Hey guys, here's part two of three! Also, like last week kidnapping trigger warning, it gets a little bit darker this time. With that said, enjoy!

Will's POV

The staircase wound up to the second floor and the boards creaked as Nico took his first step, shining his light to the second floor. "What do you think is up there?" he asked, ascending a few more steps and leaving Will to hurry after him.

"Who knows," Will said, wrapping his arms around his body. The broken windows let in the cold from the oncoming storm and he longed for the sweatshirt that he had left in his backpack, still sitting in the empty entry room. "Bedroom, probably. Bathroom, guest room."

"We should check out the bedroom," Nico suggested, his feet hitting the platform of the second floor. "If anything interesting is going to be up here, it'll be in the bedroom. Maybe a diary, or pictures."

"He died in the bedroom, didn't he?" Will asked.

"They didn't find the body for a week and a half," Nico whispered. "My dad collects old newspapers and he keeps the one about Artie's death in this box with all of the interesting ones. He always says he doesn't think it was old age."

"What else could it have been?" They stepped cautiously through the hallway, the lights sitting on the walls long dead.

"My theory was that it was one of his victims," Nico said. "I bet one of them got loose and poisoned him or something. They never did release an autopsy." They fell silent as thoughts rushed through Will's head, images of someone dressed in rags with rope burn on their wrists and ankles rushing through the house in the dead of night with a vial of poison clutched in their hands. "This is it, I think." Nico poked his head inside of the final room, taking a slow step inside and beckoning for Will to join him. The bed could have easily fit four people, covered in a deep red bedspread with a dozen pillows stacked against the headboard. The covers were neatly pulled up, a pair of black shoes that had once been sleek but were now coated in a thick layer of dust pressed against the bed frame. "He really was rich," Nico commented, stepping up to a hulking closet. "Check under the bed for anything interesting." Will got down to his knees, peering underneath as he listened to Nico throw open the doors to the closet.

Will brushed his hands over the floorboards, trying to find anything that might be considered interesting. He was about to give up when his finger knocked a floorboard loose and he heard something rattle. He scrambled to pick it up, digging his fingernails underneath and gently pulling it from its position. "Nico," he called. "Come here. I think I found something." He reached inside of the opening as Nico joined him, their headlamps casting double beams of light.

"What is it?" he asked, sitting up as Will pulled out a small vial. Their lights showed them a cracked glass bottle, something dried up and brown staining the inside. "Do you think it's blood?" Nico asked, his voice shaking.

"Could be," Will said, rolling it over in his hands. He didn't want to take his eyes off of it until Nico came back out from underneath the bed with several more vials, along with a piece of frayed, broken rope and a sock, what was once white lace now dirty and sad.

"This confirms it, doesn't it?" Nico said. "He really did kidnap people." He slipped a vial, the sock and the rope into his sweatshirt pocket, patting them deeper inside. "We need to keep these," he explained. "For evidence." Will was still staring at the vial, seemingly small and insignificant in his hands. "I found something, by the way."

"What is it?" Without looking Will slipped the vials back inside of the hole, pressing the floorboard down on top of it. He didn't want to look at the bloodstained glass any more.

"Looks like it might be an entrance to an attic," Nico said. "Hidden in the closet. I wanted to wait for you to check it out." They pushed themselves up and soon they were standing in front of the closet and with nothing more than a glance in Will's direction Nico was stepping inside, pushing aside musty old suits to make room for Will. They were pressed together inside as Nico pushed on the entrance to the attic, the wood shifting as he pushed. "Help me," he grunted, his toes elevting him an extra inch so that he could reach. The extra shove from Will gave them the strength that they needed to move the board but there was a single second of glee before a mass of blackness came rushing out of the attic.

The bats chased them out of the bedroom, through the hallway and down the stairs, Will and Nico screaming the whole way down. They were clawing at their clothes, their hair, their skin and Will did everything he could to beat them away. They thundered through the house until they collapsed onto their sleeping bags near the entryway, their faces beet red as they painted. "What the fuck," Will spat, rubbing at the grooves that the claws of the bats had dug into his arms. "What the actual fuck just happened."

"I'm not going back there," Nico gasped. "I wouldn't care if Artie's dead body was stashed inside, surrounded with pictures of his victims next to the entrance to the secret basement. I'm never going back." His face twisted in pain and Will inched closer to him, grabbing his arm to see a jagged cut running five inches up his inner arm.

"They got you good," Will said quietly. "Does it hurt?"

"Well obviously it hurts," Nico griped, a grimace pulling his face taught. "There's not exactly much we can do about it. We're not allowed to leave for the rest of the night, it's part of the dare."
"Yeah, but we didn't exactly expect to get attacked by about ten bats," Will pointed out. "I'm sure we can leave. You don't need stitches, do you?"

"No, Will, I don't need stitches," Nico said. "My sweatshirt sleeve is absolutely destroyed, but there's nothing much I can do about that." He pulled it off, the ripped edge tinted with blood.

"Hang on, I have band-aids," Will said. He pulled his backpack over to him, rummaging around until he found the first aid kit he had stashed away in the inside pocket. "Let me see your arm."

