It was another Black Swan meeting, and the adults were arguing again. Tensions had been running high since Keefe disappeared, and it seemed everyone was always hostile.

Sophie pulled Dex aside. "I can't take this anymore. It's been forever."

"It's been a week."

"Whatever. I have to go out there and look for Keefe."

"Which one is your boyfriend again? At this rate, I can't remember," muttered Dex. She shot him a dirty look.

"I need your help, okay?"

"What, you need me to supply you with gadgets? Sneak you into the Forbidden Cities undetected? I'm not a storage closet just here to give you weapons," said Dex, looking down at the floor. "You said I was your best friend. But you sure never act like it." He crossed his arms defiantly. "I'll take you to the Forbidden Cities, but I'm coming with you."

Sophie's mouth dropped open. "What?"

Dex's chin trembled, but he lifted it. "You heard me."

Sophie sighed. "Look, Dex, I'm sorry- "

"It's fine, Sophie, really," he said, waving away whatever garbage apology she was about to give him. "But you aren't the only one who cares about Keefe around here. I'm the last one who talked to him and a part of me is scared that I'm the one who made him want to run away." He took a deep breath. "I want to look for him too."

Sophie looked away, reaching up for an itchy eyelash.

A cloaked figure was suddenly right beside Dex, making her jump.

Glimmer curled her lips in an eerie smile. "I'd like to get away from the Boring Club as well. Count me in."

Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but Tam beat her to it. "If Glimmer's going, so am I," he said, glaring at Glimmer for trying to run off without him. "But I would just like to say that I have no idea why Keefe's disappearance is such a big deal."

Sandor was at Sophie's side in a second, making her groan. She could never do anything in secret anymore.

"I go where you go," he said in his trademark squeaky voice, surprising absolutely no one.

Sophie sighed again. "Guys, come on. You know that this type of thing is dangerous, and I should really do this by myself, and- "

"Is she really giving us the speech?" Tam asked, pointing to Sophie. "For real? Like we haven't heard it a thousand times before."

Dex shook his head in mock disappointment. "I think she is. Wow. I expected more from you, Lady Fos-Boss."

Sophie met everyone's eyes. They weren't letting her off the hook this time.

"I don't want to risk any of your lives." she whispered.

Dex stepped forward. "We're choosing to come with you, Sophie."

She sighed. She didn't have the time or energy to push everyone away right now. Keefe needed her. She could sense it. "... Fine," she relented. "Pack a satchel. We're leaving tonight."

❤︎

It was 4:15 in the morning. 4:15! Avilyn was seriously crazy. But still, Celine dragged herself out of bed and changed into gray camouflage- gray leggings; gray crop top, with a hoodie; gray combat boots; and she braided her silver hair that she had dyed a few years ago, when she first joined the hidden defense team.

Celine yawned as she plopped down next to Aerin, stretching her arms. The sun was barely just up yet, and Avilyn had brought in small trees, plants, flowers, and wrapped fairy lights around the plants and tents, and lied blankets and pillows around, completely transforming the plain roof top.

Once everyone had breakfast, the girls started packing. In a few minutes, they had transformed the rooftop back into how it looked before they came, showered with leaves, and not leaving a single trace that suggested they were ever there.

It was barely 5 a.m., but there was enough light for them to glitter away to their new destination.

❤︎

Alluveterre looked pretty much how it had always looked, except without the bustling life. The girls split up, with Avilyn and Cloud heading for the left tree house, Adalea, Faelyn, and Lyra heading for the right, and the rest of them spreading out to explore the forest. Alluveterre was so beautiful with its trees, river, and staircases that it made you forget you were underground.

"I haven't been here in forever," Adalea said as she flicked the tree trunk and started up the winding staircase.

"Me neither," said Faelyn, looking up at the tree house warily. "I figured the bad guys raided it."

"Maybe they have," Adalea murmured. The entrance was torn down completely, and she stepped over the pile of scrap wood and peeked inside. "Looks clear to me."

Lyra unsheathed a large dagger. "Can't be too careful."

The three of them stepped inside, staying on their guard. Some furniture was upturned, but nothing really screamed Keefe Sencen was here. They explored a bit and found muddy footprints in one room, but they were huge. Way bigger than Keefe's shoes. Probably just left behind by the Neverseen. A crushed Black Swan pendant was really the most interesting thing that turned up.

