Ignatius reaches forwards, ivy growing up his arm, and I duck out of the way, shield clattering across the floor as I lose my grip. Amanda is hanging from the ceiling, asphyxiating, and Garrett is crushed between several succulents. Ignatius's eyes, so pale they look inhuman, turn from me to my last team member, and she falls like she did on the steps, all those months ago, struggling on the steps-

Wake up, wake up, wake up...

Karen's whole body is surrounded in light as I bolt upright, my eyes opening. I run my fingers through my hair, trying to stave off the uneasiness of yet another dream, and look to Adam, who is still fast asleep. His blankets are disheveled around him, and he clutches the edge of the pillow and occasionally kicks a leg out.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," I croak, faking a smile.

Adam opens an eye and closes it again. "I'm not sleeping anymore. Mind running your schtick somewhere else? I've got important shit to do."

My face drops. "Like sleeping all day? It's-" I look at the clock, "Ten AM on Saturday."

"All day is great." Adam flashes me a thumbs up. "Wake me up at ten AM on Sunday."

I slump out of bed and look at my phone. When I open it, it blows up with notifications from my group chat. Garrett, of all, has called a meeting 'soon-ish, preferably at someone else's house'. I look to Adam, then, before my brain can even begin listing the thousands of reasons that this is a terrible idea, I text back that I will regrettably be unable to host.

Get over here, scrubs, Amanda eloquently states, and I take a trying-to-wake up breath before almost falling down the stairs. Already, dread is beginning to enter my overworked heart, but it has to share room with the sheer apathy my tired brain exudes at ten in the morning.

Once, I try to remind myself, I was a morning person.

It feels stupid to even pretend that getting sun powers instead of moon powers would magically fix my deplorable sleep schedule, but I can dream. I take milk out of the fridge, accidentally hitting my mom's glass of water over as I sit down. "Whoops," I say. "Hey, have I told you how great milk tastes? This is great milk. Two percent. It's got the taste, but ninety-eight percent less fat..."

"Will," chides my mother, standing up with her cereal bowl in hand. "It's too early for this. Clean that mess up."

I take a towel and get to work, but I'm watching her the whole time. She gets milk out of the fridge, and even though we have twenty-five days, give or take, I sigh with relief. "So... can I go to a friend's house? I've done all my homework, Adam is being Adam..."

"Are you going to hang out with that cute girl?" my mom asks. "I think she likes you."

"Amanda?" I yawn. I hope I'm disguising my shock well (I'm not), as I say, "Oh, I don't know if she... well, I don't think so."

"Come on, Will. Give yourself a little more credit. She's cute."

I laugh nervously under my breath.

"Promise you won't spill water on her?" my mom teases.

I nod. We laugh it off, but my smile drops the second I'm out of her peripheral vision.

Soon as I'm dressed and ready, my mom takes me over to Amanda's, waves as I leave, and I watch her go around the corner. I wonder if she's scared for me, just by virtue of being a teenager, as I am for her.

"We're not doing this today." Garrett says when I enter. He's leaning on the railing of Amanda's staircase. "Just in case you were worried. Oh yeah, guess whose mom won't be home for two hours? We've got thirty minutes in the Veins, plan some things, then we laugh out the afternoon, do whatever, my mom talks to her mom, we all pretend we do this regularly. Boosts our cover, we don't actually have to fight, everything is swell. Alright?"

"Stop being nervous. This is the least dangerous part of our job." Karen pats his shoulder.

Garrett flinches, glasses askew. "Your parents must be lenient."

"No, they're just not crazy." Karen says. "I've been well within curfew. So are you, and hell, you've been out with friends instead of sitting home alone playing video games! If I was your parents, I would be weeping for joy."

Garrett points a thing finger towards the stairs. "Basement portal. Please."

"Where's Amanda?" I ask.

