#jean posting

No one spoke after we left. 

No one spoke. Not as we got on the highway and left Portland behind, not as we crossed the border into Washington. The most speaking anyone did was Zeke, who only did so to confirm Mei’s car was still following us whenever Dad asked, Dr. Sims at the helm of the Honda to ‘protect the kids.’ 

We followed the highway into the Evergreen state, only veering off at a familiar exit—Battle Ground State Lake State Park. Dad used to take us camping here during the summers, a lifetime ago, experiences that only existed in my memory as flashes of early morning fishing and trapping fireflies in plastic water bottles. 

Dad was in the passenger’s seat, the unfolded dove in his unmoving hands. He didn't move at all, actually; he stared straight as a board and still as a statue in the front seat, staring down at the letter Celia had left behind. 

Put your nose to the ground, Delsin. Sniff out the blood in the water, and come learn everything you’ve missed. 

The van eventually pulled in at the parking lot just by the lake, Zeke immediately throwing it into park as Dad got out without waiting to see if it was. He only paused long enough to open the rear doors for Brent and I to get out before making a beeline for Mei’s Honda, Dr. Sims barely able to get out of the driver’s seat before Dad was accosting him. 

“We need to get into this link,” he immediately said, holding up Celia’s dove. 

A trilling motor cried out and Aunt Sia burst through the trees, skidding to a stop on the gravel of the lake access lot. She pulled off her helmet, shaking her head to get her bangs out of her face. “I think we’re in the clear,” she said, dropping the kickstand and getting off the bike. “I didn’t see anyone following you two at all. 

Dr. Sims frowned. “That’s…good,” he said, sounding entirely unconvinced of the fact. “But I can’t guarantee they didn’t get any live footage from the drone before…”

Before Cat used her powers to destroy it. 

Her powers. 

Brent and I stood side-by-side as she rose from the backseat of the Accord way slower than Dom and Mei did, taking forever to work her way towards us as she avoided our curious stares. Cat was a Conduit. Cat was a Conduit. 

How many times was I going to get hoodwinked like this? 

Dad cursed, looking seconds away from trying to solve his issues through either drinking or violence. “Okay, let’s—” he sucked his teeth, trying to gather his thoughts. “Let’s just try to get online first. We need to find what Celia wants us to find.”

“Delsin—” Dr. Sims began, exhaustion in his voice. 

Dad, though, immediately cut him off. “There’s two kids in danger here, Eugene. She’s threatening my kids. ‘New players enter the game’?” He motioned to Zeke’s van. “Grab your laptops.”

“I can’t believe it,” Dom murmured under his breath as Dr. Sims relented, opening the back of Zeke’s van to retrieve his bags. Dom looked between Brent and I with wide eyes. “Your dad really is Delsin Rowe.”

“Yeah, it was kinda the same when we found out, too,” Brent muttered as Mei slotted between us. Cat was still taking far too long to join our group, staring down at her feet and kicking rocks as she walked. 

“Did you know?” I asked, glancing at Mei. She and Cat…I wouldn’t say they were closer, as we all were pretty close—but even in friend groups, you have favorites. And she and Cat were close, just like Reese and I were. 

Apparently, though, not close enough. “No, I—none of us knew,” she insisted, Dom nodding vehemently in agreement. “She never told me, at least.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt there’s no reason she’s kept it a secret for this long,” Brent muttered, crossing his arms.

Cat finally crossed the threshold of being within earshot—and for that reason, none of us spoke. There was a long, possibly multi-minute pause where we all looked at Cat, and she refused to meet our eyes, looking at the grit on the ground instead. 

Finally, I cracked first, asking a simple question: “How long?”

Cat inhaled deeply Three years, she admitted, hands falling back to her sides in defeat. 

“Does Tommy know?” Dom immediately asked. 

Cat’s hands seemed to become lead at that. 

Brent scoffed. “‘Course he doesn’t,” he said, sardonic. “Because you know your cousin’s the type to leave people for dead in alleyways and tell the world about it instead of not be a prick.”

“Brent,” I hissed. I get it, he was upset with Tommy and everything he’s done—but now wasn’t the time to use Cat as the emotional punching bag for his issues with Tommy. 

“He is!” Brent said instead, glaring at me before turning his eyes back on Cat. “That’s why you never told him, huh?”

Tommy’s been through a lot— Cat began trying to defend, Brent speaking over her. 

“Please,” he scoffed. “His parents dying to a Conduit doesn’t excuse any of this shit—him or your grandfather. You haven’t told anyone because you know exactly what they would’ve said if you told them you were a Conduit.”

You saw how my grandfather reacted when I told him I was a girl, Cat signed, scowling in offense. He barely accepted me then. Why would I tell him about this?

“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Brent retorted in turn, swinging out an arm to motion towards me. “Jean and I wouldn’t have cared!” 

“Brent, that’s enough,” I snapped. Brent clamped his mouth shut but stayed scowling; he hated being lied to, and this omittance counted—in his eyes, at least. 

And while I knew Cat was entitled to keep her secrets her own, I felt a bit hurt that she kept this from us for three years. “We’re not your grandfather,” I reminded her. “You could’ve told us. We would’ve kept it a secret from him—”

And Tommy? She asked, face deadpan. You think we would have been able to keep it secret from him?

I didn’t have a good response to that. No, we wouldn’t have; Tommy probably would’ve found out very quickly, and would’ve been pissed we kept it from him. But that wasn’t my biggest concern with this whole situation. “You shouldn’t have been alone,” I murmured sympathetically.

Cat’s expression wavered, and for the briefest moment, I saw everything she must’ve felt in those three years where she had to lie to us about who she was; the sadness and pain and grief of having to shove yet another part of herself into a closet out of fear of how people would react. 

And I did the only thing I could think to do; I stepped forward and pulled her into a hug before she could try to protest. 

Cat, admittedly, froze the moment I yanked her forward, and there were another two or three seconds where she didn’t move at all. But then her arms came to wrap around my shoulders in turn, her cheek resting on my forehead as I felt the air escape from her lungs in exhale and her whole body relax in relief—finally, someone knew. Finally, she wasn’t alone. 

There was another hand on my back and soon Mei joined, the same girl group hug we’d do in the bathrooms or after a breakup. The close sisterhood, the love, the caring reminder that we’d all be there for each other. 

Only there was a gap on my left where my best friend should have been. 

We pulled back, Mei murmuring words of encouragement to Cat—though she didn’t seem to be paying attention. At some point she must have felt the press of my cast’s lattice on her because now she was looking down at my right arm like it was an enigma. Something strange and incorrect—and now that I knew she was a Conduit, and she knew I was, too—I realized to her, it was. A broken bone on a Conduit was wrong in her eyes. 

Which is why I avoided them when she looked up at me, instead pulling the sleeve of my jacket further over my arm. 

Mei returned to Brent’s side and tucked herself in as Dom looked down at Cat, a ghost of a smile on his face. “So what is your power, anyways?” He asked her.

Now that there was an alleviation to the tension here, Cat began to tell us all about her power: wax. She wasn’t sure what kind, since it didn’t exactly seem to be something like regular candle wax, but also didn’t seem like tallow or something like beeswax. It’s just…wax, she said with a simple shrug. Burns like it, smells like it, but I can’t tell you how it becomes…different after I drain something to use. 

Brent, who seemed to let go of most of his upset now that he was being involved and informed, asked, “So what, you can drain any wax?”

Cat nodded, adding for emphasis, Why do you think I own so much chapstick? 

That also explained why I caught her eating the end of one in secret in the bathroom one time, though I wasn’t going to mention it. I just thought she really liked cherry flavoring.

Mei looked up at Brent, whose face was beginning to turn pink from exposure to the elements. All those powers and he wasn’t saved from his eczema. “And you’re steel?” She asked. 

Brent seemed a bit proud of the fact when, instead of outright answering, his pink nose dipped lighter and lighter till becoming grey, the color spreading across his face and down his neck as he showed off his steel abilities. 

Cat gasped in surprise as Dom said, “Dude, that’s fucking sick,” with a disbelieving laugh while Mei stood on her toes to reach up and touch a strand of his needle thin, cable-like hair in fascination. I just rolled my eyes. What a show-off.

Okay, that’s way cooler than what I can do, Cat signed, nodding like she was impressed. 

And then she looked at me, and asked the worst thing she possibly could. What can you do with your water powers?

Oh, nothing, bestie! I just get sicker if I use them too often. How the hell was I supposed to get out of this? Especially when Mei settled down on her boots to turn towards me, Dom crossing his arms and doing that lopsided, aloof grin. 

“I—” I stumbled awkwardly. “I mean, nothing like Brent’s steel skin.”

Dom huffed out a chuckle. “Yeah, but you can make a whole whirlpool in the ocean,” he pointed out. “Seriously, that thing was huge. Someone online said it was, like, five stories high.”

“And you did that tidal wave too,” Mei added, too cheerful for the damage that mentioned tsunami caused. I killed hundreds, I ruined Christmas, and she had her eyes alight like it was a sick party trick I pulled at her family’s pool. 

What else can you do? Cat asked, quickly adding, my powers become viscous but not liquid—I’ve always wondered how liquid powers work!

“Yeah, you’ve got to show us something,” Mei agreed, Dom nodding in agreement behind her. 

Oh, god, this could not be happening right now. 

I felt the weight of their gaze, of their expectations; I should’ve been able to show off my power with ease, it should’ve been simple! I could’ve evaporated on the spot or swirled some water around my fingers and call it a day. But I wasn’t even allowed to do that—a fact that I definitely didn’t wanna bring up now. Hey, guys, on top of Tommy and Reese being kidnapped, guess who’s got a failing conduit organ?

I wasn’t gonna say that

So instead I chuckled nervously, saying, “I don’t know, guys—it’s late, those people could still be after us and we really don’t need to be showing off right now—“ 

“Oh come on, Jean!” Mei interrupted, playfully stomping a foot. “I want to see what you can do! There has to be something simple.” 

“I really—“ I struggled to find a new rung on the ladder of bullshit to climb up to try to get out of this. “I’m pretty low on my power, too, I’d rather hold off—“ 

Dom looked at me like I was an idiot. “There’s a lake behind you.” He deadpanned. 

