It felt like I was out for a few minutes but when I opened my eyes the sky was a misty twilight; the sun had almost disappeared under the horizon. I looked back at the girls and they were chatting about something, but they were on a different frequency. Adam looked defeated, he had dark circles forming around his eyes, the blue in them seemed to fade into a stormy sky blue, his eyelids seemed to slowly flutter closed like an unhappy clam. He noticed me staring at him with slight terror and became instantaneously aware of his surrounds, almost as if he took four cups of coffee. Out the window, a forest expanding for miles, the leaves glowed a mesmerizing marigold in the light of the setting sun. A shudder rocked the helicopter as it started to descend into the tree line below. Adam held the lever uneasily as the wind knocked against the cockpit, leaves seemed to spiral around us as we dropped to the forest floor. It landed with a groaning thump, it rocked from side to side before it came to complete stop. Without hesitation, we all hopped out and onto the soft, marshy forest floor. Everyone looked a bit disgruntled, our clothes were dusted and tatted, our faces were worn to a shadow and standing up seemed as tedious the journey ahead. 

"Okay guys," Adam said with almost no energy. "We have three things we need to do two things. One we need to do something about this helicopter. It definitely has a tracker in it, so we have to destroy the helicopter."

"That won't stop them from tracking. If anything, destroying it will send out a large alert to their servers I can try to reprogram it if I can get to the navigation system." Megan said.

"You can do that?" He said with shock. "Great. Do that." He said as she grabbed her laptop from her bag and entered the machine. "The other thing we have to do is find somewhere to stay for the night." 

"On the way in, I spotted some cabins north of us. Probably an hour's walk." Ellie said looking towards the tangled forest.

"Okay. After Megan's done getting Transgress off our ass, we'll head there and see if we can get a place to stay. In the morning we have to get back on the road, leading to the second thing stealing a car." Adam said casually.

"Steal a car," I said with an awkward crack in my voice.

"Yeah. How else are we supposed to get out of here? We can't use the helicopter, especially now that they know that you and your sister are out in the open. Unless Ellie is able to teleport us close to Indiana. We need a car." He said firmly.

"Teleporting is off the table. I need a bit more time recharge before our next jump." She said while staring into the distant trees. Adam lifted his hands in a way that said, 'guess we have no choice.'

"It's done," Megan said while hopping out of the helicopter. "If I did it correctly they'll think we're in North Dakota."

"Let's hope it worked. Grab your bags and let's move." He said as he slung his own bag over his shoulder. After we got the rest of our stuff out of the helicopter, Adam sent a bolt of lightning through the hull of the machine, shorting it out. A pillar of smoke to rise the engine. Our hike to the cabins was mostly silence, Adam and Ellie took the lead while Megan and Stephy took up the rear. The darkness seemed to grow rapidly around us, but it didn't seem to bother the others, I lifted my hand anyways and watched as a flame flickered to life. Trees danced in the light of the flame, the fire seemed to speak to the world around us. Something about the hiss of the flames was relaxing, I stared into the flame for so long that I nearly walked into a tree.

"How are you holding up." Ellie had dropped behind leaving Adam in the front. "I saw your face after Adam killed Ellen." 

"I just don't like killing or death. I'm not saying that I'm not grateful but there had to have been another way to deal with her that didn't end with her dead." I said as we pushed through the thicket.

"Death isn't a new thing when it comes to us or even The Foxhole. Sometimes we have to make split-second decisions that ends with someone dead. The hard truth is that you're going to have to get used to." She spoke solemnly, her head hung low.

"I just hope I don't have to be in that position." 

"Everyone does, eventually." Her voice came out as less than raindrop but hit like an anvil. As we walked I heard Adam tell us to slow down. As I caught up I noticed the lights in the distance, I closed my hand and for the first time managed to extinguish the flame without beating it out.

"That's the place," Ellie said.

Adam pulled his bag from his shoulder and rummaged through it and pulled out 2 hats. "You two. Put these on. We don't want people calling Transgress again because they recognized you." He said handing them to us. Stephy and I gave each other a look on the line of reassurance and 'here we go' as we put them on and continued walking into the area.

