Kelsey: Jenny your scaring me

  Jenny: sorry

  Jenny: im ok now

  Kelsey: What happened??? D:

  Jenny: couldnt get into my house

  Kelsey: Oh

  Kelsey: Is that it? o.o

  Jenny: …

  Jenny: ya

  Kelsey: So what did you do?

  Jenny: well i uhh

  Jenny: i kinda broke into quinns house

  Kelsey: For real!?

  Jenny: ya

  Jenny: im sitting on his couch right now

  Jenny: his place is nice

  Kelsey: I bet it is :P

  Jenny: dont plz

  Kelsey: Dont what?

  Jenny: im really scared right now

  Kelsey: Whats wrong? D:

  Jenny: i think something bad is about to happen

  Jenny: and i cant get anyone to ansswer me

  Jenny: youre the only one whos texting me back

  Kelsey: Not even Mitch/Tyler???

  Jenny: well theyre stuck with mrs chau arent they?

  Kelsey: No… they went home. I told you that remember?

  Jenny: o

  Jenny: sorry i forgot

  Kelsey: What about Quinn?

  Jenny: hes probably with his family...

  Jenny: i didnt want to bother him…

  Kelsey: Jenny -_-

  Kelsey: Hed totally wanna be bothered by you

  Jenny: but

  Jenny: even all my old friends arent answering

  Kelsey: Maybe theyre all busy?

  Jenny: maybe…

  Jenny: with whats going on i guess that makes sense

  Jenny: but i need help

  Kelsey: What do you mean whats going on? :O

  Jenny: nothing

  Kelsey: Come on, tell me!

  Jenny: well

  Jenny: you saw the news right

  Kelsey: Yeah

  Kelsey: Something about magic???

  Kelsey: Ohhhhh

  Kelsey: That's about you! :O

  Jenny: ya… and thats bad

  Kelsey: Why?

  Jenny: because people dont like it

  Kelsey: I think its pretty cool

  Jenny: thast because youre cool

  Jenny: trust me

  Kelsey: Maybe youll be wrong

  Jenny: maybe

  Kelsey: Jenny?

  Jenny: sorry, something is beeping

  Kelsey: Something like what? :O

  Jenny: little box on the wall. quiet but its super annoying

  Jenny: says "Delkiph Systems"

  Kelsey: Oh shit D:

  Jenny: what?

  Kelsey: That's a security thing

  Kelsey: We have that here too

  Kelsey: You gotta put in a code when you come in or the alarm goes off

  Jenny: i dont know the code!

  Kelsey: It should have gone off by now o.o

  Kelsey: Maybe youre okay?

  Kelsey: Jenny??? D:

  Kelsey: Are you okay??

  Natalie could feel her phone buzzing in her jacket pocket. Every time it lit up again, she stiffened up in fear. If they heard it…

  Three men had shown up only moments after Kelsey's text. They burst through the front door with tasers, something like the one her dad once had. They were going through the whole place, trying to find the intruder.

  Trying to find me. What do I do?

  She was under the couch, pressed up against the wall. She barely fit, but she managed to squeeze in just as the first shadow passed over the curtains before the door flew open. The men were talking to each other, clearing rooms with professional efficiency. It sounded a lot like someone else she once knew. The guy with the broken arm back in Rallsburg, the military guy. She couldn't remember his name though. Some kind of animal, like a nickname or something.

  If they look under here… Natalie didn't want to hurt them. She was pretty confident she could stop the little taser cables before they got to her, and she could definitely take on just three guys… but then she'd have to run again.

  Very slowly, Natalie inched her hand into her jacket pocket, fumbling for the volume buttons. She shifted just an inch too far. The phone thumped onto the floor.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  She waited, frozen in place.

  No response. None of the men were in the living room. Natalie let out the shallow breath she'd been holding in, and picked up her phone an instant before it buzzed again. She couldn't read it, but she could guess that it was yet another panicked text from Kelsey. She clicked the volume all the way down to silent, and breathed a sigh of relief as the screen lit up again, but without a vibration this time.

  Not two seconds later, heavy footsteps returned to the living room.

  "False alarm?"

  "Still gotta follow procedure. You know the rules."

  "Ugh."

  "Don't worry. The office takes care of of the rest. All you gotta do is file your report."

  "Fuckin' paperwork…"

  Three pairs of boots left, the same three pairs that came in. They tapped out a sequence on the quietly beeping alarm box, then the door clicked shut.

