In an industrial area on the outskirts of the city’s Northeast side, a box truck pulled up to the gates of an isolated warehouse surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. An armed guard received the vehicle, speaking to the driver, then briefly opening the back to check the contents. It was filled with a large number of unmarked wooden crates of various sizes.

“Go on in,” the guard said, waving them through.

The warehouse had no signs or text on it besides the ones warning about the potential repercussions for trespassers. The truck drove through the empty parking lot to the warehouse’s receiving area, and the men inside the warehouse began to unload the van’s contents.

The driver of the van, a shopkeeper at a mall deeper in the city, lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “Sicka comin’ to this fuckin’ place. Rather be at Fickster Street.”

His passenger, a woman, wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Didn’t need to know what your nasty ass gets up to in his spare time. Help us unload the crates.”

“Do it yaself, busy here.”

“Sure. I’ll make sure to tell Boss how much help you were when he gets here.”

The shopkeeper paused, then tossed his cigarette to the pavement and stomped on it with his boot. “He’s comin’?”

“Yup. Found his girl. Bringing her here to squeeze the details out of her.”

“Fuuuck.” The shopkeeper sighed. “Fine, I’ll help.”

He made his way over to the loading area and grabbed a jack, using it to remove a sealed crate from the box truck. “Goddamn that’s heavy. Where’d you want this one?”

One of the Demons inside the warehouse, holding a checklist in his hand, frowned. “What’s in it?”

“Uh…” He glanced around the crate for a label. “Doesn’t say anything. Should I crack it open and look?”

“Nah, not worth the trouble. Take to it to the room in the far back, with the crates with the red lables. Be very careful in there.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Scratching his back, the shopkeeper complied with the command, navigating his way through a maze of crates, boxes, shelves, and more, mostly full of illegal goods. A small table with a few men playing cards beckoned for him to come play, but he refused for another time and kept going.

Once he reached the back, he spotted multiple crates labeled with red spray paint that spelled out an exclamation mark. Spilling out of some of them were all sorts of explosives, mainly plastic charges, but some carefully sealed crates were labeled ‘black powder’.

“Aw.” The shopkeeper carefully lowered the crate to the ground. “Fuck that.” He tiptoed out of the room as fast he could, then closed the door behind him.

The room fell silent as the dust the shopkeeper had kicked up resettled.

…

…

…

Cr-r-r-ack! From inside the crate, a strong force began pressing against the wooden lid of the crate. The nails tried their best to hold it together, but eventually the lid popped off, and two teenagers slowly peeked out of the crate, looking around at the explosives surrounding them, and then at each other.

“...Told you this wasn’t a good idea,” Quinn said.

Jacob sighed. “You know what? Next time, I’ll just leave you behind.”

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

Everything was blurry. One moment Isla was in a cold, dark place, unable to see anything, unable to feel anything except pain. The next, it all slipped away, and a light began to glow as she found herself reaching out for the door handle of a fast food restaurant the day before. It was a pretty small place with a few people spaced out here and there, including a dad and his two sons. Isla gave a small smile at them as they stared at her almost in wonder.

Eventually she found who she was looking for- a young woman in an isolated booth, with brown hair tied in a bun, a laptop, camera, and purse. She wore a long skirt, heels, and a light coat to fend off the autumn chill. In the seat across from her was a burger meal.

“I got you some food.” The reporter smiled. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Isla cautiously took a seat. “If this is your way of getting me to trust you, I want to know that it’s working. Buy more.” She unwrapped the burger and began wolfing it down.

“...Haven’t had much to eat on the run, huh?” The reported lifted the lid of the laptop. “I hope it’s okay with you if I record this conversation?”

Isla froze, then slowly lowered her burger. “No. Don’t want my voice in this.”

“It’s only so I can take notes later, don’t worry.” The reporter puffed out her chest with pride. “Ruth Forth is a journalist of integrity who’d never give up her sources.”

The teenager made a face. “Are you seriously referring to yourself in the third person?”

Flushed, Ruth went back to her laptop and began to type. “You said on our phone call that you had something you needed to talk to me about something related to the Demons, despite being an informant for the city’s police commissioner. Why?”