Lyra snapped some pictures and Faelyn bagged a small device she hadn't seen before. Then they went back down the stairs. Lyana was examining something on the ground in the clearing, and Kayleey was squinting at a tree. Aeyva came out of the forest and called out, "Nothing so far!" Avilyn and Cloud started coming back down from the other tree house, looking like they probably hadn't found much either.

Then, out of nowhere, a group of people blinked into the clearing. Adalea gasped and yelled, "Someone's here!" and Alluveterre erupted into chaos.

All the girls produced weapons from bags and pockets and rushed towards the intruders, who, in turn, pulled out their own weapons. Once they got close enough to see each other, Aeyva stopped and held her arms out, indicating for everyone to stay back.

"Wait," she said. "Moonlark?"

Sophie blinked. She'd never seen these people in her life. But they were all, unmistakably, wearing swan pendants just like hers.

"Uh... yeah, that's me," she replied uneasily.

Aeyva exhaled a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness- thought you were an enemy." Her team relaxed, but Sophie's didn't.

"Who are you again?"

Aeyva brightened. "Right! We've met once, but between all the other Black Swan reps, I'm sure you don't remember me!"

"State your business," demanded the goblin who stepped protectively in front of Sophie, who glared at him. He should have been intimidating, but he sounded like Mickey Mouse (which, unfortunately, Aeyva had been exposed to thanks to the television in the hotel room and a twenty-minute long inability to find the remote and change the channel).

"My name is Aeyva Talle. I work for the Black Swan. This is the hidden defense team- well, that's just what we call ourselves. We're a specific division."

The girls all waved and gave their best friendly smiles. Faelyn and Celine just stared. Avilyn leaned against a tree trunk, looking bored, but her fingers rested near her swords, unsheathed. But everyone else smiled.

"Would you like me to introduce them all?" Aeyva pointed to every girl in turn. "Avilyn Ember, Adalea Timber, Kayleey Villarreal, Aerin Monroe, Cloud Gaebury, Lyana Jasper, Faelyn Einar, Phoenix Kolster, Lyra Cormier, Celine Aquila. That's everyone. We've been working with the Black Swan for several years."

Sophie was practically speechless. How had she never met any of these people?

"New Black Swan members, cool!" Dex said, holding out a hand to Aeyva and smiling at her. "We really haven't met that many."

"Hear, hear," she said, shaking it and returning the warm expression. She couldn't help but notice he was really cute.

"So, wait," said Sophie, looking from girl to girl, "you're the team Mr. Forkle sent to go find Keefe?"

"What, do we not satisfy your expectations?" Faelyn grumbled. Aeyva scowled at her.

Sophie's voice got smaller. "It's just, how do you even know him?" She crossed her arms and held her head high, trying to regain an air of confidence. "Well, I'm here to look for him as well."

"Were you authorized to do that?" Avilyn asked, suspecting that the answer was no.

"Not exactly," Sophie admitted.

"Not even a little," Sandor clarified.

Dex introduced everyone. "I'm Dex Dizznee; obviously you know this is Sophie, the goblin is Sandor, the lady in the cloak is Glimmer- she's ex-Neverseen but she's -" Avilyn's eyes flashed, and she angled her face away at the mention of Glimmer. "-with us now- don't worry about it, and the moody-looking guy with bangs is Tam."

"Digging the bangs," Aerin muttered to Cloud and Lyana, elbowing them. They murmured their agreement.

Avilyn glared at them: shut up.

"So, I'm assuming you came here because you figured Keefe might have?" Aeyva guessed. Sophie nodded. "We haven't found much here, but we've collected some leads in the last few days."

Faelyn held out the bag containing the device she'd found. "You're a Technopath, right? Do you know what this is?"

"Oh," said Dex, taken aback that he was being asked for help so quickly. He took it. "Um, yeah. This is just a really fancy addler. Why?"

"Ruy is the only one we know who consistently wears an addler," Adalea said, biting her nails.

"Which is really weird if you think about it," Faelyn added.

"He seems to be leaving things behind lately, doesn't he?" Cloud said, narrowing her eyes. She found that strange. The Neverseen left things behind sometimes, when they were weakened or in a hurry, but finding so many clues in the course of a few days struck her as suspicious. Could the Neverseen be trying to throw them off of Keefe's real trail?

Aeyva seemed to have reached the same conclusion. "Gisela was practically waiting for us at Nightfall. Like she knew we would show up." She started pacing. "This is getting too easy."

Sophie held up a hand. "Hold up. You went to Nightfall and ran into Gisela?"

Aeyva stopped. "Yeah, so what?"