I glanced back at the lake. Right. Shit. 

I looked at Brent, trying to use that twin telepathy people were so sure existed to scream at him get me the hell out of this! but he just stood there with a dumb, deer-in-headlights expression. 

God, brothers are useless. 

Mei was still looking at me in excitement, Dom raising a brow—but it was Cat’s slightly suspicious glare that had me on edge, the stroma seeming to darken a bit like she was looking for a twitch in my facade. Not that she needed one; the proof of my hesitance lay in the arms I crossed, the cast pressing against my chest as a nice, firm reminder of why exactly they were all eyeing me in the silence. 

I was in the middle of debating telling them the truth or doing a little party trick when Dad gave me the grace of a distraction in the noise of a long, drawn out slew of curse words as he hit the hood of Zeke’s van. 

Dad, Dr. Sims, Zeke and Aunt Sia were perched around the hood, watching Dr. Sims as he switched between two of his laptops like a frantic animal trying to find an out—or, in this case, a way in. Into whatever little hole Celia had carved out to lead us to…well, hopefully Reese and Tommy, though at this rate I wasn’t sure what to believe. 

“Your dad really is Delsin Rowe,” Dom repeated his statement from earlier, awe and something akin to distrust in his expression, like he was waiting for Brent and I to yell sike and say this was all a ruse. Neither of us did. “And that’s—that’s Eugene Sims. And you said the other guy was Cole MacGrath’s friend?”

I sighed, just thankful the attention wasn’t on me anymore. “Yeah, that’s Zeke Dunbar,” I said. “He was there when Cole got his powers and all that stuff in Empire City. And Aunt Sia was apparently Dr. Sims’ friend in high school.”

Cat hummed some disbelieving sound. Wow, so you’re connected to everyone from the Seattle Uprisings in some way, she said, looking at me. That must be crazy.

Brent scoffed. “Understatement of the fucking century,” he muttered. 

Mei kept her eyes on Dad, squinting in analysis like she was dissecting him under a microscope. “Who were those people who came to the school?” She asked, finally peeling her eyes from Dad to look between us. 

Brent and I glanced at each other, silently debating whether we should even tell them anything—would it be okay to? Would it be safe to? He raised a brow and I shrugged—they were already involved in some way. It was too late to keep them out of the bullshit that followed our family name. 

Brent gave the smallest nod before looking down at his girlfriend—God, that was still weird to think about, looking at them two so close and not standing on other sides of the group and making googoo eyes at each other—and beginning to explain. “They’re all working for someone Dad knew before. Like, Seattle-before. Some woman that escaped Curdun Cay and gave him a hard time before disappearing.”

“She wants Conduits to be free,” I explained. I had been in her mind, felt that hunger. Her betrayal at the mere idea of letting go of her own freedoms, her powers, to have a chance at Conduits being accepted into society was enough to make her betray Augustine, someone I could feel she had the same love I felt when I was with Dad. “She doesn’t like what’s happening right now and wants it to change, and she’s sure it’s not gonna unless…unless she starts making moves herself.”

If she followed her convictions enough to do that, she was dangerous. 

Dom huffed. “But Conduits are free,” he said, rolling his eyes like it was stupid simple. Like it was obvious. 

He became very sheepish when Brent, Cat and I all turned in place to look at him like he was an idiot. 

“Seriously, dude?” Brent asked, almost offended that he’d even say anything like that.

“What?” He asked, throwing up a hand when he saw how we all were looking at him. “It’s true! Conduits haven’t had to be in Curdun for years now.” 

“Yeah, okay, and there were a hundred years between the slavery being abolished and the Civil Rights act,” Brent pointed out, something Dom scowled at—especially as a Black man. 

“What Brent is saying,” I interrupted before Brent’s deadpanned matter-of-factism could end with a foot in his mouth and a fist in his face. “Is that…well, yeah, we’re out here, but things aren’t exactly going well, you know? They’re trying to force Conduits to sign up in registries and everything.”

There’s a dude running for president this year who’s whole campaign is that we should be locked up like before, Cat added. 

“Or shipped off,” Brent added, crossing his arms. He was all skin once more, but the ends of his hair were going grey the more he thought about it, revealed by his lack of beanie. “Seriously, who the hell thinks bringing segregation back is going to do anything?”

“I don’t know if I would call it segregation when they’re trying to make camps like the ones my hii-oji was sent to when he was a child,” Mei corrected. “They’re talking about that 990-something executive order. That’s internment camps.”

“Not to mention the states that’re requiring ID for Conduits,” Brent added in agreement, looking down at Mei. “They’re trying to make that a federal law. All it’s missing is an arm ba–”

“Alright, I get it, damn,” Dom said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I knew things were bad but—I mean, I never really thought that would happen,” He defended. “It—it all sounds so ridiculous that I never thought they’d actually do it, you know?”

I rubbed my own arm; that was fair, I suppose, if this was something that was simply rumor. But there was one issue. “It’s already happening,” I pointed out. Dom was about twenty years too late on hoping it was too insane. 

Because it happened once already. 

Our conversation didn’t get to continue; Dad exclaimed, “Oh thank God,” as he immediately commandeered one of Dr. Sims’ computers from him, scrolling. Zeke disappeared into the driver's side of his van and came out with a yellow notepad and a pen, nodding along as Dad narrated something for him to jot down. They all looked serious, but more so now; instead of being confronted by the puzzle that was getting in, now they were debating some sort of solution to whatever was presenting itself. 

“That seems good,” Brent hummed, looking at me. “Think they finally got an answer?”

“That, or at least something to start with,” I agreed. 

Cat glanced at the group, eyes hovering on Dad before she offhandedly signed, So what happens now? 

I cocked my head to the side. “What do you mean?” 

This, she replied vaguely. This random group that stole Tommy and Theresa, the demands they had for your dad. What happens now?

I hesitated. What did happen now that we were here? Dad seemed fully intent on saving them, and that meant hunting down Celia. Not to mention he looked like he needed no motivation to do that when I told him of the fleeting visions I had of Celia there for every moment. At Mom’s labor, at the marina, there answering a message about me in the back of a van. Regardless of what was going to happen here, he was going to hunt Celia down—Tommy and Reese were just secondary objectives to the real goal. 

“I…guess we try to find where these people took Reese and Tommy,” I said, looking at Cat. “The person Dad’s trying to find leaves behind clues, makes this sort of…a scavenger hunt for him. He’s gotta follow the pieces.”

“Sorry—she kidnapped Theresa and Tommy and is making your dad play hide and seek?” Mei asked, holding up a hand. That same hand tossed up in disbelief. “Who the hell does something like that?”

A monster. 

I watched Dad throw his head back and groan aloud, exhausted from whatever search Celia had him on. Truthfully, we all were tired; I don’t think I got much sleep in the back of the van—at least not anything substantial—and I doubted Dad even slept at all. “She’s using them to get to Dad,” I said, finally answering Mei. “It’s not about finding them, it’s about using them to lead him to her.” I looked between my friends. “And showing him something along the way. Whatever she has to show him is more important than—than the safety of a bunch of kids in school or anything.” 

Cat frowned. That’s insane, she said. Her power could have fried any one of us if she wanted.

Her power? 

Celia’s power was…well, it was paper, which, while it apparently was enough to kill someone by a thousand paper cuts, wasn’t something that could fry someone. Not by a long shot. 

I didn’t get to ask the question, though; instead, off to the side, Aunt Sia asked, “Did you say fried?”

Everyone turned to look at Aunt Sia—she had somehow approached us without a single one realizing in spite of the gravel at our feet that crunched with the slightest shift in posture. I hadn’t realized she was so light on her feet—or maybe that’s a talent she’s kept to herself from her days in Project Sanctuary.

Regardless, she glanced between us all, eyes especially hovering on Dom, Cat and Mei as she said, “I need you all to tell me everything you can about the attack on the school.”

My brow rose. “Is everything okay?”

Aunt Sia weighed her responses in her mind, head tilting back and forth until she found her answer. “Sort of. We need to pinpoint something and I just want to make sure all of our bases are covered, so we’re not missing something crucial.” She crossed her arms. “So I need you three to tell me everything you remember.”

Dom went first. 

Period change between second and third had just happened, and he was still drying off from the showers when he heard screaming in the lockers after gym. Some people from the halls had managed to book it down to the Phys Ed wing and tuck away—he had barely left before he turned back around and hid in the supply closet in the gym with a bunch of other students, herding them in before bracing against the door to make sure it couldn’t swing in. 

Mei seemed more shaken than I originally thought as she started her account; her eyes immediately went downward when Aunt Sia looked at her, and she began to fidget with the bottom hem of her jacket as she recounted how she hid away in the library. She didn’t have much of a plan, she said; she was going to listen out for the attacker and pray she could outmaneuver them by hiding at the ends of the bookshelves. She stumbled through her retelling so much that Brent had to throw an arm around her in support. 

“You were in the library?” I asked. “I thought third period was your Econ class.”

Mei swallowed back whatever bile the thought had brought up. “I, yeah—it is. I was sent to get copies before class started and left to grab a book while Ms. Adler did that for me.”

Aunt Sia kept her steely analytical eyes on Mei for a moment before humming—something Mei said registered in her mind, though she didn’t say anything aloud. 

Cat, though, had it the worst, as she was there the moment they took Tommy. 

We hid in the stairwell, she told us. We didn’t see when they came in but we heard it—they were loud, and there was a lot of banging. Tommy, he—you know he knows what that sounds like, she said, looking between Brent and I so we could vouch for her. He knew it wasn’t guns, but wasn’t sure what it was, so we hid until we could make sense of what was happening. 

Aunt Sia nodded. “Smart,” she murmured. I couldn’t help but agree—Tommy hiding them but keeping them where they could hear what was happening could’ve been the difference between life and death. 

Something he must’ve carried within himself from last time.

