"Hey." Will opens the door, looking almost asleep on his feet.

"Hey." I say. I'm sitting with the candy bowl, eating off some stress with some Reese's, and I'm ashamed to admit I have wrappers all over me at this point.

"You owe me some explanations." he says, shrewdly.

I spread my arms out, doing my best to express the utter betrayal I feel without exerting any effort. The half-finished bowl of Reese's and Snickers tumbles around in my lap. "What's up, mom? I'm not doing anything illegal and I'm home before curfew."

He leers at me like he knows what I've been doing all night, which I guarantee he doesn't. Finally, Will blushes. "You and Megan. You and Megan and that other kid you sneak off with- seriously, what's your deal? What could you three possibly be doing that's so important that Megan would abandon all her social obligations to hang out with you?"

"Nothing!" I lie. "Nothing is going on. First of all, I know you and Amanda haven't been going to all the-" I pause trying to remember the name of their club, "-meetings. Second, if something was going down, it might not be any of your business."

Will flinches like he's been hit. "Didn't we just say we'd try to be nicer to each other?"

"You're the one who interrogated me." I put the candy bowl down and throw the wrappers into the bowl. "Look. I'll come to a Naval Brigade meeting if you want. I'll sit pretty, smile, talk about nerd stuff, whatever makes you happy. But eventually? You and Amanda are going to have to get that you can't force people to be your friends. People change. Maybe it's awkward for her to be around her ex all the time. Maybe she's just looking to roll with a new crowd. I was."

"More like a clique." Will mutters.

"Does it matter? We're happy." I say.

Will squints, then shakes his head. "Whatever."

Anthem's presence prickles at the back of my mind as Will trudges back up the stairs. The edges of my mouth nudge upwards, and I feel terrible, absolutely terrible, knowing the vindictive sense of triumph and relief that fills me. It's even worse because part of me knows it isn't even mine.

---

I see Will out of my sleep-filled eyes when I wake up to his alarm, which crawls five minutes earlier every three weeks. I fall back asleep until mine goes off at six-thirty, but Will is gone. When I go downstairs, he's dressed and doing homework in the family room. My mother makes coffee and I whip a mug out of the drawer and pour myself a mug. I hustle it up, gulping it down hot and barely finishing my breakfast, but Will is out the door before I'm even dressed. I walk faster than I'd care to admit on the way to school, but I get there well before 'on time'.

The days blur faster and faster whether I have an active mission to look forwards to or not. I feign interest in casual conversation, nod along with teachers, look over my notes until I think I've memorized every pointless factoid about protein synthesis or Napoleon's failed conquest of Russia (good going there, buddy). Today is no different. It's not a PE day, so I don't see Megan or Evan in my classes, but I'm relieved when I get to lunch. I might be less so when I find Will in the cafeteria, at Megan and Amanda's table, talking eagerly about who knows what. He gets out his journal and starts passing it around, and I try to remember the last time he showed me his artwork.

With a tinge of guilt, I look away, trying to locate my other team members. Serena sits with a group of people who are all on their phones. She leans over the edge, scribbling on some paper (come on, Ser, who does homework during lunch?). Evan is four seats down from the nearest person, eating a cafeteria burrito with the expression of a starving animal eating half-rotten food.

"You awake, bro?" asks Jack, putting a hand on my back.

I seize up immediately, then apologize, "Sorry, and no. I think school is beginning to drown me."

"Homework?"

"Yeah," I say, staring towards Will and Megan's table. "Lots of that."

"If you want, we can study together today. Sometimes the four of us," he says, acknowledging the table, "go out, get food, crack open a cold one, 'study'-"

"The only 'cold ones' you have at your house are diet sodas." says Andrew, another of my table's denizens and resident curly-haired mess.

"Hey, whatever brings the boys." Jack winks.

"Nah, I promised my brother I'd go to his club." I say. "Thanks for the offer. I'll take you up sometime." Please tell me this grin looks genuine.

"Your funeral." Jack pats me on the back. I barely register the gesture, numb as I am from my legitimate lack of sleep and a growing sensation of dread for the 'meeting' both, and I blink and the cafeteria is practically empty.

