Gillian leaves in a huff, every footstep another angry stomp. She crushes anything living under her feet, but I get the impression she doesn't know and couldn't care less. Gillian is to inadvertent destruction what Mary is to deliberate destruction. I would know, because I've seen both of them kill Damien.

Gillian will apologize. Somewhat. Gillian will bend down, slowly, in her Veritas, and tremble slightly, like her body is giving beneath its own weight, and stay like that until she is speared through the back. There are no words, but you just don't get many good apologies with Gillian.

The other three look back to me, and I try to disguise the way my face is curving up. The tension has been on the rise since last night, and I can sense it culminating here, in the most volatile part of the most volatile group. I want to cry with relief that Red restarted over the last vote (why did you give up so easily, Red?), because no matter what comes next, there is an unfixable crack right through the center of the group and finally, finally, we're going to contend with something.

(I am so tired of running away.)

"Give me everything," I say. "What happened here?"

Mary's eyes light up. "Now? Gillian attacked me." She happily displays scars up her arms. "I was a falcon, but she always does eagles. Gillian's the worst like that. Eagles are preposterous--"

"Pretentious." I correct her. "I don't care."

"Me neither!" Mary exclaims.

I ask the other two, "What does that article say?"

"It says you should learn how to read." Alex flicks his phone up.

A deep-seated apathy returns, reminding me of dozens of days spent lying on the ground or walking, staring blankly ahead, mind racing so fast that no physical movement I make could disturb the swirling mania of its current. Give me one reason to get up before time pushes me back down. Give me one reason to lift a finger before time presses it back through its own joint. "Haven't had the time," I offer. I want to strangle someone but I don't think I could keep my hands around my own neck for long enough. "Stop being a little bitch, Alex. What does it say?"

"There's a kid. Damien Andrews. He died and came back after a day. What he actually did, I mean, right now, was something about a singing competition, but apparently they don't want to give him an award because people think he's an abomination against nature. There are people outside his house with torches..." Mary continues.

Damien's mouth moves into a straight grimace.

"Why are you so upset, Damien? It's not like they want to kill you. They just want to kill someone who has your face, your name, and your exact set of talents." Mary says.

"Thanks, Mary." Damien says under his breath, his voice still a high, wiltering whine.

"That's what we're going after?" I say, grimacing as my mind spills over with feelings I'm almost too ashamed to give name to.

"What did you think we were going after?" asks Alex. His brown eyes are hued with the slightest tinge of yellow, soaking his irises.

"Most of us only knew we were leaving." I say, defensively, "Possibly to get answers...

and you don't know any more than that, do you?"

"We don't know what we are." Damien says. "There's nothing else we could figure out."

My hands twitch in my pockets. Red will be here momentarily, and our next meeting will be averted by his 'interference'. I had one shot at this and there's almost nothing here. I've wasted a good portion of Red's trust on rumors and speculation... or have I? At the very least, I could widen the rift a little further, make Red aware of it--make him nervous. If I can unstabilize him, I'll be prepared to sweep him to the side at an opportune moment.

Then what?

Regardless, I've done enough here. Right now I'm awake and I have energy left to burn. I'm damn well not wasting any more time.

"Who else would know anything?" I ask the air, but I get a response from Mary.

"Mimsy would, right?" she continues, "Not that you'd get anything out of Mimsy."

"That's a decent idea. So you do have a brain in there, don't you, Mary?"

Mary's eyes shine with pride, moving straight past confusion into resentment. "H-hey! Of course I do! That's how I did all this."

I'm already halfway into the woods.

"Kali! I do too have a brain."

Usually she would prove this by beating the life out of whoever happens to be closest at the time, and while I derive a great deal of joy of throwing her pretty little face and her smart mouth into the dirt, I have other priorities to attend to. Namingly, I have a single priority, and it's someone who has slid off the list for a long time.

Bad idea, says my mind, but hey, I don't have to listen to anyone, let alone myself.

I'm no more than a few treelengths into the woods when time pulls me backwards by the hand, driving me through a terrible moment of mute struggle as I am thrown backwards with an impact not unlike that Mary must've felt every time she's ever been hit by a truck.

Gillian leaves with the wallet again, shooting me a glance. Not much later, Red runs through the bushes, just as Mary begins relaying her injuries to me without any prompting. "And this one's not that long, but it's where she was holding me down." Mary taps my shoulder. She's taller than me, which makes the way she eagerly looks up at me even more comical. "Kali, are you listening?"
Damien and Alex aren't. Sometimes I wonder how many friends Mary would have without brute intimidation.

I watch Red in the corner and take a few steps his way, skirting the edge of the clearing like I'm preparing to round on him for battle. "Is there an issue?" I ask.

Red's eyes dance across the clearing. Already I'm wondering who and what tipped him off. I would hesitate to call us 'subtle' but there was little that could have prompted our betrayal, here. I know, at least, that his pathetic human senses wouldn't have brought him out here. "What were you guys talking about out here?"

"We weren't talking about anything," I say, raising my hands defensively. "These kids swiped a wallet. Gillian is returning it."

Red nods. He hesitates on his nods when he doesn't believe what someone is saying. Even the others have subconsciously picked up on the implication of the slowed gesture, because Alex and Damien's gazes are rife with guilt.