“Can you keep your voice down?” Isla hissed. “Obviously it’s because they have sources in the police.”

“Sources meaning corrupt officers?”

“Sources meaning sources. I don’t know exactly what they are, just that’s what my father called them. If I had to guess, some of them are probably dirty cops, yeah.”

“I knew it.” The journalist nodded. “And these sources, they’re all your fathers?”

“Not all of them.” Isla glanced around nervously. “Actually, most of them aren’t even my father’s. They’re someone else’s. And it’s not…” She took a deep breath. “It is not just the police you need to be worried about. It’s bigger than that- a lot bigger. Like insane levels of absolute fuckery bigger.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on a second, you’re talking way too fast,” Ruth admonished. “Calm down, drink some soda, let me ask my questions.”

“No one has time for that!” Isla snapped. “Forget your dumbass questions and just let me talk, it’ll be faster. Yes, my father has a few sources in the police, but that’s it. My father isn’t the biggest problem. It’s this person he’s working with, one of the other Demons- a new guy. He’s got people everywhere- teachers, politicians, rich business CEOs and shit. All sorts of people sucking him off and helping him from the shadows.”

“Any names in particular?”

“I wrote down as many as I could remember.” Isla slid over a small, folded up piece of paper that Ruth opened and began to read.

Her eyes bulged at the sheer number of important names. “This is as many as you could remember?”

“I don’t know if all of them are corrupt,” Isla admitted. “These are just the names that my father mentioned in his ‘business’ calls.”

“Even a quarter of these names being involved would be a gigantic scandal.” Ruth shook her head. “Do you know anything about this Demon’s identity? What he looks like, maybe?”

“I wish. Uh…” Isla frowned. “My father called him Ningyōtsukai.”

“What does that mean?”

“Uh, they do bunraku. Shit, how do I describe it to you…” The girl pulled on her hair in an attempt to remember clearly. “You know those doll theatre show things they do when you’re a kid? It’s the person who move the strings of the dolls.”

“You mean like puppets?”

“Yeah, those. That’s it. The puppet master. He’s planning something too- something big, something that involves Futureb-”

BANG!

A splurt of blood narrowly missed Isla and covered the booth seat beside her. Shell shocked, she stared at the woman she’d just been speaking to, now nothing but a hollow, bleeding vessel. A bullet had ripped straight through her skull. Her vision began to fade to black, and she manually forced herself to breathe in to keep from passing out.

More gunshots and screaming rang out as she slowly brought her gaze to the entrance of the store, where the father was roaring in anger as he wrestled with a man in a black suit, his face covered by a cloth mask. The other two Demons had gone into the back to take care of the employees there, and she could hear screams coming from the kitchen.

As she watched, still in shock, the Demon grinned wickedly as he slowly brought the barrel of the gun in line with the father’s abdomen, and squeezed the trigger multiple times. The father dropped to the floor, and the kids began to scream and cry.

“Ugh…” The Demon brought his gun towards them. “My fucking ears.”

The active threat forced Isla back into reality. She roared in anger and charged out of the booth, determined to save them no matter what.

But she would make it there much too late.

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

“...And that’s the whole story?” Commissioner Prentice asked.

I nodded. “Directly the way she told us. Then she and Mrs. Forth had a petty fight, and… yeah, that’s pretty much it for that conversation.”

“What was the fight about?” Singh asked.

The question made me scoff. “I just said it was petty. They were playing the blame game, Isla got pissed. Nothing important you need to know.”

“I think that we can decide for ourselves whether we need to know,” the lieutenant snapped. “Stop being a smart-ass and answer when we ask you a question.”

“Listen, if you’re still mad about your probably blue balls… I’m not sorry.”

“You need some disciplining, badmash.”

“Then go fetch a lathi, dog.”

“Enough.” The Commissioner crossed her arms. “Isla didn’t mention anything else out of the ordinary?”

“I do think there was something else, but…” I shook my head. “Whatever it was, she wasn’t in the greatest mood. I decided it would be better to just leave it for later, took her on a grocery run to get her mind off things.”

The Commissioner frowned. “And you thought this was a good idea?”

