^^ carson's pov >>

Getting down the slope to the cave was... dangerous.

That's why I was immensely thankful for my wings as I unfurled them carefully and soared down the rocks. Curses from a certain high-pitched feminine voice followed me, but as I swooped and spun, I cared less and less. No, this wasn't the side effect talking. Flying was simply... indescribably vivacious and exhilarating.

I touched down on the outcrop in front of the cave highly ungracefully, scraping at the rock with my hands and feet in an attempt to stay on. It was thinner than it looked and difficult to find a foothold. Luckily, I was down before the others and called back up to them to just stay on top. I'd grab the wallets, etc. and bring them to the top of the slope. It would be far faster than having all of them make their way down here and then have to go up again.

The water bottles, note, and the wallets crammed with our cash sat in the same place we had left them. I gathered them into my arms and made for the exit. Before I left I noticed something painted on the wall. Something I hadn't noticed before.

You have three hours to get where you are going. Let's move this along. XOXO

The paint was still wet; it dripped down the wall like goo, oozing slowly and falling to the ground in large clumps. That guy was here recently. It sent shivers down my spine. Was he still here? I glanced around the cave, inspecting every corner with fearful eyes. Nothing. I was alone. Sighing with relief, I clutched the items in my hand to make sure all of them were still there and flew back up to the clifftop. Dakota and Rhiannon were waiting for me. "Where's Delilah and Parker?" I inquired, folding my wings in so I could brush them. The way I could feel through them would never get old.

"They're making up. And by making up I mean making out." Rhiannon stated blandly from where she leaned against a cell tower.

A cell tower. Our phones! I felt like an idiot. I had never been super attached to my phone, so that (mostly) explained why I hadn't remembered by now, but why hadn't the others?

I frantically searched my pockets and found nothing. Duh. These weren't my clothes. Hope building, I dug through the pockets of my old clothes and found...

Nothing. Again. I yelled to the pair around me to do the same and both of them gave me the "you're crazy" look. "You didn't check your pockets until just now?" Dakota asked hesitantly.

"I've been a little busy," I snapped. Embarrassment flooded my chest and I looked away. I should have exhausted all options from the start, and now all I had was crushed hopes and a wounded ego.

"Whatever. Let's get a move on." Surprisingly enough, it was Rhiannon who ended the argument. She had been an instigator since I met her, even if that wasn't long ago at all. With effort, I ignored the tantalizing urge to test her patience and decided to instead continue down the path. It was an unspoken agreement that the girl with the beanie would take the lead for now. Even if we didn't trust her completely, there was no arguing that she knew her way around. "This was my group's final destination," she had said. In other words, we'd be traveling. How I wasn't sure, but it was a given that we wouldn't be in Henderson for our entire stay here.

"Are we there yet?" Delilah whined from the middle of the clump. She refused to walk in the back, where she could be snuck up on (Rhiannon not-so-casually mentioned Henderson's high crime rate before we began walking), or in the front, where she'd have any sort of responsibility. And despite picking the safest spot in the group, she still wasn't satisfied. "It's too hot. Does anyone have a fan or something?"

I wished that I liked someone in our band of freaks to exchange an exasperated glance with, but alas, they were all either terrible human beings or confusing to the point that I'd rather avoid them altogether. However, even with our differences, no one could argue against the fact that there was safety in numbers, so we didn't separate from our strange little formation and kept an eye on everyone rather than just ourselves.

"No, Miss Perfect. Is there anything else I can do for you?" Rhiannon said in a voice almost as high pitched as Delilah's.

"Ugh, you're all useless," she complained loudly. "Are we there yet?"

"Oh my god, shut up already!" Dakota snapped. Parker moved closer to the female as her bottom lip quivered. A few seconds later she burst into tears.

"This is like traveling with a toddler," I groaned. Her sobs only increased in volume. The whole group glared at me in unison. All I did was speak what they were thinking. What was wrong with that?

Rhiannon stopped suddenly. We had come to a road sign. I barely stopped myself from running into her. Delilah smashed into my back because she wasn't looking where she was going. "Oh my god, my face!" She screamed.

"Don't worry, it's still there," the older female commented dryly. "Anyway, our first stop is a few minutes of walking away." She turned to me. "Want to go scope it out?"

I blinked. "Why me?" Oh, wait. "Nevermind." Glancing around, I saw that this area of Henderson was barren. Empty. With only a little bit of hesitation, I unfurled my wings and took a running start to the sky.

The clouds glistened in the sunlight as I soared through the air. The world below me was passing too fast and I couldn't get a clear image, so I circled slower. A large garden caught my eye. There didn't seem to be anything special about it. Just another tourist trap, probably.

But- wait. This garden was a... a cactus garden? Were these things common in Henderson? Or was there something more to it? Probably- no, hopefully- the latter. I descended to get a better look but stopped midway. It would probably be better to go back to the others and report what I had seen.

