(Ian's POV)

“Ian! Another cake!” I rolled my eyes as Mitch shouted across the room; he had brought even more people with him today. One of them, unless my eyes were deceiving me, happened to be a chewbacca. Not like we hadn't had stranger customers before.

“Thmf ifs cood,” one of his friends said, his mouth full. The amulet around his neck had spots of frosting on it.

“It better be,” I said, reaching behind the counter once again. 'Bashur' rarely showed up at his own inn, so I took care of it most of the time. Not that I minded; I actually liked baking and getting to meet new people. “Do you know what I had to do to make this cake?”

“Do we really want to know?” some guy in a spacesuit asked. Like I said, nobody gave him a second glance either; Bashur himself had once showed up with a watermelon shoved over his head.

“Probably not,” I admitted, coming back up with a regular vanilla cake, this one with a cherry right in the middle. As I came over to their table, I heard Tyler say,

“Did you guys hear that the mayor was impeached a week or so ago?” Curious, I set the cake down and listened in on the conversation, pulling up a chair for myself.

“He deserved it,” Mitch said, taking the cherry from the cake. “I heard he let a robbery go completely unnoticed.”

“Did you hear about the one guy, Quentis or something?” Ryan asked. “They wanted him to be mayor, but he said that he was leaving. Nobody's seen him since.”

For some reason, the amulet guy and the spacesuit guy exchanged looks. The chewbacca looked at the amulet guy and he gave a small nod to him.

“Do you know why he was impeached?” Tyler asked.

“Wasn't it because he was just such a bad mayor?” Mitch asked, sounding curious. Tyler shrugged.

Ryan leaned forwards. “There're a couple of rumors flying around,” he said, his voice lowered. I held back a laugh; if there really were rumors, practically everybody knew them already.

“Like what?” the spacesuit guy said, with a glance at the one in the amulet.

Ryan shrugged. “Well, most of 'em don't make sense,” he told them, slouching back again. “For one thing, one of them is that he refused to believe squids were attacking.”

The guy with the amulet dropped his fork, his cake falling onto the floor. Almost at the same time, Mr. Spacesuit stood up, pushing his chair back. “We have to go,” he said shortly, hauling the guy in the amulet to his feet. They left the inn quickly, and after a brief pause, the bacca got up and dashed after them, shooting an apologetic glance at Mitch.

I looked at Mitch, and without saying a word, we both got up and went to go follow them.

(Adam's POV)

“I can't believe that Dan didn't tell anybody,” Jason said, running quickly. I actually had to lengthen my stride to keep up with him.

“Who's Dan?” Jerome asked.

“Long story,” Jason said shortly.

I cast a glance at Jerome. “When the old mayor was impeached, Dan was elected to become the next mayor. We were there when that happened; told him about the squids and everything. We thought he was going to organize the townspeople to fight the squids, but it looks like he hasn't. At least, not yet,” I added, looking at Jason. He seemed really upset that Dan hadn't stayed true to his word, and I couldn't blame him. It was kind of hard to doubt that they were coming given what I had witnessed, and if somebody had just ignored it... I didn't like to think about what Ty would do to Dan if he ever got his hands on him.

Jerome nodded. The slightest hint of anger might have sparked in his beady eyes, but it was hard to tell. I couldn't blame him, either; the squids had kidnapped his friends, maybe even his family. If that had happened to me and somebody hadn't done anything about it, somebody who knew what was going on and was in a position to stop it, I wouldn't have been very pleased.

I looked up and realized that Jason was leading us back towards Quentin's house rather than the town council. Confused, I cast a glance at Jerome, who only shrugged. Jason himself wasted no time in walking up to the door once it came into sight and knocking on it.

There was a spitting noise as an answer.

Jason furrowed his eyebrows and raised his hand to knock again, but just as he did so, the door swung open to reveal Ty, soaking wet. “Why are you...” Jerome began, but Ty shot him a look that forced him to close his muzzle in an instant.

“Who's that?” Seto called. Seto? How had he gotten here?

“Adam, Jason and the bacca,” Ty called back, water dripping down his face. “Just come in already.” Jason and I stepped in after Jerome, who hung back a fraction of a second to close the door. Ty shook his head, spraying water everywhere, and headed back towards the living room.

