Alvira woke to warm sunlight and birds chirping. She was still sprawled over the window couch where she'd been sleeping that night, but when she cracked her left eye open she saw that Madison, who was sleeping on a mattress across from her, had flipped during the night and somehow fallen off the bed. She was now lying on her side on the hardwood floor, sheets and blankets half swaddling her, half clinging to the bed where they'd been the previous night.

Alvira thought that since she was awake, she could get up, go downstairs, surprise the others with breakfast when they woke up. That would be nice. But the blanket she was under was so warm, and the pillow underneath her head was so soft. The others can wait a few more minutes...

The door to their room was flung open, crashing all the way against the wall and causing a noise like thunder so loud that Alvira flinched and fell off the cushion. Or not.

She sat up, startled, blanket still wrapped over her shoulders and hair still in a mess. Madison was also awoken by the noise. She got up more slowly than Alvira did, but nonetheless had a panicked expression on her face. "Who's attacking...?" Mads mumbled, sleep still in her voice.

"Damn it!" Atlas was standing in the doorframe, scanning the room hastily. "He's not in here!" He then called into another room.

"Keep looking!" came the reply from somewhere else in the house.

"What...?" Alvira was very confused as to what was going on, and why she'd been woken up so unpleasantly. "Who's not in here?"

Atlas didn't even seem to notice Alvira's question, instead bolting down the hallway. She could hear the wood creaking as he shuffled down the stairs.

Sabine leaned into the doorway where he'd been standing a second ago. "You awake?"

Alvira rubbed her eyes gently, running her other hand through her hair in an attempt to tame it just a bit. "Unfortunately. What are you guys doing up? It's only..." She checked her phone. "Six thirty in the morning. We should be sleeping."

"I agree," muttered a tired, grumpy Lucy from behind Seb. Alvira knew the young girl loved to sleep in on weekends, so waking her up this early was bound to be bad news for someone, usually whoever had done the waking.

"Yeah, well, we can't find Sawyer." Seb returned Alvira's questioning look with a shrug. "Apparently, Atlas fell asleep in Carter and Luke's room accidentally last night, and this morning he went to check on Sawyer. Y'know, because he left him alone. And then he just wasn't there. Now they're tearing the house up looking for him, but there's no trace."

✵✵✵

"He's just gone?" Madison asked.

"Yeah, as far as we can tell."

Dualiad, Mads thought immediately. She knew it was unlikely that the man they'd seen the other day had tracked them all the way out into the woods and waited until nightfall to take someone, and on top of that hadn't made a sound or left a mess behind. But the guilt of her lie settled in her stomach like a stone. What if it was him, and because I didn't tell anyone he killed one of us?

"He's fine," Lucy grumbled. "He's probably just on one of his walks or something. I'm going back to bed." The dark circles under her eyes suggested she'd been up late last night. Madison knew that a tired Lucy was best left alone.

Luke was the next one to run past the door. In the brief window of time he was there he breathed, "Sawyer walks in the afternoon, not the morning," before joining Atlas downstairs, jumping over the entire staircase by the sound of the thump of his feet hitting the ground.

Alvira, on the floor next to Madison, grudgingly got to her feet and shook her hair out of its tangles. "Alright, I'll help look, but I think you guys are overreacting."

A bang on the window behind the girls made them all jump, and the wingtip of a large falcon peeking up from underneath it signified a fall.

"I'm fine!" Carter's voice called out, muffled through the glass.

"He was checking the roof," Ivy yelled through the wall from the room next to theirs.

"One person disappears and we've descended into chaos already?" Seb sighed. "What have we come to..."

✵✵✵

"Let's check outside," Atlas suggested, done searching the kitchen. He knew it was probably stupid to get so worried over Sawyer just not being in the bed, but he couldn't help but think back to their conversation the previous night. Something had definitely been bothering him, something he wasn't talking about. And Atlas had left him totally alone. He'd been meaning to return later in the night, he really had! But one round of Uno led to another, and before he knew it, his eyelids had started to droop.

Luke was already out the front door when Atlas joined him, Carter not far behind.

