WPOV

Track: Engravings, Ethan Bortnick

I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt.

I had heard the priest say my name, but it had been so difficult to hear from the top of that building. I couldn't quite tell if he was saying something good about me or if it was bad—and then, I mean, my mom was mourning me. I thought she would be happy that I'm alive. I thought I could probably even show them that Nico isn't the evil monster that we've been told he is—I mean, clearly if he brought me back to the marketplace safe and sound, he's not attempting to murder me in cold blood.

I guess I let my hope that they would let me come back to the village go too far, and now Nico has paid the price for my naivety.

I guess I just hoped that having me—their son, their neighbor, their apprentice, their friend—back alive would be more meaningful than punishing me for being...

I don't know if I can say the word, even now.

I can't go home—my mother made that pretty clear when she berated me for not repenting—but Nico won't make it far into the woods, so when we fall through a backdoor, it's to Annabeth's house. I'm really hoping that she can be persuaded to help us. I don't really know what other options we have at this point—we can't fight them, and we can't run from them when Nico can barely stay conscious.

I practically drag Nico through the doorway, and he promptly passes out the moment we're inside. There's blood everywhere—my hands are already covered in his blood and I'm not really sure how that happened. I shut the door behind us, and words are tumbling out of my mouth near-constantly, begging him to stay awake, to stay alive, to be okay.

No one is at Annabeth's house right now—obviously. They were at my funeral. I don't know if I'll be able to come up with an explanation to brush away what the priest called me. I have to hope that Annabeth won't care.

First thing first. I have to get Nico somewhere that I can treat him. I loop one arm under his armpits and the other under his knees, and I grunt from the difficulty of carrying someone. Still, I manage to lift him and stumble toward the back bedroom. I hope Annabeth won't mind that the blankets are going to be bloody. It's for a good cause, though.

I push the bedroom door open with my shoulder and stumble inside, trying my best to be gentle when I drop Nico off on the bed. My mind is buzzing with fear—I'm in way over my head with this. I want Annabeth's father to come home—he's the one that I had planned to be an apprentice for. He'll know how to save Nico, but I'm praying that he can be convinced to even care in the first place.

In the meantime, I run to the medicine closet—there's some alcohol there and a bunch of bandages—good, he's going to need a lot. I grab as much as I can before running back to Nico. I'm not really sure what I'm doing—these kinds of wounds are more serious than what people usually survive. The alcohol is a desperate measure too—Mr. Chase says that most medics don't even believe that the alcohol does anything, but Mr. Chase believes that people are more likely to survive for some reason when he uses it, and I'm willing to try anything.

Nico's shirt sticks to his wounds. It has a flap in the back that ties together as protection for the skin in between his wings—my trembling fingers pull at the knot until it comes loose in my hands, and then I manage to pull the rest of his shirt over his head and toss it aside.

His entire body is marred with scars, and blood paints his skin like a grotesque canvas. I grab the bottle of alcohol and twist off the cap, praying that Mr. Chase isn't crazy about this, and I pour it over the wound on his abdomen. He's got some other open wounds too, but this is the most severe—if I can just save him from the blood loss induced by this stab wound, he should be able to survive the other injuries.

I use pillows to prop him up so that I can wrap his abdomen in the bandages, trying to prevent as much blood loss as I can. He groans when I finish with the bandages—my apology for causing him some pain is incoherent and messy. Honestly, it's a miracle I manage to make any sound at all.

I don't think he's fully awake yet, but that just means I have more time to collect myself before—

The front door opens, and the low voices of the Chase family spill into the house. They're home. I have to convince Mr. Chase to help me—although it just occurred to me that I technically committed a home invasion, and they would be well within their rights to have me arrested for that alone, and that's not even considering everything else that would motivate them to report me.

I figure I'll let them react to me being in their home first, and then I'll reveal that I'm not the only one here. Is that the best way to ease them into this? I have no idea, but I take a deep breath, put my hands in the air in the hopes that it prevents them from assuming I'm here to cause trouble, and then I head to meet the Chase's to get help.