“Not by choice,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. She needed some air, didn’t want to keep her cooped up like a caged animal.” I couldn’t exactly explain that the whole idea had actually been Levi’s- he’d planted it in my head, influencing my thoughts to make it seem okay. “Some criminals- not Demons- jumped us while we were there, took Isla.”

“The contract,” Singh realized. “It worked. We’re too late.”

“Not yet,” The Commissioner disagreed. “If her father just wanted to kill her, he could have done that before today, and he could have done that with the contract. He wanted to capture her alive- why?”

“To interrogate her,” I suggested. “Figure out what she told you so the Demons know which parts of their operations are potentially compromised.”

“Exactly. Which gives us a little more time,” she reasoned.

“Not much,” Singh said. “Maybe a day or two more, max.”

“We’ll have to make it work.” The Commissioner straightened, looking directly at me. “I have a potential list of locations back at the station based on the digital release of the contract. Help me narrow it down.”

“Like mother, like daughter, huh.” I shook my head. “Again, not interested. I’ve got, uh, homework to do. I’m in my junior year and stuff.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She raised an eyebrow. “Would you happen to be interested if I told you I’ll charge you with public mischief as well as aiding and abetting a kidnapping?”

“We both know none of those charges will stick. Nice try, though.” I headed for the treehouse’s trap door. “See you both neve-”

The Commissioner grabbed my arm, holding me in place and preventing me from moving further. I didn’t turn to look at her.

“I wasn’t available earlier because I was dropping by houses,” Commissioner Prentice explained. “Visiting their homes and explaining what happened to their sons, daughters, wives, husbands… nephews, in that restaurant. Showing them photos to confirm the bodies. That’s where I was for most of today.” Her grip tightened. “Even if I bring them justice now, it won’t change the fact that I failed them- no, I failed this city. I can’t fail Isla, too. It’s my fault she’s in this mess in the first place. If something happens to her-”

“Funny,” I spoke quietly. “Don’t remember you having this level of consideration when it was me, Sergeant Prentice.”

“...”

I couldn’t see her face, yet I could clearly picture the Commissioner’s expression as she slowly released my arm from her grasp. The lieutenant stared at us, no doubt confused as to what I was referring to. While she must have told him who I was and what I could do, the Commissioner probably hadn’t gotten around to telling him about our shared history. Not that I really cared.

“Good luck, guys.” I opened the trap door. “Hope you find her.”

Sleeping wasn’t something that came naturally to me. I spent most nights tossing and turning, then battled with severe sleep deprivation in the morning. Even when I did fall asleep, it usually wasn’t a comfortable experience, and neither was waking up. Especially when it involved really sharp knives.

Without opening my eyes, I threw a punch out to my right and heard an oof!, along with someone stumbling backwards into my desk. I groggily blinked the sleep out of my eyes, then flopped back onto my bed as a knife came hurtling towards me, slamming into the wall and chipping it.

“Mad at me for yesterday?” I asked mid-yawn, checking my phone.

My sister didn’t reply. Instead, she pulled out a second weapon- a mini hockey stick- and pushed off my desk to attack.

Fifteen minutes later, I sat at the breakfast table, eating cereal while Ramona sat across from me, pinching her nose shut tightly with a bloody tissue.

Mom sighed. “Is it really that hard to have a stereotypical family morning of just… chatting with each other over food?”

“You’d need a stereotypical family first,” I answered.

“What does stereotypical mean?” Ken asked.

“The opposite of Michael,” Ramona muttered.

“Oof! What a burn,” I deadpanned. “Really felt that one in my bones.”

“Gonna feel this foot up your-”

“Your father’s coming back next weekend!” Mom said quickly. “And I got a discount on that new theme park they’re opening up- do you guys want to go?”

Ken’s eyes lit up excitedly. “Really?! Yeah, let’s go, let’s go!”

The autumn morning sun was trying its best to pierce through its cloudy veil, and failing spectacularly. The mood it created seemed to be spreading amongst the Northeast students like an epidemic. Actually, maybe that was just the normal mood of high schoolers being forced to go to class at 9 am in the morning.

