After waking up twice in the night, Alden managed to sleep in very late the next day.

  Meg was already up and feeling more than a little cranky, and slipped out of his room before their parents woke up. She packed away the sleeping bag, then hurried downstairs to eat some breakfast before she left for the day. She had a soccer game that morning, and getting out into the sun and kicking something really hard repeatedly for a while sounded like exactly what she needed.

  When she saw that Hailey had played soccer in high school, Meg had immediately tried out for the team over the summer. She hadn't made it, since their school only had one team, but she didn't let it discourage her. She hadn't played since fourth grade. So she joined a rec team, where she could play without all the pressure, and maybe she could make the team the next year.

  Of course, going to the game meant she'd probably run into Kelly. Kelly didn't play, but she always went to the games. Usually to see their mutual crush, who volunteered to referee for them.

  It was a friendly rivalry most of the time. They both liked him, and he was to-die-for handsome, but they'd both always insisted their friendship came first. Besides, he was a senior and they were both sophomores. He was never gonna look at them anyway.

  As Meg warmed up and saw Kelly sitting in the bleachers, and the referee talking to one of the coaches, she changed her mind. He's gonna notice me today.

  She played her heart out, but it didn't matter. The guy took no more notice of her than anyone else on the field. By half-time, she was exhausted from all the extra effort she'd been putting in, and she drained her water bottle in a second. She was about to go refill it from the big jugs behind the bench when she ran into Kelly, waiting next to them.

  "Hi," she started.

  Meg ignored her and walked past, filling up her bottle.

  "You're playing really well." Kelly joined her at the table. "Like, super well. I think you could really make the team next year."

  Meg gave her nothing but stony silence. She drank a bit more, turned and went back to the bench. Kelly looked annoyed and a little disappointed. Good. Serves her right.

  "Why are you being like this?" Kelly had followed her to the bench. A few other girls on the team glanced over curiously. Meg stared at the field without a word. Kelly wasn't there. She didn't understand what was really going on. Meg didn't need to talk to her.

  By the end of the second half, Kelly was gone. Meg's team won by a landslide, seven to one. That one goal slipped by while she'd been off the field, but Meg felt like she could have stopped it, so she called it a perfect game in her head anyway. She celebrated with her team a bit, but she was just eager to get home more than anything. She was still super tired from getting so little sleep the night before, and she wanted to take a nap for the rest of the afternoon.

  As she gathered up her stuff, she paused. Kelly's mom usually gave them a ride home from games, but Kelly was already gone. Meg pulled out her cell phone, meaning to call Alden… but he hadn't come home in his car the night before. It was still parked near the bar, miles and miles away.

  She thought about calling Kelly or her mom, but stubbornness won out. Meg pulled on her jacket, slung her water bottle and bag over her shoulder and walked all the way home, two miles and change.

  As she stumbled over the front step, Alden was just coming downstairs. He hadn't changed from the night before. His eyes looked glazed over, as if he was barely seeing anything in front of him.

  "Morning, sleepyhead." She dropped her stuff on the floor next to the front door, trying to decide if she wanted to take a shower or have a snack first before she claimed the couch for the rest of the afternoon.

  Alden glanced up, as if he'd just noticed she was there. "Hi. Where were you all morning?"

  Meg glanced down pointedly at her jersey. "Soccer."

  "Oh." He stood there uncomfortably, staring into space a thousand yards away.

  Despite how tired and grumpy she felt, Meg forced herself to smile. "Want something to eat?"

  "No thanks." He glanced around. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

  "No idea. They were here when I left."

  "Oh."

  "...I'm gonna go take a shower," Meg said finally, after Alden kept staring at the solid front door. She walked around him and up the stairs to her bathroom, giving him an odd glance as she passed.

  By the time she'd showered and changed, he wasn't on the stairs anymore. He'd made it to the couch in the living room… where he was staring at the blank TV instead.

  Be normal, but don't make him feel like a burden. That's what Hailey said to do, right? What's normal for us? Teasing, I guess. "Great show, huh?"

  "What?"

  "I think you forgot to pick something to watch, bro."

  The old Alden would have laughed and turned something on, accepting the jab. Post-Rallsburg Alden would have fired right back at her with something dry and sarcastic. This new Alden did… nothing. He glanced up at her words, heard them, then looked away again. As if he just wasn't there. Meg didn't know what to do with that.

  Be normal.

  She kept going as if he had answered, going into the kitchen and grabbing a bag of chips and a soda. "Scoot over," she added, since Alden had sat in the center of the couch. He slid over to the end, and she took the other side. Since their parents weren't home, she took the liberty of eating right on the couch. "Pass the remote?" she asked through a mouthful of chips.

