Before the sun had even risen, when the sky was finally beginning to lighten up, I woke the other two and we left the safety of our little alley. I hadn't realized how warm it was in there until we reached the streets, and then I almost ran right back to the cramped, stuffy space, much more willing to endure the smell than the freezing wind out here.

I decided to stop at a bus stop and ask someone how far the next cities were, since I didn't have any money to pay for the actual bus ride. When one pulled up, I climbed up the steps and asked, and the driver took one look at us, and told us to get on, no charge.

"Why'd he do that?" Leo asked softly as we climbed into the back.

"There are more shifty people in this city than honest ones," someone sitting in front of us said over their shoulder.

I fell asleep for the ten minute drive, and when I woke, the bus driver was calling for us and Leo was asleep on my shoulder. I stood up and he shifted, yawning and stumbling to his feet. "We there yet?" he muttered.

"Yeah, come on." I looked out the window as I helped him stagger down the aisle, Braken following close behind.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Good question," I mumbled. This side of town looked pretty run down and dumpy, and I immediately knew we were in the ghettos. The second I stepped off of the bus, I felt as if a hundred people had their eyes on me. I wasn't safe in this part of the city. Why were we here? "Come on," I said, grabbing Braken's arm with one hand and wrapping my other under Leo's arms to help him walk. He was still swaying, and was as pale as ever.

Braken slid his hand into mine, gripping me tightly like a lost child. My first instinct was to yank my hand away from the mangled flesh on his hands, but I forced myself to grip him back. I appreciated his attempt to keep close, because the last thing I wanted was one of them to get lost. I didn't know where we were, and I could feel the hostility radiating off of everything around us.

We wandered for a while, looking for something, anything, I wasn't sure what, and then we came across two people on a corner - street performers. One had long, messy blond hair cut short on one side, and he was the one playing the guitar. Sometimes, when he'd flip his head down, his hair would fall in front of his eyes and he'd have to shake it away. The other had a young face and curly light brown hair, and he was singing to the first's guitar. He had a nice high voice, I noticed.

"I won't hesitate,
No, I won't bend or break.
We won't know if we don't try -"

He suddenly cut off and stared at me. The other played a few chords, waiting for him to come back in, but when he didn't, he looked up, too. The few others listening to them turned to look, too, but they didn't seem to see anything of interest, so they wandered away.

"What?" the guitarist asked softly.

"Two of them," the singer murmured. "Across the street."

Immediately, I knew we needed to get out of there. "Come on," I muttered, pulling them along faster. Leo staggered and fell, and Braken helped him up to his feet, but by the time we were able to run, the singer had caught up to us.

He caught Leo as he stumbled again, and then said, "Hey, don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you."

All three of us backed up nervously, and Braken hid behind me, as if that would hide him from the stranger in front of us.

"You're here to find Refuge, right?" he said.

"We're fine, really," I said, starting to walk around him.

He grabbed my arm to stop me. "Refuge with a capital R. The camp. I'm Aaron. I can take you there."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I pushed him away and he stumbled back, losing his balance. "Come on, Leo."

Aaron watched as we moved away. "Leo. Tristam from the games. You in the pink, you're Braken, and you must be Joel."

We whirled on him instantly. "How do you know that?" I demanded. The guitarist across the street started playing again, singing to himself.

Aaron shrugged. "I can see if someone's an Unnatural. They glow slightly, give off this yellowish light. Two of you glow. One of you doesn't. There's only one other human on the news I can think of who's so protective of Unnaturals. So you're Joel. The one in the pink was signing with his hands - he can't talk, so he must be Braken, making the other one Tristam." He shrugged again. "Common sense, really."

"They glow?" I asked in surprise.

"Yep. Don't tell anyone else I see it. The Enforcers will kill to get their hands on me and my power." He shifted uncomfortably. "And please, I can't go back there again."

"You said you could take us somewhere. Where?" I asked.

"Refuge. You want to come?" He smiled, his nervousness fading. We nodded, and he led us back across the street to the other musician. "Brendan, I'm taking these three to Refuge. You coming?"

Brendan looked us over with interest. "In a few. I'm collecting some credits here - I think they like my voice better than yours." I glanced at his guitar case, which was sitting on the ground at his feet, and noticed the few stray bills and a couple of coins - not much, but he seemed pretty proud of it.

