***ALEX***

"Where the bloody hell have you been?"

"Hmm?" I snap myself out of the haze of lights and music, then focus until I see Fionna kneeling before me, waving her hands in front of my eyes.

"I've been trying to reach you for days! The fuck, Feathers? I'm out of my fucking mind here!"

"Jesus, where's the fire?"

She slaps my face, knocking me over and throwing the hood off my head when I hit the surface of the couch I'm sitting on. "This isn't funny!"

I sit up again, jamming my hood back into place before the noise overwhelms me again. "Goddammit, I dream up a club and I don't even give it good music."

Fionna draws back her hand, clearly ready to hit me again, but she pulls her punch. Weary, she falls forward, her head resting on the pleather next to my leg, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

"I'm sorry." I stroke her hair gently. "Fi, I...what happened?"

"More than I can understand. Whatever it was, it fucked Gabe up, and since I couldn't get ahold of you either..." She looks up, the tears still streaming down her face, but at least she's able to talk coherently. "I swear to God, I thought you'd died. But then you didn't show up in the Second, and none of us knew what to think..."

"Why'd you think I was dead?" I ask. "I mean, I came close once or twice, but still..."

She looks daggers at me all over again, her tears hardening to chips of ice in her eyes. I'm normally able to look in her eyes like I am with very few people, but not now. Not when she looks ready to hit me again. She's been picking up Gabe's attitude re: my emotional health. And ungrateful as it is, I find myself wondering why.

"So you dreamed up a club, you dreamed up all the lights and the shitty music..." Fionna mutters to herself. "Don't tell me you also dreamed yourself up drugs."

"Like what?"

"Ecstasy? Ritalin?"

"No, knowing me, I'd have aerosolized anti-anxiety pills and gotten high off that shit."

She finally gets back onto the couch, leaning against me. "Only do that in the proper dosage."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Not mine, but...there was an outbreak of OD's at Castledown a few years back. During exam time." Her head falls on my shoulder, allowing the streaks from her tears to dampen my hoodie. I almost feel them soaking down through my T-shirt. And my skin. I know they can't possibly reach through that many layers, but maybe by a combination of my water powers, and my feelings for Fionna...romantic feelings I haven't had for her for months, and yet they're making another comeback because my heart is a greedy bastard that wants what it can't have. I'm so confused - here I am getting occasionally sexual with Kelly, and I almost want to say I still love Fionna more. And they say sex is supposed to be the highest form of love, but obviously not. Even though, yes, I would have sex with Fionna if she asked.

Hey, I'm only seventeen. I'm not supposed to have all the answers yet.

"So what's going on out in the real world?" I ask after we've both spent a long moment observing the dancing clubbers. Unlike us, everyone's here for a fancy dress party. In easy visual range, there's an Elvis, a Teddy Sharpe and Bennett Caldwell (one day I'll convince my lady love to join me in this couples cosplay), and a pair of lobsters. Why not? And us, we're in our street clothes, but each with our own little twist to liven things up. She's got her hair mostly tied up in a bun, but with long, wavy ringlets dyed sparkly red. And me, I'm copying one of my favorite Guitar Hero outfits - the Well Protected pants, the ones with the spiky codpiece.

"The usual haps." Though she's still sniffling and coming down off her crying, at least Fionna's finally starting to crack wise again. "World breaking, shit exploding."

"What about Gabe? You said something was wrong with him."

"He...I don't know." She holds my hand tightly enough to cut off the circulation in my fingers. "I can't share dreams with him, so I can't just go in and ask every night. But...he's been pretty much in a coma for a few days."

"WHAT?" I jump off the couch, letting go of her hand. "What the hell? Why didn't you tell me?"

She jumps to her feet as well. "You were kinda busy not bloody listening!" Her angry expression softens, though, very quickly. "But...maybe that's why..."

"Why what?"

"Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have said 'coma,' 'cause that's not strictly speaking true...I mean, he gets up to use the bathroom and shit, literally, but every time he looks like he's turned into a goddamn zombie-"

I take her hand again until she stops chattering. "Fi. Tell me exactly what's happening."