—

NPOV

I wake up in a prison, and I swear my heart almost stops. They arrested me. Will gave me up—?

Except—no, I'm not in a prison.

I take a deep breath and force myself to take in my surroundings again. I'm in an enclosed room, sure, but at the far reaches of my memory I remember being in rooms like this before. There's a closed door to the left, and a window on the right—even if the door is locked to keep me trapped in here, I could shatter the window and run. Not a prison. Just a bedroom.

My head is pounding. Also, I'm shirtless. I don't remember that happening.

I inhale slowly even though it's painful, and then I use my arms to push myself off the bed. My stab wound seems to be cared for, but there are still arrows sticking out of my leg and wing. That's going to make it more difficult to escape—the pain comes in aching waves, and when I move, my limbs shoot burning pain through my nerves.

I grit my teeth and stand anyway. I can hear voices in the house—probably, someone is keeping me here until soldiers get here to take me to the King—or to execute me, or whatever it is that the King wants.

I make it approximately one and a half steps before pain spikes up my leg, and my mind short-circuits. I fall to my knees, groaning. I'm never going to make it out of here like this.

Someone must have heard me fall because the next moment, the bedroom door is thrown open, and rushed footsteps meet me at my spot on the ground. Fear pushes me to my feet again, adrenaline only halfway numbing the way my thigh screams.

I face my attacker—

It's Will. It's just Will. I exhale, trying to calm my panicking heart.

Well, actually, it's not just Will. There's also a man in the doorway, plus the blonde girl from the funeral behind him. She's giving me a wary look, and I feel sick to my stomach.

"Let me go," I say, my voice tinged with fear again. "I haven't hurt anyone—please, you can't kill me—"

"They're not going to hurt you," Will promises softly, and he pulls one of my arms up and around his shoulder, encouraging me to lean on him and take some weight off my leg. "I explained the basics of what's going on, and Mr. Chase is going to help heal you. He's going to finish up the work I started on your stab wound, and Annabeth and I are going to work on the arrows. Alright?"

I shoot him a glare. He trusts too easily. These people are going to report me. If I can get back to my nest, I can try to get the arrows out, and then maybe I can pray to Bianca to help—

Except I can't make it back to my nest.

But if I can at least make it to the woods, the risk of being found—

Except...the villagers are probably searching the woods as we speak. I wouldn't survive an hour. I wouldn't survive...

"We don't have another choice," Will tells me. "I know you don't really enjoy having people know about you, but this is the only way we're going to be able to keep you hidden long enough to save your life."

The man—Mr. Chase, I presume—clears his throat and steps forward. A medical supply bag dangles from his hand. He looks sort of how I would expect a medic to look—he wears a pair of spectacles that rest upon a long nose, and his high cheekbones make his face look long. His gray eyes match the girl's—this must be his daughter?

"If you could lie down on the bed, I can get started," Mr. Chase tells me, and Will tries to prod me forward. I find myself frozen in place, my eyes darting between Mr. Chase and his daughter. We really have no reason to believe that these people are actually going to care for me. As far as we know, they might have me lie down on the bed and then use their medical instruments to cut me open, to tear me apart, to get the bounty.

"At the funeral, you kept making sure you didn't hurt anyone. Even when you knocked the priest over, you purposefully twisted as you fell so that you would be the one to hit the stones," the blonde girl says. "Why? Why protect the man you're tackling? Why not fight back?"

Shit. She's smart if she noticed that kind of thing among the chaos—she probably already put together that I can't fight back if she attacks me, either. This is very bad. Why did Will take me here?

Will sighs at my refusal to move. He shifts so that he's standing in front of me, his body blocking my view of the Chase's, so I put one hand on his shoulder and lean a little so I can see around him, so as to not lose track of these strangers.

"Nico, listen to me. You do not have a choice in this. We have to let them heal you, or you're never going to survive this. Do you understand? I've wrapped your wounds, but you need stitches—and only Mr. Chase has the materials for that." Will's soft hand cups my chin, turning my face away from the strangers who still stand in the doorway. He doesn't talk again until finally I give in and look at him. "I would never have brought you somewhere that would be dangerous for you. You're safe here, okay?"