We were hiding, waiting to see if we needed to go into the science wing or run downstairs, when we heard the woman tell the others to look for him, she said, eyes faraway. Another person that mattered to me, another haunted look. I kept telling him we needed to go, we needed to hide, but he wouldn’t move. At first I was worried he was frozen, you know, because of his PTSD—but after a moment when we heard more—more crashes and screaming, he stood and told me to go hide. 

Brent blinked. “He gave himself up?” He asked incredulously. 

Cat nodded. He did, she said. I tried to stop him, tried to tell him that it was dangerous, but he said he didn’t want anything worse to happen because of him. Cat looked down at the gravel, shoulders sagging with the weight of what happened—and the subsequent choices she made. I didn’t…I watched him go down the stairs, and a few seconds later, heard him call out to the people. He told them his name, and said that he was there, so they could leave. He was demanding they leave. I didn’t know they already had Theresa until I heard him say her name and ask them to not hurt her. That’s when I finally moved to peek over the third floor breezeway and watched them be dragged away. She chewed on her inner cheek, eyes brimming with tears in the pale moonlight. I just watched them get carried away and I…I froze. I did nothing. I should have done something.

My heart broke, the shatter making me take a step forward. “Kitty, no, you couldn’t have done—”

I should have done something, she insisted with a huff through her nose, the movements of her signing firm enough to enunciate even through the language barrier. I have powers, I could have done something! Instead I froze and let those assholes take my cousin, she threw a hand up in punctuation. 

Brent started to speak, “Cat, you did what was best—” before he was interrupted by Aunt Sia. 

“It’s traumatizing, watching someone you care about get taken away like that,” she said empathetically, taking a step forward. “You sort of…spiral, and begin to think about things that could’ve been different. You could’ve said something different, or insisted hard enough, or if you had just convinced them to go somewhere that, in hindsight, would’ve been the perfect hiding spot—”

She cut off, throwing a glance back over her shoulder, eyes hovering on her best friend, Dr. Sims. All this chaos, and I forgot she knew Dr. Sims before he even developed powers; was she there the day he did? Was she there the day he was taken? 

She righted her eyes once more, a hand going over her leather-wrapped heart. “I get it, okay? And I need you to understand there is nothing you could have done to change this. Realistically, the people that attacked your school would have kept attacking, if they stayed. They would’ve kept searching for him, and—well, there’s a chance your cousin saved lives by giving himself up, including yours. Definitely yours, if you had made your power known at all. We still don’t know a lot about Archangel, but we know enough about its leader to know it would’ve ended badly for you if you intervened.

“And we’re not going to stop until we find him, okay? That’s why I need you to tell me everything that happened.” She lowered her hand from her heart, letting Cat take a moment to calm herself before asking, “What happened after you raised yourself enough to see them taking your friends?”

Cat inhaled deeply before raising her hands.  I didn’t actually move until I heard the woman yell about leaving, that they had ‘their targets.’ They dragged Tommy and Theresa through the front gate. The woman who was telling everyone what to do was on the second story breezeway across from me—

Aunt Sia immediately straightened at that. “You saw the woman?” She asked. “Can you tell me more about her?” This was different; seeing someone use a power was one thing, sure, but the woman who outright threatened Dad with that message on the courtyard being seen? Maybe we could use that. We could confirm it was Celia. 

She was blonde, Cat said. Had a hat on, one of those….I can only describe it as French? What are those called—

“Beret?” Mei asked. 

Cat nodded. Yeah, kind of like those. More slouchy. She had a brown coat, a long one, scarf around her neck. The weird thing though was that she was hard to look at. Like, she was surrounded by this light that was way too bright.

I looked at Aunt Sia, who was already looking at me like she was waiting for confirmation from someone else, someone that knew…“That’s not Celia,” I said.

She nodded in thought, hand absentmindedly fiddling with her braid. “It’s not,” she agreed. 

Brent sighed hard. “So there’s more than just the crazy suicidal lady,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Dom’s eyes widened—for someone who was usually aloof, he was quick to figure things out when he was paying attention. “Wait, so—the person you all were sure had something to do with this, that woman’s not her?”

Aunt Sia held up a placating hand. “We know she’s still involved,” she reassured him—especially when his words seemed to make Cat’s hackles raise in alarm.  “She’s the cause of this in some capacity. More than likely, she sent someone trusted to kidnap your friends.”

Okay, but who? Cat demanded. If you guys don’t know who took my cousin, then how are you even supposed to find him? Or Theresa?

Aunt Sia watched Cat’s hands for a moment, that hand on her own braid paused as I watched her eyes seemingly flash in the moonlight as the thoughts behind them ran like pistons, trying to connect dots. 

Which is why it was no surprise when Aunt Sia, instead of continuing to calm everyone down, asked, “What else happened?” 

Cat blinked, looking at Aunt Sia like she hadn’t heard her correctly at first—but something settled in the fugue of her panic and she exhaled shakily, raising her hands once more. She was—I told you she was on the second balcony, right? She asked, everyone nodding in confirmation. Okay. She was there, and that weird light around her flashed and she disappeared. I didn’t realize she was on the rooftop until there was a huge light ray that was carving that message into the courtyard.

Mei was the first to voice it. “She teleported?” She asked, looking up at Brent. “Conduits can teleport?” 

“Not usually. Not unless their power allows it.” Aunt Sia answered instead. 

Cat, though, shook her head. I wouldn’t say she teleported. Well, she sorta did, but it wasn’t just her disappearing. It was the bright light–like you said, her power. She had someone standing beside her on the rooftop, a man, and once she was done with the message, instead of disappearing, there was this weird… 

Cat struggled to find the word, instead taking a moment to broaden in a wide circle with her hands before going back to signing. This huge circle was behind her. Blue. It appeared behind them when they were talking and then they turned and walked into it and disappeared. 

Blue circle. 

My eyes traveled away from the group, looking out at the gray lake in the pale moonlight, and suddenly I was there, back in the Puget Sound watching something on the other end of the waters widen further and further until those soldiers came out of it, ice at their fingertips. The same person that attacked the school, took Tommy and Theresa, was the same person who helped Augustine and those soldiers attack the Akomish reservation. 

Attacked me. 

Nearly killed me. 

I had really only used it once, but I became very used to the idea that I could breathe underwater. Especially after the first time I used the ability, when everything seemed so peaceful and bright and exciting. But now? I was reminded of what it felt like to drown. Between the numbers and the abilities, I felt like we were all in over our heads. Because if they could kidnap me, Tommy and Reese, if they could bomb COLE, if they could nearly kill me….

What else could they do?

Aunt Sia’s voice brought me back to the current conversation, asking, “Did you happen to hear any of their conversation before she disappeared? Anything about a location, or somewhere to fall back to?” Cat shook her head, and Aunt Sia tried her best to not seem disappointed. “Thank you for telling me all of this,” she said instead with that gently placating sincerity in her tone that always brought a bit of calm to you when you were upset, like a mother’s gentle hum. She smiled, though the action seemed a bit stressed, and then turned to leave, heading back towards the others by the van. 

We watched her leave in silence, everyone paused with bated breath like they were scared to be the first to break it—though mine wasn’t out of fear. I waited until Aunt Sia was far out of hearing range before turning to look at Cat. “The portal—did it look like those solar flares that come off of the sun?” I asked. “Sorta wispy, a bit purple at the edges?”

She blinked, surprised I even knew that, before nodding. It did. How do you—

I turned before she even finished the question to head towards Dad. 

I held up a hand, signaling for them to just wait a minute when Brent asked me what the hell I was doing as I was two steps behind Aunt Sia. Zeke was looking down at the long list on his notepad as Dr. Sims was trying to calm Dad down, a placating hand out. 

Not that it was doing much. I caught the tail end of Dad’s rant the closer we approached: “—impossible to figure this out without it taking days,” he insisted, hand running through his hair. That same hand motioned off both abruptly and vaguely as he added, “Those kids don’t have that sort of time!”

“They’ve put up a ton of firewalls and heuristic scans,” Dr. Sims told Dad. “I can try to use a recursive backdoor exploit, but I’d have to map out the subnet first. It’ll take some time—”

“We don’t have time,” Dad stressed again, a bit more forceful. 

Aunt Sia finally joined the group, starting with, “I don’t think anything they told me will help—” before a particular patch of gravel crunched under my feet and they all paused to look up and see who was approaching—something Dad especially didn’t seem to want to deal as he sighed, trying to keep his tone level to keep me from worrying, like he always did. And always failed to. “Jean, go—go hang out with your friends for a while while we figure this out—”

“The person that attacked the school helped attack Salmon Bay,” I said, getting straight to the point. “And I don’t think it’s Celia.”

That at least got his attention. 

Aunt Sia told the men what Cat had explained to her, and I waited till the end of the conversation to add that those portals were near-exactly like what I saw when I was fighting Augustine in the Puget Sound. By the time I was done, Zeke was nodding slowly while Dad stared off at the paint of the van, Dr. Sims too busy typing to really commit to a look of thoughtfulness. 

“So that confirms it,” Zeke said, looking at Dad. “Celia’s got a second-in-command.”

Dad hummed—or, it sounded more like a badly disguised groan—while he chewed on his inner cheek. “One that’s doing the dirty work while she works behind the scenes,” he huffed. “Glad to see not much has changed.”

“Whoever it is, Celia trusts,” Aunt Sia said. 

“And that’s hard to come by,” Dr. Sims added. “I’ll look into finding local footage, see if we can get a start on figuring out who this person is.” He was typing like a madman on his computer, not even pausing in the strikes as he looked up at Aunt Sia. “But we don’t know where they could have gone?”

Aunt Sia shook her head. “No,” she confirmed. “The tall one, D….Don?” She asked, looking at me. 

“Dom,” I told her. I tacked on uselessly, “Short for Dominic.”

“Dom—he was in the lockers,” she told Dad. “Brent’s girlfriend says she was in the library, and while Tommy’s cousin could see him being taken away, she didn’t hear anything that’d help us.”

Dad groaned. “So we’re no closer to finding out which one of these places they could be.”

I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

There was this brief moment where Dad looked at me, opened his mouth, and I could practically see the insistence that I not worry about it on the edge of his chapped lips—but then he froze. He paused, snapped his mouth shut, and after a beat, the insistence floated away on the frosted air of his exhale. “We’re having trouble finding where your friends are,” he admitted. 