"I can't believe you brought a first aid kit." Nico rolled his eyes as Will spread neosporin across the cut, covering it in a long band-aid. "Only you."

"Yeah, but aren't you glad I did?" Will grinned. He grabbed his lunchbox before zipping it back up, peering inside at the small sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil, the apple juice boxes and the small bags of goldfish. "We should eat dinner before we should do anything else."

"You're like my mom," Nico groaned as he pushed himself up, rubbing at the band-aid. "You're going to make a great parent someday, you know that?"

"Thank you," Will smirked. "Now, go to the table or I won't give you desert."

"Did you actually bring desert?" Nico pulled out the chair in the dining room as Will poured water over the plates, drying them off with paper napkins before doling out the sandwiches, pouring the energy shots that Percy and Annabeth had given them into wine glasses and dumping out goldfish next to the sandwiches.

"Of course I did. I got a pack of those cupcakes, the ones with the cream filling. There's one for each of us." He frowned at Nico's eye roll. "If it wasn't for me you'd be bleeding out on your sleeping bag, existing off of whatever crumbs you had left in the bottom of your backpack."

"Fine," Nico sighed. "Thanks, Mom." He bit into his sandwich, his eyes lighting up as he chewed. "Hey, it's peanut butter and jelly! That's my favorite!"

"Yeah, you're welcome," Will said as he set one of the cupcakes onto Nico's plate, scooping a handful of goldfish into his mouth.

"Thank you," Nico said. "For real, seriously. I probably would be bleeding out on my sleeping bag eating the crumbs out of my backpack if it wasn't for you." Will was glad it was dark so that Nico couldn't see the blush settling over his cheeks. "Anyway, I was thinking that after this, we could try the Ouija board," Nico suggested. "I really want to get a jump on finding the secret basement, if we can. They're coming to get us at seven and I'm going to be too scared to come back in here, so we have to do it tonight." He pulled the vial, the rope and the sock out of his pocket, slamming them on the table. "We know that something happened, and finding the basement will just help us clear everything up. You're in, right?"

"I've been in from the start," Will reminded him. "Let's finish eating first. We need a break from the scary stuff."

"Yeah, let's finish eating our nice family dinner at a dead dude's dining table," Nico laughed. Will felt himself smiling as they ate. For a few minutes, everything seemed normal. They weren't spending the night in the house of a dead man who kidnapped innocent people from the town. They weren't in a house where you could find vials of hundred year old blood stored underneath the floorboards. It was just Nico, Will, their sandwiches and a small family of dead rats in the cupboard.

They set up candles for light and warmth in the entryway and they sat wrapped in their sleeping bags like caterpillars, hunched over the Ouija board with two pairs of hands on the triangle. "What should we ask first?" Nico asked, shivering as the cold air blew in from the broken window. It had begun to rain and they listened as fat drops splattered onto the roof of the house, beating down on the weak boards.

"It was your idea, you ask," Will said. His thin sweatshirt wasn't enough to keep him warm and the cut on his arm still burned from where the claws of the bat had ripped into his skin.

"Fine," Nico sighed, sucking in a breath and squaring his shoulders. "Artie, are you here?" Will waited for a tug to pull the triangle towards yes but as the seconds ticked by there was nothing. Nico frowned. "Artie, are you here?" Nothing.

"Try a different question," Will suggested. "Artie, where is the entrance to your basement?" As the seconds ticked on Will watched Nico's shoulder's deflate, a crestfallen expression on his face. "Maybe we're not in the right place," Will decided. "Maybe if we try it in the dining room, he'll answer."

"Just forget it," Nico sighed, folding up the board and slipping it back inside the box. "I didn't think it would work, anyway." He scooted closer to Will, leaning his head on Will's chest and curling his legs up. Nico's skin was cold from the wind and Will rubbed his hand up and down, trying to bring warmth into it. He laid his head on his pillow and Nico fell with him, curled against him, shivering underneath his sleeping bag in the cold of the wind and the rain.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Will said. "Just because he didn't answer doesn't mean there's not a ghost. And we know that there's something here, we found proof. We can keep looking for a basement."

"Yeah, I guess," Nico sighed. "Maybe in a few minutes, though. It's kinda nice right here." He pulled his feet in closer, fitting himself into the dips of Will's body. "I'm kinda tired. I don't think the energy shot kicked in." He yawned, letting his eyes flutter closed. His hair was soft and Will found himself curling thick strands around his finger without even thinking. "They wouldn't know if we just took a quick nap, would they? And then we wake up nice and refreshed and ready to find the basement."

"They'd never find out," Will agreed as tiredness began to take over his body. Nico's body heat was seeping into his skin and for the first time that night he felt warm and safe. "Just a quick nap, right, Nico?" No answer. "Nico?" He glanced down to see Nico's eyes shut tight, his breathing steadied. Will smiled as his eyes fluttered shut and in the middle of a haunted house, let himself sleep.

Hey guys, I hope you liked it and part three will be up next week!

Nina