July 27th, 2002

7:34 am

     "Guys guys guys guys," Minho repeated over and over as he slapped his two friends.

     "What?!" Kis hissed as she swatted him away. They were sat in a small diner, three plates of food piled up on the table in front of them.

     "Look at the TV!" He jabbed his finger in the direction of the small screen behind the two blondes. They both turned to look, their stomachs dropping when they did.

     The news crew was in a forest, a section of it look like a tornado had ripped through it. There were giant chunks of melting ice and twisted broken tree branches. The lady was talking about some animal attack or freak nature accident. Newt kinda felt bad for her, she didn't know how wrong she was.

     "That's El," Kis said immediately.

     "Where is that?" Newt asked as he squinted to see the screen better.

     "That's in Albany," Minho said as he pulled out the giant paper map of New York they were using. He threw it across the plates of food which probably wasn't the best idea. "They're heading up."

     "Tommy did that," Newt said softly. "She was probably fighting him off."

     "She can handle herself," Kis stated as she grabbed the red marker in her pocket and circled Albany on the map.

      "I know she can," Newt replied as he looked down at his lap, "but he can't."

8:04 am

     "So let me get this straight, we're following a hallucination of young you? Like that's what we're going off of?" El asked as she tugged on her hair.

     Thomas nodded as he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. He knew how stupid it sounded.

     "Thomas," El sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "You're my friend and you know I'd do anything for you, but you don't even have a plan."

     "I do have a plan!" Thomas snapped.

     "Not a real one," El added weakly.

     Thomas could tell she was trying to be nice but he was mad. He kicked at a rock on the sidewalk, it skipped and skidded into the street.

     "I didn't fucking ask for you to follow me!"

     El frowned. "You can't do this by yourself Thomas! I don't want to see you end up dead!"

     "I'm not helpless!" Thomas could feel himself getting worked up. "Why do you even care! It'd be a whole lot easier for you guys if I was dead!"

     El stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed Thomas' arm roughly. "Don't say bullshit like that."

     "I know you guys won't say it, but I'm a burden," Thomas spat as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I can't even control myself. I almost ruined everything last night."

     "Thomas shut up."

     "W-"

     El looked at him sternly. "Thomas I mean it, shut up."

     Thomas heard the fear in her voice then, he immediately perked up, his hands slowly uncurling so they would be ready if he had to use them.

     "What's going on?" he asked softly as El shoved her fists in her hoodie pocket.

     "I did the the physics homework last night, did you? I think it was only three questions."

     Thomas was about to ask her what drugs she was on before he realized, it was something they went over in training, distracting conversations. Three questions. Three people. They were being followed.

     "No I didn't do it. I looked at it, I could do two of the questions, can you help me on the third?" Thomas asked as he glanced to the side of him. He could see two of the guys, two questions. The two men were walking side by side in matching black outfits. The one had on sunglasses while the other had a hat pulled down over his ears. He couldn't tell if they belonged to WICKED or not.

     "Yeah, the third was easy," El said as she shifted her body closer to Thomas'. He couldn't see her face with how far her hood was pulled up, but he could tell she was tense.

     "So how do you do it?"

     "You just have to be careful that you only use the correct numbers."

     Thomas felt the smoke crawling across his arms and building around his palms. His heart was pounding but the adrenaline rushing through his veins washed away the fears.

     "Do you want to do it now?" Thomas asked as his smoke formed a perfect little ball in his hand.

     El hesitated for a moment, she kept her gaze glued to a spot on the sidewalk ahead of her. Thomas couldn't tell what she was thinking, he wished he could get into her head like professor X could, strangely, he kinda wished he was here right now.

     "Yeah," El said softly. Thomas could feel the air between them get colder, he looked down to see snowflakes circling around the girls hands. "Now."

     El snapped into action then, she spun around so fast that the sheer speed of it knocked the hood off her head and exposed her hair. She shot a strand of ice straight into one of the guys' chest. He didn't even have time to scream, the ice sliced through his chest so fast.

     Thomas shook his head, switching into on guard mode. He swirled his arms around his head, creating two rings of glowing black and purple smoke. He threw his arms forward, sending the purple rings which snapped around the other two guys like a restricting rope. They fell to the ground, the hat flying off the one guy's head. Thomas finally noticed the pedestrians screaming and running away from the scene.

