MEGAN. TIME TO TALK TO EVAN.

“No,” Evan said, and his voice was both more and less different than Ryan and Angie’s. His voice had just started to change when they’d last spoken. That change was complete now—his voice was not that much deeper than Ryan’s, but of a darker, more somber timbre, somehow. “No, please address the fact that you haven’t spoken to me for three years, first.” She realized as he spoke that he’d been biting the inside of his cheek.

Megan’s throat closed up for a moment and she looked away. “Yeah, of course,” she said, voice rough, but the words came more easily now that she’d said them once to Angie. “I’m so, so sorry, Evan. I know you have no reason to even listen to me, that you have every reason to hate me. You don’t have to forgive me. I don’t expect it, not ever. But—but if you’re willing, I would really love to start over, to make it up to you, however I can. I’d like it if we could be friends again. Some. As much as you would want.” And then, because she couldn’t help it, “And I’d like it if you’d just tell me whatever the shit you guys had a bet about. I’m dying.”

“Try feeling like that for three years,” Evan said, the echo making Megan wince. She shouldn’t have thrown the last sentence in—his expression had softened slightly as she’d spoken, but he’d replied without any sympathy in his tone. He looked at Ryan, who was already holding out a handful of gold. “Told you,” he said to Ryan. Not smugly or tauntingly. Just said it like you’d say “Hey, it’s raining,” upon looking out the window.

“Yeah yeah,” Ryan said as he handed Evan the money. “You guys need the money more than me anyway.” Which was probably true, if that really had been the latest IPhone model he put in his pocket. This made no sense based on what Megan knew about Ryan[1], but she had bigger things to worry about than Ryan’s finances right now. He went on, of course, saying, “At this point, I just wanna know how they pulled it off. Just sinks my ass that she went three years and never knew.”

[1] That he had no parents, and was a ward of the city, which even in grade school had let him live alone, more or less, in an old city-owned boarding house called The Grove.

Looking back to Megan, Evan said, “If they haven’t told you it’s because Angie doesn’t want to talk about it, and I’m certainly not going to cross her on the subject right now. Sorry. I’d suggest that next time you try this after school. You’ll have more time to account for surprises.”

Megan’s voice came out rough, came out nearly on the verge of tears again. “Sure Evan, but this is really hard. Working up the nerve to even try was so hard. I didn’t know how else to do it. I thought I’d probably end up crying my eyes out at home all day after Angie told me to piss off, but it was the only way it even seemed possible.”

Briefly, regret flashed over his long face, so like his… his siblings’. “Sure, Megan, and I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it.” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was thicker. “I—we really missed you.”

“I missed you guys so much,” Megan whispered.

He nodded, processing that. “Okay.” He looked her in the eye. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” Another pause, and he chewed on his lower lip for a second before saying, “I’d think that you should. But it would have been pretty easy for you to not have to miss anyone.”

She looked away, closed her eyes against the tears. “I know. I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes still closed.

“So we’re done with that?” he asked, and she opened her eyes again. She couldn’t read him, but that was partially because her vision was blurry.

“I hope so,” she said. He began to frown, and she elaborated. “I mean, yes. From my end. If you guys will forgive me. That’s what I hope.” She paused. “I was alone most of the summer. We went to Mumbai for Father’s work.” She paused again, searching for the right words. “I realized, in my loneliness, it wasn’t Lauren and the other ladies I wanted to see. It was you guys.” As she spoke, a bell started ringing. A trolley was approaching the stop.

“I just…” she glanced at Angie and Ryan. “Ryan put it well, earlier. I was a coward. I couldn’t… couldn’t face you guys. After, after so long. I mean, it’s been even longer now, but, at the time, I thought, by the time I felt ready, it seemed like you guys were avoiding me[1], I was sure you hated me, I didn’t even expect to get this far today, I mean, and, and...”

[1] Megan utterly missed a dubious glance that Evan shot Ryan at this.