I reluctantly allow him to lead me over to the bed again, and he helps me get my injured leg onto the bed when I fail at first to lift it. This is a really bad idea. I should not be trusting his judgment; he tried to befriend me when he thought I was a serial killer stalking him, for Hades's sake! He has terrible taste in friends.

"Soon you'll feel good as new," Will promises, and then he steps back to let Mr. Chase take the spot next to me. Mr. Chase hands me a bottle—probably alcohol to numb the pain of getting my stomach stitched back together—but I shake my head.

"It's going to hurt if you don't drink anything," he tells me.

I clench my jaw and shake my head again. If I'm not perfectly sober, I won't be able to defend myself as well against them. I throw another nervous glance at Will, wondering again why I ever let him make any decisions.

"I'll set it here in case you change your mind," Mr. Chase tells me, setting the alcohol on the short bedside table. It's within my reach if I need it. Maybe if I'm attacked, I can pour it on Mr. Chase to distract him for a moment while I escape—that can hardly count as hurting him, right? Hades. This is a terrible idea if I'm resorting to hoping pouring alcohol on an enemy's head will keep him away.

"Are you ready?" he asks as he pulls a needle and what looks like a sort of thread from the bag. I brace myself, and then I nod stiffly.

Mr. Chase also pulls out another bottle—alcohol again, I think—and sets it next to the first on the table. Then he begins undoing the bandages that already wrap up my stomach—I don't actually remember that happening, either—and when the wound on my stomach is exposed, he picks up the bottle again and pours it over my stomach.

I gasp as the alcohol burns. Mr. Solace douses his needle in the alcohol, too—I don't understand the point of this. I don't have the headspace to think about it either because then he's stitching my stomach together again, and all I can think about is the pain. There's a mental aspect of this too—the sharp pain of a needle pulling my torn skin back together, and then the dread when the needle finishes the stitch and I know another is coming—

For a brief, desperate moment, I consider drinking the alcohol—it's within reach. I could reach out now and grab it and maybe it would numb this a little bit—

Gritting my teeth, I keep my hands firmly at my side, refusing to sacrifice my sobriety. I'm willing to experience the pain if it means that I survive this—I can't give Mr. Chase the chance to do more damage than the villagers have already done.

When Mr. Chase finishes up the final stitch, He's about to start on my leg when—

There's a knock on the door.

Mr. Chase freezes, and his head jerks up at the sound. For a brief moment, the entire room is dead silent—the village knows I'm here, and they are ready to try to finish what they started. They want that bounty. They'll tear apart the house brick by brick if it means that at the end of the day, I'm back in their hands.

Fear bubbles in my stomach and expands, getting bigger and bigger until it pushes at my lungs, freezing them, I can't breathe—

Mr. Chase straightens. "I'll go answer the door—Annabeth and William, you both work on stitching up the rest of his wounds. Start with the leg first; the wings can come later, he's not losing so much blood from those. And wrap up his stomach again; I think it helps keep the stitches clean."

"Got it," says the blonde girl, and she and Will immediately take Mr. Chase's place.

Mr. Chase disappears out of the bedroom, and Annabeth snaps the arrow in my leg. And—

I have to bite back a sound of pain as she pulls it out—my entire leg feels like it's on fire, my muscles are screaming, and I put my fist in my mouth and bite down to keep from making a sound. I taste blood.

And then the arrow is out, and the pain dulls from a raging fire to an ache that travels in waves up my body. I bite down hard on my fist when Will pours alcohol over the wound—I really wish they would stop doing that—and the burning sensation returns.

They must decide that the arrow wound doesn't need stitches because they settle on wrapping the wound snugly in bandages, and then Will rewraps my stomach while Annabeth snaps an arrow in my wing. She pulls it out—this time it hurts, but it's not quite so mind-numbingly awful, either. She frowns at the arrow pieces in her hands.

