"And you waited until now to tell us this?" Carter howled.

Sawyer put a hand on his forehead. "I was trying to protect you."

"Protect us from what?" Atlas demanded. "Knowing about the crazy people who want us dead? Surviving?"

"Okay, fine, I wasn't protecting you," Sawyer said. "I was preserving you. Preserving your happiness. I thought you deserved to enjoy it for more than a few days."

Ivy put her head in her hands and hunched over the table they were all sitting around, ready to drown this whole conversation out. She'd heard yelling before. In fact, she'd heard it often. Usually it was directed at her. But just when she'd started to let herself believe that she'd found a safe spot, the yelling had followed her here.

Lucy, who was sitting next to her, reached out a hand to place on Ivy's shoulder. The girls smiled at each other feebly.

"Well, Sawyer, I'm gonna be honest with you," Alvira said, surprisingly calmly. "I'd rather be bored and alive than dead."

"I know..." Sawyer rubbed his temples. "I should have told you. I'm sorry."

"But I thought you said you weren't sure you saw him?" Madison asked.

"You knew about this?" Seb whirled on her. "He told you about this?"

"He told me he wasn't sure what he saw," Mads replied. "And okay, I admit it's all a little suspicious, but let's go over the evidence here."

"Evidence?" Atlas threw his hands up, a confused look on his face. "You guys just told me there's an underground evil CIA out there who want to murder me for my powers and we're not even going to talk about that?"

"They don't want to murder you," Luke corrected him. "They just watch to capture you."

"Wow," Atlas said. "I feel so much better. No need for concern anymore. Thank you."

"No, no, Mads is right," Carter said. "If Sawyer thinks something's going on, let's hear everything he has to say."

"Well, I've pretty much said it all," Sawyer said. "I saw Morrison in town, and now a camera right next to the lake house."

"You thought you saw Morrison," Lucy corrected him again.

"Yeah."

"Not an overwhelming amount of evidence," Alvira muttered. "Okay, the most convincing bit of that would be Morrison... have you ever thought you saw him before and you didn't?"

Sawyer nodded. "Loads of times. But not for a while."

"So you hallucinating him is a regular occurrence, then," Luke said, looking at Sawyer dubiously.

"Look, I know I probably seem like a paranoid freak right now, but-"

"Yes, you do," Seb said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. "Look, even if you're right, and this is VOID, what do you want to do about it? Move away? Not all of us can just pack up and go. None of us, actually, can really do that."

"I don't know," Sawyer admitted. "But I figured we shouldn't be staying out here in the middle of the woods with no real adults or ways to defend ourselves if we are attacked."

"Attacked?" Atlas cried. "They can attack us? Is no one really going to give me a minute to process this?"

"But consider," Luke raised, ignoring Atlas, "If we do pack up and leave the lake house, and we are being watched, wouldn't that just confirm our guilt in VOID's eyes? I mean, if we run right after seeing the camera, we might as well hold up a sign saying in all caps, 'We are Aviads! And also children! Come stalk and assault us!'"

"So you think we should stay?" Ivy piped up. She hadn't wanted to contribute to this discussion much. Everyone seemed very hostile and she didn't want them to turn on her the way they were all turning on each other. But she had to say something. "Don't you want to check out the camera first?"

"What do you mean, check out the camera?" Lucy asked.

"Well," Ivy said, "If it is here to monitor animal life, won't it have a brand or something on it marking it as Wildlife Services property? That's something we can check."

"The camera's already seen me," Sawyer said, "And VOID already knows what I am. If that camera sees one of you with me, they'll make the connection instantly. I don't want to take that risk."

"That's assuming it's VOID at all," Carter pointed out.

"We can sneak up behind it," Seb suggested. "We know where it is and what direction it faces. If we're careful, we can avoid being in its line of sight at all."

"I move we go check it out," Alvira said. "We shouldn't make any rash decisions until we know what the camera is there for."

"I guess we're really just going to gloss over the fact that I'm learning this all for the first time," Atlas mumbled. "My entire life just got upended in, like, two days. I feel like Harry Potter."

Ivy had a vague idea of who Harry Potter was, but even though she didn't know exactly what Atlas meant, she could relate. She'd learned of her Aviad-ness so recently, it was all feeling very much like a dream. It was hard enough to finally realize that she had wings, real wings that she could fly with. Now there was an entire organization of people who wanted to use her for something she'd only just discovered about herself. And they were potentially right at her doorstep.