"Shut up." Aaron grinned, sneaking a glance in as well. "Alright, come on, you guys."

We followed him back into the alley, and he tried to get us talking. Leo stayed quiet, and I said as little as possible. I didn't know how much we could trust him. He seemed nice enough, but so had Anna, and look how that had turned out. Thinking about Anna made me ache again, so I shifted my attention and asked Aaron a few questions.

"What do you mean, you can see them glow?" I asked, interrupting him.

"What?" He blinked. "Oh, just ... people have this sort of aura around them. I can see it. Different colors mean different things. I don't know, I've just lived with it my whole life."

"What color am I?"

He paused and studied me for a minute. "You're a deep rose color. And red. There's some red in there. Also - it's kinda bright. Oh, there's a touch of blue on one side."

"What does that mean?" I asked, wondering if he was just making it all up. I glanced behind me at the two Unnaturals, and determined he wasn't. Not many others would be able to identify Unnaturals just by looking at them.

"I'll tell you later."

I could tell by his voice that he was concerned, and that worried me. "What does an aura tell you? Generally, I mean?"

He shrugged. "Personality. Good and Bad - though those are subjective, so I can't really help anyone with that. I see it how I believe. I can see Unnaturals. Feelings, sometimes. That's mostly it." He looked over his shoulder at Leo and Braken. "That's interesting. Leo's really bright." He squinted a little. "And Braken's really dark. I thought it was the other way around."

"What does light and dark mean? Light colors, or -"

"Brightness. Leo's a beacon." Aaron winced and turned back to face forward. "Haven't had someone as bright as him come into Refuge in a while."

"What does brightness tell you?" I pressed, my worry fueled by curiosity.

"I'll tell you later." He waved a hand at me as if to dismiss it, but I caught him glancing at me subconsciously.

"So ..." I started, but then paused as we stopped in front of a brick wall. "Where are we?"

"We're here," he said, grinning. Suddenly, I wondered if he was taking us back here to kill us or turn us in, and I stepped back nervously.

"Wow," Leo muttered. "There's so many." Braken nodded in agreement, smiling back.

"What? I don't see anything." I squinted harder, as if that would magically make something appear, the nervousness fluttering like butterflies in my chest.

"Good," Aaron said. "That means it's still working."

"What's working? I don't -"

"You'll see." He turned around and held his hand out, and to my surprise, his fingers went through the wall. He grabbed something and pushed it away, and then said, "Come on in, guys. Welcome to Refuge."

"What the heck -" I cut off as Aaron pushed me forward, right into the wall, and my first instinct was to brace for impact, but I didn't hit the wall. I went through it, just like his hand had, and found myself in a wider alleyway filled with people. My eyes widened in surprise as I struggled to take everything in, still stuck wondering how it was possible to walk through a wall, or why Leo and Braken could see through it but I couldn't.

It wasn't crowded or cramped, I noticed - it was actually quite comfortable. There were little balconies on either side of the alley, climbing up the walls, and while some of the doors were boarded up and locked, others were wide open and spilling warm light into the alley. There was a curtain of blankets and towels hanging on lines across the two sides, though it didn't keep the few flakes of snow out - it was more for decoration, it seemed. There were piles of old pillows and blankets scattered across the ground, leaving only a small walkway for people to move. People of all ages were sitting and talking, napping, or just generally hanging out. It was incredible.

"Are these all Unnaturals?" I asked softly as Aaron and my two friends followed me through the wall.

"Not all of them. Some of them are just wanted, like you are, for things like sympathizing or sheltering, or being related to one. Most of them have a deep dark glow, and about half are yellowish - Unnaturals. Though we don't like that term here," he added, grinning at me. "We call them Gifteds."

Leo snorted. "So Braken's Gift is to kill people. Mine is to burn someone to a crisp."

Aaron glanced at me. "Is he always this cynical?"

"Pretty much." I shrugged, then paused as I thought of something. "You said they were all dark. Is that bad?"

"Nope," he said, and then sighed, leading us through the groups of people. A few of them called greetings to him, and he cut off in the middle of his speaking to answer them. "You're not going to leave me alone, are you? Not until you get your answer."

