Someone is shaking me. I grumble, then shift around, except the bed isn't comfy, so I shift some more. It still feels hard underneath me, and cold. Someone shakes me again, and this time they speak, except none of the words make sense. It doesn't even sound like the person is speaking English. It's still dark, anyway. Not time to wake up yet.

"Felix!" Annabel's voice snaps sense back into me, and I flick my eyes open.

Standing above me is a small woman dressed in a bright yellow reflective--Oh, shit, it's a police officer.

"Ti'n iawn, bach?"

Huh, fancy that. She wasn't speaking English. Given the language barrier, my response is to scurry off the bench and stand, except I must have gotten up too fast because I stumble. The police officer catches my arm before I fall, and I lower myself back down to sit on the bench. Bit embarrassing.

"Dydych chi ddim yn gallu cysgu fan hyn, dwi'n flin. Oes 'na unrhyw un rydw i'n gallu ffônio?"

"I'm pretty sure she thinks you're homeless," Annabel, who's sitting beside me on the cold, metal bench interjects.

Really? Should I be offended? C'mon, I've got a five o' clock shadow at most. I only shaved yesterday morning.

"Or maybe a runaway. You could pass for under eighteen."

What? No, I couldn't. I clench my jaw to stop myself snapping at Annabel. I go to respond to the woman, who doesn't look much older than me, but she's turned around before I manage to get any words out. She calls to someone in the distance, and given this road has no goddamn street lights, I've got no idea who. As a male figure approaches, I swear I nearly wet myself because Connor's face flashes in my mind, but it's not him. It's another police officer.

As he stops beside the blonde woman, I start rambling."Sorry, I--My bad, I'm fine, honestly. I'm staying near here... I think. It's fine, I can--"

"Where are you staying?" the man questions.

Thank the Almighty Lord himself--Gnesh, God, Zeus, alien overlords, whoever's up there. I'm beyond relieved this guy is someone I can communicate with, not that it'll stop me from looking like a bumbling idiot. I relay the name of Carmen's caravan site, which gets raised eyebrows from the two officers, and the man says something about doing an impressive job of getting myself really, really lost. That gets the biggest eye roll yet from Annabel.

The officers offer me a lift home, and usually I'd be too embarrassed to accept it, but I'm beyond caring. I might as well embrace my idiocy. It's clearly not going anywhere any time soon.

"Heavy night?" the male officer asks me as I hop into the back of their police car at the end of the road.

"Huh? Oh--No, not really. Just a weird one."

The man laughs, but not in a way that makes me feel ridiculed. He sounds genuinely amused. Annabel's sigh at my response is a lot less friendly. Who gave her permission to ride with us, anyway? She doesn't deserve a lift in a police car. In fact, she ceaselessly ripped into me during my emergency vehicle obsession faze when I was a kid.

Once the car has crawled up the gravel driveway of Carmen's cabin, I thank the cops and jump out of it. I half expect them to stay and watch until I start fumbling at the front door to check I get in okay, but the car is already reversing off the driveway as I'm jogging up the wooden steps to the cabin. I'm a little offended.

I open the front door with the assumption I'll be met with darkness and silence, but when I step inside, I freeze at the sight of three pairs of eyes staring back at me.

"Oh, hey, you guys are up early," I say with a slight stutter as Carmen springs up from the armchair a few feet away. "There are, like, no street lights around here. Seriously, it's a miracle this place doesn't turn into The Purge at sunset. If I--"

I'm silenced by Carmen's arms around me as she buries her head into my chest. Her hair smells like coconut, but the sweet scent doesn't linger for long because moments later, she's looking up at me. Wait, what? Why isn't she recoiling?

"Where have you been? We tried calling, we--I didn't know what to--" She lifts her hands to my face, and her fingers are cold against my cheeks. "Are you okay?"

Isn't she afraid of me anymore? I glance over Carmen's shoulder to see Tom and Jamie sitting on the sofa, the latter of which has his arms crossed and one of his eyebrows raised. Ton's scanning every inch of my face as if I could pounce any second.

"Oh, sorry, my phone died," I reply as I pull Carmen's hands away from my face, but I don't let go of them. "Sorry, did you think I'd finally cracked and gone full dark side?"

Probably not the best response I could've given. Judging by Annabel's groan, she thinks so too.

Carmen furrows her eyebrows. "No." She shakes her head slowly, then releases a breath of air. "No, I thought something had happened to you, or you'd done something stupid."

"I mean, she's not wrong on that last one."

I scowl at Annabel, whose response is to hold her hands up defensively. She manifests herself onto the empty armchair, her chin resting on the palm of her hand with a bored expression on her face.

