I'm totally failing this exam, but it doesn't really matter. They'll still graduate me anyway and it's not like I need to pass this exam to survive. I do have a job already, after all. One that's secure and has built me up a fair bit of money already.

Even without that, I wouldn't need to pass the job. I could just coast off of Ian's income as a stay-at-home boyfriend or something, and none of it will matter after the Revelation anyway.

Now that I've answered all of the questions that I can, I start doodling on the paper. Instead of guessing on the questions I don't know the answer to, I'm drawing bunnies in camo having a water gun fight in the margins.

Once the exam ends, I turn it in just like everyone else, then I stretch in my seat and wait for the bell to ring a couple of minutes later. Tanner and I leave together, finally done with school. All that's left for him is graduation on Saturday.

As we walk, I get the feeling someone is following us. I've noticed this a few times over the last couple of days, though it's always disappeared after we entered the ruins. A journalist? Someone stalking Tanner out of an unhealthy crush on him? Something else?

"Hey, Tanner," one of our classmates approaches us, using her arms to shift her breasts in such a way that screams that she's hoping Tanner takes an interest in some normie whose name I don't even remember. "Some of us were heading to the hangout place to celebrate having made it through exams, want to come? You can come if you want, Nick."

"Erm," Tanner looks at me.

Perfect chance to find out what's going on with the stalker.

"If you want to go, go," I tell him. "I've got better stuff to do than hang out with a bunch of robots. Don't let me interfere with your fun."

"Sure," Tanner tells her. "Let me just grab something from my apartment, and I'll head over."

"Cool," she says. "See you!"

She skips off, and Tanner gives me a curious look.

"Robots?"

"Beep-boop-beep."

He snorts, and we finish heading to the dorms. Outside mine, I tell him I'll see him later, then head inside and he heads off. We were going to do something else here, but that'll wait until later. Instead of heading out immediately, I wait a few minutes, long enough for Tanner to leave. Once I'm sure he's gone, I head out, walking down the street.

The feeling of being followed reappears. So I'm definitely a target. Is Tanner targeted as well? Or just me? I head near the hangout place and walk around, assessing everyone I pass by. Many unfamiliar faces, but no one suspicious, and it's unlikely a stalker would have been allowed into the building.

Unless they're a Sigil-Bearer, in which case, they might just be let in – they would be a student's age. Even if the local Sigil-Bearers are known, with people coming in from out of town, outsiders could pass off as family of a student. Then there's anyone the age of a student who might be following, they'd be allowed in without suspicions, too, even if they weren't a Sigil-Bearer.

Tanner would probably have noticed if someone was stalking him that close, though. Anyone who managed to get into the business while following him would have a mental state that would have alerted him, and I'm sure he'd have texted me.

So it's safe to assume it's just me. Unless they weren't within five feet of Tanner and he had his power minimized? That's still a possibility as well, I guess.

Seeing as I'm starving, I look for a restaurant. There are a few new ones, and a few that were around before the World Revolt, either managing to survive it completely or found themselves repaired in the aftermath.

My destination is a new one. I've been there a few times and know the staff, who are somewhat friendly whenever I come in. Their food's pretty good, too.

"Welcome!" The waitress greets me. "Oh, Nick! It's been a few weeks since you've been here."

"Been busy," I tell her. "Usual seat open?"

"Yep," she tells me. "Come on over."

She leads me over to the corner booth I usually sit in, a spot that allows me a full view of the dining room. She sets a menu down along with a roll of silverware, then asks if I want my usual drink.

"Yes," I answer, then she leaves.

I pick up the menu and begin looking through it while watching the door and windows. By the time the waitress returns, I've decided on what I want, so I place my order.

"Mozzarella sticks and onion rings," I tell her after she sets my drink down and pulls out her pad. "The eight-piece honey barbecue wings, the eight-piece buffalo wings, two cheddar brats, and two cheeseburgers, hold the tomato."

