We start over, which is the only way I have of something akin to coming clean.

The morning is bright, and Mary yells, "Elle!"

We all jolt awake, and I practically jump right into Dylan's arms. He looks at me like I'm crazy, then offers, "Get off of me."

"Oh, yeah, I'll..." I feel around my neck. The sprouts are entirely gone. "Hey. I think today is going to be better than yesterday, Dylan."

"You do?" He sounds so hopeful, too. It's almost as if we've awoken in the spring-- the closest thing I can compare it to is when you first wake up in the earliest parts of the youngest season, and you know last night everything was covered in snow, but it's finally gone and you almost feel warm.

I clutch my chest. I don't deserve this at all. "Yeah. Hey! Round 'em up! We're getting out of this city as fast as possible. Don't worry about Elle-- she told me where she was going, and I know just where we'll find her later."

I'm almost embarrassed by how shocked they've seemed. Then slowly, Mary's face twists into a smile, and she says, "Okay!" Impaled.

Damien asks, "Wait, so are you... um... that kind of sounded like an order." Sliced through by her sword. "Is everyone a little disoriented now, or is that just me? Good disoriented, but um, I mean... never mind."

"Let's just leave," Gillian says. Electrocuted, consequently likely destroyed in Alex's blast radius.

"What? If Elle's out, can't she get us breakfast somewhere? We've been in the woods forever and this garbage tastes like garbage," Alex groans. See blast radius.

"Stop complaining about the garbage. You were the one who ate that donut before any of us could get to it," snaps back Angel. Dead in the city, fending off whitejackets, likely.

"I'm not hungry," Mimsy says. Kali's fire.

"Me neither," Adaline messes with her scarf. Mary.

"You're never hungry. You're worse than Elle," Trace says. My own hand.

"Are we going to call a vote on eating?" asks Dylan. (I don't even want to think about that one."

"I hope not, because I always lose those, and right now, I could really use some hot people food," I say, and for once, I'm not forcing a smile. I think I might be that happy just to see them again. "Because I'm a people, and I love food."

"Well, I never lose, and you'd have me on your side, so this might be your first not stupid decision," Mary says.

I keep telling myself I won't let her get to me, but sometimes she really does hit right where it hurts. I just nod along. "We'll have to find Elle first, regardless, so we should get on that."

"Shouldn't be hard. Where's the nearest bar or seedy hotel?" asks Kali. She's leaning against the edge of the alley, silhouetted by the morning light pouring in, half-blocking the somewhat concerned stream of humans who are finally picking up on the fact that there are almost a dozen children sleeping in the alleyway. As I pass her, there's a moment of grim recognition between us, and I restart, quickly, to seconds before.

She flinches. Not a dream. It's going to have to be our new, non-verbal way of saving the second. Everything that just occurred is promised, now, and though the future frays in a thousand directions, the past is one golden line.

The group walks, middle kids in the front, already gossipping about Elle's exploits. That is, Mary's already worked out again that she's been charmspoken, and she's leaning on Damien so hard I'm worried the poor kid might collapse under her weight.

"What's up with you?" asks Dylan.

"I'm going to be full of surprises today," I say.

Dylan's face cracks into a terrible grimace. I can't tell if he's smiling or if he's about to cry. Potentially both, simultaneously, and I feel my heart melt a little. It's been a long time since a gesture that small sincerely moved me, and then I'm practically sobbing, but they're happy tears. We're not ugly sobbing, because it's too early in the morning for that, but when his right hand so much as grazes my shoulder, then proceeds to hold me so tight it's almost a strangle, I can't help but feel burning tears roll down my face.

"Okay, stop, this is stupid," Dylan says, shoving me off. "I'm just picking up on whatever weird emotional thing you're going through right now, which I'm not going through--"

"Not even if I'm coming out of my corner?" I ask him.

"I have spent a lot of time waiting for you to come out," admits Dylan. He smirks. His lip is all chopped up. "Too early for a kiss?"
"Yes, but for your sake, not mine. Forgive me when I've actually earned it," I say.

"How long's that going to take?" he asks.

"Potentially forever," I admit.

"I don't think I can wait forever," Dylan says, and the arm drags me a little tighter this time.

"We found Elle!" yells Mary.