Ramona opted to split away from me as soon as possible to meet up with her friends (and to not be seen with me), so I trudged past the school gate alone after being ID checked by a security officer. There was a noticeable gap between myself and the other students- a gap I was so used to that most days I forgot it was even there. Today, though, that gap was even more noticeable than normal.

I glanced around. No one seemed to be looking at me, though, so maybe it was just all in my head?

Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Hey!”

A smack on my back barely moved me. I turned to look at Quentin as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, grinning.

“Missed you yesterday,” he greeted. “You get sick?”

“Something like that. I’m fine now.” Which wasn’t a lie. My leg wasn’t too painful, and as long as I didn’t move it too harshly, I’d be fine. I tried my best not to put too much pressure on it as I walked.

Quentin raised an eyebrow. “Hm. Well, your sister was being… your sister yesterday. Really needed to talk to Sophia for some reason, but she was on the roof.”

“Huh. You let her through?”

“Couldn’t. Not tryna get kicked off student council.” He shook me lightly with his arm. “You know, the student council you should totally run for with me.”

Here we go again.

“It’s too early for this,” I yawned. “Can you roleplay ‘used car salesman’ another time?”

He pulled away and positioned himself in front of me, clasping his hands together. “Please? C’mon, man. You know there isn’t anyone else I can ask.”

“There’s no one else you can ask besides the most hated guy in this shit ass school?”

“First of all, you’re not the most hated,” Quentin began. “Second of all, you and I both know how we could change your reputation pretty fast…” He began to pull the hair covering my face aside with his free hand, and I yanked my head away. “Third of all, you’re the only person I genuinely think is competent enough for the job.”

I snorted. “In a school full of loaded kiss-asses and academic tryhards?”

“Exactly the kinda people I don’t want.” Quentin sighed as we reached the front steps. “Please, man. It won’t even be that hard.”

“What do I get out of it?” I asked.

My friend frowned. “...My eternal gratitude and servitude?”

“Yeah, pass.” I removed his arm from my neck and made my way into the school.

After removing all the sticky notes and rotting fruit from my locker–

Oooh, the insults are creative this time!

–I spent my first two classes napping in the back, my head down on my desk. Near the end of second period, I was surprised by a volume of water crashing down on me, absolutely soaking my hair and my clothes to the core.

A student darted back into his seat and capped his empty water bottle, thinking he was slick. My other classmates covered their mouths with their hands to muffle their laughter, and my clueless math teacher whipped around, looking around the classroom until they spotted my soaked figure. With a sigh, he addressed me with a thick British accent. “Mr. Collins, who did such a horrid thing?”

I shrugged. “Got no fuckin’ clue. And my name is Michael.”

“There’s no need to curse.” He crossed his arms. “Go and dry yourself off in the lavatory immediately.”

“Yup.” I stood, water dripping off my hair and clothes, and made my way past desks towards the door. As I passed by the troublemaker’s desk, he stuck out his foot to trip me, and I barely managed to catch myself on an adjacent desk.

“Shit, my bad,” the guy apologized deceitfully. “You okay?”

I didn’t even shoot him a glance- just kept walking to the door and made my way to the washroom. As I walked down the hall, more kids kept pointing at me and giggling until I made my way into the washroom, pulling out paper towel from the dispenser and using it to dry myself off as best I could.

In the bathroom’s small, cracked mirror, I became increasingly aware of a presence watching me, and less aware of literally anything else. My hearing dulled and my vision became blurrier until I turned my head to look at my reflection.

“Could you stop messing with my senses? Thanks,” I said aloud.

In the mirror, wearing a blood red hoodie that matched his eyes, was Levi, staring at me with a mock expression of sadness, clutching the spot where his heart would be with one hand.

You’re breaking my heart, Michael. Don’t ignore me like this, I can’t take it!

“Don’t give a shit, and don’t give a fuck,” I answered plainly. “Get lost.”

Oh, darling, at least give me an opportunity to explain! It was just a one time thing!

Irritated, I slammed my elbow into the mirror, shattering it. As the pieces clattered to the floor, a scared looking freshman peeked out from the stall he was in.