  Natalie was alone once again, but finally, she felt a real sense of relief. They hadn't found her.

  She was safe.

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

  The first thing she did to celebrate was eat. All her food was still intact, thanks to her bag. She wondered if it would keep things totally fresh too, and decided to leave a package of doughnuts inside just to test it out. The real problem was that she was starving, and she didn't just want to have snacks for dinner.

  Quinn's family had a well-stocked kitchen, but Natalie didn't want to steal from them. She wasn't supposed to be there, and while she felt like he'd probably be okay with it, she was too nervous to ask. Natalie wasn't a thief, so she had to find another way to get a real meal.

  What she did have was a phone, piled bundles of cash, and a stack of prepaid debit cards she'd bought for emergencies — and so she could pay in shops without getting as many weird looks as the cash did. After all, the cards didn't show anyone how much she had on her. More importantly, they could be used online, and she was in the middle of Seattle. She could finally take advantage of something revolutionary, which hadn't existed in her hometown and which she couldn't ever use at the Laushire house.

  Natalie could order delivery.

  She made sure it was safe first. The guard had typed in the code from an angle she could see pretty well. Natalie opened the door a crack to test it, and the box began to beep. She typed in the code, as quick as she could, and it displayed a reassuring "Disarmed" message. Still, Natalie went back to hiding for a good half-hour again, just to be extra careful. When no one showed up, she felt reasonably assured she could go in and out without setting off another alarm.

  Which meant only one thing: pizza time.

  Natalie wasn't about to risk another meeting with a total stranger. She put in her order with specific instructions on the site. While she waited, she texted back and forth with Kelsey, who had finally managed to escape Steven's house and gone home for the night. Kelsey was still annoyingly curious about Natalie's big secret, but she hadn't seemed to make the connection yet to the breaking news.

  Natalie wondered if she should just tell them — tell them she was from Rallsburg, who she was, everything. It would make her life so much simpler, and it wasn't like they were keeping the big magic secret anymore. That ship had sailed.

  Will you tell them everything? What he did? What you did?

  She shivered. Quinn's house was pretty cold. It was November. Did she dare try to figure out how to turn on the heat?

  The door knocker interrupted her thoughts. She waited, watching the silhouette through the curtains as the delivery guy set down the pizza and walked away. As soon as he'd disappeared into the stairwell, Natalie opened the door and grabbed it, closing it just as quickly.

  She did end up using the family's dishes, whispering an apology under her breath as she did. She cleaned them afterward, and left them to dry in the little rack next to the sink. She hoped they wouldn't mind—or even notice, if she could manage it. That was her goal. Stay as long as she had to, but be out before Sunday, when the Kincaids were supposed to come home from San Diego.

  Her phone lit up again on the table, and Natalie got back into a texting back-and-forth with Kelsey, arguing about whether or not they should hang out in Quinn's house since it was totally open for the weekend. Kelsey had practice Saturday morning, but she was free the rest of the day. Natalie wasn't so sure, but she left the idea on the table.

  More than anything, she just wanted to relax. Her heart was still racing after the mad dash through the city and the impromptu hide-and-seek with the security guys. Between the pizza and the bottle of soda that came with it, though, Natalie was finally returning to some semblance of calm.

  Which, of course, made it all the more clear just how quiet and empty Quinn's place felt.

  Sure, it was obviously lived-in. She spent a long time just wandering through the main room, looking at pictures hanging on the walls of his family, his friends. There was a whole corner dedicated to photos of the rest of the Glasses Gang (almost invariably playing games of some kind, either Conquest, video games or something else). Other photos, of Quinn's parents with other people. Family friends, she guessed.

  Her dad hadn't had any friends. Not really. She made friends with a whole bunch of people in Rallsburg, from Rachel to Hector and Jackie, or even some of the college kids every year when they came back to school. She wasn't exactly close to most of them (and a lot of the college students never even learned her name), but she felt like she was a friendly person.

  He wasn't. The only person she ever saw her dad hang out with was Robert, the big lumberjack and hunter. Natalie didn't like him, though a lot of the town did. He was always chasing her off his land, or grumbling and shouting about something. Robert was a complainer. She didn't really get why her dad hung out with him, but she'd never asked. She didn't get their friendship, but she was happy her dad had at least found someone to talk to in town.

  Natalie wondered if it started before or after they'd decided to help Omega.

