That night we all played cards. Nico tried teaching me and Cole how to play Mythomagic, but thatdidn’t last long. We all finally agreed on Uno, and Nico was destroyed us at it. I guess it didn’t matterwhat games you were good at, because he was good at all of them. Me and Cole combined lostabout 150 dollars from bets.The door knocked and Nico waved his hand. The skeleton came in and started chattering. “No. Wekeep going.” Nico said softly. The skeleton chattered more and Nico shook his head. “If we arealmost there then we get there. End of story now leave us me.”I looked at Nico as Cole stood up. “I’m gonna go to bed.” He said shaking his head. “I’m doneloosing my money.”I laughed and Nico gave a small smirk. “Your powerful kid.” Nico said setting his deck down. Myeyes widened as I looked at his cards then mine.He would have beaten me again.“Um… thanks?” Cole said softly.“And with great powers comes the great need for naps kid.” Nico said throwing his shoes off. Hewalked over to his hammock and tossed his leather black jacket off, pulling the pillow over his head.I did have a question for him though, I mean how do you understand chattering from a skeleton.“Nico, how did you talk to the skele—”“Wake me up later.” He said tiredly. I rolled my eyes and sat back in the hammock. I had to say, itwas funny what he sayed, but something told be tomorrow would be a day.Tomorrow we would be in D.C I told myself.Tomorrow would be a better day… I hope.We got off the boat, with our stuff. People gave us weird looks because me and Cole had somearmor on, and we were with Nico, who was on the line of Goth and Emo. We walked to the edge ofthe city and down old stone steps. We looked at the water, then the stone wall.“So… where are we going?”“I’m going through. I’ll come back and tell you two when to come.” Nico said fixing his jacket. Helooked at me and Cole. “I will tell you when to come. Understand?!”“Yes.”“Yup!”Nico put his hand up to the wall, and a door opened. He walked through the dark passageway. Ilooked at Cole, as Nico disappeared into the darkness.“We just… wait?”“Yup.”It seemed like forever. A few hours past and still no Nico. Cole looked at me and pointed tosomeone.“Astraea… he’s been watching us for an hour.” He said under his breath. I looked up at the man. Hiseyes were different colors, and he had brown hair. He looked around himself and started to walktowards us. I stood up and so did Cole. The man started to shift into a Manticor. It roared loudly andstarted to come at us. I held my my new shield, and Cole pulled out his sword.It ran at us claws out, and Cole ended up punching it hard away. It came back and charged and Iturned to see the door in the wall starting to close.“WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH!” I said throwing the shield at it.I hit it in the head, and it stopped for a second before looking at us.Cole looked at the closing door. He slammed his sword down and put the Manticor in a choke hold.“GO ASTRAEA!”“I’m not leaving you dumb boy!” I said looking at him. Cole gave a small smile. He suddenly got hithard but it’s paw, and he almost flung back himself. Cole turned and grabbed it by the neck andthrew the Manticor into the water. I tapped my necklace and shot an arrow hitting it in the the centerof its forehead, turning it into the golden dust.Cole and I turned to the closing door and both ran to get through before it closed. He grabbed myhand and pulled me into a sprint.We slid through as the door closed.We were surrounded by darkness.