“It was already cracked anyway,” I told him plainly.

He cautiously took a few steps forward, then speed-walked out of the bathroom without looking at me. Hopefully that didn’t turn into a headache later.

As lunch began, Quentin found me eating in my usual spot, a small, little-used stairwell near the back of the school. The labeled sign read, “Staircase F”, but besides the F someone had scratched in the letters ‘u’ ‘c’ and ‘k’ in small print.

“Why do you eat lunch in the hookup staircase?” Quentin asked, confused.

“Well, I’d eat on the roof, but someone doesn’t want to let me up there,” I replied.

He slid down the wall and sat on the floor besides me. “If you ran for student council, you could go up there as much as you wanted to, y’know?”

I gave a fake gasp. “Oh my god, really? That’s sooooo cool! Where do I sign up?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I’ll stop.” He sighed. “So, you wanna explain to me what that whole Ramona-Sophia thing was about? Figured your sister would stay clear of her after… y’know.”

I took out my sandwich from my lunch box and took a bite. “Dunno, don’t care.”

“She was pretty insistent that it was really important. Wouldn’t tell me what, though.”

“Important to her can be a lot of different things, you know that.”

He frowned. “Dude, gross. Don’t talk with your mouth open.”

I swallowed my food. “Where’s your lunch?”

“Right here.” He snagged the other half of the sandwich and began to chow down, also talking with his mouth open. “Don’t lie to me, man. I know you at least have some idea.”

Shrugging, I began to start on my salad. “Could not care less about what she’s up to.”

“Says the guy getting his ass beat every day to keep Vincent away from her.”

I jabbed a cherry tomato with my fork. “Yeah, well.”

“Speaking of Vincent, apparently he got into a fight on the roof yesterday, right around third period. I found out after that it was with a certain junior and a couple of freshman girls.” Quentin watched as my fork froze. “You don’t know anything about that either, right?”

“God, you’re nosy as hell, you know that?” I lowered my salad to the ground. “Tell me more about that fight.”

He gave me the rundown- Vincent had apparently cornered Ramona, Eurielle, and Sophia on the roof, probably after they had their conversation, which was probably what had held them up for so long. Just a minor detail that Ramona had forgotten to fill me in on. In exchange, I explained the Isla situation from the beginning to Quentin. He followed along with some overly dramatic reactions at some points, but didn’t say a word until I was finished talking, which was when he asked, “So that’s it? That’s all?”

“Yeah. And there’s not going to be more.” I grabbed my water bottle and took a swig. “And before you say anything, no, I am not going after her.”

“You can’t be serious,” Quentin said in disbelief. “She’ll fucking die.”

“And that’s the police’s issue, not mine.” I shook my head. “I don’t want any part of this, Quentin. My life’s complicated enough as it is.”

“And Sophia?” he asked.

“Why the hell are you bringing her up?” I snapped.

“You okay with her losing her best friend when you could do something about it?”

I rolled up my pant leg and pointed to my bandaged gunshot wound. “I did do something about it. Even though I didn’t want to, even though I shouldn’t have had to. I’m literally a sixteen year old kid. You all need to stop treating me like some I’m some comic book superhero.”

“You’re right. You’d be more suited to the supervillain role.”

Both of us froze. The voice hadn’t come from either of us- it had come from under the stairwell.

We gingerly stood up and walked over to the little cubby spot under the stairwell. On some days, you would find couples making out under there, but today there was something duct taped to the underside of the steps- a walkie talkie, volume turned up as loud as it could go. The button was taped down so the person on the other end could hear everything.

“Well, based on this file that I’m reading, anyways.” I heard a few clicks coming from the computer mouse of the caller. “Destruction of property, robbery, kidnapping, extortion… just to name a couple of the minor ones for Quentin there.”

Quentin’s eyes widened. “Wait, is that…”

I ripped the walkie talkie off the stairwell and began to speak into it. “Why don’t you come down here and have this conversation with us face to face?”

“We had an agreement, Michael. All you had to do was keep Isla safe and bring her to me.” A few clacks on a keyboard were audible. “Maybe I release this file with a few edits, put the names of your family in here and there. How long do you think it’ll take before they’re taken in, either by the right people… or the wrong ones?”