     "Fuck!" El shouted as she grabbed Thomas' hand. "We need to run, now."

     Thomas nodded, he could feel the blood pumping in his ears. El started taking off, dragging Thomas through the mob of running people.

     "We really need Newt or Kis right now! I never realized how much we utilize their undetected travel," El shouted as she ducked into an ally and shoved Thomas down next to her. "We have to leave but we can't when it's this insane out there. Someone's going to see us."

     Thomas swallowed hard. He was getting serious flashbacks from running from WICKED when he was a child. He remembered Janson chasing him through the streets and fighting off the guards during the invasion.

     "Are you okay?" El asked as she softly took Thomas' face in her hands. She gently tipped it to the side as if she was inspecting for scrapes. It reminded Thomas of when Newt did that, it made his chest clench. God did he miss Newt.

     "I'm okay," Thomas said breathlessly. "Just trying to stay calm."

     "Yeah, no more freakouts." El nodded as she let go of his face. "We can't risk another scene like last night right now."

     Thomas wrapped his arms around himself, rocking gently. He felt cold and the hair on his arms was standing up. His hands were shaking and his throat felt tight.

     "It's more than you expected huh?"

     Thomas nodded as he leaned his head back against the brick wall. He took a few shaky breaths as he tugged on his hair. "I'm gonna get you killed."

     El shook her head as she knelt down next to him. "You need to stop worrying about everything, especially me. I can handle myself."

    "I can't," Thomas breathed out, his heart was pounding again.

     El let out a half hearted laugh. It was oddly comforting. "You really are an anxious chaotic gay mess aren't you?"

     Thomas let out a shaky breath and nodded.

     "Okay listen to me, you need to pull it together, right now. We need to go, they'll find us here okay?"

     Thomas nodded, taking a moment before standing up.

     El took his hand and squeezed it. "I know it would be easier with Newt here, but you only got me now so we have to make this work."

     "Okay," Thomas huffed as he leaned closer to her. "I'm sorry."

     "Don't be sorry," El said as she offered him a warm smile and started leading them down the alley. "She'd kill me for telling you, but Kis gets like this sometimes, the whole anxiety thing. She has it real bad. Sometimes you just need to take a second."

     "Maybe I wasn't ready for this," Thomas said softly as they crouched down by the end of the alley.

     El shook her head. "You are ready Thomas, it's just different out here than in the training room."

     "Yeah, I guess." He peeked his head slowly around the corner, scanning quickly for any more men. "Do you think they worked for WICKED?"

     El huffed. "Definitely. I don't know who else would be looking to kill two innocent enough looking teenagers."

     "Do you think they know who we are?"

     El nodded. "Think of WICKED like dogs, they can almost sniff out our powers, just like they did when they invaded the school."

     Thomas' face fell at the mention of the invasion. It was a bad memory for everyone but the weight of the lives taken and lives almost taken had an especially heavy emotional baggage on Thomas'.

     "Do you think they want revenge?" Thomas asked as he pulled El up to her feet.

     "Revenge? No."

     "Then what do they want?"

     El looked at him with an expression he couldn't read, it was so dark that it almost scared him. El was usually the positive light one, seeing her like that disturbed something deep inside Thomas.

     "Death, Thomas. They want us all dead."

8:16pm

     "He's so peaceful when he's sleeping, he's almost cute," Minho said as he stared at Newt who was passed out on the floor of the small room they "rented" for the night. They still had no idea where El and Thomas were going, but they definitely couldn't track them with no sleep.

     Newt kept them invisible most of the time so they could remain undetected but it absolutely drained him. He couldn't keep it going all day and all night, he desperately needed to recharge. They had pulled up to a random hotel where Kis just went knocking on doors til they found an empty one and shadow traveled inside. It was sort of a run down place so they weren't too worried about a conflict.

     "Thomas thinks he's cute all the time," Kis huffed out a laugh as Newt snored loudly before turning over.

     Minho laughed and lightly nudged Newt's leg with his foot. "Thomas is whipped for this skinny fuck."

     "Pretty sure Newt is whipped for him too."
Minho nodded. "No doubt about it."

     They were quiet for a moment, just sitting on the floor next to their exhausted friend. The air felt oddly tense.