The chill that ran down my spine had nothing to do with the winter air. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, moving to lean against the grill of the van, “That I think Celia had this all planned to where I was supposed to use the mobile command center, to directly access their records. But since your friend triggered the alarms, it shut everything down.”

My chest felt like lead. “So you…you have no idea where they are?”

Zeke held up a hand. “We’ve got some ideas,” he reassured me, motioning towards the hood of the van where the dove lay unfolded and on its front, revealing the letter Celia wrote Dad. “We figured the crazy lady is using some sort of old DUP facility based on the letter, and Eugene managed to use the old DUP stuff he had to pinpoint a secret file of locations. But it’s not exactly a short list,” he said, flipping his hand to show me the other side of the pad. 

Oh, that was….a lot of locations. 

‘Locations’ was a loose term. Some were obvious—Curdun Cay, stations in other cities. The big major holding cell on the East Coast that was destroyed a while ago in a hurricane. But there were a lot of other things, words and phrases and even simple acronyms that just didn’t make sense, things only those that’ve worked with the DUP in the past would’ve even had a chance at cracking. Lowcountry. ABDA. Newbrant, Chilling, JST, Purcell, Fa—

Purcell. 

Zeke kept talking, but it didn’t really register to my ears; that one word seemed to peel off of the pad and float in my vision, the word repeated again and again in my head but not my tone of voice. No, the voice was more authoritative, cooler and firmer like the concrete she had wielded. 

“Which is why I’m giving approval for the detainee to be sent to our research facility in Purcell. If we can find a way to harness that ability? The DUP would never fall.”

“—trying our best to find them—” Dad said when I came back to earth, taking my silence for fear and rushing to reassure me. Instead, I interrupted him. 

“It’s Purcell.”

Dad faltered as everyone else raised their heads to look at me, confusion on their faces. “What?”

I tried to keep up with my thoughts and outline them in a way that would make sense, despite how insane it all seemed—but I told Dad the story once and I assumed he told the others, considering they were still here. “I—when Garrett was showing me things, the memories they had of what Celia had shown them—there was the moment Celia defected. Augustine was telling her about this—this Conduit that she found that could ‘negate’ another Conduit’s powers if he was near them. She sent the Conduit to this place called Purcell to find a power to go with his ability so that she could use it to turn off Conduits so they could ‘reenter’ society. It’s why Celia left her, Dad.” I told him, watching his eyes widen with every word. All I told him, and somehow I missed telling him all this to instead inform him about what Celia did to Mom. “They wanted to give this Conduit a physical power to make the implants like Garrett had actually work, so Conduits didn’t have powers and could live in society. And Celia didn’t like that, so she left Augustine alone when you fought her in the Sea6News tower.”

Zeke slowly lowered the notepad as I rambled on, glancing to meet Dad’s eyes when I paused. “If Dr. Hutch was correct and the signatures on Garrett and Jean matched—” He began.

“That means they found a compatible power,” Dad finished in agreement. “Probably sped everything up that they could while we were all on trial, threw the implant in Garrett as a minimum, and Celia managed to recruit them after the DUP lost all funding a year later.” He spun around, zeroing in on Dr. Sims. “Do you know if they found this Purcell place like the others?” 

“I can look,” Dr. Sims acquiesced, moving to the passenger’s side door of the van to grab another one of his laptops. He booted it up, moving to go through the plethora of file’s he had stored on it and began working away. 

Meanwhile, Dad had gone digging for his phone in his pocket as Aunt Sia moved to give Dr. Sims room to work, settling in beside Dad and putting a hand on his arm. “Do you want me to go get a description of the man with Celia’s lieutenant? He might be the tar Conduit,” she said, keeping her voice low. 

Dad nodded absentmindedly, only glancing up to watch her leave before beginning to type away at his phone. Dr. Sims shifted to another computer and we all fell into silence for a bit as he worked until he said, “I’m not pulling up anything with the Purcell moniker. Maybe it went by another name? But we don’t even know what Purcell means.”

Zeke was scribbling on the notepad in his hands now, frowning. “Purcell,” he hummed, like he was testing out the word. “Ain’t that some sort of mountain?”

“It’s either a mountain range, or a composer,” Dad quipped, scrolling past the latter to click on a wikipedia link for the former. “‘The Purcell Mountains are a mountain range in southeastern British Columbia.’” He read off of the screen before looking up. “How the hell are we supposed to get to British Columbia?” 

“Assuming it has anything to do with the area,” Dr. Sims added offhandedly. 

“I might still have some contacts,” Aunt Sia returned, moving to stand beside Dr. Sims. She motioned for the note pad Zeke had and flipped to the next page, beginning to make her own notes. “I had a lot of different ways of getting Conduits into Canada—there has to be something I can still do.” She jotted down something before holding it out for Dad to take. “This is what Jean’s friend remembers of the lieutenant and the man with her.”

She silently held out her other hand and the two traded, Dad reading her notes as she began to search for a way into Canada via Maps instead. “Blonde…short build with a skirt…man with brown buzzed hair,” he huffed, looking up at Aunt Sia with a raised brow. “The woman was ‘surrounded by light?’”

Aunt Sia shrugged. “That’s what she said,” she defended. “That she seemed to be surrounded by some kind of shifting light source.”

Dad seemed to watch Sia’s face for a lie before sighing hard, holding the notepad out for Zeke to take back. “I don’t know these people,” he said. “They don’t ring a bell at least.”

Dr. Sims sighed. “I don’t have a lead on this Purcell place,” he said. “Which, on one hand, means the lab was never found and is probably where Celia is stationed. But we don’t have a direct location. If we continue with the assumption that ‘Purcell’ means this mountain range, it’s still a mountain range. That’s a wide area to search. If we make it up to Canada, I can deploy some angels, try to zero in on it based on activity—especially any kind of radio waves—but I’d need time to pinpoint—”

Dad groaned, letting his head fall back. “We don’t have time to search a whole mountain range. Those kids don’t have time.”

I tried to swallow but my mouth was too dry; there it was again. Dad’s urgent insistence that we were running out of time, that Tommy and Reese were running out of time. They were in danger, that much I knew, but Dad was so sure that something horrible was going to happen. That spark of anxiety behind his eyes?

He was scared of them dying. 

And that terrified me, because I knew the idea wasn’t above the realm of possibilities where Celia was involved. 

I glanced back at my friends, the ones from my group remaining; Cat had cracked under her own worry and began to pace, Dom and Mei watching her footsteps with concern. Brent’s eyes met mine and he just barely raised his brows, asking for an answer I didn’t have. Was this what it felt like, to be Dad? To see all the people you cared about stressed and have no way to fix it? No answers, no ideas. No location to a place my best friend was dragged to and no idea if we could even get there. Sure, we had an idea, a concept of a possibility of an answer. A mountain range that, in the conversation Dad, Dr. Sims and Zeke were currently having, was 300 miles wide and nearly triple that in height. It would take forever to search the area, far longer than we had to spare. This wasn’t something we could solve with an address and Google Maps—hell, I couldn’t even do what Mei did and stalk a bitmoji on the prayer that I’d even be able to find her—

Wait. 

Wait. 

My eyes widened and I broke away from Brent’s stare to fumble in my pocket for my phone, managing to drop it in the process. The crunch from my phone hitting gravel grabbed everyone’s attention and I suddenly felt a dozen eyes on me as Dad asked, “You alright?”

I didn’t respond, not yet; there was some terrible part of me that was terrified that this wouldn’t work. That somehow the time away had taken away from the life I knew had taken this too. Not to mention my last phone took a swim in the Sound. 

But for once in my goddamn life, I was lucky; I signed into my phone’s account that turned it from a burner into mine, and with it came the influx of everything else that belonged to me. The missed calls, the plethora of voicemails. The previews to emails with accusations that felt like they stabbed me in my chest even as I swiped them away. 

None of that mattered right now. Not when I could possibly help.

The gravel shifted beside me as Dad walked over to join me as I clicked through apps and opened the one I was looking for, cursing at how long it took to load in this area with terrible reception. I smacked the screen of the phone and it prompted Dad to ask again, “Jean, what are you doing?”

But just then, the location map of the Find My Phone app loaded, and oh, how I could’ve cried; every desperate search for my missing phone, every joking message I’d send to her when she was off doing something far from home, all led to a circular dot I centered in the screen, Reese’s last location pinged somewhere in Canada. 

I held up my phone, screen facing outward. “Would you be able to figure out where she is with this?” I asked Dr. Sims. 

He cocked his head. “What is that?”

Dad stepped forward, motioning for me to hand my phone over as he huffed—despite the stress of it all, he almost seemed amused. “Find My Phone, saving the day again,” he murmured as he turned around, walking to Dr. Sims’ side. “Last online yesterday. What’s the likelihood that that was her phone dying?” 

Dr. Sims took my phone, holding it in one hand as his other reached out to the map on his mini-computer and using the touch screen to zoom in. “It looks like it’s here,” he said, motioning to the screen. “Eyebrow Peak, or around that area.”

Dad sighed. “So we’re definitely going to Canada,” he said, rubbing the overgrown stubble that had turned scruff on his jawline. “Alessia—”

“Already on it,” she said, motioning for Zeke to follow her. “Mind helping?”

“Sure,” Zeke said, pushing off of the side of his van. “Think I’ve got some old favors I could try calling in.”

They left as Dr. Sims muttered something to Dad, who nodded before turning to face me. “We’ll give you your phone back when we get what we need off of it, okay?” He asked me. 

He looked so tired; I hadn’t realized his eyebags had gotten so dark until they were illuminated by the moonlight, nearly black, and with his unkempt beard and hair that had turned tangled with how many times he’s run his hands through it…he just looked haggard. 

I recognized the dismissal. His statement had an unsaid ending, go somewhere until we’re done, an expectation to let them do what they needed to do. But between the way his shoulders sagged and the tension in my own, I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Instead I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him in a much-needed hug. 

