"I like it," I tell Allister for the billionth time. She's trying on dresses and she's making me sit in the waiting room. I'm in charge of zipping up her dresses and telling her what I think. Tomorrow is the Spring Carnival, so Al is stressing out. "And we're only wearing the dresses for the dance part." 

"Aero," she says, muffled through the closed door between us. "If you don't want to wait for me to find a dress, go pick out a tuxedo to wear." 

 "There's only so many different types I can stall myself with," I argue. "Plus, I already have one."

"From what occasion?" Alli questions, opening the door and holding her hair up, waiting for me to zip up a light blue dress that matches her eyes. 

"Funeral," I state, not really wanting to talk about it. My mom died just three years ago. Switching the subject, I say, "I really like this one. It matches your eyes."

 Allister meticulously examines herself in the mirror. "It's okay," she says with a shrug."Who died?" 

I sigh. "I don't really like talking about it..." 

 Allister turns around so I can unzip a dress for the billion and first time. "It's okay to hurt, you know."

"What do you mean?" I inquire, not familiar with talking to the Barbie Girl on a deeper level. 

"You don't let any emotion slip through you. It's okay to hurt a little."

I search her eyes and only see what I've been seeing since Makai vanished: pain. "All you do is hurt," I counter. "I don't want to do that." 

 "It was your mom, wasn't it?" she abruptly asks, catching me off guard. I feel my face morph with confusion and agony. "It was."

"How do you know?" Suddenly, I feel exposed. It's not something I often feel, and it puts my back against the wall. 

"You act like you have to be strong all the time," she explains, gravitating towards me. 

"Probably because dad was a mess." She leaves space for me to confirm, but silence is my best option to conceal a deeper side of me that I don't want Allister exposed to. She tugs on the sides of my shirt and I stumble past the door that she closes and locks. "My mom died, too."

She begins to undo the buttons of my shirt, and leans in close, her lips meeting my neck. My phone buzzes but she doesn't notice, too literally wrapped up in me. 

Unknown: Don't stop with Allister until I say or Makai dies.

There's an image of Makai with a needle plunged in his gut. He's scarily thin and I can't see his surroundings. 

I shove it in my back pocket and slowly pull down the sleeves of Allister's dress. Her hands find the hem of my shirt and she tugs it, wanting it off. Nervously, I pull it over my head and drop it on the ground. Allister wriggles out of her dress and I kiss the part of skin just under her ear. She giggles and begins to loosen the buckle of my belt unnaturally fast. Quickly, her fingers work on my zipper and button. 

Faintly, my phone vibrates and I push away a little. Allister gives me a confused look, and as I open my mouth, someone violently bangs on the door. "Hey!" a woman demands."You kids can get your freak on in some other store's dressing room." 

How did she know what we were doing?

Hurriedly, we fumble to get our clothes on and I almost fall out of the dressing room, buttoning up the last of the sealants. Allister comes out, embarrassment and excitement heating her cheeks. She presents the dress I just took off for her. "I think I'll get this one," she whispers to me. 

Despite the store clerk's dire efforts to get us out of the dressing room, they're nowhere in sight. I walk down the hallway and look at the shop. Right where you'd walk into the dressing rooms, the checkout desk lies. Right now, their copier/printer goes insane, tons of sheets flying out of the slot, eating up all their blank paper. 

"What did you do to my printer?" the woman asks with the same voice that demanded to leave the room. 

"What're you talking about?" I ask, feeling guilty so I bend down and gather the papers in my hand, still racked up about the minutes in the changing room. It isn't until I really look at what's literally flying off the printer that I realize I know why she asked me.

 A picture of Allister and I in the closet, working the clothes off of each other, has copied itself hundreds of times. "This wasn't us, I swear."

"I mean, that's us in the picture," Alli admits. "But we didn't print those off." 

The woman gets a call, and after brief chatter, she scans us dubiously. "I believe you." 

 "How did that phone call sway your decision?" I ask in a panic.

"Because every printer in the mall is doing the same thing as this...and y'all aren't chancy enough to do something like this." 

I check the messages on my phone that I never read. 

Enzo King: Hope you found a date for tomorrow.

The unknown caller never told me to stop and this is their punishment.

 As if summoned, I get a new text message.

Unknown: I told you not to stop until I told you, Aero.