It was definitely a lot.

"Okay, fine," Sawyer relented. "We can go check the camera out. But carefully."

✵✵✵

The whole group shuffled into the woods very quietly, all of them noticeably glancing at the surrounding trees as if a TAC team was about to pop out and tranquilize them all. Sabine could honestly say that she was not terribly frightened. Sawyer was known to be paranoid and easily spooked, and the proof was far from indisputable. The town they lived in was barely noticeable, and no one outside of its inhabitants had really ever heard of it. It wasn't even on Google Maps. So what were the chances that an underground society with limited resources would have been able to track one guy, one super rich and generic-looking guy, all the way there from one of the most densely populated cities in the country? Not very high.

Besides, they had just come out for a much-needed vacation. New people were just starting to get the hang of their powers. Ivy in particular didn't deserve to be dragged away from the freedom she'd just discovered. Seb understood the risks, but the fact was that they just didn't seem that high to her.

She did have one concern, though, and it had nothing to do with the camera. At their little round table meeting, while Sawyer came clean about everything he'd been imagining over the past few days, Seb had wondered if she should tell him about the suspected Dualiad she and Mads had run into. He hadn't popped up again since then. Mads hadn't mentioned him. Seb was half sure she'd imagined the whole thing. However, she could still so clearly remember the feeling of his cold hands clamping around her arm. It had felt like one of those things you checked blood pressure with: Borderline painful. And that was how she knew it was real.

But she hadn't said anything. She didn't want to scare Sawyer even more, and honestly, she had about as much proof as he did, that being close to none. Until she had something more solid to come to the group with, she would wait before scaring them senseless. The new folks were barely grasping wings, then VOID was sprung on them. They didn't need to know about Dualiads yet.

Sawyer led them into the woods, everyone following him like ducklings on a mission. Luke was dramatically tiptoeing as loudly as possible and Seb was pretty sure Carter was humming the Mission Impossible theme under his breath.

"Okay, it's over here," Sawyer whispered. He pointed to the trees in front of him.

"Which tree?" Madison whispered back.

"That one, I think." Sawyer pointed again.

"I can't tell what you're pointing at," Lucy said softly. "Describe it."

Sawyer gave her a dry look. "Oh, yeah, sure. It's tall. It has bark. And leaves."

"You're incredibly helpful," Lucy said.

"Why are you whispering?" Carter asked. "If the camera's as small as you say it is, there's no way there's room for a microphone that actually works. Besides, we already made enough noise tromping over here."

"We're not very good at this sneaking stuff, are we?" Atlas asked.

"Let's just grab the camera," Alvira suggested. She marched up to a tree directly in front of them and peeked around it. "I found it." She reached out and scrunched her face up as she pulled on something. "I got it."

The rest of the group was on her like hounds, trying to get a look at the camera. Alvira had put one finger over the lens so that it couldn't see any of them, and she held it up for them to see.

There was a clear 'Port Baile Wildlife' marking on the bottom side of the square device, stamped on in faded white paint.

"So it's not VOID," Seb said. "As I suspected."

"I was so sure," Sawyer muttered.

"Hey, we all make mistakes," Luke said, putting an arm over Sawyer's shoulders and giving him a little shake. "Let's just be glad you were wrong."

"And let's go swimming instead!" Carter suggested. "I'm hot! And ready to splash some fools!"

"You'll be the one getting splashed," Luke promised, and the two ran off together, occasionally grabbing dead leaves off the ground to throw weakly in the other's direction.

"They're probably right," Sawyer said to Sabine as the rest of them walked after Luke and Carter. "I'm just being crazy."

"Nothing new there," Seb said.

"Still... I was so sure."

"Look, if it really makes you feel better, I'll try to keep an eye out too. But until we get more proof, I think we're avoiding suspicion just by going about our day like we would," Sabine explained. "Safe until proven unsafe, right?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. Right."

"Good," Seb said. "Now, I'm going to go change into a swimsuit so I can show Luke and Carter who the real splashing champion is. I think this matter is settled."

A/N: Hey, so... I know it's been nearly a year since I updated this last. But! I promised you guys I would finish this! So I will! No matter how long it takes!

Chapters of this book are so much shorter than my other ones... This one's only like 2000 words... so, uh, sorry if this felt short, and hopefully more will be coming soon (but probably not, I've got a lot on my plate guys :/). If you're still around to be reading this, well, it is appreciated. Let me know what you thought of the first update in literally nine months! Thanks!