"Oh, shit, sorry. I thought you'd all be asleep. Nah, just one of my midnight strolls--Well, more like ten o' clock strolls."

"You left at ten?" Jamie speaks up from the sofa as he uncrosses his arms. That goddamn black eyebrow of his is still raised, though. In fact, it lifts even higher on his forehead. "You've been walking for five hours?"

It's only three in the morning? Shit, these guys are up really early.

"Nah, no, I--" I probably shouldn't admit to this next bit, but I do anyway. "I fell asleep on a bench somewhere. Got a lift home with some cops."

"Of course you did," Jamie scoffs.

"What? You got to ride in a police car?" Tom squeals from the sofa like some excited piglet. "That's awesome!"

Finally, someone who shares my enthusiasm.

"I really thought..." Carmen's voice trails off as her light eyes move around my face. "I thought something awful had happened, especially after Ava disappeared. I didn't--"

"Oh, shit, that," I interrupt Carmen as I let go of her hands, and rub the back of my neck. "Uh..." I look between my friends. "So, good news: I'm nearly one-hundred percent sure Ava is okay. Bad news: Connor has her."

"What?" all three of them exclaim.

I go on to relay Connor's phone call, and a look I read as hopelessness flashes through Carmen's eyes as I explain how trying to find him and Ava was the motivation behind my nighttime walk. When I justify it by trying to explain how I didn't want to get anyone else involved in the fear of someone getting hurt, the hopeless look increases tenfold, and I'm starting to suspect it's something more like sympathy. Kind of like the way small children look at wounded animals.

I'm not sure what's worse: her thinking I want to join my murderous brother to free the evil dead, or her feeling sorry for me. By the time everything has calmed down, I've replaced Annabel on the armchair. Tom has gone back to bed, while the other two are sitting on the sofa turned makeshift bed with Annabel. We all agree we should try and get some sleep. Big day ahead tomorrow, and all that.

We stand, and Jamie leaves the room first. As Carmen goes follow him out, she hesitates, and instead, steps towards me. She doesn't say anything, just reaches up to plant a soft kiss on my cheek, then heads out of the living area. Turns out accidentally convincing someone you're dead is a great way of making them forgive you for hiding your recent temptation to amass an army of the evil dead.

The concept of sleeping seems like a joke right now, but as I change into my pyjamas and bury myself under the freshly scented duvet on the sofa, I start drifting off at an impressively fast rate. I don't even wake up until well beyond ten o'clock the next morning. When I realise how late it is, I jolt into a sitting position and fumble around the sofa for my phone. I need to call the Medakis, to explain the situation, tell them about Connor and Ava, and--

"You having a heart attack or something?" Tom's voice halts my searching for a moment, and I look towards the kitchen to see him standing there without a shirt on, and a banana in his hand. His eyes widen. "Wait, shit, you're not actually having one or something, are you? Like a ghostie one? Should I--"

"No," I cut him off as I start searching the sofa again. "I'm looking for my phone. I need to call Kato to explain--"

"Oh, no, it's cool. We called earlier, they're already on their way."

I turn back to him and blink. "What?"

"They're meeting us here," he replies with a mouth full of yellow mush.

I groan so loudly that it's practically a growl, and Tom backs away. I reassure him he's not witnessing me being possessed. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid with my mission last night. I don't want anyone else to get involved in this, to get hurt on my behalf.

As I blink the last of the sleep from my eyes, it occurs to me that this was probably an inevitability. I don't know many parents who wouldn't come running at the news that their only child has been abducted by a known murderer.

"No one else is coming, right?" I question Tom, which he responds to with what I think is an I don't know, but sounds more like idno because of his mouthful of banana.

When Jamie and Carmen enter the room, I establish that the Medakis haven't specified who's meeting us here all together, but we figure Sefu will join. Naturally, I'm dreading that possibility. I'm dreading having to face any of them because there's no way nothing's been said to the Medakis about my recent hiccups with darkness. Its relation to the abduction of their daughter will hardly sweeten things.

The Medakis are due to arrive sometime around twelve, so by eleven thirty, I'm pacing around the back of the room, near the dining table. Annabel's already whined at me to stop fidgeting, and despite being conscious of myself doing it, I can't shut up. I'm not even talking about anything interesting. I've spent the last ten minutes discussing Lily's choice of wood for the dining table.

"I've just always preferred warmer shades, y'know? Especially if it's somewhere that doesn't get that much light. It just brightens the room, and--"

"Is this you turning dark? Has it finally happened?" Jamie interrupts from one of the chairs at the end of the dining table. "Not what I was expecting, admittedly."

