Sierra and I, like pretty much every other college student, didn't have much room in our dorm, but the space between our two sides of the room was the perfect size for her, Jack and his guitar, Dominic, and me to hang out like normal people. As far as I was concerned, we were just about as normal as it got, but some people thought our endeavors with talismans and magic made us special in some way.

I wasn't sure what Sierra had in mind for our friendship meeting or whatever she wanted to call it, but so far, our activities were limited to sitting on the floor on our phones and not talking. And that was perfect by my standards.

"I'm gonna go pick up the pizza if anyone wants to come with me," Sierra said.

"Pizza? Why is it always pizza? Who actually likes that shit?" Dominic said.

Why was his complaint not surprising? I smiled and shook my head. "Of course you don't like it. Does it make you feel cool?"

"It doesn't make me feel like anything. If anything, it makes you feel cool because you finally fit in," he replied.

I looked over at Sierra. "We shouldn't have invited him."

"That's what I said, but you texted him anyway," she replied.

I forced a smile. It wasn't my fault that the talisman liked it when he was around. That had nothing to do with me.

Dominic didn't reply to that. He understood that I was only trying to save us both some trouble.

"I'll come with you, Sierra," Jack said to put us back on the original conversation.

Abandoning me so I was alone with Dominic? I bit the inside of my cheek. That was not what people did at friendship meetings.

Before I could protest, the two of them stood up and headed out to get the pizza that Dominic would whine about.

No wonder he was so thin. He was allergic to enjoying life.

I sure hoped Sierra was enjoying our hangout, because it seemed so forced to me. The four of us didn't have to be friends just because we all got wrapped up in a magical talisman and people outside our little circle didn't like us. All that did was make us a band of misfits like the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Fellowship of the Ring or something.

At least I didn't have to pay for the pizza. I didn't get paid much for my work in Sherwood at Butterfly's shop, mostly because I was righting the wrong of destroying most of her merchandise.

"You think they're fucking?" Dominic said Jack and Sierra's footsteps were drowned out in the hallway

My heart dropped at the suddenness of the question. "What? No. Jack's obsessed with me."

"So people never move on after they get rejected eighty times?"

I hesitated. It had been a little bit since I caught and ignored Jack looking at me, but that could have just been because we weren't spending as much time together since the talisman became a thing.

But Sierra just said that I was the first person to be her friend, so it wasn't possible. And even if it were possible, I didn't care. It didn't affect me.

I shook my head. "Well, maybe, but not them. Sierra's annoying, and Jack literally looks like a lumberjack. I love him, but it's true."

"Then we'll see if they're back in a reasonable amount of time," he said. "That'll be telling."

"Because then the only possible conclusion we could come to is that they're fucking. That would be the only explanation." I mentally rolled my eyes. What a pain in the ass. "So what do you want to do until they get back from only getting pizza?"

"I like the current system of being on our phones and not talking," he said. "Either that, or I still haven't gone over my notes from ASL on Tuesday."

"Let's do that," I said. "Study, I mean."

He raised his eyebrows. "Seriously?"

I nodded. As long as he didn't know about my conversation with Harvey, he could make up whatever kind of explanation for the decision he wanted.

"I really didn't think you would go for that. You scroll all the way through your Pinterest feed?" Dominic asked.

"And Insta and Twitter. I've probably scrolled a marathon, and the only thing I've learned is that I really need to unfollow everyone I went to high school with," I said.

"You should have done that as soon as you left Sherwood. You're not like them anymore," he said and pulled his backpack to his side. He had a box—an entire family-size box—of Cheez-Its in there and his textbook. Of course, I had mine somewhere in the room, but he probably had the necessary information color-coded in highlighter.

What were his priorities in life? We invited him to a friendship meeting for God's sake.

"Why do you need so many Cheez-Its?" I asked.

"Quit judging me. It's a good thing I brought them, isn't it?" He looked up at me with a smug grin.

"I guess so," I said as he flipped to whatever chapter we were on. It was definitely better than him bitching about pizza for half an hour.

Judging by the way the room darkened from the window behind us, a cloud must have passed in front of the sun outside, but I could still see the diagrams of signs in the textbook. There was so much information to memorize, and now that the head of the department was teaching our class, it was all the more reason for Dominic to sell his soul for another chance to impress authority.

I couldn't work like that. I barely had the energy to impress myself and maybe four other people, and Dominic was unfortunately on that list. I shook my head at the thought of it. He told me one sob story about how he'd eventually be deaf one day and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it, and suddenly I cared what he thought about me in our ASL class after a year of doing no work at all in the subject.