The tears returned again, rolling down her face as the trolley hummed by, but she managed not to completely lose it. Still she wasn’t ready to actually talk about the reason this all happened in the first place, let alone to bring it up in the middle of the street. She hoped they wouldn’t. “It was hard. It took this last summer to make me realize it would be even harder to begin high school and still not be your friend.”

As the trolley hissed to a stop. People poured out, almost all of them teenagers, while the adults waiting at the stop shuffled on board. These noises filled the silence between the four of them.[1]

[1] Megan did not want to think so, but nonetheless, she thought she heard someone nearby say, “What could they even be talking about?” during this silence. There was plenty of crowd noise, of course, so she might have misheard, and it might not have been about them. She told herself, in the back of her mind while she mostly focused on her former friends, that it was not, but wasn’t sure she believed it.

“Okay,” he said. “Even if Lauren and her party exile you?”[1]

[1] A colloquial term for a group of friends / social circle / clique, derived from the term hunting party. Used similarly to team (as in fireteam), crew (as in the crew that you run (or if upper class, stroll) with), lance (as in a lance of close-combat warriors), or squad.

She blinked at the wording. Exile her? That was an oddly strong word choice. She nodded, a small tilt of her head first, and then more emphatic. Whatever was happening, that wasn’t going to be a problem. Whatever this all was, Lauren wouldn’t want to stop being her friend. Lauren loved Megan. They all did. “Yes. Absolutely,” Megan said.

“Mmm,” Evan said. “Okay then. I guess… I guess I’m in.”

“Hail hail the gang’s all here,” Ryan said.

Megan, Evan, and Angie all snorted more or less in unison, and then they all laughed at having done so. “He’s still weird, huh?” Megan asked Evan.

Evan barked out a loud “Ha!” at that. “Sure!” he said, still chuckling. “Certainly weirder than anyone you’ve been hanging out with, I bet, unless you hang out with Mercy Seerson sometimes.”

Megan smiled, relief filling her lungs like clear sea air. “Mercy’s a sweetheart, but she does go out of her way to be outre, doesn’t she?” If they knew Mercy, this whole thing couldn’t be that—

Then, Megan remembered. Mercy hadn’t been on great terms with Lauren the past not quite a year. Like, not-speaking-at-all not-great-terms. Lauren and Mercy had both been vague about the reason. Megan hadn’t felt it her place to push, particularly Lauren. Lauren shared a lot with Megan and she certainly was under no obligation to share everything.

Evan wore a mild expression she knew, despite the difference the years had made. “What?” she asked him. Then, she glanced past him, and realized that a lot of the kids who’d gotten off the trolley, mostly freshmen like them, were all standing around in groups not very far up the street, and even as she focused on them, she saw any number of heads turn toward the people their owners were standing with, away from facing her—their— direction.

“Seemed like you had a disturbing thought,” Evan said, his voice as mild as his expression.

“I just don’t understand, Evan,” Megan said. “Please.”

Evan glanced at Angie, whose face had set like concrete at the last word.

“Okay,” Megan said. “Let’s just get to school then. Or see if anyone proves Ryan right on the way.”

“Let’s go then,” Angie said, her voice quiet and calm, and started walking.

Ryan immediately kept pace with Angie, taking her hand[1], such that Megan found herself walking next to Evan. They crossed the track and reached the intersection. Nearly all the other freshmen just so happened to all be moving in the direction of Persephone now.

[1] So cute! But Megan was by no means sure either one of them would appreciate her expressing that feeling right at the moment.

Three blocks north, the avenue ended, spilling its passengers into the campus of Persephone High School, home of the Pomegranates. A medium sized cluster of large rectangular brick buildings around a taller cylindrical brick tower, amid landscaped grounds of exceptional breadth, Persephone was the only high school in the Persephone’s Garden school district and the most prestigious in Bellevue, attended by approximately twelve hundred students from all over the Bellevue district of the city-state of Seattle. Lots of summer programs and festivals and events of varying sorts took place at Persephone, which meant the four of them were reasonably familiar with the campus—if not the specifics of where each class might be, then the general layout at least.