Had I seen anything yet, though? Surely it wouldn't hurt to walk around a little bit. After all, the writing on the wall told us that we only had three hours, right? We had to be at about that limit. I could just go in for a few minutes and make sure there weren't any alarms or anything. Afterward, I'd go right back.

I descended fully into the garden. It wasn't exactly a hedge-filled maze filled with intricate designs; it was more like a walkway lined with a few different kinds of cacti. If Henderson was known for its cacti gardens, this couldn't have been one of the most well-known. My feet sunk into the dry, sandy ground and I felt suddenly wary. My wings were left open in case I had to make a quick getaway. Shoulders tense and eyes widened against the cold, I took a few steps in the direction that looked the least eerie. Something in my head told me to pause. A large cactus was in front of me. It looked as normal as cactus can, except for its size. Upon closer inspection, a scrap of paper was impaled on a needle.

Congratulations,
You've solved an easy clue.
This one should be harder for you.
Grim's Charnel House is a place without fortune
Those who come here are usually orphans
It's a shady place, I'll have to admit
Nevertheless, I'll see you in a bit.

You have until tomorrow at five o' clock in the evening. I suggest getting a watch.

- J.K.O.

Wow. Those rhymes were terrible. I should probably have gone back to report by now, but I wanted a closer look at the-

"Carson? Carson?" A whisper came from behind me, and I whipped around, startled.

"What?!"

"Really? You left us there waiting for you! You said you were just doing a flyby!" Dakota stomped into my view. No one else followed him, so I assumed they had stayed behind.

"Oh." I kicked a pebble. "Oops."

"There's no oops right now! We need to work together. This isn't The Carson Show, this is The Freaks Show. Plural. Whether you like it or not, we're all just as messed up and abandoned as you are, so we may as well be messed up and abandoned together."

"It was an accident, okay? I'm not too used to working with other people. Not since..." I paused. He didn't have to know my life story (even if I knew his). "Never mind. Forget I said anything. Let's just get out of here and get back to the others. I found the clue, but we might have to look for something else because it doesn't make any sense to me."

If Dakota saw the quick topic change, he didn't acknowledge it. "Fine." We began to make our way through the cactus garden, back the way he had come. I found myself bumping into things as I walked; the wings that protruded from my spine were so new that it was hard to account for their size as I avoided objects in my way. It was too cramped for me to take off, and there wasn't much of a breeze to assist me, so I was forced to be grounded. For now.

"Huh. I thought I'd be at the exit by now. It seems like it's taking us way longer to get out of here than it took me to walk inside." Dakota's eyes narrowed as they darted around the vast expanse of desert plants.

"Use your 'extraordinary senses', stupid."

"Oh. Right." He paused. "Uh, how do I do that again?"

"It's your power! How would I know?" I rolled my eyes and drew circles in the sandy ground with one foot.

"Oh. Uh, yeah. Of course, I know how to do this."

"Clearly you don't. Haven't you used either of your powers yet?"

His gaze softened and he looked at the ground. "I've been, well... a little bit scared to try them out. You and Parker have both had these really weird, really terrifying side effects that make me seriously nervous to try out my powers."

"That's understandable." I put my hand on his shoulder, and he winced, but he didn't take it off. "We've got to do everything we can to get out of this terrible situation and get our lives back to normal. And that includes dealing with a little bit of discomfort."

"Fine." He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and I took a step back. There was utter silence for about a minute or so. Just... nothing. The birds were silent, the air was dead, and you couldn't hear a single bush rustling. I opened my mouth and tried to talk to him, but I couldn't hear anything come out. Sweat poured down the sides of Dakota's face, and he looked like he was in agony. I tried to shout his name, and even though I couldn't hear anything, his eyes popped open and he crouched down to the ground, quivering with pain. Could he hear me even though I couldn't hear myself? I put my hand on his shoulder again and did my best to do any sort of calming gestures.

"Dakota," I said, even though no sound came out of my throat. "You need to calm down. Stop concentrating. Think about things that you love, and people that you need to see again. We can get through this, but we need you to clear your mind and stop listening."

I could hear the last few words I said to him, and it felt amazing to live in a world with sound once more. The boy in front of me collapsed to the ground, shaking. His eyes were wide and his face was so pale that he looked like he hadn't seen the sun in years. "I heard the direction they're in. We were a little bit off," he whispered.

"What just happened, Dakota?" I asked. I wasn't going to let this slide. It was too monumental of an experience to just forget.

"Lots of sounds," he groaned. "Too loud."

"Very descriptive," I muttered, helping him to his feet. He was still a little wobbly but he was doing much better than he was before. "You can explain exactly what happened when we're out of this place and we find the others." As much as I wanted to know what the hell just happened, it was important that he recovered and that we were able to find them before it got any hotter. I took my sweatshirt off and tied it around my waist. The shirt beneath it had sweat stains from being under a long sleeve sweatshirt in 100-degree weather, but looks weren't really a concern at this point.

I could hear voices up ahead, so I ran in front of Dakota and essentially left him in the dust. "Hey!" I shouted. "Over here!"

