The last five days have been nothing but humming noise and an onslaught of questions I don't feel like answering.

Was I at the scene. No.

Do I know where the event occurred. Also no.

Am I aware that one of my hairs was found on the victim, as well as some tear fluid? Yes. There should be. We made out. Tell me when you find the saliva too.

I look at them dead in the face and wait until they run out of people to ask me stupid questions, which is great. Lying doesn't exhaust my energy all that much, but talking definitely does.

I swivel around in the kitchen to see red lighting leering back at me. 4:00.

Four AM missions. Fuck. Can't go back in there. Can't do it. It's all over. Fuck.

I know who's waiting for me when I fall asleep, so that's out of the question. Instead, I take a long sip of coffee, letting it light up my every nerve, and settle into the couch. I let memory flick through my mind until the pain kicks in, bitterness dark as the empty house holding me by the legs. It brings me a little closer to her. I need to be close to her. Sometimes I think she already might be fading, in small ways- her eye color is hazy, like someone has blurred them out, and I'm forgetting conversations we had months ago. I deleted the group chat a few times a month in case worst came to worst, including the side chat for the three of us, and now I scroll up and hit the top bumper again and again, as if the loading spiral will open up into some cosmic answer.

The tears roll down my cheeks, over my still face, and I try to remember how to breathe. I cry until I remember how to feel human.

---

"We'll need an alibi."

"Don't make it look like a suicide. Please. You'll kill her family. You'll kill me."

"Car crash?"

"Those are puncture wounds."

"I can fix that."

"Could you..."

"No. This is a glamour. What you're suggesting is a far darker magic. As far as I know, no one can do that."

"Where's Evan?" I ask, suddenly.

"What's wrong with you?" asks Serena.

Reality takes a large bite out of my head as the memories crop back up under the stress. I'm having tunnel vision. None of that could have happened. Evan wouldn't kill Megan. Evan is going to come in at any moment more distraught than I am. He is going to need a shoulder to cry on. He can come stay at my house. I can't give up if he's still out there, so I force myself upwards, duty combined with insubordinate love fixing my body.

He never comes, of course, but I think he saves me.

---

"Evan."

His eyes glow like those of a cat. He's little more than a silhouette in the haze, but I know that curly hair, those clutched fists, and a more rational part of me knows to fear that uneasy gait with which he approaches, which begins with him dragging himself forwards before breaking into a full run.

He's in the Veins.

I'm breathing so fast that my throat hurts. I feel Anthem draw my sword for me, and we clash in the hallway. I parry him with the side of my blade, guarding my chest, but it's tedious, and he's so much faster than me. Every single strike is precise, if chaotic, and he's going for my vitals. I can't counter him. My body hurts already, fear and adrenaline coating a growing weariness. Fighting him is like holding on to a ledge, your whole body getting ready to give, and he knows it. Whatever's still left in there knows it has me. He flicks his hands open, gauntlet-like claws glimmering on each finger, and leaps to the side. I dodge a burning hand, falling against the wall, and I can feel the warm, flesh-like texture even beneath my thick costume.

"Evan." His hands are shaking, a movement so slight I can only perceive him when he's inches away. "I... I can't die yet. They need me." I don't know who I'm talking to anymore. I'm rambling to him now, deliriously gushing under my breath, and I have no clue what I'm even saying. I can barely form words.

His clenched fist hits the wall right next to my head. I can hear his breathing.

"Are you... are you there?"

He draws back and I knee him in the gut hard as I can. I catch a glimpse of him on the floor, in fetal position. One furious brown eye shines from beneath his dark hair, through his hands, glimmering with unrestrained malice. 

I bolt for it and the Veins swallow me whole. I don't know if I'm hallucinating the sound of steps behind me but I keep running. I'm still moving after he couldn't conceivably still be on my tail. I put a hand against the wall, steadying myself. My clothes smell like ash. I feel delirious.

I don't bother going back to the lair, as I had originally intended. Instead, I step into the outside, into the light of dawn, and realize I'm at the forest near his house, by total accident. The air is familiar, rife with the scents of early spring and the feel of the decaying leaves beneath my now bare feet. I don't want to go back to the house. I can't go to school. I really can not go back to that house. Everyone is watching me. Evan is going to kill me. Evan is going to kill all of us.

The portal I exited through is behind me, watching. The ruptures are everywhere. 

---

Megan is half-there throughout my day, like an afterimage. I see her on the corner of my vision and turn to reveal the hallways, full of people I don't know. I get a few sympathy pats, at least on the first day, and I don't stop them even though I want nothing less in the world than to be touched. Other people tell me they're sorry about my 'girlfriend' and I have this sudden rush, followed by more aching pain. Some of the Naval Brigade girls are less sympathetic. I think I catch one of them pointing at me, whispering something about 'his fault' or 'typical male behavior', and the other responds with something equally bitchy. Truth be told, given our cover-up story, I'd blame me too, but that doesn't stop me from hating all of them.

My hands shake when I remember laying her in the street near a highway, approximating something Anthem assures us will work, I think I vaguely remember Serena, but all of it is almost impossibly hazy, like a memory from well over ten years ago. All I can remember is still-warm flesh and an oppressive, unseasonal heat no matter where I went, accompanied with a feeling in my chest like Evan had ripped out my innards instead.