"I'll be back with your appetizers in just a few minutes," she takes the menu and leaves.

I pull out my phone and begin playing a game on it while still watching the rest of the dining room. Only a minute later does a Sigil-Bearer enter. She's either seventeen or eighteen, and she moves with a lethal grace. Someone trained her in combat, which suggests Klen.

She's wearing looser clothes, probably to hide the definition of her body, the fact that she's muscular. An attempt to conceal her combat abilities, no doubt. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that her clothes are easy to move around in and that she's wearing combat boots.

Her outfit does give me a hint into her fighting style if she is Klen, though. Most Sigil-Bearers who train in combat train in one of two things, either distance or close-range. She's close-range if she's trained her body like that.

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How do I know all of this despite it being different from how the Klen usually send their agents?

Because I do the same thing with my clothes. They're just a little too big on me to hide my actual form. If I wore shirts and jackets my actual size, it'd be obvious I was toned, though the reason for that concealment is because I already attract unwanted attention due to my looks rather than to hide my combat abilities.

That's why I haven't changed out for PE a single time. If they saw my abs, yeah, I'd probably get pestered a little more despite the moody aura I've always projected. Tanner's pure evidence of that, though he also has the whole Sigil-Bearer thing going for him.

But there's no reason a Sigil-Bearer would come to town and hide her form. Well, maybe if she really was just trying to downplay her looks, but I'm doubting it. Not with everything else the Klen has done.

How to confirm my suspicions, though? I could always do that, but I don't want to. So I'll do… this instead.

My food is served, appetizers first, and I begin eating. The Sigil-Bearer who might be from the Klen orders a fair bit of food as well, and I take my time eating, but not enough that she'd finish before me. Because it's obvious she's a Sigil-Bearer, she's being given prompt service, but she's ordered enough food that I'll finish at least a few minutes before her.

Once I finish eating, I pay and leave. For about five minutes, there's no feeling of someone following me. Then it starts up again. That's enough time for her to 'finish' eating, pay, and then somehow track me down. By smell? Do I need to do something I hate doing?

No. Let's try something else before initiating that.

I head into the ruins and make my way to a certain area. Another disturbance zone, though smaller than Ali's or Jay's. Several times, I lose the feeling of being followed, but then it resurfaces. I pick up the pace, moving through more ruined buildings or over rubble, between piles of cars that fell together or new forest growth in areas that once had none.

Even after I'm well-inside of the disturbance zone, the feeling of being followed continues, though it does disappear a few times. She's not tracking me through smell, and no one's put a tracker on me.

Just to be safe, though, I stop in the ruins of a former flower shop. Once inside, I walk into the back and check my stuff, taking everything off and feeling the cool, late-spring air on my bare skin as I go through my things. Nothing, no trackers, nothing that shouldn't be there. I pull my clothes and bag back on and put my other stuff back into my pockets and reequip my weapons.

Everything checked, I leave the building and continue on my journey, making my way through more ruins and growth until I arrive at a former bank that managed to hold up. Entering it, I go into the vault and move out of sight, waiting there.

The feeling of being followed disappeared a few minutes ago, after I passed through an alley with a rusted-out van blocking the entrance.

About a minute after I begin waiting, however, the feeling returns. They've found me, and we're in a zone similar to Jake's, where infrared doesn't work. She's using a power to track me. A locator.

This is bothersome, but it's telling. They'd have gone after Ali already if she could just locate anyone, which means that she probably has to have seen them before. That, or she needs to know something about them. But whatever it is, she doesn't meet the requirements to use her power on Ali.

The sound of boots lightly stepping on the marble floor of the former bank reaches my ears, and I listen as she moves closer, waiting until she's at a certain point where the sound changes.

"I'd stop there if I were you," I call out as I stand, drawing a gun and stepping into the entrance of the vault, aiming the gun at her.

"You don't scare me," she says. "You're just a normie."

"And you're Klen."