"Probably not," I admitted, following close behind.

"Alright, fine. I'll tell you. Good and Evil are subjective, right? What I think is good, you might think is not. I mean generally, yeah, people have the same ideas of what Good and Evil actually are. I'm not saying that I have a perfectly objective view on it, because I don't, and I've been through some things that make me a little different than most when we talk about the borderline grey area, but I see my own subjective view of Good and Evil in people's auras." He glanced at me as we wandered further into the mess of people and blankets, ducking under clothes lines and blankets and kids hanging off of balconies. "This may sound weird, but the darker the aura is, the better the person is at that moment. I don't see destiny or the future or whatever - like if you went and murdered a guy just for kicks, your sort of light aura would probably brighten up a whole lot. Or if you even legitimately thought about it - yeah, that might bring it up a lot."

"Why is lighter bad, then?" I asked. "Isn't it usually dark is bad?"

"Well, the brighter something is, the more it hurts to look at," he said, shrugging. "I don't know. I was just born with it. Like your friend over there - Leo. He's like sun glinting off a mirror right into my eyes. He's thinking about something. And he's hurt, too. There's a lot of salmon color. Orange is pain, and pink is love. When you mix the two, it's heartbreak. You've got a little, but not nearly as much as Leo. And he's got a lot of red in him. So do you, actually. You're angry."

"I'm not angry," I insisted. "I don't feel angry."

"It's still there. Same with Braken. You're all angry." Aaron finally stopped near the back and started to climb up a small ladder, aiming for the balcony a little ways up. I followed him again, and stood next to him as he sat up on the balcony rail. "You know, Brendan's really angry, too. I don't know why, and whenever I ask, the red darkens and he just gets more angry. Sometimes, I think you can't help people, no matter how hard you try. Some people just won't listen, even when you tell them that they're not as bad as they say they are. You can't change someone's mind if they're determined to be right, no matter if they're wrong."

I paused to think about that. I nodded in agreement and pushed it into the back of my mind, asking another question as it came. "If light is bad, what does it feel like?" I said, realizing it was a dumb question even as it left my mouth.

He laughed, sensing my awkwardness. "Ice. It feel like sun on ice, light in a mirror, the bang of a gunshot, the white flames at the bottom of a fire. White is cold, isolating, disconnected, and just ... empty, I guess. In some cultures - or so I've been told - white is the color of death."

"Have you ever met someone who's pure white?"

He thought for a minute. "No. I hope I never will. I've met lots of people who are close, but I could always see a little color in them. I think if someone was pure white, they'd be completely consumed by evil - there'd be no emotions and no personality except the evil in the soul. That scares me."

"Then what's black?"

"Black? No one's ever black. No one's ever perfectly good. They're just darker. Like if you were passionately and kind of terrifyingly in love, you'd be a super bright pink. If you were in beautiful love, like protective sort of - like Braken, he's this way - then the pink would be the same shade, it'd just look darker." He caught my confused look and tried to clarify. "Like when you turn up the brightness on a screen. The color's not different, just ... brighter."

"Oh," I said, still confused.

"To answer your question about dark - I feel peace in the darkness. Dark things ... the sky with the pinpricks of stars, the soft mud between my fingers, the purple velvet of a curtain, I don't know, it's just warmer. More comforting. I'd rather stand in the dark than be exposed in the light."

I knew how that felt. I'd felt it standing in front of the maze at the games, the day I'd killed Laszlo. They'd flooded me with light, and I'd been completely exposed. I hated that feeling. "You said Braken's dark," I said. "Why does that surprise you?"

"I can't see auras on the screens. I'd watched one of his rounds, and seeing the way he dissolved people like that - I guess I just expected him to be evil." Aaron ducked his head in embarrassment. "Kinda makes me guilty now. After all, I'm a Gifted, too, just like he is. Some of these guys here could kill just as easily. As for Braken - well, I think he's friendly. He's eager. He embraces life, no matter what it throws at him. He's very orange, though. He's in a lot of pain, both physical and emotional."

"Yeah, I wish I could help him." I sighed softly and stared down into this strange place. Refuge, he called it. Would this be our Refuge, or was it another trap? I wished I didn't trust so easily. Sooner or later, I was afraid I'd get them both killed - or worse.