"The exam is next week, and Dr. Rainier is doing them individually. It's only a couple of minutes of answering his questions in the hallway, but it's not gonna be a partner presentation like Dr. Roberts was doing."

I took in a breath. "Why does it have to be individual? It's so much easier when I only have to do half the work."

"Half?"

"Fine, ten percent of the work."

"You're going to do fine, Lindsay. It's not like it matters to you anyway. You've clearly got your priorities," Dominic said.

"Yeah, and they're not cheese snacks and studying. I just want to know what the deal is with the talisman. We still know nothing about it, and it's been a month," I said. "It's like I'm stupid or something."

"You're not stupid. You're an idiot, but you're not stupid."

"Wow, thanks. That really made me feel better," I said, but just as the words left my mouth, Sierra and Jack opened up the door.

I sat up straight. They weren't gone for very long at all, certainly not long enough to get to the pizza shop just off campus, and even though they had wide eyes, they didn't have the food in their hands. They had one job.

Dominic looked over at me, and I pretended I didn't notice. They weren't—were they?

"Uh, guys, it kinda looks like Stranger Things out there. The sky's all weird, and I'm about ninety-five percent sure that it has something to do with the talisman. You know, because this shit doesn't normally happen here," Sierra said.

Although I had noticed when the room got darker, I hadn't bothered to look out the window behind me. Dominic and I turned around, and the sky looked like a latte with black swirls on a dark grey background.

I looked back over at Dominic. Even though the sky changing colors wasn't exactly on my list of other possible explanations, at least there was one.

"Dammit, Lindsay. You gave a guy a heart attack, broke an entire store, and now you've unleashed the Demogorgon?" Dominic shook his head. "Shameful."

"I'm surprised you've seen Stranger Things. I thought you think it's cool to hate popular things," I said.

"I watched the first season before it went mainstream," he replied, and I laughed. Of course.

"Guys, focus. This is obviously kind of serious," Jack said.

"What's everyone else doing outside? Are they freaking out?" I asked.

"Well, it's a little hard not to notice, and no one was talking about an eclipse on the news, so yeah, people are a little confused," Sierra said.

I nodded. That seemed about right.

"What the hell was happening around the talisman that could have triggered this? I mean, the last couple of freak things that happened, there was a reason. Lindsay didn't want to do a presentation, and then Lindsay didn't like that Dominic was talking to her mom," Sierra said.

Jack nodded. "That's true."

"So what frazzled you this time, Lindsay?" Sierra asked.

"One, I don't get frazzled, and two, literally nothing happened. We were just about to start studying for our ASL exam next week," I said.

"Are you stressed about that?" Sierra asked.

"Why would I be? I don't care about that class," I said. Only Harvey and I had to know that was a little bit of a lie.

"You're on academic probation, Lindsay. You should definitely be a little bit concerned about your grades," Jack said.

"She is," Dominic jumped in before I could laugh it off. I didn't even know why I would do that. There really wasn't anything about the situation that was funny. It looked like pollution finally caught up to us outside.

Jack didn't respond to that right away, so I did. "I'm a little frazzled. The only thing I've got is this talisman, and I can't flunk out of school or I lose my resources and friends, and I've caused plenty of damage that I don't think I'll be able to fix. It's a lot for anyone, and I don't have anywhere to go but here."

I was also the one who burnt all the bridges I had crossed to get to this point, but I crossed my arms and stood by my point anyway.

Dominic's phone buzzed, and he picked it up and looked at it. "Dr. Reed sent us something."

"Do you seriously get notifications for your school email on your phone?" I asked.

He nodded. "Why wouldn't I?"

I didn't respond to that. Why wouldn't he, given literally everything about him? He could miss an announcement or grade the moment it came out. Tragic.

He smiled and shook his head at the email. "She said that she's not accusing us of anything, but she wants to know if we know why it looks like we just lost the Cold War and got nuked by the Soviet Union."

"She knows damn well that the talisman did that," Sierra said. "She's definitely accusing us."

"If anything weird is happening, it's definitely best to assume that it's our fault at this point."

I laughed. Now that would, in fact, be the only conclusion we could come to.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hey everyone! How's it going? Thank you for your patience on this chapter once again. I really, really appreciate it.

So for today's question, do you think there is a common denominator for all the talisman-related incidents? Or are there multiple reasons for what's going on with Lindsay, Dominic, and the gang?