Megan felt eyes on them as they walked up the street. For a bit none of them talked again. Megan didn’t know what to say to Evan. Evan was the hardest.

She missed his sister so much.

She had to not think about that.

“That’s a big gun,” Megan blurted.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Evan turned his head and looked at her for a moment, his expression hard to read from her periphery as she watched where she was going—it wouldn’t do to walk face first into Ryan if he stopped walking for some reason—then he said, “You used to want to pretend guns didn’t exist.”

“Well, sure,” Megan replied, “I would still love that. But even gun talk is better than walking in silence while I think about what the flips is going on while you guys refuse to answer.”

Evan sucked in air, then heaved a sigh. “It’s not big enough. It’s a ten point eight millimeter magnum[1], but that’s sidearm weight.” At her questioning look, he said, “That is, it is not big enough for a primary hunting weapon-- it only qualifies as a backup weapon. I need to get better with the—with my eleven-nine.[2] I’m not satisfied with my rate of fire to accuracy ratio.”

[1] Formerly the .425 caliber magnum. There are no inch based calibers in Fredonia anymore, since the mandatory conversion to metric in 1575—Well before any of these kids were born. The only Isleic measurements they have remaining in their lives is the Fahrenheit temperature scale for standard weather temperatures. Fredonics by and large decided they agree that, for air temperature in normal weather conditions, having a zero to hundred temperature scale that went from “too shitting cold, but survivable” to “too shitting hot, but survivable” rather than from “moderately cold but when water freezes” to “this is so far past the point you would die or the air would realistically get that it’s laughable, but water boils here” would be a lot more convenient. The Celsius or Kelvin scales are sensibly used for scientific, industrial, and magical purposes.

[2] An 11.9mm caliber magnum, formerly the .47 caliber.

Relief. “Oh. Okay. I know you wanted um. You thought you wanted to hunt earlier than fullage. So you still need to practice more to get your license? I’m sorry.”

Evan barked out a fairly humorless laugh. “What? No. I have my license, that’s not an issue. That was a joke to get, even with the eleven-nine.” Well piss. Relief gone. He continued, “No, it’s my own standards I’m not meeting. I’m too satisfied with how good I am with this fucker,” and he patted his sidearm, “And it’s frustrating to have to deal with the heavier recoil of the big one. Besides, I don’t have anyone to hunt with—it’s not like you can get a solo license with firearms, no matter what you’re using.”

“Oh,” Megan said.

“Come on Megan,” Evan said. “You left me alone for three years. You were always the biggest drain on my free time. Did you think I was going to shoot less? After what happened to—” Megan flinched in anticipation, she couldn’t help herself, and Evan stopped.

They walked in silence for a moment again, and Megan distracted herself with how many freshmen were just outright staring at them as they approached campus. Ryan was right. Whatever It was, people were curious about It. Her stomach physically starting to ache, Megan considered that a little more. Other people knew. Lots of other people. People seemed shocked to see her with them.

Megan was the only one in the dark here, it seemed like.

“I don’t like talking about her either,” Evan said. “We don’t bring her up much. You don’t have to worry, if it’s still that hard for you.”

“Even that’s too much, Evan, please,” Megan said, her voice quavering, and he nodded. She swallowed, to quench the quaver, and said, “I’m used to people looking at me, but this is ridiculous.” She lowered her voice. “A hint? Anything. I just need to know what to expect.” They were covering the last block before the edge of campus now, and the stares had become blatant and unashamed.

Evan looked at her, raising an eyebrow. She frowned back at him. He sighed. “Megan, in middle school, did you ever happen to notice people talking about that old movie The Exiles more frequently than you might expect? You know, with Bob Highe and Thomas Ramble when they were young? You liked movies more than me, ‘specially ones older than us, you must be familiar.”

