When I first met Jack and the rest of his band, he was the only person I liked and wanted to spend any time around. Everyone else just seemed boring or much ruder than me, which was certainly no easy feat. Harvey was in the second group, and until he learned about the talisman (then unlearned it and then learned it again), the only time he wanted anything to do with me was when Jack told him that we were dating.

If the situation wasn't such a mess, I would have smiled. It seemed like that lying drama was such a long time ago when it couldn't have been more than a few weeks back, and I was always right about Harvey even though Jack didn't believe me and my assessment was really just based on talent level.

When I met Sierra on the day we first moved into our dorm on the Tillamook College campus, she was a little too excited to be there and to meet me. When I left to get some water, I came back to find her looking through my clothes to get a sense of my fashion and therefore my personality. I wasn't sure what my super skinny jeans and eight pairs of boots said about me, but apparently it was enough for her to not request a new roommate even though we never said much to each other.

I was glad that had changed. She was almost nothing like me with her occasional emotional outbursts and her ability to concentrate on studying for more than three minutes, but she wasn't a bad person at all. She just wanted to help (and borrow all my stuff).

Now that the two of them were MIA, I didn't even have to think about going to find them. I knew what Harvey wanted, but I could guarantee that I wanted my friends back much more than he wanted a stupid piece of metal. Sure, it was a magical piece of metal that had a ridiculous amount of uncontrollable power that he had been the victim of once, but it was still just a piece of metal with a pretty tree design.

Even though we had just gotten back from Butterfly's shop in Sherwood and Dr. Reed's house, Dominic and I got back into the car to go after Jack and Sierra. They would do the same for us, after all. Probably.

"We could always call the cops, you know. I'm pretty sure dealing with kidnappings and stuff like that is their job, not ours," Dominic said.

I shook my head. "And then what? They find out why Harvey did it?"

"Kidnapping is illegal no matter why you do it."

"So is digging on property that isn't mine. The talisman technically doesn't belong to me."

"I think one of those crimes is a little worse than the other," Dominic said, and even though he wasn't wrong, I didn't want Harvey to drag me down with him.

I probably wouldn't get arrested or anything (unless Dr. Reed severely underplayed the severity of archeological stealing), but I sure as hell wouldn't be able to keep the talisman, and my grades wouldn't exactly make a case for me not getting kicked out of school.

"I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but you wouldn't happen to have a weapon on you, would you?" I asked.

"Anything is a weapon if you know what you're doing," Dominic replied.

I rolled my eyes. I probably should have expected a stupid answer like that. "I meant like a gun or a knife."

"You can't have guns on campus, Lindsay. I asked at orientation."

Why was I the one who was on the verge of getting kicked out of school?

Before I had the chance to wonder out loud, Dominic continued. "But yeah, I take my knife everywhere. You never know when you'll need to cut open something or someone."

Seriously. It was ridiculous that I was considered more of an inconvenience for the college than he was.

And somehow, it was kind of hot?

I had been to Harvey's place a few times, but only ever to the bathroom and in the garage to watch Jack and the rest of the band practice for small gigs that weren't ever going to lead anywhere. And Dominic always knew how to find his way there when I was there. Maybe that was another sign that something wasn't right all along. Why else would the talisman think I needed him there with me?

The talisman also loved screwing with me, though, so that was always a possibility too.

"Should we come up with a plan before we get there?" Dominic asked. "I mean, we can't just knock on the door and ask for Jack and Sierra back."

I shook my head. "Plans never work. Just do whatever feels right in the moment."

"Yeah, because that philosophy has done you very well in life." He paused. "Seriously, though. Tell me you weren't just going to knock on the door and ask for them back."

"I told you that I don't have a plan, but that seems like an okay place to start," I said.

"Obviously it doesn't. Why else would you ask me if I have a weapon?"

"Just in case he says no thank you."

"This is not a good situation to be in. Would you stop being an idiot and act like this is serious?"

"What's he gonna do? Shoot me?" I asked.

"You're gonna feel real goddamn stupid when he does."

"If I could fix amnesia, I think I can fix a few bullet holes."

"Seriously, Lindsay. You're not going to be able to fix a gunshot wound to the head or chest. If you flunk out of school, your life isn't over, but if we screw this up, it very well could be. I'm not gonna let you treat this like it's your education. I can't stand it when you do that, but this is much more important."

I hesitated for a moment as my heartbeat dropped into my stomach. When did this get so serious?

"I'm not trying to scare you, but you sometimes don't see things for what they are. Actions and inactions have consequences, and you can't just ignore them or magically fix them," he continued.

"It sure sounds like you're trying to scare me," I said.

Dominic let out a breath. "Well, I'm not. I just don't want you to get hurt because you aren't taking life as seriously as you should. When people see a way to get something so powerful, they do things no one thinks they would ever do."