The day ends without much fanfare and I think I've memorized everything there is to know about intransitive verbs. I can't say as much for the book we're working on, but it's not like I can't just reread it when we get home. I try not to crumple my plethora of worksheets as I place them into my bag and Megan nods to me.

The bell blares overhead and we leave together. She clutches my hand in the hallway and we fall into a familiar, comfortable rhythm. If I can trace the movement of her steps in battle with ease, counter every blow in training, then walking together should be like riding a bike with training wheels. It is, in some ways, but I keep getting the impression I am about to fall.

She leads me into the room in the back hallway where the Naval Brigade holds meetings. There's a spot next to Will, although just one, and Megan sits down two chairs, next to Amanda. I catch her eye and she shrugs. Amanda mumbles something to the effect of "Took you long enough," and Megan elbows her, laughing.

I can't explain the emotion I feel when Megan puts her hand on the table, Amanda's on top of it. It festers at the bottom of my stomach and raises every hair on my body, like goosebumps, and I have to look away.

Will puts a hand on my shoulder. "Thanks for coming."

"What," I say. "Did you seriously think I was going to bail on you?"

Will rolls his eyes. "Okay. I might have considered it."

"No faith," I chide.

He smiles. "Alright, so I'm not used to you proving me wrong."

I raise an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean?"

We're cut off by the thwick of a long pole on whiteboard. Two seniors stand side by side. One of them announces, "By popular demand, today's going to be all about discussion. In part because it turns out the new projectors are super finicky, but what can you do."

The other leans across the board, massive grin flashing at full intensity. "Today's topic is going to be-" she scrawls BOOK V MOVIE across the board in red marker and underlines it six times, "-book versus movie adaptations."

Will sucks in a breath. "For the record, Adam, I am so sorry."

The room erupts into chaos. Several younger girls and two boys in the back (there is a serious gender imbalance in the room, and I'd be lying if it didn't unnerve me a bit) begin pounding the table, and everyone in our corner begins cheering, "Me-gan. Me-gan. Me-gan! Me-gan!"

Megan stands up, looking like Siren even without her costume, and puts one foot on her chair. "Guess it falls on me to defend the pen again. The writing pen, that is, I mean, I know you can animate with a pen and I guess you could write scripts too, but-"

The board is hit by the pole again, and Megan stops. The chanting dies down.

One of the seniors dips her head, smirking like something out of a movie. "Glad to have you back, Briggs."

Megan's eyes are so bright and so sad.

The conversation rears its head again, and Megan rolls off opinions, business factoids, and even a three minute improvised speech. I thought she was just uncannily good at the superhero schtick, but I was wrong. Megan Briggs is just a natural in the truest sense of the word. She breathes passion.

Finally, Amanda stands up. "But you're demonizing the movies themselves. First of all, it's not as if both can't exist, and second, there have been good movie adaptations of books. A movie doesn't need to detract from the experience you get while reading a book, it can draw publicity to the novel itself, and finally, they're acts of passion in their own right, the same as any other derivative work. When done right, they can actually cover for flaws in the original material as well or produce something entirely new. It's a win-win."

"That's not why they create them." says Sally, one of Will's friends. "It's a money thing. They don't think, 'Gee, this book provides ample opportunity for visualization and would be paced better as a movie', they think, 'let's line our pockets'."

"But it doesn't have to be a money thing. If we go out and support what we want to see, we can make a difference in what gets produced!" Amanda exclaims. "I mean, haven't we all wanted to see our favorite stories from childhood come to life on the silver screen? At least a little bit?"

"If this is about that cat series-" Will says.

"It's about all beloved childhood series. Just... mainly those that happen to involve cats." Amanda folds her hands.

"It's going to happen someday." yells someone from the back of the room.

"You can both be seated." the senior says, and Amanda and Megan both slink back into their seats, restraining laughter. "Aaaand with that, it looks like we're about done here! Grab some food on your way out and we'll see you next Thursday."

People disperse slowly, and Will smiles. "Hey. Sorry if this was too dorky for you."

Yep, I think.