  He leaned forward robotically and handed it over. She clicked through to a show she knew he liked, and wouldn't bother her too much. Not that it mattered. The couch was too soft and tempting, and only a few minutes passed before she was laying down, and her eyes were drooping shut.

  The sudden slam of a car door jerked her awake. A second one told her it was from the garage. Their parents were home. Alden's eyes were wide. He shook a little. For the first time since the night before, he actually seemed aware of his surroundings… and it didn't look good.

  "Go upstairs," she hissed. "I'll tell 'em you're sick. Stayed in bed all day."

  He glanced at her with surprise. A little hint of the old brother.

  "Don't worry Zack, I'm keeping track. You owe me super big time now."

  Alden nodded and hurried upstairs, just before the door to the garage opened.

  "Hey! Anyone in there to help with the groceries?"

  Meg groaned audibly and dragged herself off the couch with the TV still playing. Her dad strolled into the room with two bags in his arms. "Am I interrupting?"

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  "Yeah, Dad. It was just getting good, too."

  He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't know you liked that show."

  Oh, right. It's still on Alden's stuff. "White noise. I was taking a nap."

  "Oh! How'd the game go, sweetie?"

  "Easy. We creamed 'em. Seven-one."

  "That's my girl." He set down the bags and ruffled her hair. "Go help your mom, okay?"

  As soon as they were done, Meg plopped right back on the couch and pulled out her phone, ignoring the TV. It was quiet enough that it didn't bother her, but loud enough that it still filled the room with a nice level of noise. Better than weird silence for sure.

  "Meg, where's your brother?" her mom asked.

  "In bed sick, I think. He said he was gonna sleep all day." She managed to say it casually and with just a hint of annoyance. Her mom didn't look suspicious, so she'd probably gotten away with it. It helped that she was already looking at her social feed and feeling annoyed for real.

  Kelly was at it again. Now that the FBI guy had called the Hailey video a fake, less people were reposting it all over, but there were still a few different threads going on about it. Kelly was in two of them, saying that even if it were fake, it was dangerous and that other people might try it. That she should have left it to the professionals.

  She talked like she was so intelligent and worldly, but Meg knew better. Kelly had never been in a dangerous situation in her life. She didn't know what it was actually like.

  ...Neither did Meg, for that matter, but she had a better idea than Kelly did.

  Hidden in a bunch of folders on her laptop, Meg had a couple video files stored away. She'd also put them on her phone, just in case, and made sure they got backed up. She never wanted to lose them, and she ended up watching one or both of them every single week, in a mixture of awe and horror. She felt addicted to them, a spectacle that had happened just a short train ride away to people she actually knew.

  The first video was the riot. A group of angry men and women, with torches, guns and other weapons, thrashing through a forest in the dead of night. The girl in the grey cloak with silver hair and hands on fire, lashing out. People with magical strength, fireballs and jets of water hurled left and right. Gunshots, and the terrible moment right at the end where a man seemed to evaporate into the air.

  The stream ended a couple minutes later, right after a tall girl walked out of the forest, next to a young girl in a dress and jacket riding a huge gray wolf. The name on the account was some Rallsburg University kid named Nathan. Meg had no idea why she'd been following him. She guessed it was a friend of a friend that she'd given a follow as a favor, just to help him out or something. Not that he had many anyway. When she logged in that night, she saw he was streaming and happened to tune in. She had nothing better to do.

  The next day, she'd watched his account avidly, even though it was a Tuesday and she nearly lost her phone twice at school for it. It was worth it though, because she caught the entire second stream, under her desk or stolen moments in the bathroom, right up until it cut out completely with a massive burst of noise that felt like it would shatter her headphones.

  She knew what had happened in Rallsburg. She'd watched Nathan wander the town, seen the mobs starting to gather—without guns this time, for some reason, but plenty of other weapons. Her brother, Hailey, Jessica, and a few others rushing across town for some unknown purpose. She'd watched the entire town lift up into the air, watched the grocery store explode. It was a much longer video, ending instantly as the town collapsed to the ground again, but she had it all saved too.

  A few days after Alden had come home, both the videos disappeared from Nathan's account, leaving only a pile of generic boring college stuff. Meg assumed Alden's friends had deleted them, all part of their big cover-up. She'd never told them that she still had the videos though. They were her prize, a fascinating, scary look into the world of magic she so desperately wanted to join.

  Now Kelly was criticizing Hailey, the most capable person Meg knew, and thought that was okay? She needed to be told better. But Meg wasn't speaking to Kelly right now, and calling her out would ruin that.

  She posted on the same comments that Kelly did, but never addressing her directly. It was always at the story itself. Meg was very specific about how sometimes you couldn't wait around for the police or the firefighters. How sometimes you had to rely on the people who were there, and that they could be just as competent and strong as any professional. Meg would back Hailey up online without her even knowing it.

