"Will! Will, let me in!" Nico bangs on the door.

Annabeth groans, "Owie..."

Nico hits the door so hard, he's afraid his knuckles will start to bleed. "Open up! It's an emergency!"

Will opens the door. "What is it? Oh, gods, Annabeth! Bring her in!" He sweeps some clothes off the bed and onto the floor. "Here, lay her down."

"Will! Will, my guy... my bestie..." Annabeth slurs.

"I think she's high," Nico says. "But look at those bites on her; gotta be spiders, right?"

"I've got a first aid kit on the bathroom counter."

Nico understands. He runs off to retrieve Will's equipment.

"What exactly happened here?" Will asks upon Nico's return.

"I'm not totally sure. We were mini-golfing and long story short, I dug her out of the windmill."

"So you have no idea why she's high?"

Nico takes his hair out of its ponytail. "Is that what it is?"

"I'm pretty sure she might have been drugged. She's not usually this incoherent."

"That tickles..." Annabeth mumbles.

"Do you think she'll be alright?" Nico asks.

Will cleans each of Annabeth's cuts, making sure they don't get infected. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, you had her walking most of the way here. That's a good sign."

Nico stands a little taller, feeling proud of himself.

"I just pissed myself a little," says Annabeth.

"That's very cool," says Will.

Nico sits at the foot of the bed. "Annabeth-"

"Woah, that's my name!"

Will furrows his eyebrows. Nico finds that cute.

"Annabeth," Nico starts again. "Can you tell us how you got into the windmill?"

"I saw Harry Styles!" she yells.

Will swallows and shushes her. "That's pretty cool too."

"You were right," she says in the middle of a yawn. "He is hot."

Nico laughs a little. "Wow, she just admitted you were right about something."

"Everyone's into Harry Styles just a little bit," Will says.

Nico's worried. "Can you tell us what happened after..." When was the last he'd seen Annabeth? Oh yeah. "Can you tell us what happened after you spoke to Percy earlier?"

She laughs hysterically.

"Maybe we should lay off on the questioning," Will says. "She seems a little traumatized."

"You think?" Nico asks. "I'm going to kill whoever did this to her."

"Woah, there, I'm right behind you on that. I wish I'd been there for her," Will says. "I'm always there for her. It was stupid of me to assume someone else would be when I'm not around."

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself." Nico pats Will's back, only to be shrugged off.

"No, this is all my fault. I was so distracted that I didn't even think to protect her from people here. Oh gods, what if someone tried to take advantage of her?"

"She's Annabeth. She wouldn't let anybody get close to her without kicking him in the balls at least."

"Psst..." Annabeth beckons for Will to come closer. She whispers something in his ear.

He frowns. "Thanks for sharing."

"You're welcome!"

"What did she say?" Nico asks.

Will waves him off. "Who did that, Annabeth? Do you remember?"

She whispers in his ear again.

"Where did this happen?"

"I... I don't remember. Can you get one of my seltzers?" Annabeth stretches but winces as she does so.

"Nico, there might be water in the fridge-"

"On it."

Nico opens the miniature refrigerator and looks for some water. "All you have is mango White Claw," he declares.

"Agh!" Annabeth shouts. "That's the worst flavor!"

Nico returns to the bedside. "I don't want to overstep or anything, but is this a good excuse to use your healing powers?"

"Honestly?" Will says. "I think we'd be losing evidence if I did that."

Evidence. Gods, this is crazy. Nico's fought tons of monsters before, and then there was that one time he was stuck in a jar with nothing but pomegranate seeds to eat, but never in his life has something so scary happened to someone he cares about.

Will continues to talk. "And we can't figure out this puzzle without Annabeth. Once she's sober, I mean." How is it possible for someone to stay so levelheaded when his best friend might have been-

"I am sober!" Annabeth shouts.

"No, you're not!" Will and Nico say in unison.

Will pulls Annabeth's hand away from her face. Gods, Nico had been so preoccupied pulling her out of a windmill that he hadn't even bothered to notice how swollen her lip had gotten.

"Do you mind getting some water?" Will asks. "I'm gonna drain her lip here while she can't fight it, and, well, it's going to be pretty gross."

"On it. I forgot my jacket down at the golf course so I'll need to go down there anyway." Nico slips out the door and speeds down the hallway.

"Nico!" Percy shouts, appearing seemingly out of thin air. "Nico, wait up!"

Nope. This is not happening. Nope, nope, nope.

Nico had learned well enough at Camp Half-Blood that Percy Jackson should be nowhere near the infirmary, especially when Annabeth's the one hurt. He's like a bull in a China shop. Will can't get the right angles to do his job with Percy's fussing.

So Nico power-walks down the hallway like one of those old ladies you see exercising at the mall.

He hits the 'down' button on the elevator over and over again.

"Nico! Wait up!" Percy jogs towards him. The stupid elevator doors just had to wait for Percy.

"Seriously?" Nico says. "Bad time."

Percy huffs and puffs, trying to catch his breath. "I need to know if she's okay."

Nico steps into the elevator, Percy still hot on his tail. "Just let Will do his thing and everything's going to be fine."

"No! I mean, I wanna help!" he whines.

"We've got it covered."

Percy crosses his arms and faces towards the elevator doors.

Nico steps out of the elevator when they reach the ground floor. Percy follows.

"You've gotta tell me a little bit! Everyone's worried!"

"Fine." Nico stops in his tracks. "You have to promise not to freak out though."

Percy crosses his heart.

"We think she might have been drugged."

"I'm gonna kill-"

"Yeah, there's a line. Take a number."

Percy bites his lip. Nico can't believe he had a crush on this loser once. What a sap, honestly.

"Hey, guys! I won the Slush-Puppie!" Leo asks from on top of a bell cart.

Frank's pushing him along, slurping a red Slush-Puppie. "Is everything okay?" His lips are red from the syrup.

"Will's taking care of everything," Nico says.

"That's good," says Frank. "Oh, you forgot your jacket."

Nico takes his jacket from the cart and grunts a quick 'thanks' as he shrugs it on. That's better. So warm. So comfy.

"Sweet ride," Nico notes.

"My golden steed!" shouts Leo. "Onward, Frank!"

"I'm going to put Leo away for the night," Frank says. He scratches his head. "Uh, good luck with the Annabeth thing. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Will do," says Nico.

"What about me?" says Percy when the others disappear inside the hotel.

"Fine. You can have a job." Nico zips up his jacket. "Do you have a drachma?"

"Yeah?"

"There's a vending machine in the basement laundry room. Go get a bottle of water," Nico says.

"On it!" Percy takes off running back into the hotel. "Frank! Leo! Give me a ride, will ya?"