"These aren't warriors' arrows," she says.

I'm breathing hard—this is a lot more medical treatment that I'm used to—and I don't understand what she's talking about. "That's the kind of arrows they always use. What makes them not warriors' arrows?"

She holds one up for me to look at. "See how plain it is? Warriors' arrows are intricate, and they usually have some sort of prayer carved into them. This is a hunting arrow—honorable soldiers would never use this on another person."

I laugh bitterly. "Yes, well, if I had to guess, that's because they don't see me as a person."

Annabeth's eyebrows raise at the bluntness, but then she slowly sets the arrow down on the bedside table next to the unopened alcohol bottle and says, "No. I guess they don't."

Will glances up at us from his work wrapping my stomach, and then his eyes land on the snapped arrow lying on the small table. "I keep...being surprised by how cruel my own village can be. I thought..."

He trails off, staring at that arrow. Then, his expression softens from worry—but somehow, the small, sad smile makes me believe he's feeling even worse than he had been a few seconds ago—he kind of looks like he's barely holding back tears.

"I didn't think that telling them I'm alive would lead to this," he says quietly. "I'm really sorry, Nico—I did something stupid, and you got badly hurt because of it."

He finishes up the bandages and takes a deep breath, apparently trying to clear his mind or calm his nerves. "It won't happen again. If you want to leave me in the village so that I'm not so much of a risk to you, I would fully understand."

For some reason, I feel my cheeks and neck warm up a little at his apology. He looks so small right now—he feels awful. I don't want him to feel awful.

"Pft," I say, waving him off. "And leave you with that idiot priest after I've worked so hard to keep you alive? Unlikely."

His eyebrows knit together, and he fidgets with his sleeves. "But...I mean, you must be mad. You don't want to get rid of me? I...I hurt you."

At this, I sit up a little, wincing all the way as my stomach screams at me to lie down again, and grab his face to turn it toward me. "Are you stupid? You didn't lay a finger on me." He opens his mouth to argue, so I cut him off. "No. Will, listen to me. You are not responsible for not knowing that your village would turn on you, and you are not responsible for your village hurting me. The only people who can be blamed for this are the ones who have worked to make the village believe I am a Monster, and the people who were willing to shoot me down for a lump of gold. Do you understand?"

His face has turned pink as I hold it in my hand. He's staring at me, and I'm starting to wonder if I have blood on my face. But then, stiffly, he nods. His voice comes out a little higher pitched than normal: "Yeah. Right. Okay."

Annabeth glances between us, a single eyebrow raised.

And then she turns back to the final arrow in my wing, and she snaps it.

And as she pulls it out—

The bedroom door opens, and two boys enter the room, laughing and shoving at each other.

The first boy has sea-green eyes and dark hair, and his mischievous smile freezes when he sees me—and then his jaw drops, and he stares at me like he's never seen a Guardian before. (Which...you know, that's fair, I guess, considering he probably hasn't seen a Guardian before.)

The other boy—we lock eyes. And my blood turns to syrup in my veins, dread boiling in my stomach.

Because I know him. His eyes are piercing and intelligent and—

And they're King Hermes's eyes, and I recognize him from the castle because that is, without a doubt, Prince Luke Castellan.

"What is going on?" asks the green-eyed boy.

My heart is thundering in my chest. Maybe I can escape through the window. Annabeth has my wing right now though—I wonder if she knew these two would be coming? If I try to get to the window, will she use my wing to pull me back?

"I...am going to pretend I didn't just witness this," Luke says. He stares at me, his eyes flickering from my face to Annabeth yanking the final arrow out of my wing, and then he turns on his heel. "I saw nothing, I remember nothing, goodbye."

"What—!" Percy shouts at the back of Luke's head. "You don't have questions about this? That's the Monster! Annabeth is pulling arrows out of the Monster's wing. You're not concerned?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, I didn't see anything," Luke calls to him from the hall.

Percy huffs, and then he turns again to face me. "You're the Monster. You eat people. Why are you in my girlfriend's house?"