  Robert. He wanted to kill me too, probably. That look he gave me in the woods after the riot… Him and Omega… If my dad knew, he would have stopped them. But Dad was too busy hurting other people…

  She pulled a book out of her bag and returned to the couch, intending to dive into it and forget about everything for a while. From the last time she checked, nothing else was happening yet. No one was answering her except Kelsey, who had returned to her favorite pastime of needling Natalie about Quinn, so she was getting ignored for a while.

  The book just didn't work. Natalie put it back and sifted around for another one. Again, she just couldn't bring herself to focus on the words. Even her favorite, a story about a lost girl who helped overthrow an evil kingdom, couldn't keep her attention. Natalie was too restless. She felt like she needed to do something.

  You're safe, but as soon as you go back out there, you'll be in danger again.

  Natalie dug out her blanket — not the thick dark outdoor one, but the warm and fuzzy pink indoor blanket. She curled up at the end of the couch, plugged in her headphones and closed her eyes, trying to bob along to some music. Anything to occupy her mind.

  You need to prepare yourself. If you get caught like that again, you won't get a second chance.

  She wondered what music Quinn liked. They'd never really talked about music much. Natalie was pretty open to most stuff, except for the really heavy music. It gave her a headache just to listen to it. She loved the violin and the flute more than anything. A few times, she'd listened in on Cinza's nightly ritual back home. She had never shown her face to them, but if she happened to be wandering through the woods nearby at the time with Gwen or Scrappy, she liked hearing Rufus play their songs on his flute.

  You can't rely on other people anymore. No one was there to save you. The world is changing.

  You have to fight.

  "Stop it," she murmured, closing her eyes tighter.

  Do you remember?

  "Yeah."

  You can't let that happen ever again.

  "I could have stopped him."

  You didn't.

  "You're not real," Natalie muttered. She picked up her phone and turned the music up, trying to drown it out.

  You already talk to animals. Why not a voice in your head?

  "Animals are real, and they don't talk."

  They aren't reliable. They won't always be there for you. You have to help yourself.

  "Stop it," she repeated.

  You know who I am.

  "You're a card from a game."

  I'm you, Natalie. And you can be me, if you want. You have that in you.

  "...What's that supposed to mean?"

  You've seen Hailey change. More than once. You even copied some of it. What if you could do the same? Make yourself stronger, faster. Get rid of your scars. You could be me. Or just the parts of me you like.

  Natalie shook her head. "This is crazy. I'm going crazy."

  So is the rest of the world.

  "...How?"

  You know how.

  "But it's dangerous. Jessica—"

  You're stronger than she is.

  "I don't think I am…" she said doubtfully.

  Look at me.

  Natalie hesitated, but she opened her eyes. She picked the card out of the bag and held it up, looking at the fierce, beautiful woman on the card. Pretending that it was her face there, and not the angular features of the character. Then, a step further, imagining that she was in that enchanted land — that Natalie was the Huntress who lived a solitary life wandering the tree-cities of her queendom, never staying in one place for too long, but always welcomed. Always home, no matter where she went in her forest.

  I was like you once.

  "How so?"

  I grew up poor. I was alone. I had to fight — to kill. They found me. I survived, and I eventually took my place in the natural order, but the scars never went away.

  "You don't have any scars."

  Neither do you, if you wish it so.

  "I don't know how to do that."

  The scars only show if you believe them.

  Natalie started to shake her head again, thinking it ridiculous — but then again she was talking to a playing card. She picked up her phone, switching the camera around to look at her face — at the twisting scar that circled her left cheek, a dark angry line that refused to fade. If anything, it had grown a little with the rest of her body. She closed her eyes for a moment, and tried to believe that they would just disappear.

  When she opened her eyes, her face was smooth and clear.

  "How—"

  You are more powerful than you know, just as I was.

  "But I didn't do anything."

  But you can. Take up your rightful place, like I did.

  "Wait…" Natalie glanced back at the card. "You didn't have a rightful place. You aren't a queen or a noble or anything." She looked around, and the entire room was a black, empty void. "That was a different story."

  Natalie's eyes flew open. Her phone said it was past eleven. The pizza box was still sitting on the little table in front of the couch, quite cold. She hadn't ever taken out her blanket, and she was curled up tight with a pillow as a makeshift cover.

  The scars were still there.

  "What a weird dream," she muttered.