He doesn't come to gym, but he's in the hallway as we move to the last class of the day. I avoid eye contact, in fact, I try to avoid being in his field of vision. My heart burns with emotions I didn't know I had in me, including irrational fear- he couldn't kill me here. He just couldn't.

A flash of blonde eclipses my vision.

"Fuck you!" Serena yells, sprinting down the hallway.

Evan stops, like a deer in headlights, and then bolts around the corner faster than he ever could as Onyx. With a near supernatural bound, he jumps the stairs, and I grab Serena by the arm. I'm gone as well when the teachers come to pull her off to counselling, and from within the crowd of people I'm praying don't tell/do tell back and forth with every inhale and exhale, until I'm convinced that there's no difference and that I'm going stark crazy.

I live out the rest of the day and head to the Veins. The air there makes me sick now, and the lair is too swollen with memory to be anything but painful. Anthem curls in a bed atop one of the shelves, ears flattened against her side, and she opens both golden eyes when I approach. "It's been too long," she says. "They are growing in number."

"It's been five days." I respond, slumping into a chair.

"I am aware. I am also aware you are concerned about the fate of your remaining companions, as well as yourself. Rest assured you still possess the capacity to defeat the Sanguine Delegation."

My fingers tighten around the edge of the chair. "You could stand to be a little more concerned. Megan is dead because of you. Evan probably... probably wishes he was."

"I can sense his presence whenever he transforms at their whim." Anthem lifts her ears, straightening her posture. "The mind control he is currently writhing against is even more powerful than any grip I may have on him, but I can confirm this statement."

The callous indifference in her voice finally sets me off. Bolting upright, I cry, "Why are you doing this to us?"

She recognizes the real question before I do. "There is a methodology to how we choose people, us cherubs. Teenagers are naturally predisposed to believe they are... how would you say it? Important. They are old enough to handle themselves, young enough to believe, and their minds are full of hormones we can use for reins if things get tough. However, within this group

there are always two kinds of candidates: of people who have craved this lifestyle since they were young and people so empty that they crave anything worth doing. There is a common thread between these groups- they are easy to hold, once you have the proper tools, and easy to take."

"You're fucking sick." Bile rises in my throat, commingling with my fear into a disgusting sensation that courses through my body.

"There is a short story up in one of those shelves, Adam, about a city of light, powered entirely on the suffering of one human being. As long as that one person endures the weight of the world, the rest of the world lives." Anthem blinks. "It is a beautiful place. Can you imagine how many would be miserable had they not devised such a solution? Do you think those innocents deserve to suffer any more than the one?"

"So we're a sacrifice. You traumatize a few kids, if you lose a few, no big deal!" I scream, the words ringing through my own head.

"Human agony is unavoidable. I am facilitating the most opportune path. If you were in the same situation, I have no doubt you would be no kinder... our kind are manipulators, willing to tear down and step on anyone who happens to be in our way-" her gold eyes squint, her pupils dilated to slits, and I know who she's talking about. I hate her. I hate her more than I thought my wretched body had the capacity to hate. "but more importantly, we are both empty. Your lovers were the only thing that made your own body liveable, and that is why you will not tell the others, nor will you quit. You'll play with them too, out of necessity... if you do not believe me, they are entering now."

Serena enters with Harper, who is wrapped so tight in her cloak that it looks like it might be cutting off her circulation. Serena's outfit has changed slightly, giving her a looser braid with two dark ribbons hanging from the end, while Harper's cloak is frayed about the ends. I've fixed myself up for the occasion as well- I have a red and blue gemstone on opposite sides of my claymore, as well as a long scratch running up the blade.

"I got lost." mumbles Harper, like she needs an excuse.

Anthem flicks an ear. I bend down. "It's fine."

A silence passes between us.

"We were so close." Serena mumbles. "That was the last room. We were so..."

"Is that all you can think about?" I ask, my breath dying before it can fill the labyrinthine space of the room.

"I'm thinking about it for them! We wouldn't be here- she would still be alive if we just had it over with... if..." Serena stops. Her eyes shut, and she runs her hands through the hair along her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left. I wish..." She stops again, her blue eyes wide and even afraid. Her hollow stare passes me, fixing Anthem, and I stand in the way.

"Do you want me to tell you that you didn't fuck up?" I ask. "Do you want me to tell you that it's fine because you feel bad about it, Ser? Because it's not fine. It really, really isn't."

"Adam, stop." Harper says. "I know you're hurting. We're all hurting. We can't start fighting, though. It's just the three of us against them, and the more time we spend arguing, the more powerful they're going to be. We can still do this together."

"Harper. I love you, so I don't want you to take this personally." Serena says, "This is out of our hands. We need to tell an adult. We have to get in contact with the po-" Her voice sputters out and she brings her hands up to her throat, then up to her head.

Anthem stares at her, mutinous.

"Get out. Get out of my head!" Serena cries.

"You did that to her," I whisper beneath my breath.

"Serena has a strong will. I respect that, but I'm afraid... there are also some ideas I can't entertain." Anthem responds, stepping down from her bed. Her eyes glint with a terrifying cruelty.

"Let her go. We'll do this... we don't have any other options." I look to both the girls, and my sword blazes forth in a shower of white light. Serena's eyes shoot open, hands still tense near her face. Her eyes are moist under the mask. Gruffly, I continue, "Let's make plans, then. I want this over."