We break apart as soon as Mary's eyes are on us, and as she waves her hand, Elle attempts to make a break for it. It's not Elle as we know her, but another beautiful woman, only Elle in the obvious intricacies of her stride and the way her hair falls out behind her. When Kali steps in front of her, she pauses on the side of the road, leering out across the way, through a mess of oncoming cars.

"I am trying to leave," Elle says.

I step through the crowd. "I won't stop you. You've done some pretty horrible things."

"Is this conversation over yet?"

"Unfortunately, no? I just... I would be a hypocrite if I forgave everyone but you, and what you did-- what you did to Kali-- really sucks, and I'm not going to forgive you. I'm just extending my hand... and asking you if you want to come home with us, or at least try to make up for your actions without running away from them," I say. "Kali? You good with that?"

Kali shrugs. "We're being pretty conspicuous here. Should probably head out and discuss it in the woods, or something, which I guess means you'd have to come along."

Elle follows us out of the city. Kali and her are on two different sides of our twelve-person formation, which is an even more disorganized mesh than usual, if only because it's somehow become more communal. We are the same twelve stars, set in the same constellation, but you can draw the lines between us any way you want. Some ways you get better pictures than others, potentially, but in the end the distinctions are all probably arbitrary.

I pause. They know what to expect when I stop in the woods, but it's been a long time since they've expected it. It feels cheap to be saying it again now that there are no consequences, now that I can give this speech as many times as I want, but I'm only going to give it once. Someone's looking out for me. I have to look out for myself. "We're coming to the place we came from. The rubble's up north from here, out where they probably thought no one would find it. Addie's cage is down there, and Damien and Mary, you're probably going to get into a fight some point... yes, Elle did charmspeak you, of course you like each other anyways, I know this all seems like a call out, but it isn't, I'm just preparing you guys, because I know things. Speaking of knowing things, I just wanted to say that everything's going to be okay, alright? No matter what happens, or what happened, or what's going to happen, all of you are going to be fine, and I'll be here to watch you, and I'll try to know when to step back more, and I'll just... maybe I'll learn slowly, but I'll learn. We've all been learning. For years. It feels like we've been walking in circles, sure, but somehow, coming back here, of our own accord, has forced us to grow, and we're going to walk right back up to where we came from and kick some rocks around until we feel better about ourselves. And after that? After that?

Maybe we acculturate into human society. Maybe we just step in from time to time. Truly, I don't know what's going to happen to us, but we deserve to live. All of us. I want to stick together, but maybe we interface with phones. It'll be exciting. Just trust me."

"Red, what happened last night?" asks Dylan.

I want to say I blossomed, but I've overdosed a little on the metaphor, and now everything I could say besides the truth feels hollow. Looking over all eleven of them, certain I want to keep that speech, the truth is a little bit too much, and I still know what they're capable of far too well to hand it to them. Caution and respect. That's going to be hard to balance. I can see Kali down front, keeping me accountable with her glare. "I'm feeling a little better," I say. "Meet me up ahead. Dylan, you're in charge."

"What?" Dylan asks.

"Does he have the authority to do that?" asks Gillian.

"Me or Red?" asks Dylan.

"I'll be right back," I say. I look to Kali, tilting my head towards the woods.

She shrugs. "Try not to kill each other. If you trust in the good times, let the good times happen. I'm going to collude with your boyfriend in the woods, Dylan. That's not a sexual thing, just so you know. It's more of a carefully planned alliance in which we stare at each other until we've mutually worked out all of our problems."

"Great," Dylan says. "When you're ready to stop being suspicious, come right back. I don't think we're going anywhere."

Kali smirks as we walk back into the forest. We walk for an inappropriately long time in silence, as if she's waiting on me to say something first, even though I don't know what to say. I don't know if she's going to take me out here and kill me before I can restart again. I wouldn't even know if I deserved that, at the very least, I'm not going to stop her. She situates herself on a downwards slope overlooking a stream, which cuts lower and lower beneath us, flowing out into a massive river not far away. "Well?" she says. "What is this, some sort of coming to terms, or did you just bring me out here to stare at your feet and feel bad about yourself?"

"Never tell my boyfriend that we're going to 'collude' in the woods again," I warn her.

"He's not your boyfriend right now," she responds, snidely.

I restart. Kali sits down. "There, moment's settled."