He froze—for someone who looked so run down, his lower back sure was stiff—but then his arm came around to hold me, hand rubbing across that spot in my back that was now becoming sore to the touch. There was a softness to the movement and the way he subsequently melted, like he too needed this small moment.

And for a blissful two minutes, we were given a reprieve. 

At least until somewhere by the lake’s shoreline, Aunt Sia called, “Delsin! I think I have a way there!”

Dad sighed, patting my back—and as I looked up at him, he managed to give me a genuine—albeit tired—smile. “Let’s go get your friends back,” he murmured.

Montana.

Deep in Montana was a friend of Aunt Sia and Dr. Sims’ from their day as an agent with Project Sanctuary. Apparently, they were a key component to helping sneak high profile Conduits over the border and out of the DUP’s grasp—and they were willing to do it one last time for old times’ sake. 

Of course, that was if we could even make it past the border to begin with. Which suddenly got very hard when Dr. Sims got a notification on his phone while they talked logistics, mouth immediately tensing into a thin straight line. “Delsin, look,” He said, holding his phone out for Dad to take.  

Dad took the phone, scanning something on the screen before cursing aloud. “Shit. Shit!” He looked between Dr. Sims and Aunt Sia in equal parts upset and disbelief. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

Well that was a response I didn’t like. I was still hovering nearby, left in place when he detached from me—but his outburst was enough to catch the attention of everyone else and they soon joined. 

Is everything okay? Cat asked immediately, eyes wide as she assumed the worst. 

I gave them all a look of helplessness, not having any answers myself before turning to Dad. “What’s…what’s going on?”

Dad looked at me, and I could see his rejection at my curiosity play on his face, that rolling door of fatherly dismissals spinning around in his head: don’t worry…I’ll handle it…it’s nothing…

But then he glanced at Aunt Sia and she gave him a single nod, and he sighed hard, relenting. “Look,” he said, holding up the phone for us to look at the screen. 

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. There on the breaking news stream was a still of us, all of us—Zeke, Aunt Sia and Dr. Sims around Dr. Sims’ phone as Dad turned towards our group, gesturing towards the camera, mouth caught open in a demand while I looked up at him. On the other side of the screen, Brent stood there, arm around Mei, and Dom beside them, all of them in various states of shock as Cat stood, hand out—a glob hurtling towards the camera at a speed too fast for its frame rate to capture fully. 

The drone. It got an image of us. 

And the newscaster’s voice rang out over the still image: “—spotted at Linus Pauling Charter School in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, where multiple Joint Task Force agents were found injured.” The man’s voice said. The window minimized, and to the right of the screenshot taken from the drone’s stream, three red lines appeared, connecting Dad’s face to his old photo for the COLE committee board, and Brent and my photos from last years’ school picture day. 

“Three people have been identified as Delsin Rowe and his children, Regina and Brent Rowland, who Public Affairs Spokesperson Gavin Parker has stated that the Department of Homeland Security wishes to speak to in connection with the recent attack on the school as well as other incidents. DHS has also identified two more people in the footage: COLE founder Alessia Donovan and Doctor Eugene Sims of the Second Age Movement. DHS is working on identifying other people in this image, and asks if you have any information about any of these individuals or where they could be now, to call—”

Dad clicked the side of Dr. Sims’ phone, turning off the news stream as we all fell into silence. He raised the phone like he was going to spike it against the ground before Dr. Sims interjected with “Delsin!” and snatched it back when he hesitated. 

Dad pressed his palms into his eyes. “Shit,” he growled to himself.

And I couldn’t help but agree—not only were our faces plastered everywhere, but now theirs were too, on this huge national manhunt for us. “What do we do?” I asked Dad. 

One of his hands came off of his eyes, holding up and begging me to give him a moment. His other ran over his face before freeing himself, blinking through whatever stars he produced in his vision as his eyes snapped to Aunt Sia and Dr. Sims. 

And he repeated my exact question at them. “What do we do?”

Both glanced at each other, their gaze unsteady; until now, it had been about Dad and us—but now they were dragged into this mess. Not just them; everyone here was on that screen moments ago: Zeke, glasses barely obscuring his identity, Mei and Dom beside Brent…

And Cat, who had shot the drone down with her powers.

Dr. Sims was the first to clear his throat. “We’ll have to assume Homeland Security will start trying to actively find us,” he said. “Between the destruction of property and us breaking into the school, they’re going to assume we know more than we do.”

“We do know more,” Dad stressed.

“Yeah, but they’re not going to think we have good intentions,” Dr. Sims pointed out. “We have to assume they’ll start cracking down hard to try to find us.”

“Delsin…” Aunt Sia drew off, glancing behind Dad where we all stood as if to say not in front of them. 

Dad followed her eyes back to us, hesitating as he took us all in, eyes especially landing on Cat. His expression grew grim the more he looked until he finally said, “Brent, Jean—come here. Zeke—stay with the kids for a minute.”

Zeke thankfully moved without a quip to test Dad’s patience as he pulled us aside, all pooling together with Dr. Sims and Aunt Sia by the hood of the car. “This is bad,” Brent said helpfully. Like that wasn’t already obvious. 

Dad bit his tongue, exhaling sharply though his nose like a pissed off bull that was seeing red. “Okay, we need to figure out what to do,” he said, motioning over my and Brent’s shoulders towards my friends. “Tommy and Theresa are in the situation they’re in right now because they were on the news. Now they all are! How the hell are we supposed to keep them all from getting snatched by Celia now?”

Aunt Sia held up a placating hand. “Breathe,” she said, earning nothing but a scornful look from Dad. He stopped rambling, though. “Celia’s already got Tommy and Theresa, she’d have no need for any of them.”

“Yeah, for now,” Dad responded sardonically. 

“Cat says no one in her family knows about her powers,” Brent interjected. “And her and Tommy’s family aren’t…the best. Her mom might not freak, but…”

Dad’s lip twitched as he placated a sneer. “Yeah, I know,” he huffed; Tommy’s grandfather had happily taken Dad’s aid through the initial onset of his illness, but was absolutely vocal about how much he disliked where the funding for his treatment was coming from, cursing COLE and Dad’s work to hell. 

Happily benefited from it, though. Didn’t seem to object to it enough to reject it. 

Dad frowned, worrying the inside of his bottom lip as he chewed on it. “We need to hide them,” he finally said, turning in place to look at Aunt Sia and Dr. Sims. “Find somewhere for them to lie low, not be so easy to pinpoint. At least until we get to where Celia is holding the others.” 

“We send them towards COLE,” Aunt Sia suggested. “Seattle chapter. I’ll send word to Arthur and he’ll hide them for us for now, at least until we can be sure they’ll be safe.” 

Of course, none of that could happen until we said goodbye. 

I had my friends for all of two hours. Two measly hours of remembering what it was like to be with them before it was time to leave again and solve another issue. Despite my initial shame and not wanting to even see them to begin with…I wasn’t ready to let that go. Not yet. The bear hug between Mei and I was bone and soul crushing, and the side hug with Dom was more tender than anything I was used to from him. I watched Mei stretch on her toes to kiss Brent on his blush stained cheek before looking for Cat to find her with her arms wrapped around herself, holding back tears. 

“Hey,” I murmured, stepping forward. My hands came to her shoulders and I gave her a gentle squeeze. “We’ll message you when we’ve got him, okay?”

Cat sniffled, wiping her eyes with her hands as she nodded—though she didn’t seem sure. Sure was, in fact, the last word I’d use to describe her; she was chewing on her lip like she wanted to rip it clean off, fiddling with her fingerless gloves. Behind her, Mei separated from Brent and seemed to clue in to the catastrophe going on over here, and called, “Cat? C’mon, we should…we should go.”

Mei and Dom started towards the Honda, a long ride back ahead of them—but Cat didn’t move. She looked up at me with pleading blue eyes as she stopped playing with her gloves to tell me I want to come with you guys.  

Oh, that drop something inside my chest made was enough to make me want to immediately yell at her. What the hell did she mean she wanted to come with us? Instead I shook my head instead of trying to shake sense into her. “You can’t,” I stressed. 

I should, she reiterated with gusto, putting emphasis on the motion. I need to help Tommy, he’s the closest thing I have to a brother. I should be there. I’m a Conduit, I can help—

I shook my head. Is this how Dad felt every time I rambled on about wanting to help out? All I could think about was how dangerous it’d be for her. “Cat, these guys are dangerous,” I told her. “Like, these are the same guys that kidnapped me at the mall. They literally just broke into the school.” I pulled her in again, hugging tight as she deflated against me—or as much as she could with me being way shorter than her. “Just—we’ll have him call you, okay? The moment we’re safe. And then you can tell your mom and grandfather, and we’ll bring him back.”

I tried not to let my own thoughts get to me as I placated her. What if Tommy wasn’t okay? Was Celia really below torturing someone? And if we did save Tommy and Reese, they’d still be in danger. Hell, I was scared for Cat now, because what if Celia found out about her powers? What would keep her from making Cat like…like me? A broken husk of a Conduit. I couldn’t let that happen to a friend of mine, not when her arm laced across my back was enough to make that spot between my shoulder blades twinge at her touch. 

No, I couldn’t let that happen. As much as I understood how badly she wanted to help…“You should stay. Besides,” I said, motioning to the Honda with a small nod of my head. “They could probably use a Conduit to watch them right now. God forbid if these guys learn Brent’s dating Mei, I don’t wanna imagine what they might do to get to him—or Dad—through her.” 

Cat huffed. This is just your way of trying to make me feel useful, she accused. 

I chuckled. “A bit,” I agreed in jest, before letting the laugh fall to put something more pensive on my face. “And we both know Tommy wouldn’t want you to do this.”

Tommy…I was still conflicted on how to feel about him. He was a dick, left me to die, sold out my family—but he was also being held hostage simply because he said our names on a news segment. It felt unfair. And if there was one thing I knew about the guy, it’s that he loved Cat with everything in him. He was already lacking family, and she was the closest thing he had to make up for it. He’d never want her to do this. It’s probably why he gave himself up to Archangel to begin with. To protect her. 

I didn’t want her to end up like me. 