Sophie sighed. "It's just, I don't know; I've been running around doing silly little assignments for the Council and you guys are dealing with the leaders of the Neverseen. And how have I never worked with all of you?"

"Trust me, if you knew enough about us you wouldn't want to be around us at all," said Avilyn, the corners of her mouth twitching upward slightly.

"Yeah, they keep the good kids away from the freaks," Celine said, lazily eyeing Sophie's little posse.

"I don't really know what that means," Sophie said honestly, "But can we... like... stay with you? I can't just keep waiting around, knowing that Keefe is out there alone somewhere, potentially in danger, with an ability he doesn't understand."

Phoenix felt a twinge of sadness at the raw emotion in her voice. She tugged at Aeyva's sleeve. "She cares about him," she whispered.

"I know," Aeyva murmured back. "But she's the moonlark and she attracts trouble. Our job was to take care of Keefe, not this whole new group of people."

"Well, now we'll have a Technopath; won't that help us?" Phoenix pointed out.

Aeyva opened her mouth and then closed it. That would definitely help them a lot.

Avilyn sighed. "Well, I guess since we've already met them, there's no point in trying to hide our group anymore."

Aeyva nodded. "Hey, Dex? Do you think you can take apart a few things for us?"

❤︎

"Yep," Dex nodded with conviction. "This Impassable was definitely Keefe's."

"How do you know?" Aeyva asked. Alone in one of the tree houses, she and Dex had been trying to figure out who the Impassable belonged to.

"Well," he said, smiling, "I took out each wire carefully-"

"Oh my gosh, I saw that," Aeyva rolled her eyes. "Is there a DNA identification thing?"

"No dummy," Dex grinned up at Aeyva, and she couldn't help but notice how cute his dimples were, and the way his periwinkle eyes shone in the afternoon light filtering through the windows. "On all of the Impassables I gave to my friends, I carved their initials on the inside."

Aeyva squinted, and saw a faint K.S. carved ornately into a panel of metal. "Oh," she breathed. "Also, just cause you're cute doesn't mean you get to call me a dummy."

"Did you just call me cute?" Dex looked up at her with an unbelieving smile.

"What? No," Aeyva said with fake nonchalance. She looked away so Dex wouldn't see her face burn.

"Uh huh." He turned back to his device, beginning to put it back together.

"Shut up, Technoboy," she retorted, shoving his shoulder.

"Hey!" he cried. "You made me drop my screwdriver!"

"Just pick it up," Aeyva sat on the table, swinging her legs back and forth.

He stood up and pointed at her with the screwdriver he had retrieved from the floor. "Just because you're cute doesn't mean you get to sit on my workbench."

"This is a dining table," Aeyva said, deciding to ignore the butterflies that had erupted in her stomach when he called her cute.

"Still," Dex shrugged. "Don't sit on tables."

Aeyva stayed put. Dex continued to work in silence for a few minutes.

"Mind if I ask you a weird question?" Aeyva asked out of the blue.

"No," Dex set his tools down and looked at her.

"Could I descry you? It just helps me get to know people better."

"Oh wow," Dex's eyes widened. "You're a Descryer? Like councilor Terik?"

"For lack of a better word, yes," Aeyva sighed. "Councilor Terik reads someone's potential. But I can also see glimpses of people future. Almost like short videos."

"Cool!" Dex flashed his dimpled grin at her and she mentally groaned when she felt her face heat up. Since when was she such a simp?

"So?" she questioned.

"Alright." Dex nodded. Aeyva held her hand out on the table, and he looked at her quizzically.

"Physical contact is sorta important," she blushed again.

"Oh." He didn't seem to notice her face flush. He grabbed her hand, and her arm tingled with warmth.

As usual, she closed her eyes and was bombarded with racing images. She saw flashes of a house tucked in the woods, a shop in Atlantis, three kids with blurred faces, two girls and one boy. A pair of delicate eyes. She couldn't discern the color, though. A woman spinning in a circle and falling into Dex's arms. Him smiling down at her with an indescribable amount of love in his periwinkle eyes.

But she also saw pain. Grief. She saw a girl fall and strike her head on the ground. She saw blood coating his hands as he tried to get the girl to wake up. She saw the relief in his eyes as he sat by her bedside, his hand around her wrist, feeling for a pulse.

Aeyva opened her own eyes. "Your future is... complicated. You will certainly feel pain and grief. But you will also be successful, be in love, be content."

"What do you say to someone who just told you about your future?" Dex asked, looking sheepish.

"Honestly?" Aeyva asked. "I have no clue."