"So it is. Cue collusion." Kali says, coldly.

I restart again. "Would you like to formally address our conduct going forwards--"

"Red, let me sit on the fucking leaves, or I will gut you," she warns me.

I let her sit down on the leaves. I restart back approximately two seconds, not that human measures of time have ever been anything less than arbitrary (even if they are incredibly useful) and settle looking out at the woods past us, feeling myself fill up with fall air. There's no smoke, no fires, and that's enough to get me thinking of my first autumn, my first kiss with Dylan, and all the things that have made a living hell worth living in.

"Please stop restarting," Kali says.

"I think I'm just glad I can," I look down at my hands.

"Hell of a redemption you got," she says. "Pretty easy to redeem yourself now, isn't it?"

"I haven't done anything yet," I say. "I told Dylan, and I'll tell you-- I want to earn this for real. Give me time to repent."

"You saw how the whole group perked up, though. They love you, Red. Like it or not, you're hope to them." Kali kicks some leaves away with her boot. "That's always been what I hated most about you."

"You want to know what I always hated about you?" I say.

She shrugs. "Everything?"

I laugh, thinking about every last thing I ever grudgingly respected, every second I envied her skill at morphing, the dawning realization of how skillfully she's managed to keep her ability to negate my abilities secret for what's been lifetimes for the both of us, or the ease with which she handled our chaotic lives. Kali was unflappable. How could I hate that when I so desperately wanted it myself? "No," I shake my head. "No, I always hated that you clearly thought of me as human. I'm just as much of a fickle, dangerous monster as the rest of you." I choke on the last word, still thinking about my Veritas pitting the entire group on each other.

"They're violating abilities, fundamentally," Kali says. These are the kinds of conversations we would likely have been having this whole time if we'd known: the kind that click so seamlessly that you barely have to talk to know what the other person is saying. I know her every thought, which leg she's going to twitch next, the way her smile curves... I've seen it all before, over and over again, but only in my wildest dreams did I imagine this. "That doesn't mean you couldn't use it to, say, stop Mary from running into a car. Maybe it'll look better next time."

"No one should have absolute power over someone else. There's no 'good way' it can go," I say.

"I agree. The problem is that you have it, and that humans and our group need you to keep using it so that no one dies. You can't be a bystander. Your power necessitates that you aren't. You just need--"

"Someone who can mediate me." I pound a hand against the leaves. "I would never have been able to admit that to myself."

Kali grins wryly. "They thought they were making me to moderate all of them. You moderate all of them. I'll just moderate you."

"And they'll moderate you, in turn?" I ask.

"That seems fair enough. Of course, there's still the problem of--"

"Dylan's not a problem," I finish.

She nods. "He should know. The others?"

"Slowly, but we'll explain. I'm worried about--"

"Getting murdered before one of them tries to make the next break for it, because otherwise, they can't get out."

"Obviously. I'm even worried about getting gutted by Dylan."

"But not me?"

"Kali, I am terrified that you're going to kill me."

Kali stands up. "It's crossed my mind so many times that there's no way I could possibly do it," she says. "You're welcome."

"That's not reassuring at all."

"How's this, then? You and I are going to go back, together, as peers, and we are going to lead our family back to where we came from, and then past it. We are going to slowly, over what will be a decade for us and far longer for everyone else involved, try to be something close enough to human that no one else has to die. It will hurt. We will see terrible things. It's because there's a hole in my chest that I want to save anyone at all, because I don't want to die, and I don't want them to die."

It is admittedly reassuring. "We cheated death."

"Our programming is death."

"Then we've cheated ourselves better," I bargain.

"And into what?"
We look up. The leaves on the trees started turning a long time ago, and have almost finished now, so that the ground is covered in fresh flesh and that bodies they've left behind are almost empty. Still, the trees hold guard over the land, and in the spring they'll return with new shoots, ripen with flowers and fruit, and fall again. Their descendants will carry on the same pattern, and the animals will thrive out of their bodies and through their works and the works of their works, and everything, everything, will live at some point or another, will die, save for us. We will be here until the end of time, bettering ourselves, slowly, until we are a bridge, a better path, instead of the worst possible outcome. We are a sound. We are a fire. We are a bundling of lives and creatures, potentially, someday, something better than monsters.