"He's not a monster, and he doesn't eat people," Will answers for me.

"He's injured, and my dad and I are healing him," Annabeth says. "Speaking of, where's—"

As if on cue, Mr. Chase appears in the doorway behind Percy. "Sorry about that, everyone. I was busy convincing the villagers that no one was staying here, so these two suck past me to find Annabeth. Is everyone alright?"

"We're fine," Annabeth answers as she sets the two pieces of the final arrow next to the others. "He's going to need time to heal, though. Let's give him a chance to rest?"

"I...I'm so lost..." Percy says in the doorway, his mouth still hanging open a little. "Why is no one explaining this? Why does he have wings!"

"I'll explain what I can," Annabeth says as she turns and strides toward the door. She grabs Percy on her way out and pulls him through the door behind her as she leaves. Percy throws one more shocked look at me before disappearing down the hall.

Mr. Chase glances over my wounds quickly before nodding approvingly. "This looks like about all we can do for now. I'm going to see if I can find a better way to protect your wing wounds from getting dirty. I'm not really accustomed to caring for...someone with your anatomy. Hopefully by tomorrow, I'll have something figured out." Then he nods at Will. "Thanks for bringing him in, William. I'm going to let you two have some time to yourselves. Try to get some rest—Nico, you look like you haven't slept in days."

I haven't. I didn't sleep the night Will almost froze to death, and I didn't sleep last night when he stayed in my nest for fear that he might try to attack me. And I can't really sleep now, either—not when Luke just learned my location and could easily take that information back to his father. There could be an army here to arrest me by morning.

"Goodnight, boys. We'll talk more in the morning," Mr. Chase tells us before stepping into the hall and closing the bedroom door behind him.

Will takes a deep breath and then says, "Do you mind if I sleep in the bed, too? I kind of don't want to be on the floor."

I shrug. "Yeah, feel free." The bed is plenty large anyway. The bed creaks as he sits down on the other side and then swings his legs up. He crawls under the blankets.

"You haven't slept since I met you," he says softly, and his eyes are already fluttering shut. "You're safe here, Nico. You can sleep, I promise."

"You don't know that," I tell him. "Mr. Chase could—"

"He won't. Mr. Chase is a doctor, not a hunter. He cares significantly more about keeping people alive than trying to kill them."

"Luke—"

"Yeah, yeah. He's the prince. I know. I understand your concern, but Luke doesn't get along with his father—I'm pretty sure he would much rather upset his father by refusing to turn you in than appease his father by handing you over." Will uses his elbow to prop himself up, and he gives me an earnest look. "You're safe. I won't let people hurt you again." He turns to my wing, which is currently pulled tightly against my body again. He lifts a hand and strokes a few of the feathers.

I shiver.

"Your wings are soft," Will tells me, and heat spreads up my neck again.

"They must be. You tried using one as a blanket last night," I tell him, and he laughs.

"I know I should be embarrassed," he tells me, "but my sleeping self had good taste."

I roll my eyes. This guy might be the death of me. I don't think I can handle any more of him. I wonder if this is just how he acts all the time, or if he just likes being such a significant annoyance around me in particular.

"Hey," Will says, his hand reaching for my face now to turn it toward him, "I'm serious. You're safe. You can sleep."

I stare at his face. He's got a bunch of freckles. I wonder if even more show up during the summer.

"Fine," I concede. "I'll try to sleep."

He smiles, happy to win this battle. Then he turns over, and a minute later I hear the soft sounds of his breathing as he falls into a gentle sleep.

Despite my promise, I try to stay awake as long as possible. The entire house is silent, except for the muffled sounds of a frog croaking somewhere near the bedroom window and crickets playing an orchestra in the grass outside. Unfortunately, in spite of my best efforts, I find my eyelids feel heavier and heavier as the night goes on, until finally I tumble into the depths of a dream. 

Word count: 4336

I feel like this chapter is not as good as the others but in my defense: it's midterms week. I wrote this procrastinating my studying.

Yours,
Sunny
they/them