And Cat, whatever defiance she had that had knotted itself in her throat seemed to go down with her next swallow as she nodded, relenting. Alright, she said, looking like she hated that the words slipped from her own fingers. You guys just be careful, please. And talk to us. She added in chastisement, making my ears feel hot. No more fucking hiding or anything. 

If she was willing to put in the effort to sign the curse word, she was serious, something I wasn’t exactly willing to fight against knowing she could fight back. “Alright,” I promised. 

We left Washington in our rear view mirror after that, traveling back east once more as we followed Aunt Sia’s tail light like a beacon on I-84. Dr. Sims had taken the passenger’s side seat, laptop propped on his knee as he searched for more about Purcell and what it could hold. 

Dad didn’t speak. Not at the beginning. Not until all the way at our first stop at a gas station somewhere in Idaho. 

Dad opened the back of the van, telling Brent and I to grab the coffees in his hands before clambering in, reaching into the bag hooked on his inner elbow to pull out a half-dozen box of donuts. “It’s no cake,” he said, nodding to Zeke to signal to him to close the door. “But…happy birthday.”

Brent immediately reached for some jelly-filled, powdery mess I hated knowing he was gonna tear apart while sitting where we slept, asking jokingly, “What, no candles?”

Dad huffed, trying to repress his exhausted smile. “Can give you some smoke to blow around if it’ll make you feel better.”

I chuckled, pulling out my own glazed and chocolatey treat. “You always told us not to smoke,” I said before taking a bite and washing it down with something that was mildly mocha flavored and watered down a considerable amount.

“Yeah, and I also told you both to never drink, and look how well you listened there,” Dad playfully snapped back. The van lurched and Zeke moved to get back on the highway, the rev of Aunt Sia’s motorcycle following behind us now. “Do you know how hard it is to be the cool parent when you ignore the rules I do give you?” 

Brent spoke through his next bite. “Did you ever listen to your parents’ rules?”

Dad’s smile finally broke through. “Barely. Which is why I get on you guys about it. I was a teenager once.”

The car fell silent save for Dr. Sims directing Zeke back to the on ramp and the aggravating sound of Brent trying to lick jelly off of his finger. I ate my own donut slowly, trying to get it to settle against the knots in my stomach that kept churning with every thought of my best friend trapped somewhere in the mountains simply because Dad’s old foe had a bone to pick with him. 

And speaking of Dad—after the brief joke, his gaze returned to the front windshield, frown deepening the lines on his face once again as he slipped off to think about his own troubles. His hand clenched at his side like he was preparing to use his power, shoulders just as stiff as they were on the ride to Portland. 

He was beyond stressed. Why wouldn’t he be? Our pictures were plastered on the news, two people were missing and a bunch killed over the course of the last month—all in his name. And now we were going to have to go confront this Celia person—someone who had poisoned Mom, me, caused so many issues for Dad years ago—and follow whatever clues she was leaving Dad to send him on the world’s worst trivia hunt. 

I’m surprised he wasn’t more grey in the hair, honestly. Or bald. 

But, despite the hairline only being salt-and-pepper, I did notice the bags that cradled his lower lash, how the gaunt in his cheeks seemed to illuminate deeper in the shine of the brake lights ahead. We were well on the road and he hadn’t even touched his own coffee—he didn’t even have anything to eat, I suddenly realized. When was the last time I did see him eat? Sleep? Every time I woke up on the road, back sore, he was there; awake, glaring at some nondescript place in the van with clenched fists.

But that shadow across his face was too dark for me to want to confront this fact directly. Instead, I simply nudged the side of his thigh with my boot and asked, “Aren’t you gonna eat one?”

Dad blinked, settling back down on Earth as he refocused on me. “Hmm?” he hummed before fully processing my question. His chuckle felt forced. “It’s not my birthday, Jeanie. I’m fine.”

I tried to quell my frown into something more playful. “No, it’s not—but you should eat,” I said in turn. 

Dad’s jaw twitched slightly. “I’m fine,” he repeated. 

God, he was stubborn. 

So, instead of arguing with him or continuing this back-and-forth where we both would ignore the other’s veiled response, I simply ripped the donut in my hand in half and held out a piece to him. “It’s no different than a slice of cake,” I said when he gave me a deadpanned look. “I’m not going to finish both of these, anyways. I’m not Brent.”

“Hey!”

Dad hesitated for a second—but it seemed like he decided it was just as useless to argue with me as I did him, because he took the piece and bit into it in defeat. 

Brent, who was looking for something to wipe his sticky hands off on, asked, “So what are we gonna do once we get there?” 

Dad grabbed one of the napkins and a water bottle that had been partially drunk, tipping it into the napkin until it was wet and handing it to Brent wordlessly. His face, though, took on that same tense-jawed and low-browed look he’s had since we left Boston. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “We have to find exactly where Theresa’s phone location pinged first, and that’ll help us see if Archangel is there or if it was triangulated. If it’s triangulated, then Eugene and I will have to figure out the exact location so we can find where they’re holding her and Tommy.”

Suddenly the chocolate glaze tasted a lot more like mud. “But…you think she’s there, right?” I asked. What if that was the phone’s last location and she was just…gone? How were we supposed to help her then?

Dad immediately nodded. “She’s probably there. Or at least close,” he rushed to reassure me. “Triangulating her location isn’t hard, it just takes a minute. From there….”

He drew off; because from there, we’d be flying in blind in the hope that we’d be able to pull this off without anything bad happening. 

Brent finished the thought for Dad. “From there, we wing it?”

Dad huffed something that would’ve been humorous if he didn’t look so stressed. “Yeah. Wing it.” he agreed, barely hiding the bitterness to his tone. 

Brent and I shared an unsure glance, Dad’s tone not exactly helping quell the anxiety that had my heart doing somersaults in my chest. Really, I couldn’t blame him; it had been years since Seattle, and here he was, haunted by ghosts he thought he banished long ago.  Particularly malevolent poltergeists who had no problem causing issues in and for his name. 

Quite honestly, the longer I thought about the whole thing, the higher my own blood pressure spiked. 

But the one thing I kept thinking about was that day in Zeke’s hut, when Dad pulled out the photographs he had taken during his time chasing the trail of bodies Celia left for him to find. “There are people out there that will see you as nothing more than a chance to hurt someone else,” Dad had said as I tried my hardest to avoid looking at the wounds on the body strung to a billboard by a cosplay sword. “These are the kind of people I’m trying to keep from hurting you.” 

Little did he know, they already had. 

And now, there were two innocent people in the hands of someone that wasn’t above doing something so below the belt to make that log of death a little longer. 

What scared me the most was that we might already be too late. 

“Dad?”

I seemed to have caught him right as he shoveled the rest of the donut half into his mouth, because he had to swallow it back with a gulp before asking, “Yeah, Jean?”

“Do you…” I had to find the strength to even ask it aloud—it felt like jinxing them, in a way. “Do you think Reese and Tommy are…are even alive?”

The whole car grew stiff with my question; Zeke’s hold on the steering wheel grew white, Dr. Sims’ typing stopped. Even Brent froze, glancing at Dad with his own unease, like I finally voiced something that had been bothering him too. 

And Dad? He seemed entirely unsure of what to say. 

He stalled for time, I knew that’s what he was doing; he kept chewing but slowed, and decided to swallow it back with a long drink from his water bottle. But finally he peeled it away from his lips and cleared his throat. 

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But Celia…when she has an agenda, she doesn’t stray from it. There’s a reason she took your friends. I think they’re alive, but…” he exhaled, running a hand over his face. “Just—don’t take it as a promise, alright?”

Yeah, that wasn’t exactly reassuring. 

Dad saw my grimace and immediately tried to dissuade my doubts. “But that’s a worst-case-scenario,” he said, looking between Brent and I. “Them being alive is crucial to whatever she’s planning. You’ve seen what Archangel can do—if she wanted them dead, they’d be dead.”

That didn’t make me feel better, but at least he was trying. 

Brent seemed just as unsure. “Then…why take them?” he asked. 

Dad sighed, shifting where he sat on the mattress topper and throwing an arm over the knee he brought up towards his chest. He seemed to chew on his words like cud before deciding they were best spit out and unfiltered. “I think Celia knows I wouldn’t come to her without a reason, and she’s done depending on others to do the job. She sent Akurans after Jean and you, and you both managed to get out of that. They bombed COLE thinking I’d come running, but I didn’t respond to that fast enough. 

“If I had to guess,” Dad continued, weighing a thought in his head by tilting it side to side. “She probably figured out that I wasn’t local and went to the one place she thought I’d be—the Akomish reservation. And…well, we know how that went,” he said with an uncomfortable glance at me. “I was late home. She still missed me. So instead of trying to find me, she's forcing me to come find her. Your friends are reassurance that I will.” 

“So she…kidnapped a couple of random people, to make sure you’d come to her?” I asked. “What’s keeping her from killing them the moment you find her?”

Dad’s face grew dark with the idea. “Because she knows I won’t listen if she does that.”

He sighed hard, shaking his head to banish the thoughts before he pushed the donut box towards us again. “Just eat,” he said a bit sharply, before schooling his face into an apologetic smile. “Sorry it’s not much. Your 18th should be more exciting.” 

Frankly, I felt lucky enough to even be alive for my 18th, so I wasn’t exactly going to complain. 

At least the drive towards my best friend’s kidnapper was pretty. 

As the sun rose, the horizon stretched, Idaho’s panhandle giving away to the Rockies as we traveled closer to Montana. A nearly twelve hour drive (or, ten, as Dad broke multiple laws when he and Zeke traded places) spent mostly on the road had left me with my ass numb from sitting for so long, left to do nothing but stare at the scenery through the front windshield. The mountains fell back to vast plains as we entered the heartlands of the Treasure State, cutting from east to north before hopping off the highway and following the two-lane freeway towards…

“The Blackfeet Nation?” I read off of the sign next to the two metal effigies of Blackfeet people on horseback staring off at the wide plains before glancing at Dad in confusion. But there it was in bold lettering, greeting us as we entered the Blackfoot Reservation from the East Glacier Park entrance—or, Omah-ko-yis, the translated sign said. 