As we walked in the atmosphere changed from impending death to spring break, fairy lights hung over the sides of the cabins giving the mahogany wood glow with warmth. People weaved in between the glowing tiki torches and the narrow allies between cabins towards there rooms. After threading the needle between cabins, we made it out into an open parking lot full of cars and teenagers. To the left was a building buult from oak wood, only one story high with rocking chairs on its porch that were all occupied by drunk teens trying to impress each other, a sign stood just before the porch and written in white paint the words 'Roosevelt Lodge' with more written underneath. Down the road, not too far down was a little shop which could have almost been considered a shack, its roof boarded over with simple wooden planks. By itself, it looked misplaced but with the larger building by its side and the little cabins, it all came together harmoniously giving me a second to forget Transgress on our back and the light in Ellen's eyes fading into nothing. I shook the image out of my head and realized I was in the middle of the road being honked at by a line of cars. Stephy grabbed me by the arm and yanked me away before the driver got too impatient and ran me over.

"Jesus Oli. What the hell is up with you?" She asked her grip still tight on my jacket.

"Yeah, Yeah," I said sluggishly. "I'm just got a bit distracted."

"Whatever is bothering you, you can talk to me about it. If we're trying to fix things, talking helps. You're the only family I have left and this rift sucks man." She said urging herself from using her powers. "I just want you be able to talk to me like before all this."

"I'm fine Stephy. Really. Just a little daydreaming." I said as she started to loosen her grip on a shirt, but she looked at me knowingly. 

"You two can't start straggling now," Adam said as we walked back to him. "Here's what we need to do. Stephy, Ellie and I will see if we can get a cabin for the night. Megan and Oliver, go over to that general store and see what it has. Meet back out here in twenty minutes, then at first light, we head for Nebraska. It's probably the fastest way to Indiana." I glanced over at Megan who I hadn't spoken to since we left Camp Nestry, she seemed a lot paler and her cherry hair seemed more like dried chapstick. Her coffee brown eyes were encased in cages of red, she would blink two or three times a second like she was trying to shake a bad memory. Before I could ask about what we should get in the store, Adam slapped some money in my hand and walked towards the bigger building, leaving Megan and I standing the middle of the parking lot.

Teenagers swarmed all over the parking lot like ants that had lost their way to their nest. Half of them were glued onto there phones while the others drunkenly stubbled over the gravel ground. The sound of rumbling stones under their feet was drowned out by their music which echoed through valley. Even with that the silence between Megan and I was eerily loud. Megan and I walked in step together towards the store trying not to lose each other in the overwhelming commotion.

"I didn't know you could make yourself invisible," I said trying to break the looming silence between us.

"What?" she shouted trying to speak over the music.

"Back at the camp, you made yourself invisible, I didn't know you could do that."

"Oh, I learned it back at The Foxhole. It's hard to hold though." She said almost halfheartedly.

"I can barely use my powers properly, I only just managed to extinguish a flame without looking like an idiot and besides you saved us back there. I would have died if you hadn't been invisible." I said to her as we walked up to the threshold of the shop.

"Well, if you had trained while we were at The Foxhole instead of hiding from me and everyone else you would have had better control of it by now." She said as she walked into the store. It was stocked to the teeth with souvenirs and camping supplies. It was like the Tardis in here, I was lost at how much space there was inside. From the outside it looked like this store has been up since the dawn of time but inside it felt like it has been for a week or two. Shelve with endless mugs, t-shirt and nature survival books. More teens seemed to roam the aisles, chatting silently. Behind the counter was one of the employees, cap over his eyes, dead in sleep and another employee was grabbing a coke from the fridge. I had no clue what we even needed from here, but Megan and I perused the aisles regardless, looking for anything that looked important or useful.

"I'm sorry but it didn't seem like you wanted to be around me," I said silently to myself.

"You learning how to use your powers has nothing to do with me Oliver, and the last time we spoke you were shouting at any person in a ten-yard radius." She replied, clearly hearing what I said. 

"With good reason. Besides, you of all people know I don't do well with change, and randomly getting powers is a huge change. Actually, now that you'll actually hold a conversation with me, we need to talk." I said as I grabbed a mug off the shelf.

"About what?"

"About you and sister lying to me for years now. Stephy, I'm mostly over but you. You've been giving me crap about hiding things when you have been hiding things way before we got together."

"They are two completely different things." She shouted in hushed tones. "You hide the fact that you didn't want to be with me and instead of being a man about it, you disappeared. I was given a secret to keep, a secre5we could both share and understand, a secret that quite clearly isn't accepted by everyone as can be seen from the first month of us being exposed to the world. So, you comparing those two things, is low."

