She's still over there and Adaline keeps looking at her, for so long that it makes me want to scream. I grab her face back. I run my fingers down her hair, which is like two white rivers down either side of her face, which is the waterfall that hides behind it. We watch each other for a while, trying to convey with our eyes that we're a little disappointed.

"She's shorter," Adaline says. "I know it. Every time she shifts she's shorter."

"It doesn't matter," I say. "She's not our problem. They don't matter."

"They don't?" Adaline asks.

"Yeah," I say. "You're the only thing that matters. Everything else is just a bunch of noise."

Adaline looks back over her shoulder to see the others. They're eating meat and sitting in the sunlight, isolated into the tiniest possible groups. "You have to like someone else. They're our friends."

"Kinda," I say. "But really they just tell us what to do."

"Maybe I need to be told what to do. What if something really really bad happens and I can't calm myself down?"

"I'll protect you."

"What if I hurt you?"

"I'll fight you for you."

"You'll lose," Adaline says, resolutely.

Damien is sitting alone in a corner, facing the woods, making stroking motions in his hands like he's petting Mimsy, even though Mimsy isn't there. He opens his mouth like he's going to say something and closes it, still making the same movement, and I squint at him real hard. His hair is kind of glinting in the sunlight, and I can see little horns poking out, like Dylan's, but they're definitely Veritas horns. I was shoved in the woods the last time we saw his Veritas, and when the big kids came in they didn't want us there.

"Let's go see Damien," I insist, "he can be our friend."

Adaline stumbles up and we almost fall into the leaf litter again. She's all tired, but I need to get her over there before the lunch break ends and we're back on the road, all being collectively bored out of our minds and going nowhere, as far as I can tell. I sit us next to Damien, letting go of Adaline's hand, and she sits herself down slowly.

Damien looks over his shoulder. "Oh. Hi, girls."

Adaline leans in, her hair tickling my face. "Are we bothering him?"

I shake my head. "No."

"You're not," agrees Damien. His horns--antlers, I guess, he looks like a little deer-- recede back into his head. "Do you... need something?"

"Are you sad?" I ask.

Damien squints. "I... not currently? Is something the matter?"

"You seem like you might be a little sad right now, s'all. You know, 'cause of the whole phone thing," I say.

Damien strums the air. "Huh. It's nothing you two need to worry about. I'll miss making music for my audience, but it's not as if I've been given a choice, here."

"You could make music for us," I say. "We've always loved your music."

"Oh, that's... that's great," Damien starts. He smiles.

"Could you play us something?" Adaline asks.

Damien closes his eyes. From his arms, wood crackles out, at first skin, then branch, then something not quite either, thick like syrup, that becomes the form of an instrument. It's delicate and has little gold etchings down the side, and the wood smells like a home I've never even been to, tinged with spices. It makes me dizzy looking at it, and Damien runs a hand down it, plucking strings. "If you girls really want," he says, but his voice is pitching up with want, light, and he hits the chords.

Adaline and I grab each other at the same time, pulling each other out of the leaves. It's a funny, bubbly sensation, and I want to move, so I swing Adaline around hard as I can, the music dancing around us like a young deer taking its first steps. We swing each other until our heads spin and Damien nods along, making up words as he goes. I can hardly hear him over the sound of Adaline's laughter, and when I stop to draw her in she spins into my arms and falls into the leaves with a cry of pure delight.

"--and that's how we come home," finishes Damien. He exhales hard. "That's a new one. What do you guys think?"
"That's the best thing I've ever heard in my whole life," Adaline says. She spreads herself out in the leaves. I fall down right next to her, hugging her tight, and the two of us laugh as we hug in the dirt, covered in sticks and leaves. I draw myself towards her face, compelled, and she moves hers slowly towards mine.

Damien smiles softly. "You guys want a little more space for that?"

"Do we need... space?" asks Adaline, timidly.

"Yeah," I say. Damien recedes his ukulele, gives us a nod, and saunters back towards the group, but he's grinning so big right now.

I think Angel's probably still watching.

Not for long.

I get Adaline by the hand again. Her eyes gleam with mischief as we run into the woods, giggling. When we get all the way out into the forest, I stop next to a tree, feeling the heat of her breath in the cold morning, and kiss her. She holds me against the tree and kisses me back. Her lips are like honey and snow. At first, we're both human, and then for a second, we don't change, but we're something else. I feel heat in my body when we touch, lips locked together, and then we've got our hands all over each other.

I can feel her hands under my shirt. They're nothing but warmth. I have so much light in my arms and I feel myself melt into her. She's taller, but she always leans against me, so this time I lean the other way. She almost falls over, then she does, and we're in the leaves again, kind of being a mess. We look up at the sky together, which is a pale, sad whited-out color.