Dad nodded when I stopped craning my neck to check out the critters atop of the four flags at the art installment. “Sneaking Conduits into Canada wasn’t exactly easy,” he said from the drivers’ seat as I stuck my head in the space where the center console was. “Especially when the DUP were patrolling every major border entry. Your Aunt Sia, though? Found a way to help Conduits escape.”

And so we followed the path to that escape; off the scenic loop and into the woods till Dad turned onto a fire access road that was more gravel than dirt, driving until the pines split to reveal…

Another van?

This one was far less conspicuous than Zeke’s; it was plain white, one of those vans perfect for some sort of event company and with the logo to match: Prairie Sage Events. A sprig of sage crossed over a single stem of wheat above the printed and sun-bleached words, an address in Alberta etched below it. 

The drivers’ side door opened the moment we were visible, and out climbed this excitable older woman. She had crows feet at her eyes that spoke of a thousand smiles that had crossed her face over the decades, her plaited braids more white than brown. She looked older than Zeke, and she had a slight wobble to her like Betty did, favoring her right knee more than the left—but she was still spry, waving avidly as Dad threw the van in park. When Zeke opened his door I could hear her declare, “‘Bout time I finally meet yous guys!” 

Dad helped us get out of the van, and I rounded it in time to hear Aunt Sia’s motorcycle taper off and see the woman point a first finger adorned with a silver and turquoise ring at Dad. “Delsin Rowe, obviously,” she said, like it was as obvious as the brewing snow clouds above. “Hard mistaking your face when it’s the tagline of every news site I log into.”

She shook his hand—and nothing happened. She was human. Releasing Dad, she looked at Aunt Sia, saying, “And it’s nice to finally put a face to King Rat,” she grinned. 

Brent glanced at me, bewildered that the woman called Aunt Sia that—at least before the redhead laughed, responding in turn, “You too, Robin.” 

The woman smiled, waving her off. “No need for that anymore. Call me Cassie,” she said. “Miss, if you’ve gotta add anything to it.”

“Cassie, then,” Aunt Sia stepped aside, motioning towards Zeke. “You know Bulldog—and Angel,” she added before waving at Dr. Sims. Suddenly it made sense: they were monikers, probably from their time in Project Sanctuary. 

Zeke stepped forward to take Cassie’s hand next, eyes just barely peaking out from over his sunglasses. “So this is our reincarnated Harriet Tubman,” he joked. 

Cassie waved him off. “What I did hardly counts as something like that,” she said—though she did seem rather pleased with the praise. She shifted on her feet slightly as she let go of Zeke’s hand—and in her movement, spotted Brent and I in the back of the group. Motioning towards us with a jerk of her head, she asked, “Are those the charges in the back?”

Aunt Sia glanced back. “Oh, no, those are—that’s my niece and nephew.”

Cassie’s eyes narrowed a bit—not suspicious, but analytical, like she could physically see the web connecting us to Dad as she glanced his way. “Looks like the kids I’ve been seeing on the news with you.” The silent question was loud: what are they doing here?

Dr. Sims stepped forward. “Ro—Cassie,” he corrected himself. “We couldn’t explain everything over the phone just in case, but…we need to get into Canada.” He motioned behind him at the strange party we made; two barely-adults, the original pioneer of the underground group she worked with, a man who’s been there since the beginning, the leader of the Second Age and the man who started that second age by defeating Augustine. 

And instead of doing the smart thing—turning around and washing her hands of whatever issues we were bound to bring into her life—she simply glanced back at her van before looking back at Dr. Sims and saying, “Well. It’s gonna be a tight squeeze.”

Brent and I were volun-told to help Cassie unload the vehicle so that everyone could hop in and ride off to Canada, and I was having trouble seeing how we were supposed to do that and not get caught. Especially when she opened the back doors, and all I saw were tables and chairs. “I do a lot of event work, so hauling around tables and chairs isn’t exactly too suspect,” she told us, passing me a folding chair to prop against a nearby oak.

Brent took the two tables she offered with one hand, holding them with ease before he dragged a couple chairs towards himself. “Any way to convince them that the six people hiding in the back of your van are also pretty normal?” he asked, unceremoniously plopping them in the snow. 

Cassie simply smiled. “Well, I’m not sure about six,” she drawled, turning to grab another table. She kept her glance back on us, though, and winked. “But I do have my own ways of making sure they stay none the wiser.”

Instead of pulling out the table and passing it to Brent and I, her fingers flinched and there was a click as two latches undid, and she pulled down. 

And instead of the remaining chairs falling with a clatter, a door came down, revealing a hidden hatch drilled into the back of the van. It wasn’t big; maybe large enough to hide a person and a bag of their things? But it was hidden, totally unnoticeable upon first glance, and that’s what mattered.

My eyes widened. “Woah…is that how you snuck people over the border?” I asked, clambering in to get a better look. 

Cassie straightened—or as well as she could in the back of the van—and the pride on her face was unmistakable. “For sure!” She said. “Your buddy Bulldog made the blueprint for it and all. I’ve kept it this whole time in case something happened again—that, and it’s great to run mickeys and those really bad cereals over the border without getting caught.” 

Brent shot me a bewildered look to mouth like the mouse? before Cassie drew our attention again by slapping the top of the hidden alcove. “But, back then, this was how I got those wanted Conduits out of the situation they were in. Yep—I picked up the poor kids they’d send my way, hide ‘em in here, and go back home with them.”

I cocked my head aside. “So you live in Canada and come down here?” 

“Sure do,” she confirmed with a nod. “‘Cause of that Jay Treaty you guys have, I get to hop around wherever I wanna without all the visa bullshit. Which kinda came in handy when you’re looking to smuggle people with the least amount of pushback possible.”

“Jay treaty?” I glanced at Brent, who looked just as lost. 

Cassie chuckled. “Well, it was called that—now it’s some sorta immigration law I can’t bother to remember. See—when your Yankees gave the boot to Britain, you guys made this deal with them about Canada—since we were under the crown. There was this little footnote in there that let First Nations come into America for work without all those extra visa steps you’ve gotta go through. Things changed long since then, but America kept that agreement—”

“That’s surprising,” Brent muttered sardonically under his breath, throwing me a look. America wasn’t exactly known for keeping their agreements with Natives.

“—so, legally, I can come and go as I please,” she finished, an amused toothy smile on her face that said she fully agreed with Brent’s assessment. 

The full scheme was beginning to make sense in my mind, and I couldn’t help but be impressed. “So you’d come over here to the states pretending to work…” 

Cassie nodded. “And I’d pick up whoever Sanctuary sent me, hide ‘em, and sneak ‘em away before those keeners in their bee suits caught wind and locked the poor Conduits up.” 

I mimicked her nod, hoping she didn’t know that I had no idea what half of what she said meant. 

Brent, though, moved on to one truly pressing question of his as he helped me back out of the van. “So you’re not a Conduit?” 

Cassie followed close, though she only moved to sit at the end of the van’s cargo bay. “Nope,” she confirmed, swinging her legs over the edge and letting them kick. “Never got in on that fun. Was hoping I’d get to have the chance to fly without paying for airfare, but I never got lucky.”

I wanted to know: “How many Conduits did you help?”

She paused, drumming her fingers on the lid of the compartment before using the other to wave off the question. “Ah, there’s no use keeping score of all that—”

“About seventy.”

We turned; Dad, Dr. Sims, Zeke and Aunt Sia had finished whatever it was they didn’t want us overhearing, moving to join us instead and catching the end of the conversation. Dad climbed into the van without comment or fanfaire, gently steering me aside to take my place and look at the hidden alcove. 

Dr. Sims pulled his coat a bit closer as the wind passed in another rough gust, the breeze that came down from the Rockies brutal. “When I started working with Project Sanctuary after escaping, Cassie already had a lot of people she snuck over the border. Adding the people I sent her way, on top of what you did for Alessia?” He shrugged like he wasn’t fully sure of the number but trusted his guess enough. “Probably around seventy people. I think it’s a bit more than that, actually.”

Cassie took a minute to process that before blinking, immediately trying to downplay the action. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I know you guys had a lot more runners—”

“None as good as you,” Aunt Sia cut off, something gentle and admiring and grateful in her tone. “You were the first one to help me get people over the border, too.”

Cassie’s toothy grin was almost proud, but she still had enough humility in her to be humble. “Honestly, I probably would’ve tried doing it anyways—and without your planning, I would’ve been caught.” She patted the top of the hidden compartment. “And hopefully you have a good plan here, too, or we’re all going to be spending the night in prison. They’re gonna do a cabin check at the border, and all of you aren’t fitting in this thing—”

“We have a plan, don’t worry,” Dr. Sims reassured her.

I was not having a good time. 

Dad demanded I hide in the alcove, tucked away from the world in case something happened. The issue was, he wanted someone to be there in case I’d need backup, and they’d have to hide, too. Which meant Brent was shoved into the single-person-space with me, so close I was practically sitting in his lap. 

“Why do you breathe so hard?” he grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. 

“Because you’re taking up the entire goddamn hatch,” I hissed back, trying to readjust to find a more comfortable position that didn’t involve his knee in my ass. “Seriously, dude, you’re not even that tall—”

“I’m six foot!” Brent defended. 

“Barely—”

There was a rapt on the door of the hidden compartment. “Hey! Enough,” Dad’s voice commanded on the other side. He, Aunt Sia, Zeke and Dr. Sims were in the van’s cargo space as Cassie steered this strange ship of stowaways towards the Canadian border crossing in the hopes that we could cross it…without getting arrested or deported.

The only way I could see anything happening on the other side of the hidden alcove’s door was through a hole where a screw once was, the tiniest porthole to see the adults (or, adultier adults, I suppose; I’d have to get used to the idea of being 18) bob along with the bumpy road in the cargo bay of the van. Dad was closest to the hidden compartment, back against the hatch, shoulder just barely brushing the bottom of my peephole. 

“Do we both have to be in here?” I complained now that I had a visual of him. 

Dad sighed, shoulders dropping with the movement in exasperation. “You two can make it to Canada,” he said, shaking his head in a way I was sure was accompanied by an eye roll. “I’ll let you out once we’re over the border and somewhere safe.” I could hear the plea in the undertone: for the love of God, stop bickering till then. 