"That's the point. We don't know." She looks down, the club lights falling on her hair as they shift from white to pink to start a love song. "Maybe you could shed some light on it, though."

"How?"

She looks up at the lights, allowing them to shine directly into her eyes for a moment. "We think you're doing the same as him."

I find myself standing still and blinking over and over like a reaction GIF. "What the...no. No, no, no, I'm not..." But my voice fades out when I start to finally realize that, in addition to the usual not remember when this dream started and feeling like I was just plopped into the middle of it Inception-style, I can't really remember anything since I fell asleep after that exhausting round of too many teleportations between here and San Jose. "Am I...whoa."

"You're getting it, aren't you?"

"But that's not..." I falter again. Is it impossible? Really? I've sleepwalked before. Off and on, now possibly on again. Only I ever had this problem. Gabe? Nope. Womb-mates or not, we don't sense anything and everything the other experiences at all times. It could be useful, knowing when one of us is in a bad place and needs help - to this day, I'm still convinced that I psychically sensed Gabe cutting himself the day he came out to me, and that's why I wound up imitating his action right after I found him. So, absolutely essential twin telepathy. But - and of course my guttery allosexual boy-brain goes here - how awkward would it be, one of us boning down with someone and the other one gets to feel it all up close and personal? Or even if one of us is jerking off. Yikes. Thank God that's never happened.

Then again, it's not like Gabe and I have zero connection. Since he died, we've shared dreams just like I have with Fionna. And sometimes, I've even shared with both of them.

If I can connect my dream to Fionna's, but not Gabe's... "Okay, now I'm fucking disturbed."

"Well," Fionna says tentatively, "maybe it's not impossible that he's here in this dream, right now."

I look up at the rest of the club, where there's still a whole sea of dancers - probably composed of all my friends and Fionna's, repeated several times as subconscious projections in fancy outfits none would likely be caught dead wearing in real life. None of them are Gabe, though. Being as tall, blond, and white as he is, he'd be hard to miss under any circumstances. All these people, I can see, but there's one that I can't with any level of clarity.

Up in the DJ booth.

Fionna follows my line of sight. "You don't think...?"

"I think he's stealing my job." I stride forward, ready to find him.

"Wait!" I turn around to see Fionna not following me just yet. "Take my hand. Please."

I eyeball the hand she's holding out my way. "You afraid you'll lose me in the crowd?"

"A little, yeah. Why do you think I was sitting here on the side? I suck at crowds."

I swallow nervously a couple of times before taking her hand, but then I smile when I feel her familiar touch again. As always, I relish her warmth, even if it's just a tiny taste compared to what I've known from kissing and cuddling with her.

"What's wrong?" she asks me. "You're staring, Feathers."

"Am I?" I avert my eyes sharply and shyly. "I never notice. I'm sorry."

"It's all right." She tugs on my hand to take me into the crowd. "Doesn't stop me from loving you."

I follow her, but with my feet dragging because I'm trying to process what she's said. Not that I don't believe her - I do - but I'm completely unsure of what she means. I can't tell where my feelings for her lie. Every time I think I'm not in love with her anymore - romantically or sexually - there she is again, haunting my dreams like I do hers and proving me wrong. It's such a huge part of why I broke up with Juliet - I couldn't help but feel like I was psychically cheating on her.

If I have to be honest, I just want to sit here and cry until my heart gives out. Maybe even my dick too, for good measure. Both those conspiratorial, traitorous shits.

"Alex, don't worry." Fionna pulls harder on me, hard enough that I'm sure she'll take my whole arm off. "Look, didn't I just tell you I don't like crowds either?" She has to raise her voice so loudly to be heard, especially now that the song has changed to something I actually like. "Outcast" by NF, and I'm so tempted to stand still and let his fast-flowing lyrics wash over me, even though they'll keep my heart from giving out like I want. "You're not alone. I got you. And you got me too. Right?"