A creeping chill ran down Megan’s spine as Evan spoke, for certainly she was. Bob Highe was hot as hell after all, especially young Bob Highe, and he’d always been a favorite of Beth and Katie Kay’s even before they became adolescents with sex drives, so Lauren’s Ladies[1] had spent some time watching Bob Highe movies.

[1] Lauren didn’t like this name—she didn’t want them to have a name for their party because didn’t consider them a party, because she thought the idea of people who weren’t hunting or delving having a “party” was absurd. Which was the sort of opinion that was reasonable for a girl from a Light Bearing family with purportedly over ten generations of Light Bearers in a row to hold, but pretty ridiculous for anyone else. Everyone else, including the rest of the Ladies, referred to the group that way. (To be fair to Lauren, the name, like most peoples’ party names, left something to be desired.)

And, chillingly, she had noticed this phenomenon, and it had puzzled her, and she really didn’t like that he was bringing it up, particularly after he’d just used that same word earlier.

Megan said, “Sometimes it was that comic book series about Vegas.”

Evan took that in, nodded, then continued. “Sure. So, did they ever get kinda weird about it? Like, when they noticed you overhearing them?”

Megan nodded. “Yeah. Definitely.”

The four of them were crossing the last block before campus. Up ahead were teenagers all over the place, knots of them standing around and excitedly talking, flocks moving this way and that, as more students streamed onto campus from every direction.

Evan kept talking. “And if you overheard anything they actually said, maybe it didn’t jive exactly with what you know of the movie?” Oh gods yes. “Maybe they always—”

So, picture, if you will, a brief moment—six seconds at most, no longer. As Evan spoke and as they reached the edge of Persephone’s actual campus, a cluster of freshmen firstagers, who Megan immediately recognized—just the people she wanted to talk to, in fact—rounded the corner of the Vocational building up ahead—between it and the Tower—and started walking straight toward Megan and the others. Just about everyone was there. No Brandon Chase-Xavier—he and Lauren must have been off again, but just about everyone else.

On one side strode Nisha Twighs, the broad-shouldered, bushy-haired, well-biceped star of Asphodel Middle School’s tourney team. The Oregon territory champion in both Middleweight[1] and Freeweight[2] classes the previous year, Nisha wore a shin-length white sleeveless tunic under her favorite silver-brocaded moss-green vest.[3]

[1] Impressive.

[2] Fucking impressive, though a feat she might find harder to match as more boys reached their final size as high school went on. Might.

[3] No one was hanging on Nisha’s arm. Megan hoped she wasn’t still pining over Aliyah.

Nisha walked next to Katie “Kay” Königsmann, tall, built, pretty, and blonde, holding a coffee-to-go cup in one hand. Jun Song—even taller, slender, and (needless-to-say) handsome—walked at Katie’s elbow, a step or two behind, sipping his coffee as he and Kay focused on what Lauren was saying.

On the other side bounced tiny Katie “Katier” Ryuyama[1] in her favorite outfit, a flared, mandarin-collared blue dress. She had a hand wrapped like an afterthought around the large bicep of Jun’s just-as-tall and just-as-handsome friend, Luther Ogden, whose dark skin belied his Europic name. His eyes were focused just as much on Katier as Jun’s were on Kay.

[1] The Katies had needed to be distinguished when they all started being friends at the beginning of middle school in the seventh grade. Katie K. and Katie R. turned, much faster than Kay liked, into Katie Kay--or just Kay--and Katier. Kay hated the implication that Katier was more of a “Katie” than her. Katier thought it was funny how annoyed it made Kay. Kay had yet to let Lauren know how much she disliked these nicknames, and everyone else was (im)patiently and/or amusedly waiting for her to work up the nerve.

