I end my day standing atop a ledge on the ceiling of a department building. The wind blows through my hair, making me look even more imposing. The sun is setting in the distance, the cars move below in their dull, congested lines, and the others are dawdling on the almost barren roof, next to the staircase. "This is stupid," I declare to the winds.

"You brought us up here, Mary." Gillian says.

"Yeah, but that's because I thought something was up here."

"There's pigeon poop, standing water, and disappointment," Alex says. "That's something."

"No, but I meant something."

"Like what?"

I make a quick gesture with my hands, red light glinting off their surface. "Look. Aren't you all bored of being lead in circles? We're one step above Trace and Adaline."

"Everyone in the group is important," Damien says. He's kind of shoved into the corner, underneath some brick siding that's keeping him safe from the wind. It's the kind of boring position that a coward would take, and I kinda want to throw him over the edge.

"First off, didn't ask." I hop off the ledge. "Second off, you sound like Red."

"What do you have against Red?" asks Alex.

"He's worse than Angel. Plus, he's always getting on my case specifically. Mary, don't cross that road. Ma-ary, don't talk to those people. Mary. Mary. Mary." I make my voice shrill as I can manage. Red's voice is low, but it kind of gurgles in his throat when he's upset. It's awful! He sounds like a goat.

"Maybe he has a point?" Damien offers. I want to kiss him and then throw him over the roof. I stride over, which makes him tense a little bit (he's cute), and kiss him on the cheek.

"Dae?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop being dumb." I look back to the others. "I've never even seen him take his Veritas on. He's basically a human. Do you think we could lead a coup if we wanted?" (I found the word coup through Angel. It's apparently not pronounced coop but that's more fun to say. Coup.) "Coup."

Gillian glares at me with her heavy-lidded, dead eyes.

That sounds like treason, Mary.

"That sounds like treason, Mary." Gillian says.

I hate her.

"Why haven't you done it yet?" asks Alex.

"We have a taker, ladies and..." (I forget this part.) "Taker."

"Smooth," Alex says. Alex is the best at phrases, because he's always on the screens.

"Don't encourage her." Gillian mutters.

"I'm not, and I'm not interested. Mary just does whatever she wants, so... why wouldn't she have tried already?"

I laugh. If I was going to take over the group, he wouldn't be getting a choice. Plus, I know I could at least spur Damien along, because he's smitten for me. Maybe Kali? If Kali was on our side, we would win, no problem. Kali is death. "You calling me chicken?"

"No," Gillian says. "He's not. You two cool it on the mutiny."

"Dios mio," Alex says, his arms wide as they can go. "I'm not going to help her. The is no 'you two'."

I stamp my foot. "Stop making up words, Alex!"

"They're not made up. I heard people say it." Alex crosses his arms. "Bet if I looked it up, things would come up."

I squint at him. "But they'd click if they were words. You can't just put letters together and call them a word."

"I didn't."

"You misheard them." I argue.

"Dios mio,"

"You guys know Red isn't actually defenseless, don't you?" Damien peeps. "He has precognition."

"Thanks, Angel! I have no clue what that means." I fold my arms.

Damien stands up, his hair ruffled by the warm winds coasting over the building. "We were playing cards with him. Go fish? It took him forever to get there weren't any fish involved--"

"Wow, don't care."

"He guessed what cards we had every single time. I mean, he didn't win, because Kali dragged him away by the ear halfway through the match to deal with big kid stuff... but that always happens."

"Damien." I try to articulate this. "It's a card game. What does precog--the big word--have to do with card games?"

"Look... Red has future sight!" he explains. "Why else would he always know what to do?"

"You can't see time." I retort. "Time's not like... further away the further out you go, or something. You can't walk across it."

"Nah. Dylan would have told us what was going on. He said Red doesn't have any powers." Alex says.

"Maybe Dylan lied." Damien says.

Alex and I both stare at him. Alex laughs, a harsh sound that kind of echoes in his throat, and I raise a hand to my head. "Dylan. Lying."

"Sure?" Damien's voice is shaking. He looks towards the edge of the building.

"Whatever. It doesn't excuse that we're still going nowhere..." I say, turning the conversation. Red with some sort of weird future vision--even the thought of Red, really--makes the hair on my neck stand on end, like there's already someone there behind me, judging my every action. Go away.

"We're not." Gillian says. "They have leads."

"I don't think we should be following 'leads'." I say. "It's just Mimsy, and she's nuts. Crazy."

Gillian's ginger hair is tainted a more sinister shade of red, like clay. I recognize the way she curls and uncurls her hands. I can see every digit clamoring for my neck. "Mary. What do you want?"

"You know what happens if we go back to wherever we got made, right?" I ask. "They kill us. All of us! Personally, I don't want to die."

"Can we die?" Damien asks.

"Bad time to find out." Gillian growls. Ha. I knew you didn't like this either. I know everything about you. I know the words before you say them, Gillian! Do you really think I can't tell you're just moving along with them, like a stick caught in the river?