I didn't respond right away. Harvey didn't even know the tip of the iceberg when it came to the power of the talisman (if he even knew that it was the source of the power that took all the lights out and erased his memory). I didn't even know what it was capable of. All I knew was that it knew what I was feeling before I ever did and that every day, I used it to screw something up in a new, exciting way.

I turned onto the street with Harvey's house, and although there was a screaming voice in the back of my mind to turn the car around and regroup somewhere safe, I ignored it and kept driving. I wasn't sure how much Harvey knew about what we were doing. We left Jack's phone back in the dorm, but the logical rules I knew didn't mean anything in the world the talisman surrounded itself with.

"You know, you never told me who Tiffany is," I said.

"Not now, Lindsay." He turned to look out the window. "If you want, we can go over a little bit of a plan that I've started to come up with."

"You really haven't been thinking that long, so I don't know how much of a plan you could—"

Dominic interrupted me. "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to park away from the house. From there, we'll sneak up to the house without talking or stepping on any crunchy leaves, which I've noticed you always go out of your way to do, and—"

"Dominic, stop. I can figure this out on my own. The talisman is in my hands, so I think I'm the best person to get Jack and Sierra back from Harvey and keep the power in my own questionable hands."

He crossed his arms and sat back in his seat. "Fine. But if you get us killed, I'll kill you."

"No one is going to get killed. You're being ridiculous right now." I paused. I wasn't too sure about that anymore, but I couldn't let Dominic know that he planted a little seed of paranoia in my mind. "Besides, crunchy leaves are the second best part of fall besides pumpkin spice lattes, which are probably ruined now after the whole latte of death sky incident. Who doesn't go out of their way to step on satisfying leaves?"

"Every normal person ever."

I was much more normal than he was, but who was keeping track? Not me.

Even though I was the one in charge of the operation, I followed Dominic's suggestion and parked a few houses down. The sightline was blocked by a few trees and shouldn't have been visible from any of the windows, but just in case, I slouched down in my seat. It probably seemed a little suspicious to the car that passed by, but I wasn't the one who did anything illegal. I was just trying to fix it.

"Well, since you didn't want to listen to my idea—"

I shushed Dominic. "Stop. I shouldn't have even brought you here with me."

"But who's gonna avenge you if you die?" Dominic said.

Who said chivalry was dead?

"I'm not going to die." Was he trying to scare the shit out of me? "I'm just here to get my friends back and not lose the talisman in the process."

"Can't you just erase Harvey's memory again? Problem solved."

Because that worked out so great the first time. "Then I'd have to erase his roommates' memories too, and I don't know their names, which didn't go well last time.."

Dominic didn't say anything for a moment, and when he did, it was only, "Shit."

"We're gonna be fine. I'm sure that Harvey is just looking for answers after what happened in the garage a few days ago, and all we need to do is come up with a story that somehow makes everything seem normal and not at all suspicious," I said. "How much do you remember from that day?"

"Everything. I remember when the electricity went crazy, and I remember not knowing what the hell was happening, and I definitely remember Harvey saying something about it being true when you had your little meltdown. And I remember not knowing what it was, but I'm a little sketched out by it."

Right. Dr. Rainier knew about the talisman, and Harvey helped him by doing partner chats with us in ASL. That was it.

I thought for a moment. "So you remember texting me that we needed to talk about something involving the day with the sky incident?"

He shook his head a little too quickly. "Nope. Don't remember that."

"You're a liar."

"Well, it's not gonna help us now, is it?"

"It might."

"I was just gonna tell you that I have a feeling I know why it happened, but I really think the task at hand is a little more important," he said.

I really couldn't disagree with that, so I nodded and opened up the car door.

"Lindsay, we still don't have a—" Dominic began, but I interrupted him.

"We don't need a plan. We just need to let Harvey know we're here and we're not fucking around."

He raised his eyebrows at me, still from inside the car. "And what are you gonna do if he asks about the talisman?"

"You have a knife, don't you, tough guy?"

"Fine. Just let me knock, so if anyone gets shot, it's me," Dominic said and followed me out of the car.

My hero.

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Hello everyone! Thank you so much for reading the first part of this chapter! I really, really appreciate all of your support. I hope you know that.

As I promised, I'm going to give the answer to my Two Truths and A Lie. The lie was that I hate cilantro! I love cilantro. It literally makes everything better. I really did just get a new kitten named Dixie. She is a wild child, and I love her. And I really haven't ever been pulled over while driving. When murders are a common occurrence in your city, traffic offenses really aren't that big of a deal.

So for today's question, what is the weirdest injury you've ever gotten?

For me, I have a scar on my leg from when I cut it with a metal straw. So if a straw did that much damage to me, how much damage do they do to wildlife? Save the turtles, people.