English class has become increasingly hard to sit through over the course of the year. I've never been an exceptional student, in fact, I've never even been a good student, but paying attention in class and living a double life fraught with peril and betrayal, exacerbated by a recent spike in danger, appear to be mutually exclusive. Still, I pour over the same five pages of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (which is less ironic than it sounds) for twenty minutes, until the words on the page are meaningless garbled squiggles and my brain is buzzing with fear.

A dark hand reaches across the row and finds itself around my wrist. I almost reach for my shield out of panic before I remember where I am and my fist unclenches at my side. Evan Drake has my arm. His hair is a tangled mess, which is nothing new, but his dark circles have definitely grown over the last few weeks. Combine that with the fact that he's been wearing the same three shirts for almost a month, and I begin to wonder if he's purposefully warding people away from him.

I look back down at his arm, feeling a little dizzy. Evan's voice is almost slurred as he asks, "Hey. Will. Have you seen Adam lately?"

I raise an eyebrow. "We're twins. We live together."

Evan rolls his red-tinted eyes, like I've said something amusing but altogether daft. "Right. But you have seen him. Is he doing okay?"

"Is there an issue?" asks Mr. Lewis.

I whisper back, "He's been with you almost constantly for the last month."

He drums his fingers on the desk. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm just worried about him. Figured you'd know... maybe? I don't know how often he brings you up."

Ouch. My eye twitching, I try to smile as I ask, "What is going on with you two?!"

"Two?"

I press a hand to my face, running it across my features and up towards my hair. "I am so confused."

"And, while I don't appreciate the interruption from the back of the classroom, it appears we're out of time for the day. Finish this chapter for homework and be prepared for a reading quiz." Mr. Lewis is cut off by the bell, whose shrill ring heralds in a stampede of teenagers with better places to be.

I sneak out in the crowd, diverging from the mob as soon as I can get out of their way. When I'm outside the door, I flip open my phone to text my mom. Naval Brigade today. Might go to Amanda's to study afterwards. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. There's no way this can hold out for much longer, but at this point? I don't have a choice. Will check in with you later- phone is low on battery.

My anxiety is pacing ahead of me, imagining her calling Amanda's house or worse, the school, and it crosses my mind, for a split second, that there's also the real danger of me never coming home at all. I'm hit from behind and turn around, stifling a scream, to see Amanda. Her eyes are wide. "You okay?"

"Alright, that's it- personal space, everyone! Personal. Space. Please." I double over. "Sorry. I am an enormous mess today."

"Gee whiz, Will! It's almost like we're about to take part in an incredibly high stress activity. Thank goodness the fate of the world doesn't rest on our shoulders. Wouldn't that just be a crummy juncture."

"The crummiest," I whisper.

She slaps me again, in what I think was supposed to be a reassuring pat. "For the record, if we had to save the hypothetical world, I think you'd do a great job."

"I don't know about that," I mutter to myself.

We slip into our other lives and past that, into the woods. Karen and Garrett fall in a few minutes later. It's an inopportune time for all of us, but if we get in the house before the bus for the elementary kids pulls up, we should have enough time to knock Ignatius out before dinner.

It's so easy it won't work, but I have no reason to soil their optimism when I so badly want to believe it myself.

We approach the back door and Ignatius catches the handle first, his disheveled ginger hair blowing out behind him. He almost looks impressive in his white cloak, which is little more than an adjusted labcoat, and his two, smaller Diosite shards hold both a crown of flowers around his head and the central pin of the cloak. Garrett portals his hands forwards, but it grips empty air. Ignatius's vine pulls him through and slams him against the ground. Garrett looks up, defiantly, and Ignatius reaches for his mask before pulling his hand back. "Where are my manners? You all want some tea? You'd be surprised what you can stir up with all this magical plant matter."

Karen's face is stuck between fear and revulsion, which wrinkles up her nose, and Amanda has her paintbrush twitching and at the ready. I hold my hands up. "Don't hurt him."

"I'd prefer not to! You kids are really more fun alive. Now, would you mind taking part in some diplomacy? I've been thinking-"

"That's always dangerous." Amanda whispers, under her breath.

"-of an offer, which I think you might want to consider. If you'll come inside, we can talk it over."

Karen looks to me, but it's not out of faith, but rather fear. Garrett mumbles, the first sign he's regained consciousness, and I step up the hill until I'm below his patio stairs. Amanda follows.

"Let's... sit down and have a chat." I want to wink to my teammates, but it's too obvious.

"Glad you agree!" Ignatius says, and a vine thickens around my neck. Others follow, encasing my arms and my midsection, cutting me off from my shield, and Ignatius holds me on high. "Hey, I'd hold him down-" he kicks Garrett with his heel, "-but I don't know if you'd leave him or not. Anyways, we've learned our lesson from our last outing. You guys almost got away with my second shard, didn't you?"

Amanda swings her paintbrush forwards, and the resulting glob of fire hits another wall of plant matter before sizzling out on the waxy surface. Ignatius smiles, "You'd be surprised how much my reflexes have been augmented by this thing. I mean, you don't have to be surprised, because you don't have to try anything, but if you don't value your friend's life, feel free to try." I feel thorns pierce the cloth of my costume, hot blood creeping down my sides.