"No, you're just an arsehole."

As I snap back at Jamie, I realise that, to my horror, we've swapped places. He's supposed to be the one with the basic, one-line insults. Not me. This is the worst revelation yet. I can't go on like this. Carmen, who's sitting on the sofa, tells me not to worry, and it takes me a second to realise she's not talking about Jamie and me swapping personality traits. Her voice is gentle, but it doesn't reassure me. They're going to kill me. The Medakis are surely going to kill me.

When the sound of car tyres rolling on gravel can be heard outside, I sprint for the door and press my face up against the patio window like some traumatised puppy. Shit. It's them. Is that--Shit amplified, Sefu is with them. It's Kato, Mosi, and Sefu. Mosi's jeep is a monster in contrast to Ava's tiny car, and I've got no idea what to do with myself, so I just wait by the door as I tap my foot against the persian rug below me.

It's Sefu who enters first. The second his face appears in the window, I shift my eyes away as I try to formulate what the hell to say once he's inside. His full attention is on me before he's even entered the building.

"Sit," he demands, his black eyes piercing into mine, then points to the sofa.

Every internal organ chugging away inside of me freezes, and I swear my body will shut down. It doesn't, however, so I obey Sefu without a word. He sits onto the armchair opposite as Kato and Mosi enter the cabin. I try to smile at Ava's parents, but Mosi won't meet my eyes, and Kato is focused on her father. Carmen stands to offer them a seat on the sofa beside me, but they politely decline. I can't blame them.

I'm about to speak, about to puke out an apology that's inevitably going to be embarrassing, long-winded and fruitless, but before I can even think of the words to say, Sefu clears his throat. Without so much as a blink, he proceeds to ask me to relay everything even slightly dark-related that's happened to me since I can remember.

I do as he says, and try my hardest not to sound nervous in doing so. I can't imagine it's very convincing. None of the Medakis say anything as I speak, but Sefu's eyes don't shift from my face for a millisecond.

"The Gruffudds okay'd him?" is the first thing Sefu says once I've finished, and his eyes are on Carmen, not me.

Why do I feel like a car undergoing an MOT? Carmen nods beside me, and at that, Sefu's eyes return to me. They're tracing my face, analysing every last inch of it, but he's silent again.

Finally, Sefu declares, "he's fine," and this time, he's speaking to Kato and Mosi.

Jokes on them, I'm about to twist all their intestines.

I'm not really. Just conscious that now would be the worst time to crack that joke out loud, so I'm having to internalise it.

Despite Sefu's green light, Mosi still isn't meeting my eyes, and it's a stark reminder of the shitstorm I've gotten his daughter involved in. As everyone breaks into the lighter discussion of teas and coffees, I lift myself off the sofa and head straight for Ava's father. I'm apologising before I even reach him, and as I'm puking out words, Mosi is silent. Once I manage to shut myself up, he doesn't say anything, just nods. For the first time since he stepped into this cabin, however, he looks me in the eye. It's enough, for now.

As I'm approaching Kato to do the same thing, I don't get a chance to say a word because she's already in plan of attack mode. She's in the kitchen area helping Carmen make everyone's tea and coffee requests.

"... something planned, but with the--Ah, Felix!" she chirps as she notices me approaching. "What details did Connor give you beyond where and when to meet?"

"Nothing, really," I say with a sigh.

Why hadn't I extracted more details from him at the time? What does he even want from me when I meet him? What's going to happen? I pick my brain for anything useful from the conversation I had with him.

I click my tongue. "He knows about the dark stuff," I say as I cringe at the word dark. "That could throw him, I think. He gets pretty hung up, obsessed almost, on details like that, so there might be something there which could help us." Kato nods, encouraging me to go on. "Uh, if I fake it or something, maybe, or least exaggerate it, it could mislead him. I don't know." I pause as I scan my memory. "He said he needed to sort some things on his end when I offered to meet with him there and then."

Kato's measured expression falls into a frown, but she's quick to hide it. "Okay."

I expect an elaboration, but Kato's distracted by the sound of the kettle reaching boiling point. She turns to it and begins pouring its water into the mugs she and Carmen have lined up. As I scan her face, she seems distracted.

"I think we may be dealing with a similar situation to what happened twelve years ago," she says in a tone that's so absentminded, it takes me a moment to realise she's speaking to me. "Your family's crash," she explains.

"What do you mean?" Carmen asks as she takes a carton of milk from the fridge.

"He's likely gathering dark spirits," Kato elaborates. "Which means."

She takes two full mugs, then passes them to me as her eyes lock into mine.

"We need to form an army of our own," I mutter. "Fast."