Chapter Two: Nico Slices Some Reptiles 02:56

I can't believe that I had completely forgotten about Nico. I mean it was about three and a half years ago. We had only known each other for about four months, but he had been my best friend at Westover. I remember we had loved this game called MythoMagic, and traded cards and discussed strategies for it. Now I thought the game was stupid but back then, it was all we could talk about.

I remembered him having a sister. She was older and seemed to be the one taking care of him at the time. I wonder where she is now.

I saw comprehension dawn on Nico's face and then I knew that he reconzied med. He had changed so much. He wasn't the same carefree kid he had been back then. Then again, neither was I.

My thoughts were interrupted when the kid from the strawberry truck got out and yelled, "Nico, what's the hold-up?"

Now that I could see him closer I noticed he had on long pants, a green hat, and an orange t-shirt which I could not read (thank you dyslexia) and had curly brown hair, a wispy goatee, and looked like he was getting over a bad case of acne. And he looked a little familiar.

He walked up, "Lets go Nico! Do I have to remind you about happened last time we where late?"

It must have something unpleasant because this remark seemed to make Nico in a hurry.

He looked nervously at the truck, then at me and said, "Oh hey! Yeah I remember you. Look, I'd love to stay and chat but I really have to go."

This brought me to the attention of the curly haired boy that had told Nico that he had to leave. He sniffed and looked at me with some interest.

"Who is she, Nico?," he asked.

"An old friend. But no time for introductions, we are seriously late," Nico said urgently. He made his way towards the van, dragging his crippled friend by the crutches. No. I did not drink smoothies for a whole week just to hunt him down and get a, "Oh, I remember you," out of him. He was not leaving yet.

"Wait, can we meet up later?," I pleaded.

He shook his head and was about to reply with a "no", when his friend whispered into his ear. When he pulled away, I look of shock covered his face. He nodded to his friend, and then yelled to me.

"Okay, come on. We're going for a walk."

A walk? Okay, I thought. At least I get to catch up with him.

When he reached me he nodded in Cassie's direction. "But your friend has to stay behind."

I didn't want to leave Cassie behind. But hey, I needed to talk with Nico, and after a week, I would agree to any conditions.

"Cass, could you?," I asked her with a sad face.

She scowled at Nico. I guess it was a old best friend, new best friend replacement thing. But she left after saying, "Yeah, yeah. Sure thing." And gave me a look that I had come to learn over the years.

You will tell me EVERYTHING later!

Nico and I walked through Central Park. I tried to remember everything from the short time we were friends. I could swear that he had a sister! What was her name? Bianca! That's it. That would make a good coversation starter.

"So," I said. I was trying to break the awkward silence that we were it. "How's Bianca?"

He kept walking, but a twisted look of pain crossed over his face. Uh oh, not the right topic. I wonder what happened. But then again, I was guessing that I didn't want to find out anyway.

"Never mind, you don't have to say anything," I stated.

"No, it's alright. She…uh…died…a little while after we left school."

She died? What? Bianca was the nicest girl I knew. She was always the best to Nico, because they were the only family that each other had. She was always so protective over him. It was hard to swallow the fact that she was gone.

I could relate to his loss, my mom being gone and all, but I just couldn't stand the idea of losing my sister, no matter how unclose we were.

Okay, time to subject change. What to talk about now? In school we where brought together by our love of Mythomagic and making fun of our principal, Mrs. Gottschalk's mustache. So I tried again, with a less touchy subject.

"I got expelled from Westover, you know." I told him.

"Really, why?" he looked surprised.

"They found out who sent Mrs. Gottschalk a razor and men's shaving cream for Christmas," I told him smiling at the memory. Gwen later grilled me on how rude and irresponsible that was, but Mrs. Gottschalk had been a witch. She still was. While Gwen grilled me, my mom kind of laughed at the whole thing. Even she tried to cover it up.

Nico laughed at it too.

"Man she really needed it though! The first time I saw her I thought she was a guy!"

"I know so did I!"

We laughed fondly at the memory.

We stopped for a second and there was awkward silence again.

"This is going to sound strange but has anything weird ever happened to you lately?" he asked looking nervous.

"Ummm, define weird," I said cautiously.

"The kind of unexplainable weird."