"No, it isn't. Imagine two people you trusted, shared almost everything with, believed that you couldn't be trusted with something or even think that you would think of them any different because of it. Also, if you want to talk about disappearing, what stopped you from coming to. From telling me about what I was doing. You disappearedjust as much as I did but don't want to admit it to yourself."

Her eyes lit up in fiery fury, "Because you wouldn't even give me the time of day. How am I supposed to come to someone who isn't there. Imagine the person you trusted and gave your heart to just disappeared without a word AND WOULDN'T EVEN LOOK YOU IN THE EYE!" She shouted, the whisper gone and eyes filled with hurt. "Oliver. I had feelings for you. Real feelings and-" Before she could continue to say anything more one of the teens walked up to us. He had a denim jacket over a beige t-shirt that was long enough to be a dress. His ripped skinny jeans clung onto his lanky legs like tape. His eyes although clearly brown, sparkled with a red.

"Mr Stark, Ms Clayburn. Please follow me." He said ominously. I raised my hands up and prepare to the turn the ablaze as he began to walk away. I looked around the store and everyone was staring at the two of us. Red sparkling in all their eyes.

"How does he know our names?" Megan whispered.

"I'm a wanted criminal. You on the other hand I'm not too sure. Regardless of how he knows us, there are way too many of them for the two of us to fight, so I guess we have to follow him." I whispered back.

"Please. Hurry up. I don't have all night." He said with more aggression, so Megan and I did the only thing we could do, followed the kid with red eyes.

He led us behind the counter and into a door with a sign saying Do not enter without authorization, I'm sure this kid didn't have authorization but arguing about it didn't seem like a smart thing when the whole store was staring at us with murder eyes. I asked him where he was taking us, but he kept silent. I looked at Megan, her fingers were at her side, over her Escrima sticks but I grabbed her hand and gave her a look not to. She ripped her hand out of mine but begrudgingly lowered her hands and followed him in silence. We walked till we reached a set of stairs that led down into a murky basement, I was beginning to become more concerned with what was happening. The walls were a corroding white but seemed to slowly become darker as we descended into darkness. Each step on the creaky metal staircase made me feel more and more uncomfortable with each step. When we finally reached the bottom, we were met by a large black door, scratch marks all over the handle. The teen stopped beside the door indicating this was our stop. My body told me the last thing I wanted to do was enter this room but we weren't really being given an option otherwise, and it felt important in a forceful kind of way. Or we brought down here to be killed without a trace but it didn't feel like it.

"If we aren't back in ten minutes our friends going to come looking for us," Megan said nervously.

"Then you better hurry up and enter the room." He said monotonously. I reached out my hand grabbed the handle, but I held on for a second, preparing myself for whatever was inside. I pushed the door open to reveal a room outstretched before us, that could fit two school buses. The walls were a dim red in the pale, windowless room, like the life had been drained out of it. Tattered maroon couches leaned against the corners of the room, they seemed dried out as if they had never seen the light of day and if they ever did they would combust into flames. A blood-red carpet wrapped the floor in a miserable glow that seemed to sap the energy from beneath me. At the end of the room was a birchwood desk, piles of paper stacked upon each other like a game of Jenga, pens and gnawed on highlighters lay unorganized on top of papers. Behind the desk, seated on a leathery black chair was a man in a fitted black suit, with a tie that matched the carpet, tightened around his neck. His hairless scalp reflected the scarlet glow of the room, his chocolate skin seemed to shimmer when I stared for too long. His eyes fixated on the paper in front of him, but when we stepped into the room he let off a smile so small but yet so powerful.

"Sit." He said forebodingly, he gestured towards the two seats in front of the desk in a deep and enticing voice. Hesitantly we walked to the greasy black office chairs. With an annoying squeak of the seats, we sat awkwardlying before him. "You're supposed to be in hiding Oliver Stark."

"How do you-"

"Know who you are? Well besides your face being plastered all over the news, I have people everywhere as you can see." The man spoke in an elegent british accent that seemed to send ripples as he spoke.

"Those people, they seem so lifeless though. Like they're under control." Megan said from the seat beside me.

"Well, it may be because I have their souls and now they are just empty puppets I can control when need be." He said confidently.

"Wait, what!" I shouted.

"We all have our powers, kiddies. Anyways down to business, I brought you here for a reason. You and your little rescue band need to go to Marble, Colorado. There is a man there by the name of Dion Geltwick, he's being held captive up on Mt Daly about a day's walk from there, but with your teleporting friend Elaine can get you there just fine."