"SAWYER!" Atlas called as loudly as he could.

A moment of silence. Then, a bird chirped.

"Well, I guess he's dead, too bad, now can you please stop screaming?" Lucy hollered from the upstairs window. "Some of us are trying to go back to sleep."

"Sorry," he whispered, wincing. The death glare he'd gotten when he'd entered her room first thing in the morning had been enough to chase him out of their room, and he was sure that the glares wouldn't stop until she'd gotten the rest of her sleep. Or until she'd murdered him.

A twig snapping to their right got the boys' attention. They expected a small bird or perhaps Lucy's guardian angel to come out of the bushes and give them all a slap, but instead it was just Sawyer, a grim expression on his face.

"Why in the name of God are you all screaming?" he asked.

"'Why in the name of God are you awake and roaming around in the woods at six in the morning?' is the real question," Luke fired back. "You didn't even tell one of us you were going."

"Jeez, I was just on a walk," the older boy replied. "Last time I checked, walking was still legal."

"You freaked Atlas out of his socks," Carter laughed. "You should have seen him panic."

"You should have seen Carter fall off the roof because he was in just as much of a panic," Atlas said next. Luke stifled a laugh.

"Yeah, well, I'm back." Sawyer motioned for them to get back inside. "I have to talk to you guys."

"Yeesh, that's the serious look," Luke said.

"Because I'm serious. Get your butts inside."

✵✵✵

**Thirty Minutes Earlier**

Sawyer let the door slide shut behind him, careful not to make a noise and wake the others. He didn't want to worry them for no reason, but he couldn't sleep. Thoughts of VOID and Morrison churned in his skull, depriving him of morning sleep.

He needed to clear his head. He figured a short walk in the woods would do just that, as it always had. He intended to be out for a short few minutes, and return before anyone knew he was gone.

He walked for maybe twenty minutes, wandering through the woods aimlessly, focusing on the trees instead of his own thoughts. And thank goodness he was, or he might have missed it.

A small, barely detectable glint of light caught his attention. The little sunlight filtering through the trees bounced off a minuscule black object drilled into a tree's bark. Upon closer inspection, Sawyer was sure it was a tiny camera lens. While his face was mere inches away from it, trying to make out what it could be, it shuttered, as though taking a picture. Immediately, he backed away and put a hand in front of his face. As far as he knew, trees didn't come with cameras.

A part of him told himself it was nothing, probably put here to monitor animal life and not search for Aviads randomly wandering around the woods. The other part told him that VOID was smart enough to have tracked him here from Washington and followed his flock into the woods, waiting for a good moment to take one of them.

And like an idiot, he'd wandered into the woods alone.

And like even more of an idiot, he'd left everyone else back at the house, asleep, with no knowledge that VOID was even in the area.

He started to dash back to the house, when he heard a scream over the tops of the trees.

"SAWYER!"

At first, it made him panic even more. It sounded like a cry for help. A minute later, his concern dissipated when he heard Lucy scold whoever had shouted for waking her up. Her annoyed tone told him there was no danger. Except Lucy, of course. She was dangerous enough on her own.

He trudged back through the bushes to find Luke, Carter, and Atlas all standing outside, looking clueless as ever.

"Why in the name of God are you all screaming?" he asked.

"'Why in the name of God are you awake and roaming around in the woods at six in the morning?' is the real question," Luke responded, crossing his arms. "You didn't even tell one of us you were going."

"Jeez, I was just on a walk," Sawyer replied. "Last time I checked, walking was still legal."

"You freaked Atlas out of his socks," Carter laughed. "You should have seen him panic."

"You should have seen Carter fall off the roof because he was in just as much of a panic," Atlas said next. Sawyer heard Luke stifle a laugh.

"Yeah, well, I'm back." Sawyer motioned for them to get back inside. "I have to talk to you guys."

"Yeesh, that's the serious look," Luke said.

"Because I'm serious." He was. It was time to tell them about it. About VOID, about Morrison, about everything. "Get your butts inside."

A/N: Another long wait for a short chapter, but hopefully it was acceptable. Point out errors, vote and spam, and thanks for sticking with the story so far!