After I grabbed my drink, Nico and I had left as soon as possible. We both thought it'd be best. No need to get mauled by a monster and ruin a perfectly good coffee shop, right? Exactly what we thought. So, he and I are currently riding a train - a real train - to Illinois. The thing is, there’s no seats so we’re sitting on the floor trying not to fall out of a moving train.

“So, how’s it going?” I ask stupidly.

“Really?” he questioned and I shrugged.

“Yeah, I thought so," I said after a few seconds.

I can’t help but start to feel really agitated because of sitting still for so long. I stand up and try to walk around a bit but when I move my feet, I stumble back and end up almost falling onto Nico. I tried again and was able to get a few steps and soon enough, I’m pacing along the train car. It feels good to move around until the train stops suddenly and I fall on Nico facing him. My face flares red because I have one knee on either side of him and my hands are on his chest. I stay frozen like that for a few seconds and then I look at Nico’s eyes. They glow a bright red and I jump off of him.

“What’s wrong?”

“You - your eyes. They're glowing red.”

“Oh, yeah they do that if I get mad or for other reasons.” He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably.

“Okay,” I nodded still embarrassed about earlier. “Yeah.” It’s silent for a few minutes.

“Why haven’t I ever noticed your eyes before?”

“I can usually control it and all the times you’ve made me angry I either leave before it gets that bad or you’re too busy falling into the ground.”

“Oh, right. Can’t forget that, now can we?”

“No, not really.”

“Is that how the scar near the Mess Hall got there?” I asked him.

“Um. Yeah, yeah it is.” I opened my mouth to ask what made him mad but he interrupted me.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Apollo’s gift will probably tell me anyway.” I grumbled and Nico looked up.

“You don’t like the so called gift, do you?”

“Sometimes it’s cool but when it takes me to my past or to… To your past, it gets annoying. I don’t feel like remembering my past and I don’t want to invade others' pasts. It isn’t fun.”

“Most powers are not.”

“This isn’t a power!” I shout.

“Not one given genetically but it is a power. And like all powers, you have to learn to control it.” I hate when that boy’s right.

We sat in silence again. I've noticed how Nico tends to talk in a proper way sometimes. I remember when I first got here and Leo was showing me around. Leo was just about to say something about Nico, something like, 'he's not from this cent,' and then Nico showed up. What could be the ending to that? Cent. Cent, cent, centaur, centurion, cent-

"We should probably get some sleep. I'll take first watch. I'll wake you in two hours." Nico snaps me out of my thoughts and I nod.

Curling up in a ball, I close my eyes and try to fall asleep. After a few seconds the wind shifts and it blows right on me. I shiver and move closer to the walls of the train car. Cold metal doesn't help warm a person by the way. I kept moving closer to the wall until I stopped at the feeling of someones body. This just got awkward.

"Sorry." I muttered and started to move away from Nico.

"It's okay. Come here." Nico shrugged off his jacket and held it out. I scooted over to the warm fabric and he slung it over my body.

Soon, I fall into a dreamless sleep. Thank the gods.

"Sky. Sky! Skylar!" I shoot up at the sound of my real name.

"We have to go. Now." I look at Nico with sleep blurred eyes.

"Why?" I yawn and blink a few times to clear my vision.

"Let's just say, not all centaurs are as forgiving as Chiron. And they really don't like it if skeletons pop out of the ground under them."

"What'd you do!" I yell at him as I grab my backpack.

"I was just messing around and lost control for a bit. Scared a few mortals, broke a couple fountains, and, you know, angered some centaurs."

"Sometimes, you can be so much like Percy. How do we get out of here?"

"Well there is one way. But it won't get us very far."

"What is it and why won't it get us far?"

"Shadow travel and I'm still a bit off when it comes to that power after the war with Gaea. I'll only get us over some states and then we'll have to find something else."

"Fine. Just get us out of here."

"Okay. Hold on to me and whatever you do, do not let go." I do as told and grab onto Nico's hand and we're pulled into shadows.

I don't recommend shadow travel if you hate or are scared of the following:

a) The dark

b) Strange noises

c) Going so fast you feel like you're being turned inside-out

d) Cold shivers up and down you back

In other words, I had the time of my life. And don't even get me started on the fact that I was holding Nico di Angelo's hand. Like, literally, Zeus could hit me with a lightning bolt right now and I wouldn't even mind. I heard a rumble of thunder as if to say: You want to bet on that? My answer is a nice, simple, never in Hades will that happen.

