noticed that Nico had been silently observing what he had been doing during his entire time helping to unravel the makeshift blanket restraints until she spoke again. Once she did so, he lifted his head to look at her, an eyebrow raised in confusion.
"What were you doing just now? Did you somehow manage to tear my bed apart while trying to remove the threads?"
Nodding, Nico simply replied with a nod of her own.
Jackson narrowed his eyes slightly at the girl's response. "Did I hear correctly?" he questioned suspiciously. "Are you telling me that you tore my bed apart because you thought that I somehow broke it?" At hearing her affirmation, he sighed heavily as he rubbed a hand across his face in exasperation. He couldn't help but feel irritated by this situation. He really had hoped that he had managed to keep all of his belongings hidden well enough from Nico. Even still, he couldn't help but wonder if it wouldn't be best if he should tell his friends exactly how he managed to break his bed apart in only a single day.
Nico frowned slightly at his tone. "Do I do something wrong, Jackson?"
"No!" Jackson shouted quickly before lowering his voice to prevent anyone outside of the room he currently inhabited from hearing his outburst. "It's not that; it's just…" He paused for a moment before turning back to face her, his eyebrows furrowed together in concern. "Are you sure that you haven't torn anything? Because last night, I could have sworn that–"
"Last night, you said that I tore the sheet of the mattress and you couldn't move. Are you saying that it wasn't me that ripped it? Was there someone else here, maybe?" she asked curiously, cocking her head to the side and crossing her arms across her chest.
He paused for a moment. He knew that the truth was going to come out eventually, so there was no harm in telling her the truth now. Besides, he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could before the rest of his friends arrived and forced him to leave. Still, he had promised his mother that he would spend as little time as possible with her. He would never disobey her.
With a heavy sigh, he answered Nico's question. "No. Someone else may have broken into the cabin earlier. I'm sorry. I should have told you that yesterday when you went to wake me up." He paused once more, thinking hard about what he should do next. "Would you like me to take you to see what happened? Perhaps you might be able to help me figure out who did it. I don't think they have been here lately, but who knows? Maybe they'll return before too long…"
"Maybe," she agreed. She looked away from him for another minute before looking back at him again, this time with a serious expression. "However, we're going to have to wait for everyone else to arrive for me to show you what happened. If I take you with me and something happens, that may ruin your reputation with your friends. I already know how badly you want to make new friends, Jackson. Do you really wish for that to be ruined? Especially now, with all the people that you have coming? They may even hate you for this! I don't think you realize how important it is that you don't make enemies, especially with the group of demigods that are arriving. They aren't here to be your friends. In fact, if you mess around with them any harder, they probably won't even bother to show up at all, and that would be the end of us. You'd never have anyone willing to help you."
Jackson sighed deeply as he leaned backwards against his pillows. "You make a valid point, Wise Girl." His eyes wandered back towards the ceiling before they suddenly landed back on her, the same determined expression on his face as previously. "Then, let's try this. For the next few hours, we'll stay in this cabin and pretend nothing has changed. We'll continue to act normally as usual, and things may just work themselves out eventually… right?" The corners of her lips twitched slightly into a tiny hint of a smile before she nodded.
The boy smiled back at her as he continued to speak. "If you say so, Wise Girl. Now, let's go get breakfast." He got up from his bed and stretched his arms up above his head before walking past his friend and heading straight out of the door.
Nico watched him walk off with an amused grin on her face and a chuckle escaping her mouth. After closing the door behind her and making sure that it latched securely, she walked down the hallway to join his friends downstairs.
As she began approaching her cabin, she stopped abruptly when she saw three familiar figures sitting underneath the shade of one of the oak trees near the cabin, all of them seemingly engrossed in whatever books they were reading.