Amanda bounds up from downstairs, as if in response, her arms full of ice cream and her mouth full of spoons. She has them so that the part you eat with isn't in her mouth, in fact, her teeth are on the very end of the handle, but Karen still raises an eyebrow. Amanda winks at me.

"I don't know if I've mentioned yet that I love you, Amanda, but I love you." I say as we file down the steps and into her basement, then into the Veins.

Amanda throws the ice cream across the floor, startling a sleeping Shiloh. She takes the spoons out of her mouth and offers one to each of us. Garrett grips it around the middle, but I just take a pint and dig in. Amanda beams. "Think I got everyone's favorites."

Karen takes a good scoop of vanilla, and Garrett picks his own quart with a finger.

"So." Amanda sits criss-cross with a pint of strawberry.

"We got this." I say. "I know this looks awful, I know none of you have been able to sleep either, but Karen grabbed one shard, so he'll be weakened. We don't know by how much, but that's something to consider- half the battle, won."

"It may be too late." Garrett says. "We need to call the police on him-" Shiloh's fur raises at this, "Or something. Whatever we do, we need to consider civilians. These people didn't choose to save the world. We can't decide for them, and if that means handing the Diosite over, that's better than letting people I care about- people all of you care about- d-die."

"What do you mean by too late? We have a month." I ask, eager to avert conversation from the inevitable end of every road.

"We have less than a month. We will continue to have less and less time unless we get back in there quick." Karen says. "It's simple. Choose a date. Let's go."

I bite my lip. "We had him that time, but I don't know if we should rush right back in. Plus... I have to say I'm not feeling great about this either. Karen, how's the technokinesis coming?"

Karen's eyes widen. "I could hack county systems. Warn them anonymously about a potential water filtration hazard... tell them to be on their guard for various biological poisons."

"Perfect." I say. "Do you think you can do some research into the disappearing people as well? We still don't know if Ignatius is behind it or not. I don't know what he'd be doing with humans..."

Amanda seizes up. "Will, you need to watch more anime. You are sorely lacking in imagination over there."

"Plant zombies." agrees Garrett. "Human-plant hybrids. He might be murdering people-"

"Missing. Not dead." Karen says.

"But-"

"Please give me this." Karen whispers, placing her head in her hands. "Please."

An uneasy silence fills the room.

"Does anyone feel helpless?" she asks. "I know I've been abrasive, or at least a little touchy, and I know all of you seem to think I'm too impulsive, but please, can someone else say they feel a little bit scared?"

Garrett's hand trembles, but does not move. Amanda's eyes are dark and vaguely sad, but it's all pity with her.

I don't know what to feel anymore, or how much of my emotions are mine, and nothing I can say would work well enough-- whatever Shiloh says, I can't help but feel like I've burned this bridge. Karen crosses her arms, staring blankly at the ground, and Shiloh watches us all with his wide purple eyes. Amanda begins to sweep the bottom of her quart.

"How did you clean that out so fast?" asks Garrett, slamming both hands against the floor. The tension breaks like a phone screen, cutting a dark line across the silence.

"It's one of my many talents, honed through five years of binge watching on the basement couch." Amanda slides the container away, a smile returning to her face. "Strawberry also so happens to be delicious. It's like chocolate and vanilla's cooler older cousin."

Karen stands. "Are you guys even taking this seriously?"

Garrett places a hand on her shoulder. "Karen. I'm constantly on edge. Save for Amanda, we're all constantly on edge."

"Guilty," Amanda says.

"I know we can't put this off forever, but if it's going to be this hard to talk about it, maybe we should just take the day off? We have enough days to go in there at least twenty times earlier, and we'll be fighting him at half power." Garrett say, even though 'half' doesn't mean a thing when we have no clue what his full capacity is. "Just... try to relax, okay?"

"Oh yeah." Amanda says. "No lie? This is depressing. I was just happy to be with you guys for a day. We make a good team, but for now, let's go make a good team on Mario Kart."