"Why would we do this exactly?" Megan asked.

"Because Transgress is keeping him locked up in a research facility there and I can't send out my people without my whole operation getting compromised, which trust me that is no good for anyone." He said while placing a paper onto a separate pile.

"Transgress! You want us to go straight to the people hunting us? No." I said while standing up and making my way towards the door.

"What if I told you this guy can make your trip to Indiana a hell of a lot easier." He shouted across the room.

"How do you know that? We haven't spoken about this with any except our group."

"Adam mentioned it outside. I'm not called The Canary for nothing; my little birdies hear everything. So, when you get to Dion give him this location." He said as he handed Meg a piece of paper. "That is all I need you to do. My birdies will take it from there." 

"What do you even want to this Dion guy," I asked as Meg got up from her chair.

"I have my reasons and you need him just as much as I do. So, you get me Dion and I give you information about Indiana. Fair deal." His words were like poisoned candy, sweet to hear but the words felt like daggers that stuck.

"No, not a fair deal." Meg answered back. "All the information you have on us is based of information from maybe the last half hour. We don't know you and have no reason to trust anything you say. For all we know, you're working with Transgress."

His nose crinkled, "If there is anything I value the most in the world, it's information. I pride myself on the information I gather through my little birdies. You doubt the validity of the information Megan Clayburn, therefore I will use you as an example. You wondered how I knew your name, but I know so much more than that. You're parents, Pat and Jenny, worry about you. As most parents do but keeping a secrets about you working with The Foxhole is making your father's blood pressure go back up. Hopefully, he doesn't have another stroke. The one two years ago was bad enough, it nearly broke your family didn't it. Mentally and financially. You try your best not to stress them out by giving them updates on how are doing at your base, vague but enough to satisfy them. Just the other day you were telling them about a dessert you had, a chiffon cake. You're parents told your neighbours and schoolmates that after the Stark incident, their little Mimi left for a boarding school overseas, in Leeds. Am I mistaken?"

Megan looked terrified. It was a crazed look of fear that grew darker with more detail. Things I hadn't even known. "That's enough." I slammed my hands on the table. He didn't even flinch.

"Am I mistaken?" He asked again, glaring at Meg. She could barely open her mouth, and all she could muster was a slow shake of her head. A smirk grew onto the face of the devilish man. "Information validated. Now, any functioning brain would now be asking itself 'What other things does he know?'. It would be easiest to assume that I know all the things you are hoping I don't. Depending on how you next answer, determines what I do with the information I hold."

"Now you're threatening us?"

"Yes, but do not take them for empty threats. Doing so would be a foolish mistake. We wouldn't want Pat and Jenny Calyburn's already difficult life to become more difficult, because I doubt Transgress would take kindly to aiding and abetting terrorist.

"We'll do it." Meg answered back as sharply as the statement was asked"

"Great, it has been a pleasure working out a mutually beneficial deal with you two. Don't worry, the original stipulations of the deal still hold."

"You still haven't told us how he's useful to us." I said.

"It will become very obvious. Also, here us a piece of advice to the both of you, stop this petty fighting. Boohoo, he left you for a girl he never got the courage to ask out and cry me a river, she kept secrets from you. You should just stop whining and get on with your life. You can't expect to make it through the hell Transgress has waiting for you with all this infighting."

"In Colorado?"

"No, in Indiana. I will be kind give you some basic information. Call it positive insurance that you'll get the job done if the threat wasn't enough. Transgress' biggest experimental lab is in Indiana. A very hushed base that is not supposed to exist. The chances of finding what you are looking for will be there. Now hurry off because you're supposed to meet your friends in three minutes." He said as he waved us off.

When we got back into the shop, everyone who had been staring at us before was doing exactly the same thing they had been when we entered the first time. As we walked out, the teen that took us down stopped me "The Canary will contact you, and you will answer. Not the other way around." He handed me a flip phone and walked away.

"I want to kill that man," Meg said while staring at me with pure rage in his eyes. "We should get the others and just go back down there.

"Keep your voice down. He might be able to hear us, and besides we don't understand what he can actually do. Doing that could be much worse than we think." I spoke softly, trying to get her to match me.

"He didn't just threaten your parents Oliver."

"Exactly, which means I'm not running on rage. So, redirect your anger. We have a job to do now if we want to keep your parents safe."