Ignatius turns inside, dragging me with him into his living room. The back mirrors are still fractured, and the plants have continued their steady onslaught through his house, with several succulents standing guard. Amanda, who is tearing up, follows Karen inside. The latter has Garrett leaning on her. He's practically slung over her shoulder. "Fuck..." he mumbles, clutching his head.

"Hey. You tried." Karen says. "Sit down, shut up." Her eyes are still on me, lips pursed.

"I thought we were getting somewhere-" Garrett whispers.

"We are. Hon. I'm serious. Sit down. Shut up." There's a hint of desperation to her voice as she drags him onto the couch, meanwhile, Amanda twitches in a wooden chair which groans beneath her. She has both hands on the paintbrush, and she's looking right at me for answers I don't have.

Ignatius settles across from them, still holding me, and I try to stave off a full panic attack. Ice and lightning course through me. I struggle to stay conscious and slow my breathing and rabbit-paced heartrate, all the while attempting to get a finger around my shield. The effect is instant, but Ignatius can't seem to tell. I close my eyes, praying for calm. Ice....

"If you've got us," Karen asks, "Why the hell don't you just kill us now or something?"

"Maybe not the best time to be bluffing!" I yell.

"I'd prefer a fair fight to this bullshit." Karen argues.

"Four on one isn't really fair." Ignatius argues. "I'd also prefer not to have you four busting my house up any further. I was hospitable for a while, but I'm more than a little... over it."

"You have plants all over your goddamn house!" Karen exclaims. "Your house is beyond busted. You could give an interior designer a heart attack just by entering the room."

The vines tighten around me. I let out a weak cry of pain, and Karen falls silent.

"I know some of you saw my board." Ignatius's voice trembles on every word. "I know what you are. What you want. You're part of some alien invasion- the workings of maniacal devilbeasts- oh, you've got something going on, and you want this-" his fingers flutter over the Diosite, "because I have one of the few tools that can stop you. I had been thinking I'd overthrow some minor local government, bring peace to this corner of the world, but now I see it- I've been tasked to save the world from a conspiracy hundreds of years old!"

"I'm unsure if you're less or more crazy than the last time we saw you." Karen says. Garrett and Amanda are still silent, though Amanda has stopped tearing up and now looks like she wants to crush someone with her bare hands.

"Look. Look. I'll let you go today. I know you can't beat me... just consider this. I'm giving you one month, give or take a few days, to turn over the stones that power your transformations- I know you have them- and otherwise, I'll poison the fucking water main. Trust me, I can do worse, but it's a start. If it doesn't out you to your families immediately, prompting some kind of action, it'll start upping the pressure. Don't be on the wrong side of history here. Break out of the cherub's control."

"It's affecting you too... you... shouldn't listen to it..." I struggle for air, and Ignatius turns, seizing upon me. Even he heard the tint of something inhuman in my voice.

"Is it in there? What is it making you do?" he stares into my eyes, his pupils dilated to frantic points. "Come out and fight me! Stop making teenagers do your dirty work-"

He falls forwards into the vines, his back covered in vaguely purple paint. Amanda steps out of her chair and walks forwards. The thorns fall from around me, and all the succulents in the room turn. Karen's hands crackle with electricity, and she sends a surge so strong through one's head that it explodes. Garrett opens several portals and assists her, while Amanda helps me up. I reach for Ignatius's head, and my hand is slammed by another thorn-laden vine.

Ignatius stands, wheeling around to face the others, and I fall again, struck by pain. My unhurt hand goes for my shield, which I figure I can wield right-handed. Amanda knocks out one of the cacti with the purple paint, which hits with an impact no paint should be capable of inflicting, leaving Garrett open to start slinging portals to grab Ignatius's Diosite. He goes for the chest and Ignatius raises a hand, which causes all the succulents to 'turn'. As he does so, Karen lunges from the side, and he uppercuts her just a few inches from his face. She flies back, but she must have hit something, because his braid is ruined.

"Fall back!" yells Karen, as Ignatius begins to flicker with green light. Something thunders up from the basement, large and fast, and I sling my shield right into the maw of the Basement Flower. It bites down, the shield rupturing both sides of its petal-head, and keeps coming forwards. Ignatius has me by a vine around the leg, but Amanda steps in right in time with a sweep of her acid brush, and Garrett opens the portal. The living quarters are getting too constrained for us to do much of anything, so we just run for it.

"One month!" he laughs. "Come on. I'm being way too nice."

We tumble forwards into darkness and land in the Veins. Karen places both hands to the ground, then raises one into a fist and slams the floor again, while Garrett collapses on the spot. Amanda hugs me until I can barely breathe.

"Will."

"I'm sorry." I say. "I'm sorry. I thought we had him-"

Karen lifts a Diosite shard upwards.

"Oh. Oooooh." I say. "We... we actually did it."

"One out of two isn't bad." Karen smirks, eyes twitching. Her face falls. "He won't actually... he couldn't..."

"We have a month." I say.

"That's not enough." Garrett argues.

My mind flashes back to the We Are Here engraved in the walls of the Veins, still unsure if I dreamed it all up. I mutter, "There has to be some way around this." The desperate faces of the other three confirm my suspicions, and leaderly instinct surges through me, a need to protect coupled with a burning desire to make this work- something brave but ephemeral, something I'm not sure if I can cling onto.

Shiloh enters, and his eyes are bright as he eyes the Diosite shard.

We've come far enough.