"I am," she smiles. "Nice to meet you, Casimir."

"I go by Nick," I state. "And it's not me you should be scared of. The gun is to finish you off after the mine hidden under the tile you're on goes off. I'm sure you noticed the difference in sound when you stepped on it."

She looks down, and I quickly adjust my aim, shooting out her knees. Immediately, she swears up a storm as she collapses to the ground.

"Yeah, no, I just messed with the tile years ago in order to create that effect," I say. "There's no mine under it, but the trick worked. I'm glad."

"You knew I was following you," she says. "I've been keeping a good distance. How did you know?"

"Consider me more akin to a wild beast than a person," I tell her. "One who's alert at all times. I noticed you a few days ago. Now. Tell me how your ability works."

"No," she growls at me. "And you don't have anything powerful enough to kill me, you got lucky with the knees."

"Yeah," I say. "Because the flesh and bone there is so much weaker than your skull."

"You'd be surprised," she says.

"Let me take a guess," I say. "Your power requires you to have laid eyes on the person you're tracking? Because of that, you can't locate Alison, so you and the Klen are hoping that I know where she is and would lead you to her. If that happened, then you'd go back to your bosses, assemble a larger fighting group than the one Kyle was in a few weeks ago, and you'd lead them straight to her. From there, you'd kill her, assuming a group that large would be able to take on someone who managed to take out four Sigil-Bearers.

"Here's a news-flash," I smile. "That was me. I blew them up. There wasn't a mine under that tile, but the building they decided to use as a hideout? Just so happened to have a pretty potent bomb underneath it because I'd intended on demolishing it, removing the rubble from the area, and letting the hole be filled in by nature. It was kind of the only building on a few acres of grass and plants. And then I called the Federation and had them send the Sigil Goddess of Chaos out here to deal with Kyle.

"My guess," I point the gun at her head. "Is that Kyle contacted the Klen and informed them that I blew everyone else up. Someone in the Klen finally got a brain and decided to use a little more strategy. You aren't hiding in the ruins, which means the group's come in through the town.

"Well," I say. "I'm sure there are a few of you in the ruins, but I've been a bit busy the last few days, so I didn't find them. I will. And I'll kill them, too. Alison isn't here, it's just me. And I'm not a big fan of the Klen."

"You're nothing more than a heretic," she snarls. "We Sigil-Bearers are the gods of this world, and-"

"Gods?" I laugh. "Oh, keep dreaming, you pathetic little idiot."

"We are gods!" She snaps. "The Sigil Gods are just the start! Soon, we will all-"

"The Sigil Gods?" I chuckle. "You have no idea about the real gods of this world, you pathetic piece of shit. Any Sigil-Bearer who thinks they're a god, who thinks they stand above normies? You deserve to die."

"Normies?" She suddenly looks confused. "Only Sigil-Bearers and the normies in the Klen call them that. Everyone else refers to them as-"

"Normal people," I say. "Non-Bearers. Yes, I'm aware. No, I'm not a Sigil-Bearer. I'm Casimir Nicholas Wade. I'm someone who knows the truth of the Sigils. And after I kill you, I'm going to go and set up traps for the rest of the Klen who will end up following me due to your disappearance."

"You aren't our real target," she smiles.

"I know," I say. "Alison is, but since she's not here, that means they'll follow me and follow me and follow me, until I put them all down so that I can have some peace."

The Sigil-Bearer just snorts, and I pull the trigger, putting a bullet in her brain. She might be tough, but the shot at her knees told me she's not tough enough to handle a normal gun. My shot kills her, no chance of return.

I return the gun to my holster, then set off. That smirk worries me.

If someone from the Klen is actually using their brain, then it's possible that they sent her after me specifically as a diversion. It's possible that they realized that I'm killing all of the Klen who go after me. If that's the case, then they might have found Ali and used this Sigil-Bearer to keep me away from the people hunting her.

I need to hurry.