❤︎

Aerin flung her knife at the tree trunk and it landed just centimeters away from Adalea's blade, hitting its side with a reverberating clang. Some of the girls were working with Sophie to formulate a plan for their next move, some were taking apart gadgets, and some were bored and had decided that playing with weapons was a fair use of time.

"You didn't split it," Adalea said in mock sadness, making a pouty face. She flicked one of the pink gummy-bear earrings Aerin wore. It was an odd choice of fashion, but she had them in every color and wore them nearly every day.

Glimmer came up behind them. "You people aren't half bad." She threw a third knife and it somehow managed to slide between Aerin's and Adalea's.

"Okay, you know what? That's called being a show-off," Celine said, throwing a fourth that veered way off to the left.

Aerin frowned. "What are you so ticked about?" Celine's annoyance was radiating off of her in waves.

"It's all these new people," she muttered. "No offense, but we have enough problems without them."

Avilyn appeared out of nowhere and threw a fifth. It jammed itself into the handle of Adalea's, splitting a crack that traveled all the way down to the blade. Celine glared at her. "Sorry!" Avilyn said, not sounding sorry at all.

"And you all make me feel like I have terrible aim."

Avilyn shrugged. "You do have terrible aim." She disappeared again.

Tam slid out of the shadows. "How did she do that?" He and Glimmer asked at the same time.

"Teleporting through the void." Aerin answered, flicking another knife at the tree. It easily impaled Glimmer's.

"What?" Tam said, shaking his head. "Sophie has to free fall to teleport."

"And it thunders when the void opens," Glimmer added.

Aerin shrugged. "Avilyn's a Conjurer, not a Teleporter. She sort of conjures herself to places, I guess. I'm a Conjurer too, but I prefer light leaping." She threw a dagger that split Celine's. Aerin pumped her fist, and Celine rolled her eyes.

"Maybe it's because there's so many of us in one place," Aerin said, rubbing her forehead, "but everyone's emotions feel way stronger than usual."

"So, wait. Let me get this straight," Tam said, squinting at the girls. "You all have two abilities?"

Adalea clucked her tongue. "Incorrect. Avilyn, Celine, Aerin, me, Aeyva, and Phoenix have two abilities. Lyana has three. Everyone else has just one. Not that that's a bad thing."

Aerin shrugged. "Yeah. We all contribute to the team in different ways, regardless of how many abilities we have."

Celine made a face. "Ehh... it definitely helps to have two."

"There are way too many of you to keep up with," Glimmer said.

"You're probably right," agreed Celine.

A giddy smile spread across Aerin's face. "Not too many for me not to make friendship bracelets for everyone!" she said excitedly. She snapped her fingers and a bunch of bracelets dropped into her palms. "I almost forgot about these."

Adalea and Celine groaned. "Not this again!" Adalea said. "Last time Faelyn choked somebody with hers."

"And I'm pretty sure Cloud ate hers," Celine added with a grimace.

"Well, it's not my fault Phoenix told her they were edible to see if she would believe it!" Aerin argued. Tam's eyebrows shot up. "Anyway, I'm sure nothing will go wrong this time. Look, they have our names on them!" She held them out, and she looked so excited that Celine and Adalea sighed and accepted theirs. Celine's was purple and had hearts in between every letter of C-E-L-I-N-E. Adalea's was blue and green and read A-D-D-Y.

"You are such a child," Celine said, but she slipped it on next to the string bracelet she never took off that matched Kayleey's.

Aerin had already taken off at a run. "I'm gonna go give these to everybody!" she yelled.

Adalea shook her head, smiling. "She's a handful."

"We kinda all are," Celine pointed out.

"Speak for yourself. I'm super easy to deal with."

"You hung Faelyn from the ceiling by her ankles last week because she put an elixir in your food."

"Okay, well, she should have left me alone."

Celine shrugged. "I'm just saying, I don't know how Aeyva keeps us all in check."

"Probably a lot of caffeine and possibly therapy," Adalea said. "Sorry, we're probably freaking you two out," she told Glimmer and Tam.

Tam shrugged. "No worries. Our neck of the Black Swan is a circus too."

"You guys both just escaped from the Neverseen, right? Are you, like, doing okay?" Adalea said, putting her hands in her pockets.

"It took some convincing to get her to leave," Tam muttered, nudging Glimmer in the arm. "My experience wasn't great. But we're fine."

"I had more fun with the Neverseen than with the Black Swan," Glimmer said flatly. Tam glared at her.