     "Can I ask you something?" Minho piped up suddenly.

     Kis felt her stomach drop. He knew. He must know, that must be it.

     "I guess," she replied as she rose and dropped her shoulder in a half shrug.

     Minho scratched at the back of his neck, it freaked Kis out even more that he was nervous.

     "Do you uh, hate me or somethin?"

     Kis couldn't hide the shock on her face, that was definitely not what she was expecting. Minho wasn't looking at her, he kept his gaze focused on the ground.

     "Maybe it's stupid," he started again, "but we've known each other for a while and-"

     "Stop."

     "What?" Minho looked up at her with an almost scared expression.

     "I don't," she said softly, trying her best to keep her voice from sounding harsh.

     "Maybe it's just how you are, but I get the vibes..." Minho trailed off as he played with his hands. "Am I being stupid?"

     Kis had a lump in her throat, of course she knew why he felt that way. It wasn't her fault, she couldn't just wish away the jealousy she felt when he was with El. She did genuinely like Minho, he was the only one who could match her sarcasm and take a crude joke without feeling an ounce of offence.

     "You're not stupid," she said. "But I don't."

     "I did love her you know."

     "What?" Kis' head snapped up to look at him.

     "El. I treated her well."

     "I know you did."

     "I don't want you to think that I didn't."

     "I know," Kis said again as she looked at him. "I never thought you weren't good to her."

     "I'm not good at this," Minho breathed out a laugh.

     Kis felt a small smile forming on her face. "Me either."

     "So were good?

     Kis nodded. "Yeah we're good."

     Minho let out a breath. "I don't think I could take much more of that."

     Kis felt herself laughing. "'Me either."

     Minho looked at Newt who was even more spread out across the floor. "We should probably sleep too."

     Kis nodded and flopped backwards onto the bed.

     Minho looked at her skeptically. "Want me to take the floor?"

    She shook her head. "No, get up here idiot."

    Minho flopped down into the empty spot next to her after another moment of hesitation.

     "You think we'll find them?" Minho asked as he adjusted himself on the bed.

     "Yeah, I do. They can't be far."

     "I wonder why they didn't take us with them."

     Kis let out a breath as she closed her eyes. "It's because they're doing something stupid, they knew we'd try and stop them."

     "I'm the master of doing things stupid."

     Kis breathed out a soft laugh. "Goodnight Minhoe."

     "Goodnight bitch."

     Kis felt the smile on her face even after she fell asleep. Maybe talking to people wasn't that bad.

May 19th, 1996

     "Are you going to kill me?" The small girl asked the two men who had each of her wrists bound tightly in their grasp.

     "Stop talking, mutant," the bigger one spat. His grip tightened on her wrist and she had to use everything in her not to scream. It hurt, but not as bad as the betrayal she felt.

      Rose looked around as she was dragged through a massive building. It was mostly white with the letters W I C K E D printed on almost every possible surface.

     "What does WICKED stand for?" She piped up again. Rose talked when she was nervous, and right now she was jumping out of her skin.

     "I said stop talking!" The big man hissed as he roughly tugged on her. "You're nothing here, you hear me? Nothing. You're scum. You'd be lucky if we killed you. Death is better than what's coming next for you."

     Rose swallowed hard. The cuff on her ankle was digging into her skin and her clothes were torn from where the men slammed her around.

     She still couldn't believe it. Her own family, her best friend. She was here because of them.

     She was dragged through a huge sliding door that opened up into a dark room that was littered with steel bar doors.

     "Home sweet home you fuckin freak," the big man have her a grin that sent chills down her spine.

     She was shoved into one of the rooms so hard she fell to her knees. It was dirty and there was a ripped blanket in the corner that she assumed was to act as her bed. She saw the rusty bucket tipped over on the floor, she knew exactly what that was for and it made her stomach churn. She turned around in time to watch the two men lock the door.

     "Sleep well, you'll need it."

     Their laughs made the hair on her arms stand up.

     Home. She wanted more than anything just to go home.

     A pit dropped in her stomach when she realized that she didn't have a home. At least not anymore.

     She felt the heat in her eyes as tears built up in them. She was terrified of being by herself in this situation, but that's exactly what she was. Completely and utterly alone.