Oh boy. Weird. Well let's see. In seventh grade I could have sworn I saw a six headed thing lurking around a doughnut store while I was in the car. I asked my mom about it and she said I must be seeing things, and that maybe I should see a doctor. I thought she was right until I looked at Gwen to ask if she had seen anything strange. Her face answered my question. She looked freaked out. And then last summer, when I was on the beach, something that looked like what one would describe as the lochness monster jumped out of the water and fell back in. I had looked around at other people to see if they had noticed anything. They hadn't.

I could have told him about either of those situations when something caught my eye. It was a snake. But with two heads! And it was so big it could had comfortably wrapped itself around a New York taxi ten times. No wait, it was not alone, it had brought tons of two headed snake friends. Nico hadn't noticed them so my answer was…

"Unexplainable like the swarm of two-headed, super long, super poisoness, looking snakes surrounding us?" I answered.

Nico swung his gaze around and saw all of them.

"OH, no. This is not good. Can you get away?" he looked scared.

"What no! I am not going. Besides, snakes leave people alone if we don't bother them, right?" I wasn't so sure though, they kind of looked liked they wanted to do more than hurt us.

"Except those aren't really exactly snakes! Can you leave? Can you get away?" Nico asked again.

We were now surrounded by the mutated snake things.

"No, not really." When I spoke my voice went up higher. That only happens when I am nervous. I counted fifteen snakes in all. That means sixty fangs that can't wait to sink into our flesh.

We are going to die. We are going to die.

"Stand back, Macy!" I had been to busy counting teeth to notice that Nico had pulled out a sword from no where. It was wicked long and for a second I had hope that we might live…oh wait, sixty teeth. Scratch that last part.

"There are to many of them, Nico! Even with your pretty blade we're screwed."

This didn't wipe the determination off of his face.

The snakes were circling. One moved forward to strike, both of its heads staring at the sword in Nico's hand. It struck. I waited for Nico to fall and cry in pain but al I heard was the whoosh of his sword as it sliced on of the creatures heads off. The snake pulled back. Good, one down. Something was going on with the supposedly dead snake. It's head was growing back!

"Not fair!" I yelled at it.

Like this would make the snake realize that growing a head back was wrong and it would drop dead.

"Anyone ever told you life isn't fair?" Nico yelled back.

The stupid snake agreed with him. This time he didn't strike alone. Three of his buddies came at us. Nico swung again, his sword passing through their six heads. Immediately they burst into yellow powder. Ha, that is what fair is! More came to strike. Nico was excellent with the blade, he got six of them with one stroke. He didn't see one slither up behind him. Right as both heads where about to bite Nico's ankle, I yelled

"Bad snake!" and jumped on both of its heads. Yellow powder erupted onto my sneakers. That's disgusting.

"Well, that was fun."

Nico broke my train of thought about whether the yellow would come out of my sneakers. I looked up and the snakes where gone.

"What. Just. Happened?" I asked him. I knew he knew very well what had happened. He hadn't seemed at all surprised when the snake things showed up.

"What where those-" I started again. Only to be interrupted by Nico.

"Remain as still as possible"

I was wrong about all of the snakes being gone. The last one left had wrapped itself around my ankles. It was tightening, if it continued I would lose all of the feeling in my feet.

"Hold still while I kill it. Make any sudden movements and it will bite you," Nico said softly so it wouldn't spook the creature squeezing the life out of my leg.

"What?" I hissed, "No way can you kill it with out cutting me up!"

"Trust me."

I took a deep breath. "Fine."

He swung, I felt the grip on my ankles loosen. No pain. I breathed a sigh of relief. So did Nico.

"Thank gods."

"Excuse me?"

"What?"

"You said 'thank gods'. Plural."

"Oh well, um oops. Sorry I meant thank god."

He so did not. He meant what he said, but I let it slide.

"What do we do now? I asked.

"You should probably come with me now." He said not looking me in the eye.

"What where? Why would I go anywhere with you? I was just reacquainted with you fifteen minutes ago. And while I was being reacquainted, giant snaked attacked us!" I wasn't so sure about Nico now. Not after he pulled out a three foot long sword out of nowhere.

"Listen! Do you want to be killed?" he asked, totally serious.

Wow. Killed? By what was he talking about?

"Killed?" I asked.

"There are worse things than snakes out there." He answered.

I shuddered, I would never look at reptiles the same again. And it was and to believe that something could be a heck of a lot worse than those things.

"Okay" I said. After all he had just saved my life. And if anything happened I could just whip out my cell phone and call NYPD.

"Follow me" he said, leading the way.

"Where are we going?" I said trying to catch up to his fast pace.

"Right now we are hailing a taxi." Was his only explanation.