  She got plenty of support too, and after a few minutes got the response she wanted. Kelly was posting again, saying the same things she'd started with, but still very deliberately never talking directly at Meg. Kelly specifically called out people who "didn't know better" and "hadn't had enough experience" commenting on actual real life danger.

  Meg was livid. Why is she being so stupid? And why do so many people seem to agree with her?

  Then, Meg had an idea. What if I posted it?

  She could. She had the original videos, and Nathan never really made enough noise to stand out. She was probably the only person online who had even watched it. If Meg posted it, she could claim they were hers. She could use them to back up her argument. Kelly wouldn't have anything on her after that.

  Meg started dreaming bigger. What if I posted it everywhere? Like the news and stuff?

  She had actual, video evidence of what happened in Rallsburg. People would be climbing over each other to get what she had. Even now, five months later, Rallsburg was still on everyone's mind, especially with the newest stuff in the case, the Hailey video, and the manhunt in Canada. And Meg Bensen, a fifteen year old kid in Kent, had the answers.

  She'd be famous. She'd catapult herself into having hundreds of thousands—no, millions of followers. Meg could tease out more, too. She knew she had the personality to handle a big following, she just never had a handle on how to start one. This was her ticket into the highest levels of social media.

  All it took was one quick upload, one button to move it from her cloud to the public.

  The face of the FBI agent glared at her from the very next story in her feed.

  Meg realized she was being crazy. Posting the video wouldn't do all that for her. It'd just put Hailey, and Alden and a whole lot of other people in danger. It'd expose their secret, and that was the last thing Meg wanted to do. She didn't want to disappoint Hailey. No matter how much it annoyed her that she had to stay quiet while Kelly got to look smart and make her look stupid.

  Being big wasn't what she really wanted though, and Meg knew it. She wanted what Alden had, what Hailey had, what the rest of them had. She wanted a taste of real magic, but she'd probably never get it. The closest she'd ever get was her brother.

  She wandered upstairs while her parents chatted about something bland and safe, usual parent talk. They were apparently going to head out again soon, something about a movie they wanted to see. Award-bait, nothing Meg was interested in. Alden's bedroom door was closed.

  She walked right in anyway.

  Alden was laid out on his bed, still in the same set of clothes, staring at the ceiling. Meg closed the door behind her and sat in Alden's desk chair. Very deliberately, she put her feet up on the desk, something she knew he hated.

  His head rotated over slightly. She glared at him, daring him to tell her to knock it off. To say anything.

  But he didn't. He turned back up to the ceiling again without a word.

  "Oh come on!" she cried. Sorry, Hailey, but this isn't my brother. I gotta do something.

  "Huh?"

  "Zack, what the fuck happened to you?" She was trying to annoy him again, swearing when she knew he hated it. Maybe if she annoyed him in a bunch of different ways at once, he'd finally snap and say something. "You've been a zombie since you got home last night."

  "Don't swear," he replied. It was mechanical, almost robotic, and without much feeling, but it was something.

  "Thank god, I thought you might be literally dead."

  He sat up, but he didn't look any better. If anything, he looked worse. "I should be," he murmured.

  "No, you shouldn't."

  "It's my fault."

  "What's your fault?"

  "Harold. All of it. I didn't… I couldn't—" He broke off, trembling again.

  Meg hurried over and sat down next to him. She held his hand, the same as she did whenever he woke up in the middle of the night. It helped. He started to calm down.

  "They had a gun pointed at my head, Meg," he whispered. "He could have pulled the trigger and I'd be dead, just like that."

  She hadn't realized that. She'd known they were armed, but that was way worse than what she'd been imagining. "Zack, it's okay. You're home now."

  "They're hunting us. It was a trap. I… I lead Hailey and Harold right into it. And Harold… oh god…" Alden looked like he might throw up. Meg leaned over and grabbed the trash can he kept by his desk, but thankfully all he did was gag a little. "I shouldn't be telling you this."

  "I'm good, Zack," she said, patting him on the back. "Nothing worse than what I've watched on TV." Except it is. It's happening to my big brother. Holy shit. This is crazy. "Hailey got you out, right? She saved you?"

  "Barely. She… we got lucky."

  "Nah, I'm sure she had it. That's what she does, she saves people."

  Alden shook his head. "If the FBI guy hadn't been there… she tried stalling and it didn't work. She just makes it up as she goes along. She didn't have a plan."

  "She probably didn't have a plan for that burning building either, but she saved all those people too, right?"

  "Not all of them." His head dropped even lower. "And if the guy hadn't said it was fake, we'd be in so much trouble right now. We just got lucky. Again."

  He quivered, and it transferred through to her hand and made her whole arm shake a little too.

  "We can't keep getting lucky like that forever."