The last thing I want is to not have her back. But am I strong enough? Even after last year, when I've been pushing myself to not be the same inexperienced, weak teenager who let her die-

"ALEX." She grabs my face with both hands, almost making me recoil because I'm afraid of another slap, but such a strike never comes. "You didn't kill me. You didn't let me die." She looks down for a moment in thought, then adds, "Think of it like this - every negative thought in your head is a bloody pit viper. Kill it before it can kill you."

"Who told you that?" I ask.

"The guy we're gonna find in that DJ booth. And he learned it from you, actually."

"Why don't I remember telling him that?" Except, of course, I do. Another flashback to the day he came out to me. Or was it? No, I think this was the day he came out to Mom, because then I'd been reading Red Rising for the first time and couldn't stop thinking about those god-awful pit vipers. Was it one word or two? I'll have to double check when I wake up. If I wake up.

"Pit viper!" Fionna shakes my shoulders now. "Kill it, Alex! Kill it!"

Okay, I can't keep thinking negatively when she's playing with me like this - or, at least, that's what I tell myself. Still, though, I'm struggling not to let my desperate desire overtake me. I'm dying to ask her to kiss me just to set my mind at ease.

But I can't. Psychic cheating, remember? I've kissed her in my dreams - our dreams - too many times already.

And yet it's so hard to resist her when she's looking at me with equal, if not greater, desire.

"Alex! Alex, wake up!"

It's not Fionna's voice, nor is it her hands shaking me now. All of these now belong to my mom as the club fades away and I return to my own bed, bathed in sweat because I'm fully clothed under my heavy sheets. So strange. Even now, in the heart of winter, I never wear pants to bed.

How much out of it have I been?

"Alex!" Mom's shrill cry sounds just as freaked out as Fionna's had been.

I pull my pillow over my head. "What's wrong?"

"We gotta go! Get up! Get up! We need to leave!"

She tugs the pillow away from me, and then I hear, from downstairs, the sound of the Emergency Alert System on TV.

No, not from downstairs.

In here.

It's on my phone too.

"What's happening?" I scramble to my feet and grab my phone. "Another fl...?"

My heart stops when I see what's on the screen.

"BALLISTIC MISSILE INBOUND TO SAN FRANCISCO. ALL BAY AREA RESIDENTS SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY."

I drop my phone. "What the fuck?"

Mom pushes me out the door. "Dammit, Alex, get your shoes on! We need to go!"

I run down the stairs and into the garage, where we both race to put our shoes on as quickly as possible, then jump into the car. As Mom drives, I look up in the sky and see numerous angels braving today's latest rainstorm to fly away. We're not the only ones on the road, either - before we get halfway to the freeway, we find ourselves in a line at least twenty cars long.

Why is it that we live in a neighborhood built during the Cold War and none of the houses have fallout shelters?

The alert sound goes off on both my phone and Mom's again, making me yelp in fright. Mom almost crashes into the car ahead of us as she pulls her phone out of her purse and has me silence it. When I turn to mine to do the same, I check the date and my heart stops again.

"Thursday?" I shake my head, convinced I'm wrong. It was Saturday when I went to sleep last. How have I missed that many days? But I have, because both our phones say it's Thursday the 23rd.

"You've been like a zombie for a while," Mom says in measured tones. "I've been...well, frantic, let's be honest. I tried getting a therapist, but there weren't any openings."

"What have I been doing?" I ask. "Sleeping? All this time?"

"Most of it. You've been eating, using the bathroom, but not much else."

I take the risk of sniffing my armpit and...shit. "When was the last time I took a shower?"

"Tuesday. I think. All these last few days have kinda blurred together for me too." She takes one hand off the steering wheel to hold mine. "Me trying to call therapists, like I said. I had to field some calls from all your friends too. Luca, Gideon, Aron...even Kelly."

I stare at the car's ceiling. How awful would that be if my last communication with Kelly was, like, a week before the apocalypse and she didn't even get a proper goodbye? Just a picture of me wearing nothing but my own sweat and cum.