Anyway, Nico and I ended up in a very hot, very sticky, and very dry place. I'm right at home. I look around and all I see is desert, desert, and did I mention desert? Oh, wait, I think I see a building. Nope, just a tumble weed.

"Where in Hades are we?" I ask and Nico makes a three sixty turn.

"I think we're in Texas. Maybe Tennessee."

"Hold on." I grab my iPod from my bag and go onto maps to find out where we are. "We're in Houston, Texas."

"Wonderful." Nico mutters more words in Italian and we start walking.

After a while, I shed off my jacket and stuff it into my bag. I guess I forgot just how hot one hundred degrees can be. Since I was in New York, chased by monsters, met an Oracle, fought a game that's practically fight to the death, and then given a quest. I might have been a bit side-tracked.

"What's that up there?" Nico asks and I look up to where he's pointing.

Up ahead there seems to be an old burned down building. And where there's a building, there is almost always a town.

"Hopefully, a way to San Francisco." I start to run in front of the son of Hades and toward the building.

When I get there, I notice that it had been small but not too small. Maybe large enough for an office and whatever it had been for. Possibly a market or shop of some sort. It was mostly gone meaning it had either been cleaned up after the fire or everything had deteriorated over time. It all depends on how long ago this had happened.

I see a pile of charred rubble a few feet away and go to it. I sift threw some wood and metal until I see a flash of light. In the mist of the rumble is a broken piece of glass and as I push dirt and ash from my way, the glass becomes part of a burned picture. A wood frame borders the paper in a protective case. This is possibly the only thing that survived.

I take the wooden frame into my hands and look at the black edged image. It is of a small boy with curly brown hair and an elfish face and a women with a gorgeous complex and soft, curly chestnut hair. The boy is smiling and holding what looks to be a toy metal dragon and the women - who I have decided is his mother - is holding the child in her arms protectively. I see a fire in her eyes that make her seem that much more real.

Without warning, I am pulled into another vision.

A small boy runs in what seems to be an auto shop type of building. His face holds pure terror as a figure walks quicky behind him. A muffled voice shouts from another part of the building and the faint sound of a door knob shaking follows.

A series of tapping starts in the room and the boy stops and listens. He whispers three simple words as the tapping stops. 'I love you' leaves the child's lips before his hands catch fire. The wild flame spreads over the boy and them the building with it. The figure from before laughs and then is gone. The flames grow and the shouting of the woman stops.

The last thing I see is growing flames and the face of that small boy.

"Leo."

It is a simple name and what I call a friend of mine but as it slips from my mouth it seems to hold a new meaning. I deeper, more tragic and saddened meaning. The meaning of a teenager, that was once a boy, who put his mother's shop to flames in a moment of fear and helplessness. It is moments like these that you can realize the true meaning of a three letter name with only two syllables.

In this moment I find the person behind the mask of sarcasm and jokes and they aren't even here to explain or know that I have unmasked them. This seems too cruel to be real and I expect someone to say it is a simple lie but no one does. All I see is Nico, standing in front of me with a puzzled look and I know that what I have seen is true. And I feel like a traitor to know the truth without Leo Valdez here to tell me in the first place.

"Sky? What about Leo?" I look up at Nico with a dazed look and I simply stare.

I look back at the picture and them all around me. It seems fit to at least take what seems to be the last remaining part of Leo's past with me, to give it to him when we find and rescue him. Now, to know if he will be happy, angry, sad, or confused is beyond me. But I still open my bag and take out a shirt and wrap the picture in it to keep it safe and then slip the delicate memory into my bag.

I don't feel worthy to carry something with so much value but I still do. And then I get up and I walk with Nico in the same direction we were before we stopped. I think we're looking for transportation but I can't seem to remember anything other than the image of Leo's terrified face in the surrounding flames and the screams of his mother and the shrieks of laughter from the unknown figure.

But Nico and I walk and the son of Hades leads the way in silence. Even if he did speak I don't think I'd hear him and if I did I wouldn't acknowledge him.

I don't think I would have the strength and bravery to do so right now.