shouldn't've?"
Nico stopped. He took a few steps into my room and shut the door behind him. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, more controlled, without even a hint of anger, just concern. "Bianca, what do you want?" he asked.
"I want you to be happy," I replied.
Nico took a deep breath. "No, B... what do you want?"
"I just said--"
"For yourself. Take everyone else out of it. Who do you want to be? What do you want to do?" I stood there for a moment, blinking. My mind went blank. There were tears in Nico's eyes now. He let out a strangled breath and said, "You can't even answer the question, can you?"
"No!" I protested. "I... I..."
He was right. I couldn't answer the question. I started hyperventilating as tears poured down my cheeks. Nico ran to me and pulled me into a hug. I buried my face in his shoulder as I cried. It was the first time in our lives that he'd comforted me instead of me comforting him. Why had I never seen how suspicious that was?
"We'll figure this out," Nico whispered. "You'll never be alone as long as I'm still breathing."
I pulled away and wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. "I need to go for a walk," I said.
"I'll come with you," Nico replied quickly.
I shook my head. "I need to be by myself, please. I'll be back soon."
Nico looked like he wanted to argue, but I guess he could relate to that feeling, and there was nothing he could say to change my mind. He opened the bedroom door for me and walked me down to the front. "I love you," he said. "Nothing will ever change that."
"I know," I told him. "And I love you, too. Give me like an hour, okay?"
He nodded. But he stared after me with worried eyes, like he was afraid I'd never come home. I felt his gaze on my back until the mansion was a pinprick in the distance.
So I went out on my own. I didn't know where I was going, I just let my feet carry me until I was lost in the woods. I needed to be lost, I needed to be alone, so alone that no one could ever find me.
Somehow, I ended up at the creek where Piper and I always met to walk to school together. I collapsed onto my knees at the riverbed and got all sticky with mud, but I didn't care. I cupped some water in my hands and splashed it across my face, which had become red and hot from my tears. I stared at my image reflected in the water and realized I didn't recognize my face. Where was Bianca di Angelo? Where did she go? How could I be a stranger to myself?
I realized I was wearing my huntress outfit again. God, I'd had that thing since I was twelve... since... since I was...
I rummaged through my pockets. There was that floppy green hat Hazel and I found so many months before. I quickly braided up my hair and slipped it under my hat, and there she was. The little girl from Venezia playing Mario Kart on her 3DS, waiting to meet up with her Papà for Christmas, searching in vain for a Hades figurine for her Mythomagic-obsessed brother.
In my imagination, Mamma was still alive, Papà was still there, Nico was still happy. All it took to make my perfect world was a second tragedy to right the first. I had to find myself, who I was without them. The thought of going home, going back without an identity, terrified me. But I have to, I told myself.
Then I realized... says who?
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent probably the most important--and impulsive--text I ever have.
FIRST LIEUTENANT OF ARTEMIS
Zoë? Are you at LAX yet?
Yes. Why?
Tell Coach Artemis to buy me a ticket. I'm going to Jupiter's. I'm on my way.
And don't tell anyone where I'm going.
Are you okay? Do you need me to get the girls to come get you?
I can't go back to that house. I have to get out of L.A. before Papà and Nico find me. Please, don't tell anyone besides Artemis.
Ok
They can track you with your phone. You've got to get rid of it. We'll get out of the security line and meet you at the terminal. We're flying Delta, the 6:30 PM flight. You've got 2.5 hours, hopefully that's enough.
Coach Artemis says we'll book a later flight if we miss the first one. Just get rid of your phone and get here as fast as you can.
Before you say anything, Zoë later told me that she thought I was in an abusive household, and that's why I wanted to run away. Okay, yes, that's a huge jump, but this is the über-man hater over here, and, like Reyna said, Nico had a reputation. A really bad reputation. And Papà... he's got a rep too of a pretty scary, pretty mysterious guy. Put all that together, and how distressed I sounded over text, and it's less... insane.
I turned my phone off completely and threw it into a pile of leaves. No one could find it now.
I knew these woods like the back of my hand, so it wasn't hard to get to the road. I held my hand up hitchhiker style until a car stopped. I took off the only jewelry I was wearing, diamond stud earrings, and said, "I need to get to LAX. I don't have money, but these are real diamonds. They're yours when you arrive."
The man reached out to take them, but I snatched them away. "When. We. Arrive." I insisted. Then, I got into the backseat and forced my mind to go blank.
I reached LAX in a little over an hour. "Don't get anything less than $500 for these," I said to the driver as I handed him the earrings. "Thank you for your help. What's your name?"
"Dr. Thorn," the man said with a greasy smile. He had an accent, something from the middle east, I think.
"I'm Bianca," I said. "Thanks again."
I got out of the car and ran to the terminal. Zoë was there waiting for me, in tears, saying, "Thank god you're all right" over and over again. I hugged her and said, "Thanks for waiting. Let's get out of here."
"Coach Artemis is buying you a ticket," Zoë said. "I didn't tell her anything--she thinks your parents know. You'll be safe with us, okay? We'll find you a place to stay after Jupiter's is over, Mr. di Angelo's never going to find out until it's too late."
I nodded. I was too emotional to speak. I made it through Coach Artemis's questions--"why'd you suddenly change your mind?" etc.--without crying. I was running on autopilot. We found an ATM in the airport so I could grab some cash. I drained my account; I wouldn't be able to use my credit card anymore, and I didn't want to leave a paper trail with my debit.
It was weird, going through airport security when I'd never been on a public plane before, but I got the gist pretty quick. Shoes off, hands up, in the machine. One hour later, we were sitting in the jet. I kept waiting for Papà to storm in with the Feds, for something to go wrong, for them to drag me back home.
We took off. I felt layers of stress fall off my shoulders with every kilometer we climbed. There weren't any jets trying to pull us down. There wasn't any announcement about an angry billionaire searching for his daughter. Zoë swore to keep my secret. Coach Artemis didn't even know. I had no phone, no trail, no way for them to track me.
I was free.
END NOTES
Oh, come on, you had to see this coming. It's Bianca. I'm going to forget about that time she abandoned her family for the Hunters?
This is actually part of what I'm trying to do with the fic. Bianca was never developed enough that we really learned what led her to do what she did. She said she couldn't be "big sister all the time," but it can still come across as selfish. I wanted (though in a mortal AU) to give her the backstory she never got so her running away is a little less out of nowhere.
This week's beta commentary:
STORY: I stared at my image reflected in the water and realized I didn't recognize my face. Where was Bianca di Angelo? Where did she go? How could I be a stranger to myself?
JOJO: when will my reflection shooooooooowwwwww
MELODY: Who I aaaammm insiiiiiiiiide
STORY: Nico took a deep breath. "No, B... what do you want?"... I couldn't answer the question.
MELODY: Hey look, it's the moment that I imagined when I first wrote the fic and then spent 15 chapters working my way up to. Ha.
Credits:
Author: Melody Rose (https://bianca-the-huntress.tumblr.com)
Beta Readers:
Jojo (archiveofourown.org/users/bannedfrompencils/pseuds/bannedfrompencils)
Luna Rain (https://peppermintlove1.tumblr.com)
Please comment so I know what you think! See you next week!