Wherever you are, Mr. Graziadei, I think I've had enough divine justice now-

Then my phone goes off, but not with another Emergency Alert. No, it's a plain old phone call this time.

And it's from Josh.

When did I put his number in my phone?

Mom glances over long enough to see who's calling, then says, "Take it, quickly! Before the phone lines get overloaded."

With a shaking thumb, I swipe my screen. "What the hell's happening?" I cry.

"Not a goddamn nuke, that's for sure!" Josh cries back. "It's a fake!"

"What?"

"It's Peppermint again!" I think I hear the sounds of cars honking all around him, wherever he is. "Scoville, Peppermint, whoever you wanna say-"

"It's a hack?"

"Yeah!"

"How do you know?"

"Put me on video, I'll show you!"

I do, then tell Mom to pull over in the parking lot of a nearby church. That way, Josh can show her as well. "Ahmad's got the radar piped in right here," he says, jerking his thumb at the laptop Ahmad's holding in the seat next to him. They're not in the same SUV they took me home from San Francisco in, but a bigger one, with Firdaus waving to us from the backseat.

"Who's driving?" I ask. "Michael?"

"Hello, peasant," Michael says off camera.

"The point?" Mom asks sharply.

Josh takes the laptop and holds it up. "Radar from Randall Air Base," he says, pointing to the display as it shows a white line, like a single clock hand, spinning over a map of Northern California. Lots of small triangles dart around the map, changing positions with each radar sweep. But no sign of a missile coming at us.

"If that's what they're seeing," I ask, "then why the alert?"

"That's not what they're seeing, though." Ahmad takes his laptop back. "Sorry, Josh, but if I don't keep typing in more code, they'll kick me out and we won't even get this view anymore."

"But the alert started, what, three minutes ago?" Mom says. "Wouldn't the missile still be really far out?"

"More like four," Josh says. "And that depends on where it would've launched from. But the point is, there's no missile. At all."

"They can't completely get rid of the real radar," Ahmad says. "They're just tricking the computer to make it think what they want it to think, but...it's like, the real radar, they're pushing it aside and blocking it from the air base's view." He clicks away at the keyboard, lapsing into silence.

"You've seen Wreck-It Ralph, right?" Firdaus chimes in.

"Of course," Mom and I both say. It was a huge favorite for me and Gabe in grade school.

"You remember how Vanellope was disconnected from the rest of the game's source code, but they couldn't get rid of her entirely?" Firdaus wrinkles her nose. "Kind of like that, but they're not playing games here."

"Or are they?" I lean back in my seat, barely daring to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Don't believe me, just ask my dad," Josh says. "Last I saw him, he was trying to call Scoville, but the guy was playing phone tag with him." He chuckles lightly. "Haha, putting someone like my dad on hold. Just because he has a longer lifespan than most Primers doesn't give him infinite patience to go with it."

I eyeball Mom, expecting her to question what the hell Josh is saying, but she doesn't. I've been sleepwalking almost 24/7 the last few days, so in that time, it stands to reason that Josh and company could've caught her up on all the details. It wouldn't be the first time one of the conspirators warping my life would've roped her in. Russell Aspen did the same at least once when he was still alive.

"What can we do?" Mom asks.

"Go home," says Josh. "You won't do much good to anyone stuck in traffic or getting in a car accident."

Mom snorts as she looks around at the line of traffic beyond this parking lot, a line we almost never see on this mostly residential street. "Got that right."

"Let's just go." I point in the direction of our house. "You're sure this radar thing you're looking at is for real?" I ask one last time before Mom puts the car back in drive.

"If it weren't," Ahmad says, "I'm sure we'll all find out in ten minutes or less." He points out the car window next to him. "Look at this traffic."

"We'll never get out of the city in time at this rate," says Firdaus. "So we need to have faith."

I lean back in my seat, my chest still heaving and my hands still shaking. It's nice of my friends to say they're keeping faith, but the one they're most likely keeping their faith in is, today, conspicuous by his absence.

Par for the course.