"I might have to come again," I say instead. It's true, there are just ulterior motives involved. Speaking of ulterior motives, I look to Megan, and she catches my eye. With a jerk of my head, I gesture to the doorway.

"You're kidding me." Amanda says, grabbing Megan's arm as she tries to wrest herself away. "Look, if you want to go make out with him in a corner somewhere, that's your deal. Just be honest."

"I am being honest with you. As honest as I- Amanda, please, just trust me. I'm not doing anything skeevy. I just need to go." Megan says.

Will whispers something to Amanda and she lets go, eyes still fixed on Megan's skinny frame and her beautiful, sleek arms. "Meg," she says, "You take care of yourself, Siren Queen."

"You too, Captain." Megan shoots her a half-smile, and we walk away together. Will and Amanda go the other way, and soon, without warning, they're sprinting away from each other. Megan curls her arms around each other. "You were joking about coming again, right?"

"Kinda," I say. "She doesn't know, does she?"

"No."

"Who's the Siren Queen?"

Megan's face flushes red. She adjusts her glasses once, then again, and finally admits. "I used to live-action roleplay with Amanda. She and I, um, well, that was how we started dating. I know it sounds weird, but when I was younger, that was all I had. I'm not that smart, or that funny, and I had been called weird for a whole decade, and then I found people who liked me for me. It was everything I'd ever wanted, and I mean, it's a world inside a world. Like we have." Megan is tearing up now. "I know what we're doing is real. I know the world depends on us. But these are people I care about, Adam, and they're worried about me. I'm worried about that man. I don't want to mention it in front of Evan, because it seems unfair when we're all he has, but I'm scared, Adam."

We walk down the street together in silence for a while. I want her hand back. I want to press her to my lips and tell her that everything is fine but it feels like lying through my teeth. For the first time, Adam and this other part of me, this new identity, are at war with each other, and unsurprisingly the Diosite-infused version of me slugs the other half in the face. "You can't worry about everything."

"Oh God." Megan chokes. She's crying now, her tears like pearls on her hot cheeks. "I can't stop."

I hold her by the shoulders. "I know that man isn't dead, I saw him two days ago. Looked ten years older, but he was alive. Megan, I didn't say you shouldn't worry about everything. I said you can't. We can not afford to worry like that." I'm so close to her that I could go for it but I can't. I've wanted a girl vulnerable and close to me my whole life but she's not just 'a girl', she's Megan Briggs, and I need her more than she could ever need me and she needs this right now. "We are going to make it through this."

The world splits open before us, like it's being unsealed by a giant zipper, and a portal to the Veins blooms into existence. We step through together, hand in hand, and arrive right out front of Anthem's abode. Megan's heartbeat lulls beneath my hand and her cheeks are glossy, doll-white and smooth. We put everything behind us as we enter the Veins to see Evan and Serena going at it.

"Look, I came anyways. Because this does matter to me." Serena snipes. When she sees us, and she sees my arms are folded and Megan looks maternally upset, she adds, "Harper and I went on a mission together."

"Bravo," Evan says. "Thanks, Ser, for sacrificing so much for the cause."

Harper steps up. "If you two are done, we've got something for you." She hands us a map, scrawled on paper, of the entire facility. "It was behind the port where we fought the dragon. I think the man we met might have left it for us."

"This is super detailed." Megan says as she grabs it, voice filled with admiration.

"It's a lead," I say. "Great job. Bring it home, hit us up with copies over the group chat, and we start memorizing it. Make sure to study for your quarter exams too, we need our grades up if we're going to stay incognito. That includes you, Drake. Furthermore, can you and Ser please stop fighting? It's weighing us down as a unit and furthermore, it's giving me a migraine. Thanks."

I'm surprised by how well they both take it. I'm beginning to wonder, in fact, if I somehow got charmspeak on my list of powers, even though 'charmspeak and large flaming anime sword' go together like peanut butter and mayonnaise. It has to be something, because I'm not a public speaker. I'm not even a private speaker.

Still, I see Anthem's eyes shine out of the corner of my own field of vision, and I know that she knows something about me that I don't.

(A/N: The views reflected in this chapter are not necessarily those of the author.)