On the bright side, it wasn't the largest sneeze I'd ever had. That was the end of good things. I dropped the knife. My presence was no longer secret. 

Theo's eyes were shifting around the room like he was thinking hard. The man was moving across the room towards me. "Hello?"

Theo pushed himself to his feet. "That was just my... er... text tone. It was my text tone! Yeah."

The man stopped and turned to look at Theo, incredulous. "That was your... text tone? So let me get this straight. You first recorded someone sneezing, then set it to play every time you got a text?"

Theo nodded enthusiastically. "Yep. That's exactly what I did. Now if you're done judging my preferences, could you answer a question for me? Why are you in my apartment in the middle of the night?"

"You know why." The man's face caught the light, and for a moment I could almost place him, but he was out of the beam, and I still had no idea where I knew him from. 

"Alright. You can feel free to leave any time you want." Theo said, but he didn't say it like he really thought the man would leave. 

The man shook his head. "Do you know where your girlfriend went?"

I took a deep breath, afraid to move.

"I have no idea."

"Well, here's an idea. She never left the apartment and you're lying to me."

I expected to be found, maybe rough hands forcing me out, but instead, the intruder just turned on the light, the sudden brightness forcing me to squint. Even barely being able to see, I could tell the man wore a smug expression. 

Theo looked somehow disappointed that I'd only been hidden by a corner and darkness. 

I forced my frozen limbs to move so I could at least pretend to look relaxed.

"Hi," I squeaked out, my attempt at confidence only succeeding in proving that I wasn't. 

"Now that's settled, you asked why I was here. Theodore White, the Soul Theives have called a meeting to discuss your violation of our secrecy rules."

He nodded solemnly. "Alright. You're here to take me, I guess?"

"You and your girlfriend."

"Rose didn't do anything." 

I started to sink back towards the wall again. 

"We'll judge that." 

"Can't you just take my word for it?" Theo said, his voice unnaturally raw. 

"No. We can't."

$$$

Theo stumbled through the hall, almost falling down with each step. The man didn't openly make any threats, but any time I glanced at him, there was a greenish glow on his skin... just like the one that'd existed on Theo's that night in the alley. 

I gulped, not pulling away as Theo's hand reached for mine. Whatever I thought of him, he was the most I had. Even Daisy, for how much she'd opened my eyes, was hardly available to work on fixing me every second of every day.

Ms. McCallister was probably unaware of the things going on inside her own building, perfectly asleep. Perfectly normal. Every uniform door that I strolled by reminded me of a life before. Life before I'd started to get sick. Before I got migraines and all my days ended in sobbing tears. 

I feel into a reminiscent haze, my thoughts more on the days when I'd still been some version of normal. 

Even in my reverie, it made me feel weak to walk past the banks, closed and locked, waiting for daylight. The man was the only reason I moved on, but even he couldn't keep me from staring into the window, assessing how much effort it would be to rob the place.

It hadn't always been like that. Once Theo and I had dreamed of moving out, alone in the world. Once being alone and isolated had seemed like an aspiration, rather than something that needed to be overcome to get life back to normal.

Once being alone had meant that we had no one to answer to, not that there was no one to protect us from the forces we'd somehow become servants to.

But one day, I guess, according to Leah, I was meant to die at the height of my life, but I didn't. Any case, my soul had decided to die in my body until one day I couldn't take it and passed out. I guess Theo must've walked through the door of our apartment that was our crowning jewel of independence to find me.

In any case, my next memory was a hospital, where I think somewhere in myself I knew I was meant to die. But Theo'd kept me alive.

He'd kept me alive by the same thing that was driving us towards what I was sure was our doom. 

It was due time.

"Stop," the man called out.

I stared up at a nondescript building while the man walked up, breathing down our necks. A dim light thrummed inside, revealing a receptionist who barely looked awake. It was one of those buildings that were purely storage space.

I walked inside, Theo's hand tight in mine, but I felt somehow at peace. It suddenly didn't matter that my free handpicked money, unguarded, off the desk. It didn't matter that the whole world, for that moment, could see my greatest flaw. 

Even Theo gave me a sideways look, and I didn't stop my face from its natural sly smile. I walked up the stairs, and my mind strayed to when I walked up the stairs to my apartment for the first time with Theo. We were done with high school. Our near useless jobs we'd worked after school gave us exactly what we needed to get a bus and run away from everything together...

I had so many plans. The serenity fled. I still had so many plans and there was nothing stopping me from doing them. 

I could still win. But I didn't know what was waiting for me. It could've been the end of everything that night.

My resignation was gone. I wanted my life. I didn't want the reality I was currently living, sure, but I didn't want the chance for my reality to be taken away from me.

Theo's face was deathly pale.

My eyes darted around, frantically looking for an escape like a trapped animal. The man that'd been trailing us finally directed us to a door. I entered a room, a terror lurking inside.

Five hooded figures lined the walls, each shifting as our intruder joined their ranks. 

I stared at the circle of people, my heart beating in my chest like all my organs wanted to break free from my chest to seek their own fortunes. 

"Theodore White, you've been accused of violating the strict secrecy of Soul Theives, endangering us all."

Another voice rang out, condescending in its instinctive authority.

"Is this true, Theodore?"

"Theo," he said under his breath.

"Is it true?"

"Does it matter what I say?" He glared around him.

"Is it true?"

"Either way, it's going to be the same, isn't it?" He was yelling, his voice angry with nervousness in it that was unsettling.

"Is it true?"

"I've done nothing wrong, and neither has Rose!"

Then it was Leah's voice, and that somehow hurt more than being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged to a weird new place where I was likely to die.

"We have evidence. Now tell the truth. Is it true you've given away our secret?"

Theo turned to Leah's voice and stared her straight in the eye.

"Yes. It is."

They all murmured.

"You know the punishment."

Theo was yelling. "I do."

"Is it true that you told this girl here..."

"Rosella Matthews," Leah prompted.

"Rosella Matthews knows everything about us?"

"She didn't do anything wrong." Theo was practically crying.

I didn't say a word.

"Is it true she knows? Just tell the truth."

Before Theo could answer, I did.

"I know. I'm not invisible, you know. I'm right here. I know everything about you. I know that I'm not going back to my apartment tonight, am I?"

One of the six nodded. "Do you believe what we do is wrong?"

"Yes," I said without any doubt in my voice.

"Then maybe we should take the souls away? How about that?"