Hard to want to be quiet when Brent’s knee was closer to my tailbone than my own spine was. 

On the opposite side of us, beyond the barrier of the van’s cabin, Cassie called loud enough to be heard through the metal, “We’re about to hit the border crossing!” 

Dad hushed us once more, adding a “Be quiet!” for good measure that suggested it wasn’t a request. His head turned, and I could see the profile of his face as he asked, “Ready Eugene?” 

“Think so,” Dr. Sims said from somewhere to the right. “I need you guys to back up as far as you can—if it’s too thin, they’ll be able to see through it.” 

See through it?

Everyone outside of the small alcove moved around as the van pattered to a stop, and soon I was watching the world from over Dad’s shoulder as Dr. Sims slotted himself between them and the van door. 

On the other side of the wall, the van’s engine sputtered silent. “Oki,” Cassie greeted. “Coming back home after helping out at the council meeting!”

I strained my ears to hear beyond the van, and was just barely able to make out the voice of a man. “Visa or identification?”

“ID—here’s my tribal card.”

There was a second voice, lower and scratchier, the audible proof of dozens of cigarettes smoked. “We’ll need you to open the back,” he said. All but commanded. “Anything to declare?”

Yeah, just five stowaways currently wanted for questioning by America’s Homeland Security!

“Nothing but some tables and chairs,” Cassie responded instead, voice surprisingly smooth and calm for someone actively committing multiple felonies. Guess her work from before trained the fear out of her tone. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep them from wanting to find out for themselves. “Mind if we check the back?”

To which the pilot of our very illegal vehicle said, “Sure—you’ll need the key in the ignition, though.”

Brent shot me an uneasy glance, my skepticism reflected in his face; but Cassie’s words seemed to be some sort of signal, because by the time Brent’s brow finished arching, something blue flickered at the seams of the hidden box—including through my little porthole, which I immediately peeked through. 

Dr. Sims had those strange, runestic floating gauntlets around his wrists, crawling up his arms like technological bangles as they pulsed with the energy of a dozen LED car headlights and the static of a slide in summer. He pushed the ringlets forward and they grew, conjoined and multiplied until an entire wall of blue sat between the door and where we all hid. It shimmered blue, then white, then began to gain texture and shadow and shape as it became a perfect mimic of how the van looked only a mere thirty minutes ago when tables and chairs were stacked within it. A perfect mimic. 

A foolproof hologram. 

Just as the blue and white settled and the pixels stopped shimmering, the back of the van’s doors opened and two border patrol agents, both in the same nauseating green that I was sure my face was as they stared right at the others outside of the hidden alcove. 

Except, they didn’t jump with a start and yell and brandish guns or tase Dad or whatever. Even as the hologram seemed just a second too late in gaining the new shadows and highlights the sunlight pouring in gave it, they didn’t flinch. “You said you were helping with the council meeting?” the shortest guy asked, seemingly standing on his toes to try and look over the chairs in the hologram. “Seems pretty bare back here.”

“Business general session!” Cassie called from the cab of the van. “First one of the year—a lot more people there and all, you know? They needed some extra tables and chairs—plus I planned the luncheon after.”

“And you didn’t bring any food, right?” The taller one asked. “You have to declare that, and we’d have to inspect any produce to make sure—”

“I didn’t! That freezer back there hasn’t worked in months, I’ve been meaning to get it fixed.” Cassie sounded so nonplussed at the lies, like they were practiced a thousand times over. I suppose, with all the work she’s done before this with Project Sanctuary they were, unshaken despite the very undeclared cargo she had hiding behind that digital veil. She even had the gall to try and rush them with, “Is this going to take much longer? I have dinner plans with my daughter and the grandbabies today and the meeting ran late.”

A false timecrunch, a fake schedule to make her pressed for time, to urge the border patrol agents to believe the mirage in front of them and move on. 

And after a beat, the taller agent nodded to the shorter, portly one, and the doors to the van closed, everyone collectively sighing in relief as Dr. Sims shook off the gauntlets of his power and let the hologram dissolve into pixels.

Dad looked over at Dr. Sims, his profile in the little porthole of my peek hole. “That never stops being cool,” he said, the relief in his tone making his voice almost boyish. 

“Oh thank god,” Brent complained, pushing past me the moment Dad opened the hatch to the hidden alcove. His hand hit my chest and my back hit the van. 

“Hey!”

Brent at least had the manners to act a bit ashamed at his claustrophobia. “Sorry, just—was getting cramped in there.”

At least I could agree with that. I don’t think I’d been that close to him since we shared a womb. “No kidding.” I crawled out of the end of the van, taking Dad’s hand to step out and look around. 

We were hiding in another wooded side road, the sort that led to a home that was no longer standing save for its brick chimney. It was just barely dusk, the sky beginning to turn brilliantly purple and pink somewhere behind the treetops. Dr. Sims was already engrossed in his phone off on the side, only looking up when Dad began approaching him. Meanwhile, Zeke was being a surprisingly good gentleman, helping Cassie out of her driver’s seat once she swung open the door. 

“I don’t know how you did it,” she said, before holding her arms out wide. “But—welcome to Canada.”

Dad made it to Dr. Sims’ side just as Aunt Sia pulled something up on her own phone. “How far are we?” He asked. 

Dr. Sims pinched the screen and zoomed in on what looked like…google maps, if it was blue-tinted and cyberpunk. “About two hundred and thirty-five miles,” he told Dad. The finger shifted, and the map became 3D. “Both across and up.”

Dad groaned. “Joy,” he rolled his eyes at the idea of hiking. Not that I didn’t agree with him; doing any sort of hiking was hell. In winter? Worse. 

And when we were going after someone who actively tried to kill us, multiple ways? 

Yeah, not exactly thrilled about the merit badge this hike would earn us. 

Dr. Sims looked sorry, but made sure Dad knew: “It’s the last place Jean’s friend’s location pinged,” he told Dad. 

Meanwhile, Cassie turned to Zeke. “With a trip that long, you all better get going,” she said, holding the keys to her van out for Zeke to take. In turn, he took the keys to his van out of his vest and offered them to her, which she immediately pocketed. 

“To keep a fella honest,” he joked.

Cassie chuckled politely. “I’ll have my daughter take me over the border to pick up the van tomorrow,” she said, before pointing a finger at him accusingly. “You better bring my van back in one piece. I’d hate to have to paint over yours.” 

I hated the underlying pledge in the exchange; ‘I am taking the keys to your van, to replace what I lose if you die’. 

Not really the chipper farewell we could use right now. 

Cassie seemed to at least sense that, raising her voice so we all could hear her say, “And you call me when you’re done saving those kids, so I can sneak you right back over and you can take them to their families. It was nice, finally meeting the faces behind the call signs,” she added, holding out a hand to shake. 

Aunt Sia stepped forward, taking the woman’s hand—not really in a professional way, but something that translated into a thanks deeper than what strangers who technically just met should exchange. “Thank you for helping me one last time.”

Those who knew her from Project Sanctuary gave her farewells with equal gratitude, Dad nodding with a smile before returning to delegating with Dr. Sims about the trip. It was in that lull that she turned to Brent and I. 

“You two be careful out there, alright?” she said earnestly. “You’ve got quite the mission in front of you.”

“Yeah, it’s…” I sighed, shoving my worrying hands away in my pockets. 

“A clusterfuck?” Brent offered bluntly.

“Dude!”

Instead of being aghast at Brent’s candor, Cassie just chuckled. “I wasn’t gonna say it, but…” she held up her hands in mock surrender. 

They fell back to her side with a soft clap at her sides, and her exhale felt…heavy. Far too heavy for someone who didn’t know us, and dense with things she felt she couldn’t say because of that fact. “Just—listen to your elders. They know what they’re talking about when it comes to stuff like this. Trust me, I know.”

Brent took the farewell with a nod, leaving to go to where Aunt Sia was currently fiddling with something in her boot—but I stayed hovering, only speaking to interject when it looked like she was about to leave. “Wait! When—” I cut off, letting her take a moment to recalibrate as she heard me, turning. “When you were doing…everything for Project Sanctuary—weren’t you ever scared? Of getting caught or something happening to you?”

Despite how stupid the question sounded to my own ears, Cassie just laughed, like a schoolteacher having to explain to a kid something simple, like where the sun goes at night. “Always,” she admitted. Casually. Jokingly. “Y'think it’s not nerve-wracking, breaking multiple laws in multiple countries?” 

I couldn’t help but stare at her. “But you…you aren’t a Conduit. You aren’t even American. So you did all that just…because?” I asked. She had no fight in this, blood or breed. She could’ve kept herself as far removed from the entire issue as possible. And she didn’t? 

Cassie simply chuckled, kicking a leg and waving me close like she was gonna share a secret. “Let me tell you something, kid: the most important thing you can do? Is stand. When it’s all on the line, and something more than yourself is at stake, you stand. The most dangerous thing that can happen to change is a person who wants to live in calm waters, because they believe if they don’t make noise, the boogeyman won’t come looking for them. Tell me, did that work with the DUP?” 

I shook my head and she held up a hand as if to say see? “Bundling yourself up to protect from the cold isn’t going to change the weather, and lighting the smallest candle to not draw attention of the wolves won’t keep you warm either. A match or a bonfire, they’ll burn out all the same.” 

She put a hand on my shoulder. “Choose your own way to burn,” She quietly told me, like she was sharing sage old wisdom and trying to get it to seep into my bones with a gentle pat. Straightening, she said, “Now, I’ve got a good mile to walk to where I need to be to get picked up by my grandbaby, so I best get going. But you stay safe, alright?”

With a parting toothy grin, she turned to leave, and all I could do was watch her go and dwell on her words. So she did everything…just because she could? Because she felt like she should have? Regardless of the risks it posed to her, regardless of how she could’ve been arrested or shot or worse. 

Without powers, she still risked it all. 

“Jean!” Dad called from the other side of the van. “Come here for a second, I need to see Theresa’s location on your phone again.” 

With one last glance at Cassie’s retreating form, I turned away.

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”