"What's going on?" asked Kelsey, once they'd all walked in after dinner and Natalie sealed the room.

  Natalie took a deep breath. "I'm going home tomorrow."

  "No!" said Tyler, before anyone else even had time to react to her statement. Natalie's anxiety splintered and broke apart at his outburst—she hadn't expected anything quite so dramatic. "You can't go now!"

  "I have to," she sighed. "It's too dangerous for me to stay here."

  "Like it's not gonna be dangerous there?" asked Kelsey skeptically.

  "Less dangerous for me," Natalie pointed out.

  "But… you beat me!" said Tyler desperately. "And I thought the principal's gonna fight for you! Plus you get to live with your boyfriend!"

  Natalie blushed. "That's not…" she trailed off.

  Quinn shook his head, answering for her. "She's not gonna be able to live here anymore."

  "...What?"

  "People are going to find out if they don't already know, and because of her dad, she can't live somewhere people know." Quinn was dancing around his parents' involvement, and Natalie didn't begrudge him that. After all, she had her own confused feelings surrounding her relationship with her father. "It's not safe to stay here."

  "So… back to Rallsburg then," said Kelsey.

  Natalie nodded.

  She grinned. "You're going home to your real best friend, I got it."

  Gwen… Natalie smiled. "You can't compete with a wolf."

  "Oh just you wait," said Kelsey. She glanced at Tyler. "You still in?"

  "Huh?" Natalie glanced at Quinn, but he seemed just as surprised.

  Tyler nodded. "I gave Mitch everything, I think."

  "Hey, don't drag me into this," said Mitch. "I still think you two are crazy."

  "What's going on?" asked Natalie, growing concerned.

  "Well duh," said Kelsey, her grin doubling over, "we're coming with you, Jenny!"

  "Natalie," Mitch hissed.

  "Dammit! Natalie!" Kelsey slapped herself in the face. "Ugh. I totally screwed that up."

  "Are you…" Natalie shook her head. Her heart might be swelling ten times over, but she couldn't truly believe what they were saying. They were talking like it was some kind of adventure. Natalie was fleeing from getting kicked out of yet another home, being barred from school by angry parents, hunted down by her dad's people, and possible mass murder charges. "This is going to be really dangerous."

  "No shit," said Kelsey. She clapped Mitch on the back. "Why do you think he's not coming?"

  "Screw you," Mitch shot back. "I could totally come along."

  "Money where your mouth is, shorty!"

  "All right, I'm in!"

  Kelsey looked genuinely surprised. "Wait, you're serious?"

  He smiled sheepishly. "I got all my stuff in too. Changed my mind."

  "Got what in?" Natalie frowned. "What's going on?"

  "Oh… well, Mitch figured it out," said Kelsey, uncharacteristically deferring to her arch-rival.

  Mitch looked embarrassed, shifting back and forth in his spot on the floor. "I… kinda figured out how to open your bag."

  "What?" asked Natalie. "But you're… you're not—"

  "Nope." Mitch shrugged. "Guess you don't gotta be awakened for that bag."

  I never did ask Lily about that… and anyone can use their portals and things without being awakened… so maybe? "What did you do?"

  "We all packed our stuff already." Mitch shrugged. "Quinn wasn't involved, but we kinda… well, we figured he'd tell you, and then you'd freak out before we got all set to go. Plus, there was no way we weren't gonna set off from here, so we can just grab his stuff now." He glanced at Quinn. "We've got extras for camping stuff, so you don't gotta worry about that."

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  "We already asked your parents if we could stay the night," added Tyler. "They said it's cool."

  Probably for my sake… feeling guilty about making me leave tomorrow. Natalie glanced around, seeing determined faces on all three of them. She felt a weird burst of pride, as if she'd somehow helped them get to this position, though of course they'd done it all on their own.

  They will make fine companions.

  But… it's gonna be dangerous. They aren't awakened.

  They must have prepared well, and they can keep secrets. It will be more dangerous if they stay. With us, they are safer. We protect our own.

  "It's getting super late," added Kelsey. "We'll see you in the morning, right Natalie?"

  "Yeah." Natalie smiled, making up her mind in that instant. "It's a long way back to Rallsburg."

  Kelsey beamed at her. Tyler and Mitch grinned. The three of them rolled out, leaving Quinn behind. He started to get up from the bed, but Natalie touched him on the shoulder, turning him back around.

  "...You okay?" she asked quietly, sliding the door closed with her mind at the same time.

  "I'm really scared," he whispered.

  Natalie nodded. "Me too."

  "What if…"

  She shook her head. "Asking that never helps. Trust me."

  Quinn didn't say anything for a while. Natalie reached forward and took his hand, holding him as close as her body would allow. She tried to smile in a way that might reassure him, though she had no idea what that really meant. How was she supposed to smile in a certain way, anyway? It seemed ridiculous—and yet, the smile definitely helped him, in whatever way she managed.