“You wouldn’t,” I refuted, clenching my teeth. “I know you.”

“Confident, huh?” The caller scoffed. “You don’t know shit about me, Michael. If you did, I wouldn’t have gotten the file in the first place.”

“What do you want?” Quentin asked evenly.

“I want Isla back, safe and sound,” the caller said. “How you make that happen, I don’t care, just as long as it does.”

“Right,” I muttered. “Just stroll straight into the lion’s den to get shot again.”

“I’ll help,” Quentin offered. “Two of us working together on this, it’ll be a breeze.”

“And then what?” I asked. “I just get jerked around for the rest of my life? No, like I said before- that file gets published, especially with my family’s name on it, and you’re not going to be waking up in your bed tomorrow.”

“I will delete it after you do this for me,” the caller decided. “Just get Isla back. That’s all I’m asking. I won’t need anything else from you after.”

“Oh, golly gee, would you do that for me?” I asked sarcastically. “Thanks! I totally trust a backstabbing bitch such as yourself to not go back on his word.”

“The only copy of the file I have is on a USB. No backups, no cloud storage. I swear on my mother’s and sister’s life.” He definitely didn’t sound like he wasn’t lying. But I could only fully confirm the truth in person by observing his body language and facial expressions.

I took my fingers off the talk button and glanced at Quentin. “What days are the student council office free?”

“Mmm…” Quentin pondered for a moment. “Should be a Thursday next week.”

I spoke into the walkie. “Thursday, next week. Bring the USB to the student council office. If you’re lying, I’ll beat your ass worse than I did in May.”

The caller agreed on the terms. “If you need my help with anything-”

“I don’t. And even if I did, I wouldn’t ask. Not from you.”

“Okay, but keep the walkie on you. Just in case I-”

I slammed the walkie talkie into the ground as hard as I could, shattering it into pieces that flew everywhere. We stared at the broken pieces on the ground. “Was that really necessary, man?” Quentin asked.

“Very.” I took a deep breath. “Guess I’m skipping class to find Isla.”

The student council treasurer leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms. “Do you have any leads?”

“Honestly, not really.” I stuck my hands in my pockets. “Commissioner Prentice had a list of possible locations based on a digital trace, but it’s likely coming from a proxy.”

“Couldn’t you trace it back from the proxy?”

“Possible, but unlikely. And Isla doesn’t have that kind of time.” I sighed. “Guess I’m gonna have to look around, have a conversation with the right people.” “You won’t have to look very hard.”

Normally, I would have been immediately aware of any others in or outside the stairwell, but Levi was still messing with my brain. Okay, whatever, not a big deal. I would at least hear somebody opening the doors that opened into the stairwell itself… or so I had thought, but that sentence had been spoken by someone right behind me.

I whipped around, grabbed the unknown by the shirt, and slammed him down into the ground, fist raised. A lanky Asian boy looked back at me with a terrified expression, hands raised in surrender.

“Jacob?” Quentin stared down at him incredulously. “Seriously, man? You couldn’t have said hi first?”

“M-my bad,” the kid stammered. “Just… hear me out. I think I can help-”

The stairwell doors slammed open with tremendous force, and a short, scrawny girl with chocolate coloured skin and curly black hair rushed forwards. I raised my guard to block, but a nauseating chill went up my spine, and I stumbled backwards at the last second. I felt the air rush towards me as her fist struck the spot where my jaw had been- a level of force that was completely illogical from such a thin figure.

Then, she tripped over Jacob and ended up sprawled on the floor lamely after a yelp.

“...I think we can help you guys,” Jacob corrected. “We know where Isla is.”

I exchanged looks with Quentin, who shrugged in response. To me, it seemed awfully too convenient to me that the answer to finding Isla would appear right at my feet (literally), but… it’s not like I had any other choice. I needed a solid lead, and if they were lying about something, I would find out what it was.

“Fuck it.” I crossed my arms and hovered over the two dorks menacingly, an intimidating glare in my eye. “Both of you, come with me, now.”

The two kids shivered in response. “Y-yes, sir.”