"We just- we have some people who have had particularly bad experiences with the Neverseen," Adalea explained. "They don't like to talk about it, but it really messed them up. I guess it depends on the circumstances of the person. But if the Neverseen doesn't care about you or particularly need you, the way they treat you leaves nightmares for the rest of your life." She knew vague details of everyone's background. Lyana had spent some time captured by the Neverseen. Cloud was related to someone in their ranks. Faelyn had been tortured by them for information. And there was probably more Adalea didn't know about.

Tam frowned but didn't say anything. Just then, Aeyva and Dex came over with a few gadgets.

"The Impassable is Keefe's. It seems like he went everywhere you guys did," Dex said. "And as far as the guns you found go, they're very sophisticated. I could probably replicate them if I had a lot of time on my hands, and theoretically you could fill them with whatever substance you wanted, but they have a lot of parts."

Adalea nodded. "So, when you say whatever substance-"

"Is hot lava included?" Celine finished.

Aeyva rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, you guys. You would think I'm in charge of a bunch of kindergartners."

"What about, like, caramel or something?"

"Hair elixir? Would it like, dye the hair of whoever it hit?"

Aeyva buried her face in her hands. "You humiliate me."

Dex gave an easy grin. "I'm all for experimentation, but I honestly don't have any of the parts we would need."

"Seems like poor preparation on your part," said Glimmer lazily, inspecting her nails.

Aeyva clapped her hands together. "Hey. We need to focus. Sophie's team, you can do whatever you want, but my girls' top priority should be finding Keefe Sencen. We need to head to our next destination soon." She shot Celine and Adalea a pointed look.

"Yes, Mother Aeyva, ma'am," Celine said with a mock salute. Adalea followed her lead.

"Oh, shut up."

"Shutting up now, Mother Aeyva, ma'am!"

❤︎

Keefe looked around the store, boxes of random stuff he didn't recognize placed around everywhere.

Quickly, Keefe hurried through the 'baked goods' aisle. Humans' feelings were always over the top strong, so he didn't want to run into more than he needed to, even if he had learned that if a mom saw a teen kid running through the baked goods aisle, it caused more trouble than if not.

"Do you need help, sir?" And there it was, a beautiful (in human standards) young blue-eyed brunette suddenly in front of him, slamming him with a wave of emotions so strong he thought he might puke.

Keefe bit back a curse- why did people always have to force him to talk? "Erm, well, I'm looking for the E.L Fudges," He tried to speak quietly, without emotion, running a hand through his hair, and trying not to focus on the lady's flood of constantly fluctuating feelings.

"Oh, over here, what do you want, vanilla, chocolate, double chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, milk, original?" She gestured to each.

Keefe quickly took one of each and reluctantly turned back to the kind lady, who gave him a flirty smile, and curtsy. "Thanks, my girlfriend will be happy for the successful findings."

The lady's smile faded a bit. "Oh lovely, I'm happy to be of help." She quickly turned and walked away. Keefe smiled to himself and grabbed some other random boxes of food, before he walked towards the checkout desks. Women needed to stop giving him smiles and waves or he was going to lose his mind.

"Hello," The man at the counter looked at him in boredom as he scanned the stuff.

Keefe nodded, not wishing to put more danger on innocent humans by speaking. He pulled out some cash and paid for the food. He tried not to feel guilty for stealing the left-over money that Sophie and Dex had retrieved when they were kidnapped. Whatever, now was not the time to worry.

Keefe exited the store, glancing around before stepping onto the sidewalk. He always had the skin-crawling feeling that someone was watching him. His hotel was close by, so there was no reason to light leap and risk drawing attention to himself.

He was paranoid. At every glimpse of blond hair, he saw Sophie, every time someone spoke he felt commands form on his tongue, every flash of light made him anticipate the Neverseen. He needed to find a way to get rid of this garbage new ability so he could do something useful for once and stop worrying.

He stuffed one hand in the pocket of his leather jacket and swung his grocery bag with the other. Going "grocery shopping" was still a very new thing to him, and since he had a finite amount of money he always bought very few things. Lunchables and ramen were disgusting compared to the gnomish food he was used to but they were cheap. And no matter how bad human food was, it could never top the absolutely repulsive crap he had been stuck eating when he was in the Neverseen. No wonder they were always so grumpy. Anyone would want to go on a killing spree after eating that food for a few months, let alone years.

Walking up the stairs in his hotel building, Keefe passed the old lady who walked her dog six times a day.