"What the hell, dude? What took you guys so long?" Rhiannon demanded. Delilah visibly flinched when the older girl "cursed". "Oh, sorry, Princess. Didn't know a word could sting so bad."

"It's just like you to be that stupid," she retorted, sniffing loudly.

Rhiannon rolled her eyes and turned back to me. "What'd you find in there? And where's Dakota?"

"Side effects," I sighed. "We got lost and he tried to use his senses to find you guys. His powers work so that he takes all the sound out of the world and he hears all of it. I tried to speak, and nothing came out, but he somehow curled up into a tighter ball on the ground. Did you guys stop hearing things for a minute or so?"

"We weren't even talking, so I barely noticed a difference. Princess over here says she's not supposed to talk to strangers."

"But... she's talked to you before?"

"Don't ask me!" Rhiannon threw her hands up in defeat. "This chick's crazy."

"Am not!" Delilah yelled. "And calling me Princess is a compliment, so ha!"

The older girl hid her face with one hand and mouthed see what I mean? I covered my mouth to stop Delilah from seeing the giggle that erupted. Oops. We were getting seriously off topic.

I coughed. "Anyway. Follow me. Dakota shouldn't be too far behind us. Or, I guess, ahead of us, in this case."

Sure enough, about thirty seconds into our walk, Dakota appeared. He was still holding his head with one hand and grabbing the wooden fence next to him with another. "Oh, hey guys," he croaked. "I kind of just soaked up all the sound within a certain radius. Pretty sure I could hear, like, all of Henderson for a second there."

"Carson already told us. She said you clung to her and cried like a baby. Then she whispered that she loved you and you guys kissed." Rhiannon smirked as we both turned bright red.

"I did not cling to her or cry like a baby!"

"And I definitely didn't tell him I loved him," I added with a shudder. Half the time he looked like he wanted to kill me, and I definitely wasn't interested in someone with emotions that unstable.

"Whatever you say," she responded with a wink.

"Are you always this annoying?" I asked.

"Actually, I'm on my best behavior right now."

I almost slammed right into the large cactus that I had discovered the note on earlier, and I would have been in a world of hurt if Parker hadn't pulled me backwards. "Thanks," I told him, breathing hard from the shock of almost impaling myself on a plant.

"No problem." He nodded, and I searched his face warily. What was up with him lately? Surely he couldn't still be upset over Delilah's three second rejection of him?

"Here's the note." I carefully removed it from the needle and passed it around our weird little group. Each person took a look at it and just looked confused, except for Rhiannon. She read it and rolled her eyes.

"It's like he's been copy-pasting these notes from my group's time in Henderson." She indicated toward the words "Grim's Charnel House" on the paper. "That's means graveyard. Every single thing in this note is pointing to a graveyard. Frequented by orphans? Graveyard. "Shady place"? Graveyard. My group figured this out in about three seconds flat."

"Oh." It did make sense. "Well, there's got to be forty or fifty graveyards in Henderson. How do we find the one he's talking about?"

"I have an idea," Parker spat, suddenly speaking up for the first time in a while. "Why don't we stop following this guy's stupid tests and games and get back to our normal lives?"

We all sat in stunned silence.

"What? Haven't you thought of that before?" The boy huffed and walked in the other direction. "I'm out of here."

"Not a good idea, Parker," Rhiannon warned. "You don't know who you're messing with here. You're in for a world of trouble if you leave Henderson before he tells you to."

"I've got freakily powerful water powers, in case you forgot," he retorted sharply. "I think I can take him."

"Then you're in idiot," she responded calmly. "When you use your 'powerful water powers', you try to drown yourself. Without someone to back you up, you'd be powerless, and you'd most likely die."

"No one would miss me anyway," he muttered, but his pace slowed.

"Here comes the sob story," the girl groaned.

"C'mon, Parker," I coaxed. "Even if we got back to our families, we'd still have these powers. We need to follow through with this so we can force this guy to get rid of our powers for good and we can go back to our normal lives."

"Fine." He rolled his eyes and slowly walked back over to our group. "What's next?"

"I think Rhiannon knows where we're headed to next, right?"

She nodded. "Like I said before, he's literally copy-pasting this note from my group's time in Henderson. Hopefully, the locations are the same as well."

"Then there we go." I looked around at my group of friends. Dakota, still hunched over in pain; Delilah, clinging on to Parker, whining about how much she thought he was going to go away for good; Parker, probably feeling like someone would care if he died a horrible death; Rhiannon, adjusting her beanie and picking at her fingernails... we were truly an odd group. And now, we were going to have to work together to solve these puzzles.

I smiled softly. Working with them didn't seem like as much of a challenge as it had before. In fact, it'd probably be something I'd remember for a long, long time.

Wow wow wow. It's been a long time, hasn't it? I hope you enjoyed this chapter nevertheless. It's just over 3,200 words!! Biggest chapter so far. I'd say that's why it took so long to come out, but... I'd be partially lying.

What do you think is going to happen next?