  "You get to meet Gwen," said Natalie quietly. "And Cinza, and probably a whole lot of other people. It's a really nice place. I can even show you my castle."

  "You have a castle?"

  She giggled. "Kinda. It's a tree fort me and dad built out in the woods near our house." She hesitated. "That's actually where I awakened."

  Quinn looked interested. Natalie laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and Quinn laid down next to her while she retold the story.

  "...and I didn't really get it until months later, who was shouting and fighting out there. I guess that was Alpha and Omega fighting, and Grey-eyes trying to stop them. But I never saw them, and I found the piece of the book sitting in my fort."

  "Wow…"

  "I know." Natalie sighed, leaning closer to Quinn—and for once, the tremors in her skin didn't feel quite as strong. They'd been laying next to each other for over an hour, and slowly, she was overcoming her reluctance and fear, bit by bit. "So I picked it up and read it, and I just felt everything. All the animals, all the trees and plants in the whole forest around me. It was so cool. And then that night, I met Scrappy."

  "Scrappy is the mountain lion?"

  "Yeah. He came right up to my window when I called. I was so scared my Dad might walk in," she added, giggling.

  "Can you tell me more stories?"

  "Yeah," said Natalie. She glanced up at the clock. "Getting kinda late though."

  "Oh…" Quinn started to move, but Natalie squeezed his hand.

  "...Do you want to sleep in here tonight?" she asked.

  "Huh?"

  "I don't…" Natalie hesitated. "I don't feel it." She did, but it had subsided so much after laying there for so long. She wasn't sure exactly why, but she felt like if Quinn left, she might not find her way back to this place. If this was her only opportunity to feel close to someone again, Natalie didn't want to waste it.

  "But—" Quinn glanced toward his parents room with a nervous expression.

  "We're leaving in the morning," Natalie pointed out. "What are they gonna do? Kick me out?"

  Quinn winced.

  Natalie sighed, and before she could stop herself, the emotions started pouring out again—just like they had the first day they met, on her first day of school, or any number of times after with Quinn. The dam burst forth, and her inner thoughts spilled out of her mouth one after another.

  "I'm really scared. My dad's out there trying to convince people to kill everyone like me, and I'm going back to find him and I don't even know what I'm going to do when I find him. Am I supposed to talk him down or make Gwen attack him or what? I'm just a kid. The whole world's going crazy, and apparently I'm super powerful or something and one of only eight people in the world with this kind of power, except now there's six because Jessica's gone and Omega too, and I'm afraid about who's gonna be next in that group.

  "I miss Gwen. I miss Scrappy. I miss Hector and Jackie and Neffie and Jenny and all the other people I used to hang out with. I even miss Rika. I don't know what happened to Rachel or why she never tried to find me, and now I feel like I'm breaking my promise and going after him alone, but she never showed up and my dad's doing horrible things, so I gotta break it."

  Natalie took a breath, trying to let the pressure release from her chest as she forced the words through her mouth.

  "Plus now there's all this other stuff too, like how Rika's getting blamed for things I did, and she's in huge trouble when I'm supposed to be the one in trouble, and I don't know whether or not telling everyone it was me will actually make things better or just make it worse, because every time I tell people things, the whole world seems to change and it scares me. I don't like it."

  "Well…" said Quinn, as Natalie took another breath, panting from the torrent of confessed feelings. "I don't know about any of that. But…"

  "It's okay," said Natalie. She rolled up on her side, lifting up off the bed to look at Quinn. He tried to smile, but he looked just as scared as she felt—and again, in that moment, it was exactly what she needed. She wanted to know she wasn't crazy, that being scared was right and normal. If Quinn was scared, it was okay for Natalie to be scared too.

  She leaned in, scared beyond all reason, and kissed Quinn.

  "I really like you," she whispered as she pulled away.

  "I… really like you too," he whispered back.

  Natalie smiled. She laid back down next to him—and for the first time, actually next to him. There was no gap anymore, and though her body was still resistant to the idea, Natalie managed to ignore it. With a quick whispered spell, she summoned a thick blanket from her bag to ward off the chill, and sealed the door once again. The blanket wrapped itself snug around them, and Natalie could feel their bodies warming up the space already.

  "Good night, Quinn," she whispered.

  "Night, Natalie," he whispered back.

  She smiled, and with a final spell to click out the light and a wave to Percy, Natalie settled into bed… where endless thoughts awaited her—of Alpha and Omega, of Grey-eyes and magic, of Rika and prison, of angry parents and protest mobs, of her friends and the faceless men who would hunt them, of her dad and Gwen.

  Of home, and every impossibly complicated feeling that came with it.