The blaze in her eyes mellowed and her tone went down to her general tone of agitation. "Okay. How are we going to get there, the others aren't going to be very happy about making such a huge detour. Especially since we are going off information from someone who knows way more about us than we know about him."

"We can figure out in a bit, just as long  as we can keep him on our side." 

"I don't think he's on anyone's side but himself." She scoffed as she looked out the window, probably looking for the others.

"What he did was messed up, I'm sorry." I said in a small voice. Her back seemed to loosen as I said those word, not in relaxation but as lost conviction.

"As long as they are safe at the end of the day is all that matters." She stared out the window.

"But, he was also right. We can't keep fighting. Can we start a new slate. Put everything in the past." I asked her.

She looked at me in silence, her pecan eyes scanned my face for sincerity, then she spoke. "Yeah, we put the past in the past and move forward"

"Yeah okay, but..." I stopped her as she began to walk out the door. "if we are going to have a clean slate, I need to apologies first. I've had five months to do so and haven't. Even though it won't change anything, I just need you to hear it. I was a horrible boyfriend in the end. You didn't deserve what I did to you, you didn't deserve for me to disappear without a word. You didn't deserve any of the crap that I pulled. You deserved so much better than that. Than for me to act like it never happened, that we never happened, that wasn't right. You are an amazing person, probably one of the smartest people I know and you were nothing but amazing to me while we were together, but I still treated you like you weren't there. The worst part is I didn't even realize I was doing it, but then I did. I didn't have an excuse before but especially not after that. It was just easier to push you away than facing the truth. That you were right... I was in love with Pepper." Those words felt like a weight being removed from my shoulders but for Megan, the weight was being thrown onto her. "I am in love with Pepper. I didn't know at the time, but you were right, I was doing all the things I was supposed to do with you, with her. I should have talked to you, but God, just seeing you broke my heart. I knew what I was doing to you and thinking about how I would only hurt you more by saying anything just made it harder. I was an ass. You had every right to be angry. If you still want to be angry, I understand, it's less than what I deserve. I'm just sorry. If you don't want to talk to me after hearing that, I understand. After this mission, I'll be out of your life however way you want."

"Clean slate right?" She placed a half-hearted smile across her face. "It's in the past."

"One more thing. I've been wondering about the day this all started. Stephy and I found you in the quarry passed out along with a lot of other people, do you remember what happened?"

"That night was a mess; my memory of that night is all over the place. All I remember is that it wasn't normal at all. I remember that there were some people that were dressed weirdly for a party, the lights went crazy at one point and when I woke up I was with you guys. Also, I found a tattoo on my back afterwards." She said as she adjusted her shirt to show me the orange tattoo on her right shoulder blade, from what it looked like it was a coin with two faces facing away from each other.

"Interesting choice for a tattoo thought you said your first one would be a Lord of the Rings quote."

"I was, but clearly drunk me had something different in mind. Now let's go out there and try and convince them to make a detour." She said as we headed out of the shop. When we got out of the store, the atmosphere changed, and the wind was rough as it hit my face like a truck. We wandered through the car park, people seemed to have left the car park and everyone that was left were either flat out drunk on the floor or stumbling from car to car or making out in some corner. Far into the back of the parking lot Adam, Ellie and Stephy stood next to an old silver KIA Rio but as we got closer I realized they were trying to get into it. By the time we got to them, Adam had managed to get the door open.

"What happened, I thought we were staying the night here then leave at first light," Meg asked.

"Change of plans, there's a school trip happening here, and they ended up booking out all the cabins. If we leave now we could get to Alliance, Nebraska by 8 o'clock." Adam said reassuringly.

"Actually-" Meg started but I cut in.

"Sounds like a good idea, how about Meg and I take the first shift while you three sleep," I said, I turned over to Meg and I gave her a look, she seemed worried, but she gave a little nod. "You were falling asleep in the helicopter. You need to rest."

"Yeah, maybe you right. I'll take over in the morning, but we should leave now." He said as he hopped into the back of the car with Ellie and Stephy while Meg hopped into the passenger seat. I grabbed the wires near the pedals and stuck them together until the car ignition started. As I turned out onto the main road, the back of the car was filled with the sound of snoring, I took a glance in the rear-view mirror to see Adam asleep on Ellie's shoulder. At the end of the road, instead of the turn into the highway to Nebraska, I continued straight for Colorado.