"It's always a bad time to find out that you can die." Alex agrees.

"But I want to do something. No. There has to be something better than chasing our steps. There has to be anything! Why are we alive? Why do we exist, if we're just going to keep running forever? I hate half of them and I hate hiding under their shadows all the time, and I know all of you don't like doing it either no matter what you say." I grin, although all of them are eyeing me like I'm spitting poison. I am. I can feel it coming on. The energy hits my veins and all the rivers lead back into the only true thing. I need to hit something. "There was a point to this."

"Really? Kind of looks like you're just rambling from here." Alex says.

No, I'm talking about me.

"She's talking about herself," says Gillian. "You are not doing this right now."

"The city is beautiful," I say, my eyes glistening with pink sky, red sun, and black building. I feel my eyes shift, refocusing, picking out every detail. I can sense moving things for almost as far as my vision is stretching, see the clothes on every person, I can even see the holes in the fabric.

"If you want answers, doesn't that mean you just... want to go on a hunt for leads anyways?" Damien asks, and then, seeing the look in my eyes, steps a little closer to Gillian. I can see the nick on his fingernails from half a week ago. He hasn't healed that yet? Damien is ridiculous. "Mary, you really do need to calm down."

"You're not getting it." I say, caught in a whirlwind. What don't they get?

"I don't see what we're not getting." Gillian says.

I don't know this, but I know who does. I offer myself to the whirlwind.

"You're not allowed to do that." Gillian moves forwards, pushing Damien back. Damien opens his mouth, surprised, but he's still looking at Gillian's hand and I'm just focusing on her. Dark gloves work their way up my hands and metal works its way around my face, molding itself and my body into a form past forms, past mere shapeshifting. Four wings exit my back, each of them like a bolt of lightning against my skin, and a haze covers my vision. I can sense my mind firing higher and brighter, and I stand before them in my Veritas, my sword coming into being from the air. I take in a new breath, seeing every slight movement of the air, and past that, every mote of dust in the air, I can see everything. I can see...

"Oh, they're lying to us. Overtly." That's simple enough. Of course they are. The older kids don't trust us, we're a nuisance. "Red's definitely lying to us. You shouldn't trust Dylan. And you..." I look to Gillian, my mind racing ahead of itself, "You just like following orders, don't you? Because you can barely think to yourself. That got passed off to me."

She hates it when you mention that the two of you are twins. She hates it she hates it yes I got you--

"You're not allowed to trigger your Veritas on a building in the middle of a public area, Mary!" Gillian grits her teeth. "We're going to get seen."

"We could get seen." I raise my sword, light glistening off the blade, and a thin beam of energy moves through me to it, and out to a car a few blocks down, which wails in panic as one of the windows cracks to bits. "Now we're going to be seen."

Gillian's hand is besieged by scales, her fingers lengthening into hard, durable claws. Damien says something neither of us can hear and Alex raises his hands, backing right out of the way with Damien in tow. Gillian's hair whitens, forming a mat down her back, and her dull eyes stare back into mine as she rises into a form of a massive, wingless dragon, so large she almost takes up half our ceiling. I can feel it beginning to give under us, which is why she's holding back in size.

I don't like to talk about the insights I get about myself, but hey, what the heck?

It all comes back down to this. Always. Always, always-- her hands slams down and the whole building seems to shake. I dart to the side, wings extended, and she swats at the air.

This is unnecessary and dangerous.

Ha, like she's going to talk in her Veritas.

I go for one of her limbs, running my blade up the side, but the flesh heals behind my blade. I need to get it stuck in there to do anything, but then I don't have a blade. She's outwitting me. No--overpowering. She's barely thinking. This is instinct for her. Meanwhile, I'm firing on all cylinders. Going for what? This. Obviously. You hear that? 'Course. My hearing's a thousand times better than normal when I'm like this and it's already good.

"What have they told you," I ask, harnessing the last of the sunlight, moving the blade up towards her neck.

They're coming. (Fine, give me a few seconds. Geez.)

Gillian leers down at me. You don't want answers. You just want to fight someone.

That is an answer, Gillian! I know that you're judging me in there. I swing to the side again, locking us in stalemate. Sun's going down. I'm down to a melee weapon. She's too slow to catch me. I spread my wings and a ball of energy hits me in the face, practically solid. I look up, hanging over the edge, and I see every line on Kali's scarred lip as she approaches me. "Why must you be like this?"

I shrug, withdrawing my wings. "It was one car."

"You think no one saw this?" asks Kali, half-amused. I catch the most minute of movements--her hand? Her face? Something twitched. "Doesn't matter, I guess." She sits down.

My eyes glint, and even as the last of my Veritas energy slips away, something clicks in my mind. "Why not, Kali?"

Kali's eyes meet mine, unnaturally bright. I always knew Kali liked me best. I always knew she had something to fight for. I always...