"Mario Kart is a competitive game." Karen argues.

Amanda laughs. "Oh, you've never experienced the wonder of team battles..."

"I'm in." Garrett says, ice cream in hand.

Something catches my eye on the corner of my vision. Shiloh's eyes stare deep into my own, his dark irises glinting. It's as if an invisible hand has a tight grip on my throat, but the feeling mingles with my own curiosity. "Give me five minutes."

"Rosenbloom." Karen says, though her complaint is weak.

"Look, I promise I'm not hiding anything this time. I just need to... I'll talk to you later. Please."

Karen shrugs it off, emotion brewing behind her mask, and Amanda nods. She takes the other two out, leaving me alone with Shiloh, whose wide-eye gaze turns back to me with an almost mechanical turn of his head.

"They have a lot of reasons not to trust me. I've been super shifty lately." I sigh.

"Which is why you no longer trust me."

I open my mouth, drinking in the silence.

"I don't want to frighten you, because I know my behavior has put a distance between us, and I know you're about to ask me about how... 'screwed' you really are. I can't sit here for hours with you, nor should I, but I am willing to give you three questions, which I will answer entirely honesty. It's as much as you need- and I'll spare no detail."

"Full disclosure." I whisper.

"Absolutely."

"Anything?"

"There is nothing I would not trust you with, Will."

I tense my face up, overwhelmed, and steady my shaking hands on my shield. I have to be efficient about this. I have to be smart. I need... I need to get over myself, if just for a second. Alright. "First question. Are there more of you out there?"

Shiloh's ears lower, and he turns his face. "There are indeed. They are so far from each other that you could walk the Veins your whole lifetime and not find another... at least in theory. Our world wraps around yours in a higher dimension, a shape incomprehensible by the human mind. The Veins itself is a living organism that manifests as this higher plane, and cherubs are protectors of that domain, spawned from Diosite itself. On occasion, our world leaks through to yours, as you can see in the portals, but also in the crystals. The Diosite Ignatius has is similar to... an egg, so to speak. It will emerge into a cherub in time."

"Who'll go on to order more children against another force trying to destroy our world, which is in danger because of you in the first place?" I hate that my voice rises as I say it. Shiloh's eyes widen, as if he's searching for a better answer himself.

He hangs his head. "I know this may seem selfish, even disgusting to you, but I am honest when I tell you that it is a mutualistic relationship. If your worlds were to tear apart from each other, the portals would destroy us both."

That's a dead end. "Second. How much did we really do by pulling out that Diosite shard?"

"Enough to drag out that 'deadline' more than you think. Ignatius is not going to be able to force his way into the water main, nor will he try, given circumstances. It's an empty threat. Perhaps not an idle one, and he may attempt something else, but you've done more than you know."

I sigh with relief. "One last question." I close my eyes, in awe of how much information I'm giving up. It still astounds me how bad I am at this, but if I don't ask, it is going to kill me. I

bite my lip. Don't ask. It's selfish. Don't ask. It's petty. I'm already thinking of all the better ways to use it, all the better ways to be a leader, but I ask anyways, "Why did you choose me?"

"You act as if that's a question. You're more powerful than you know, but sparing that, don't you see how much they already confide in you? There is no greater indicator of success than how far you've already come as a unit. Will, don't you understand that you are loved?"

---

I appear in the basement, my fingers clutching the frame of the door, and I wipe back tears. Garrett pauses, looking back, and Amanda throws her arm around the couch. Karen shoots me with a well? kind of stare, and I follow it with a smile.

"Hey." I say, unable to keep myself from welling up with a quiet, unexpected joy, because Shiloh is right- I can practically see it in their eyes. We're a team now, and this is all the family I've never had. "Sorry for the wait. I know you guys are a little tense right now, and I know you don't entirely trust Shiloh, but I figured I could ask him about some... technicalities. Anyways, I've got some great news..."