"Oh, hello, Ken, dear," she said, smiling up at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. She was a squat little lady who only ever wore floral dresses and sandals. In the human world, Keefe always introduced himself as Kennedy Seacrest. It felt weird, but he didn't want to be tracked down easily. He'd already probably left clues behind in the places he'd been investigating in the past week.

Keefe forced himself to talk because this lady was really nice and always radiated contentment. "How are you today, Miss Huang?"

"I'm ancient, dear; every day I wake up alive is a good day," she told him with a grin. Her tiny puppy ran in circles, chasing its tail and yapping.

He smiled back. "I guess it is. See you."

He climbed up the stairs to the third level and fumbled for the keys in his pocket. The door opened with a click. He'd barely been here for two weeks and didn't spend much time in the hotel so it was hopelessly bare. Just a couch, a table with two chairs, with gadgets and papers scattered everywhere. He was getting virtually nowhere with his investigations of the Neverseen, but maybe if he found a way to get into Nightfall...

Keefe dumped his groceries on the kitchen counter and tore open the package of E. L. Fudges. Sure, they weren't that good, but it was the concept of them that mattered. Elf-shaped cookies were fun. Especially since they didn't look even remotely like elves.

With a cookie in his mouth and another in his hand, Keefe went over to the table and picked up some of the evidence he'd collected. Mostly just tech he didn't understand. There were sticky notes on the wall with random notes about Neverseen stuff... he'd been thinking about the Green Door Guy lately... Ethan Wright. For some reason he couldn't get him out of his head. He felt important. What was in that letter that was so important Keefe's mom had removed his memory of delivering it?

Why would the Neverseen want a human recruit, anyway?

Keefe frowned, wishing he had his mom's Archetype. That would probably be helpful. But no, because nothing seemed to work in his favor.

Maybe eventually, he would just stop...

❤︎

Darkness had fallen in Alluveterre, and the girls took the left tree house to sleep and left the right for Sophie's group. Some of them were sitting cross-legged and whispering, while a few others tried to actually sleep. Avilyn went outside to think, going down the stairs to sit on the grass by herself.

As she descended down the stairs, a shiver ran up her spine. Avilyn whirled around, feeling goosebumps spread up her arm. Someone else was here. She tried to control her breathing, but the memories of last night's nightmares only sped her heart up.

As she pulled out her bow and arrow, afraid that the moonlight would reflect off her silver swords, Avilyn could've sworn that a shadow on the porch quivered.

Pictures of dark cloaks flashed through her mind, and a cold breeze brushed past her ear. She gritted her teeth, notching her arrow, sure that she'd found her target, when- all there was, was darkness.

Avilyn breathed out, lowering her bow.

Its nothing. She told herself. Stop freaking yourself out.

But she couldn't get the images of black cloaks out of her mind, forcing her to relieve her nightmares.

Meanwhile, Kayleey was still outside on the porch where Avilyn had prepared to shoot her.

❤︎

Kayleey was curled up alone against a wall, her eyes squeezed shut, pain enveloping her like the opposite of an embrace. She was trying to slow her quickened breathing. Everything kept going in and out. Fate was so cruel sometimes. Fate didn't care how young she was or how much she'd already gone through, or her current problems or how she had to pretend she was fine with the people around her⏤fate didn't care at all, it turned around and spat in her face.

All this stupid suffering for abilities that most of the time she hid, no, scratch that, ALL the time. She hardly slept. She drank elixir after elixir just to stay focused on the simplest of things. Hopefully none of the girls would search her bag. She laughed a little at the thought.

Kayleey knew Aeyva was onto her. She was a Telepath and not an idiot. She had only been put with her group because Aeyva wanted to figure out what she was hiding.

What kind of friendship was that? That's right, it wasn't one.

Kayleey stared blankly at the deep wood floor, slightly burnt and damp from a blast of rage, her laughter dripping with pain to the point of insanity. "What am I hiding?" she said in a low, dangerous voice, her face stained with quickly evaporating tears.

"You don't want to know."

❤︎❤︎❤︎

HEHE bet you just love us.

This is the Hunkyhair Fan Club, and we hoped you liked this chapter. Plots are already tangling together, and it seems everyone has a secret... put your theories in the comments!

At this point we hope you've gotten to know the characters pretty well. Who do you like? Who do you want to see more of? We love your feedback.

We can personally guarantee that Dex will get more page time and attention in this book alone than he has in Shannon Messenger's entire series, because we RIGHTFULLY recognize his AWESOMENESS and know that he ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY DESERVES IT.

Give us a vote, we appreciate it! See you next week!