“Now can we ask why you're so wet?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Ask the mudkip,” Ty said, falling into a chair. Everybody's heads turned towards Quentin at once.

“Uhm...” Quentin shifted uncomfortably. I could just see his tail twitching behind him.

“What?” Jerome asked.

Seto rolled his eyes. “Water gun,” he explained. “Seriously, how slow are you?”

Just as I was about to say something very intelligent, like 'wadaheck', the doorbell rang. Jason and Ty exchanged glances; everybody was already here. Who would be ringing the doorbell?

I got up and went to answer it, pulling the door open with plenty of time for Quentin to go upstairs if he wanted to. And who should be standing on the other side of the door but Mitch and Ian, eyebrows raised and trying to catch their breath.

“What's... going on... why did you run?” Ian asked, almost doubled over. Mitch was breathing much more evenly, standing up straight, but still looking confused.

I shifted uncomfortably. “Uhm...” I didn't know what to tell them. The truth? A lie? Ty wouldn't like it if I told them the truth without his consent, and I wasn't anywhere near as good at lying as Jason was. “Just a second.” Without bothering to wait for them to answer, I slammed the door and turned around, running back to the living room.

Ty looked up. “Well?” he asked, obviously wondering who had just rang the doorbell.

“Mitch and Ian,” I told him, before mentally slapping myself as he shot me a look of confusion. He didn't know who they were!

“Hunger Games champion and innkeeper,” Jason explained quickly.

Ty bit his lip, thought briefly, and said, “Well, tell them that-” he was cut off as the door banged open and Mitch stepped into the room, followed closely by Ian.

“What's with all the secrecy?” he asked, before doing a double take at the sight of Quentin. Ian just took one look at the assortment of people there and stopped in his tracks. Quentin himself bit his lip and tried his best to look normal.

Jerome, however, stood up and started to greet Mitch like an old friend. “Hey dood! What're you doing here?” He raised a fuzzy eyebrow. “Don't you have friends back at the inn?”

Mitch blinked, but recovered quickly. “Well, yeah, but-”

Jerome placed a paw on his shoulder, and put the other on Ian's. “Well then, hadn't you two better get going?” he asked, steering them towards the door.

“Not until you explain why you ran away,” Ian said, refusing to let himself be dragged away.

I shot a glance at Ty, who looked like he was having a dilemma. Finally, he simply stated, “You can either find out and not be able to feel safe ever again, or leave now and forget you saw anything.”

Mitch seated himself in a nearby chair. “Since you already told us, I don't think I'll ever feel safe again anyways.” He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. “Talk away, Mr. Headphones.” Ian himself stood right next to a wall, looking uncomfortable but standing there nevertheless.

Jerome shrugged and took his seat on the couch again. “You heard him. Tell 'em.”

Ty glared at Jerome, but he couldn't say anything before Seto opened his mouth.

“In short, squids are trying to take over the world by turning all of humanity into squids.” Both Jason and Ty glared at him. Seto raised his eyebrows. “Hey, they asked.”

I looked over at Ian and Mitch, who both looked very confused. Mitch let out a little, uncertain laugh. “You're kidding, right? That's just the crap Ryan was talking about.”

“Believe it,” Ty said grimly. “You asked, there's your answer. As you can see, we've already had a run-in with them...” he gestured to Quentin, who shifted uncomfortably, his tail sticking out to one side.

Mitch and Ian just stared.

I felt my amulet pound against my chest. “No, please!” I shouted as I felt the signal start to work its way into my brain. They just kept getting stronger and stronger. I was afraid that eventually it would be impossible for me to resist it.

A picture of the town. An image of Quentin's house from the outside. They're in there. They know. Pictures of Ty, Jason, Quentin, Seto, Jerome and I. Don't let them tell anybody. And one last message:

They will make excellent test subjects.

“Is he okay?” I heard Mitch say as the world came back into focus. I unclenched my fists, which I hadn't even realized I had formed. I felt a drop of sweat work its way down my face. It hadn't been much of an order, but the meaning was clear.

Ty was looking at me, an expression of worry and expectancy on his face. I let myself take a few deep breaths before answering the unspoken question. “They're coming here. Now.”