"What do we do next?" asks Adaline. "Should we ask someone what we're supposed to do next?"

"No," I tell her. "They wouldn't know. They're all... they're just not good."

"We could ask Dylan and Red?"

So maybe they're okay. "Maybe it's different if you're a guy?"

"Are they guys?" Adaline asks.

I nod. "They have short hair."

"Dylan could shift his hair longer."

I mumble, "I think I saw a girl with short hair once."

"Do you think... Angel was wrong?" Adaine asks, tenatively.

"Yes, always," I laugh.

"Could you be a boy with long hair," Adaline asks, and I hear the leaves crackle as she brings her hand up to her own hair.

"I like your hair. Sometimes I think I want to cover my face with it," I say, and I blindly swing my hand around to grab for it. When I get my fingers on it, I try to run them through, but it's hard to do from this angle.

"That's weird," Adaline says. "You're weird sometimes."

"Thanks," I say.

The first shots ring out.

"Transform," I say, but I don't even know if that'll help. "Small as you can."

Adaline freezes.

"Transform," I insist, shaking her body. "Addie. Addie. Don't mess with me right now! We need to--"

A bullet hits me in the back. I can feel something rush through my blood like the way the house felt, an overwhelming flood of color and sensation shaking my body. The world is being held up by my hands, but slowly, and every motion is poking through layers of soft material just to get to my body. As I feel myself floating away, I see Adaline's body peel back, antlers growing from her eyes.

"Adaline?" I manage to slur out.

Several bullet wounds go through her.

They all bleed black.

The maw of the beast opens and the slew of shots continues, but Adaline dives for one. I put a hand out, which feels like putting my hand out thousands of times, slower and slower until I finally reach my body to open that hand. I feel that hand encase in stone, and I draw out my Veritas, which sends light up all my arms and back into my own. I can barely see what's going on, but the landscape is coated in crystal and the bad people lie everywhere, silent.

A white flash turns on me. Dark eyes curiously probe my own, and I lift both hands towards her. "See? You don't have to be afraid of yourself, anymore," I say. "You can help."

Adaline prowls forwards. Her mouth opens, and I process all the teeth one by one. Everything is so big-- so small-- so so slow-- and I can smell her breath through my numb nose and taste it on my tongue and hear it in my whole body, which can't be right. She smells like decay, but I think I'm too tired to wince. I almost collapse onto her, instead, and feel myself giving up.

Adaline closes her mouth.

The last thing I see before I fall asleep is her overhead, tail lashing.

---

I wake up in the grass. Angel's bending over me, curious, and when she sees me stir she runs a hand across my forehead. My own hand jolts forwards to slap her away, and she moves back before I can hit her, her eyebrows tilted with sadness. Frowning, she asks, "Am I really upsetting you that much?"

"What's going on?" I ask, trying to sit up.

Adaline crouches down by my side. "We protected ourselves."

Red is arguing with Dylan. I don't think it's bad arguing, but they're definitely yelling at each other. I squint into the distance. "Okay," I say. "Does that mean we're not in any trouble?"

"We're definitely not going out again," Adaline says. "Alone."

"It's okay, hun," Angel says. "I'm not allowed to go out either."

I frown. "Well, clearly, we did the right thing, so that's stupid."

Angel shrugs. "I've never made the rules."

"And that's a lie!"

Adaline coughs, flecking oil across the grass.

"Addie, take it easy."

Adaline looks up, smearing her sleeve across her face. The result is a long, bloodlike stain across. "This is easy." She starts coughing again. "It's okay. At least... at least no one died this time."

"People definitely died," Angel says. She looks skywards, as we did, but her lips are pursed and her face is all grim and ominous."We're dangerous to everyone around us."

"Have you considered that maybe they should get out of the way and stop trying to tranquilize us? Have you considered maybe we don't want to do tranquil?"

"I was just silly for thinking we could cohabitate," Angel says. We hold each other's gaze for a while. "You don't have to tell me to leave. I'm going. If you need me, I'll be trying to argue your case to Red and Dylan, on behalf of your happiness, because I seem to be the only one who believes that I care deeply about you two."
"I believe," Adaline yells, but kind of under her breath, so that it sounds loud and raw but Angel doesn't quite hear it. Or maybe she doesn't want to. Maybe she just keeps walking.

I lean against Adaline. "So."

"So."

"Would I have killed you?" Adaline asks.

I shake my head.

Adaline nods. "They're going to keep coming."

"You think we're going to die?"

"We might."

"Don't say that. Say we're going to live."

"Why?"

"Because I'm nervous about dying," I say.

"We would have died by now if we were going to."

"Just because everyone says that doesn't make it true."

Adaline leans against me.