On Katier’s other side was Beth Mishra, delicate despite her own height, with her cloud of white hair.[1] Actually, her long-time boyfriend, Tate Fisher, captain of the Asphodel Middle School basketball team, was nowhere in sight. Maybe he wasn’t at school yet. Beth held a cup of coffee in her free hand, and appeared to be laughing as they all rounded the corner.

[1] Alchemically accomplished, via monthly potion. Vile tasting, according to Beth.

At the center of all their orbits strode Lauren Bakili, as tall as Jun and Luther, as tall as Evan. Waves of midnight hair sparkling with stars flowed down her back and over her strong shoulders and muscled arms, which were taut from tourney training and left bare by one of the Cairene-fashion-scene-inspired dresses that she and other female members of her family had turned into a Fredonic West Coast fashion trend the spring before. The dress’s oranges and yellows perfectly matched her burnished sunset skin. (Katie Kay wore a dress similar to Lauren’s in cut and color, though inferior in overall design, and it didn’t match her complexion nearly as well.)

Megan could picture how Lauren’s twilight eyes would be gleaming and dancing as she expounded on whatever she was talking about, emphasizing some point with a slash of the hand that wasn’t holding her own coffee[1] as she swept her regal gaze across the south end of the campus—they were probably there specifically to watch for Megan coming from the south.

[1] Knowing Katier and Nisha, they’d both sucked theirs down before even reaching school.

So, as Evan continued his statement, saying, “Maybe they always kinda changed the subject when they noticed that you noticed their conversation—” nine pairs of eyes reoriented themselves to their new forward, and found themselves looking at Megan, Angie, and the boys. Megan waved at them.

At which point everything erupted into chaos.

Virtually as one, Kay, Beth, and Lauren all dropped their coffees, the cups slipping through their grasps as if their fingers had lost all strength. Geysers of milky brown burst upward from the cups when they hit the ground, spraying everywhere.

Some of the group reacted quickly. Katier bounced backward such that Luther shielded her from the blasts. Nisha just jumped into the landscaping, flattening herself against the wall of the Vocational building to avoid the spray. Jun’s instincts proved poor—at least if he had finally gotten with or was still trying to get with Kay—as he stepped back with the grace of the sword fighter that he was, putting Kay herself between the coffee grenades and himself.

Everyone else got it good. Kay sprayed her derivative dress with her own coffee, and got a little of Lauren’s cup too. Beth’s cup absolutely soaked her. Luther, the poor boy, was splashed by both Beth and Lauren’s drinks. And Lauren herself got it from three directions at once, coffee blasting her beautiful, handmade, masterwork of a dress from her knees to her chest.

Megan didn’t really catch every detail we’ve just covered, as it all happened within a few chaotic moments of time. She saw who actually did the dropping, then got a confused impression of an explosion of cafe au lait and a tumultuous flurry of distressed teens as most of the group immediately ran to and through the nearest doorways.

Evan cut himself off with a “Whoa,” while Ryan said, in a gleeful tone, “Oh that was SO much better than a spit take!” His comment carried clearly in the sudden, shocked hush of the surrounding crowd of teens. None of them had probably ever even seen Lauren stumble or drop so much as a pencil—Megan sure hadn’t.

The aftermath of all this left a coffee-soaked Lauren striding Megan’s direction as fast as she presumably could while doing that awkward forward lean one does when one’s clothing has become suddenly and unpleasantly wet. As she walked, she held her phone up to her ear. Megan hadn’t even noticed her retrieve it.

A few feet behind followed Katier and Nisha, both largely untouched. Katier wore an anxious smile, while Nisha, in character, wasn’t even trying. A few more feet behind Katier and Nisha strolled Jun, with the same rubbernecking air as the rest of the crowd. They all focused on Lauren Bakili, popular and elegant daughter of one of Seattle’s largest, most influential Light-Bearing families, her unprecedentedly sodden dress, and Megan, Angie, and the boys.