"I'm leaving," I say, and I step towards the woods.

"Why, Kali?" Red asks in the most prying, faux-sympathetic voice imaginable. His huge brown eyes are wide, framed by his crinkled brows.

"I need to speak with someone." I respond, which is far too much information. I curse myself inwardly as I take another step and time grabs me again. Gillian is halfway out of the clearing and it takes Red longer to get there. I'm hyperventilating, trying to get my breath out through my nose so it's not obvious that I'm panicking at all, and when he does appear, I fall into the same glossy expression.

"Were you all talking about the leave or the article?" he asks.

"That's a broad assumption." I hiss. "These kids swiped a wallet. Gillian is returning it." Almost enough of a parallel to throw him off the scent. If you repeat things just right, he looks you over, and right now, I would prefer his eyes off me. (Who am I kidding? I rarely, if ever, want his eyes on me. Given the option I'd stab his eyes out and rip that smug, condescending, pitying frown off his face.)

"If you want to talk about it, I'd be happy to speak with any of you--including you, Kali. I know this is rough and sudden, but it doesn't need to deteriorate our mutual trust."

Damien nods, gratefully, but Alex's eyes say what trust? and my respect for Alex grows a little bit. Damien speaks for all three of us: "Thanks, Red, but it's really not a problem."

Mary snipes, "You know less than any of us. Why would we be confiding in you?"

"I don't know much about this. That's why I'd appreciate you trusting me." He doesn't have to bend down to her to get on her level--she's as tall as he is, the beanpole-- but he still nods respectfully. "Can I ask that?"

"I guess?" Mary says, disquieted.

"Can I go now? Feeling talks give me indigestion." I say.

Red's making that same expression. Don't restart on me don't do it don't do it I don't want to go back you can't make me stop playing with us. My mind erupts, and I offer him the snarkiest glare I can. I am an absent-minded troublemaker who doesn't like the sentimentality he's offering, but I'm just warm enough, somewhere in my cold reptile heart, to come around someday. "Permission to leave granted," he says.

How can he not know? Does he know? Is he toying with me? My mind says no, because Red would be clinging to me more, and he's been giving me space. If he knew, we would be... a team, of kinds, because he couldn't just toss me around like he's tossing the others around.

Anger overwhelms loneliness and I shift into a snake once I'm out of eyesight, holding close to the forest floor. Despite being a predator, and a fierce one at that, a snake is always held by the only kind of fear that could compel something so small to own such large teeth, to always be prepared to bite. The sky is dangerous. The ground is dangerous. I am used to fear, and primal fear makes me feel more at ease, ironically. I can take an eagle. Its talons are not the confining, unescapable, claustrophobic prison of time.

I sense her fluttery breathing and turn back, limbs extending as I hoist myself up off the forest floor. My pupils readjust as I hiss,"I know you're here."

The white cat peeks out of the bushes. Fire graces my fingers, and I snuff it out best I can, hoping not to let my excitement deter her. "Come on out, Mimsy."

Her eyes and flur flicker with blue. She keeps to the foliage, barely showing herself between bushes.

"I know you know things you're not willing to tell us," I warn her. Her eyes, which are a sickly pink (she must be feeling nostalgic today--usually they're green or gray), meet mine. "We're going back," I say. "We're going to see them again. Do you know how difficult that's going to be if you won't talk about it?"

Her ears flatten, either with shame or fury. I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference. The white hair spreads from her face, framing it, and she shifts back, always looking as if she'd stopped a little too early. Every time I see her she is a little frailer, a little less human. She watches me with the same cat-silence, now huddling against a bush instead of in it. "I don't want to talk to you." she says. "You shouldn't have come here."

"It's not your forest." I shrug.

"I told you I wouldn't say anything else ever again. You said you'd leave me alone." Mimsy whines.

Fire holds in my fingers. She practically jumps back out of her skin. "I'm not going to hurt you," I say, but I don't know what to say. I want to hold her against a tree with a burning hand until she spits something up. No one would ever see the marks. No one ever looks for Mimsy. It would be so, so easy to hurt her. "But you are going to hurt us. The whole group."

"I'll..." Mimsy says, practically a cat yowl instead of a word. She holds herself in her arms. "Bad things happen when I talk."

"I'm sure Angel has forgiven you." I muster up all the kindness available to me, but we're scraping the bottom of that barrel.

"I don't want her to." Mimsy hisses, eyes slit. "I shouldn't be speaking any more."

Light flickers across my hand. "Really? Why not?"

"There's not going to be anything left to fix, before we get there." Mimsy says, avoiding the question and shying from my hand. "For some of them. You already know who's in danger."

Of course I do. The real question is who isn't in danger.

I look back around the clearing, noting lines drawn in the dirt. Mimsy drops herself to the ground and takes a stick, its edge encrusted with dirt, and slides it back into her pocket. Dozens of enigmatic shapes surround us both, long rows scarred into the ground, at times covered by leaves or other debris. She's been at this site all day.

Mimsy shifts back, rushing off, and I look down at the markings, waiting for time to draw me back so I can repeat the hideous cycle again.

Red doesn't come for me.

Dylan never appears out of the corner to herd us all back together.

I should take some comfort in being alone, for once, but my body burns with insatiable bitterness.