***HARRIS***

Together with Kevin and Michelle, Aimee and I ride BART into the city. The whole time, I feel like a bit of a tool (I can't really think of a better way to describe it at the moment) for being so far behind Jay, Jeremy, Evan, and Adele. I'd like to blame myself for holding the others up by having a random brain-fart moment in the BART station in Chase City and suddenly losing the ability to type the alphanumeric code for Aimee's parking space into the machine. Aimee, however, was in a charitable mood, and chalked it up to me being excited and nervous about whatever the heck old Severide's got in mind for us today.

"Nervous, maybe," I said after finally getting the code right and getting the machine to kindly spit out a ticket for us. "Excited? That's hardly the word I would choose."

Aimee knocked her head against mine, laughing even as I bounced away from her, rubbing the spot of pain blossoming on the side of my skull. Not that that pain stopped me from laughing along with her, though.

On the train, Kevin and Michelle sit across from me and Aimee, and the former tilts his head as he watches the two of us hold hands. Eventually, she gets tired of looking out the window at the Transbay Tube and its epilepsy-inducing blip-vert-y ads on the walls (have you tried looking at those things? I get headaches just thinking about them) and catches sight of him looking at us. Then she looks down at our hands before making eye contact with me and saying, "Dude, Harris, your heartbeat is in full jackrabbit mode."

"Is it?" I ask, my voice a little higher than normal. "You sure it's not yours?"

She lets go of my hand and makes a huge show of feeling her wrist so she can check her pulse. "Nope. It's you, I'm sure of it."

"It's 'cause you're so close together again," Michelle says. "For the first time in...forever?"

"Don't start singing the song," Kevin laughs.

"Wasn't gonna," says Michelle. She pushes a particularly unruly bit of her hair out of her face, then adds, "Seriously, though...we're happy for both of you."

Kevin starts. "We are?" Michelle pretends to aim a punch at him. Surprisingly, he doesn't flinch away, but he raises his eyebrows and says, "Yeah, yeah, sure. We are. Happy for you." He folds his hands in front of his face. "But this begs another question - you and Aimee are together again, and there's Jay and Evan...so now I'm feeling double the peer pressure to get together with someone."

Michelle really does punch him this time. "Not interested in you and your Ice Flechettes, sweetheart."

While Kevin rubs his arm, I tell Aimee, "Promise me you won't send those kinds of mixed signals."

"You know me," she says. "I'm direct and honest."

"Whereas the only thing I can say honestly is that I'm very playful in relationships," Michelle says. "Even if they're all short-lived."

The train squeals to a stop, and the crackly speakers above us chime before our radio-voiced announcer (the conductor must be training for the Disneyland Jungle Cruise or something) merrily informs us that we've reached Embarcadero Station. Quickly, we scramble out onto the platform and make the long climb up to Market Street above us. Once we're outside, all our phones start to go off as we finally receive the texts that were presumably sent to us while we were in the tunnel and unable to get any reception.

I'm about to filter mine out when I get another one popping in on the top of my screen. It's from Evan, and she says, "We've got something at Marina Green. Elena's doing this scavenger hunt for warlock haters."

"What the fuck?" I mutter to myself as I read the text.

"What? What is it?" Aimee asks.

"What's this about a scavenger hunt?" asks Michelle.

Soon enough, Kevin and Aimee get the same message - turns out Evan sent it in a group text. I'm the first to put together a response. "Don't tell me you're following clues now."

"We kinda have to," Evan says. "Look, this is what we found:" This text comes accompanied by a picture of Evan holding up a slip of paper marked "4TPT," whatever that means. Then she sends another text to clarify the meaning, which sounds so obvious now that it's been pointed out: "Fort Point."

"Are you gonna go there now?" I ask. I rack my brain, trying to picture the map of the city and the fastest way to get to Fort Point from the Marina Green. Walking wouldn't be feasible, not at that distance. And most of the way there cuts through the Presidio, where there's been tons of construction that's all over the news. Even driving - which would of course mean taking a cab, because Michelle's the only one of us with a license - would be hella problematic.

"We're going with these guys who are actually on the hunt," Evan says. "Warlock haters, but they're from out of town, so that's a given."

I laugh at the Jay-like sense of humor in this text, then look up and realize I've been so distracted that I've fallen behind the others. Racing across the grass in Justin Herman Plaza, I'm a little out of breath by the time I join them in line for the next Embarcadero streetcar.

While we ride the streetcar, I go into the Unite Network and reply to Severide's initial message with the instructions for today's Marina Green thing. I don't expect he'll come back to me, ever, but I need to try anyway. Especially now that I've got a bunch of questions. Like, "Did you know about the scavenger hunt?" Or "Are we supposed to beat these yahoos to the prize? And if so, what do we do with said prize? Do we deliver it to you or Drake or somebody?"

By the time we're at the end of the line, there's no answer from Severide, as expected. I know, I asked him some stupid questions with very self-explanatory answers, but to just ignore me like that...so rude, man.

Jay, however, has an update for us. "At Fort Point. Coral and Ronnie are trying to find the next clue."

"Who they?" I ask.

"The two actual scavenger hunters we're tagging along with," Jay says. "Three guesses why I gave them these nicknames." He shows me a pair of pictures - one of a tall dude who looks almost exactly like Firestorm from The Flash, and another dude who looks like The Walking Dead's Carl, but with brown eyes.

"You say they're not from around here?"

"They were raised in the mountains or something," Jay says. "Not too many warlocks where they live, so they think we're evil."

"So why are they letting u follow them?"

"Either they're afraid of Evan and her powers, or they're luring us into a trap."

I look up from my phone again. We've been walking for a few minutes, and now the Marina Green is in visual range. I see a person hanging around the trash can that Jay and Evan described in earlier texts when they filled us in about the scavenger hunt. Is he going for the clue? Did Jay and Evan and company leave it behind when they got it, along with "Coral" and "Ronnie?"

I catch Michelle's eye, and together we walk up to the trash can, where, sure enough, the guy next to it is rooting around for something. Finally, he finds an In-n-Out bag. Letting out a crow of victory, he yanks the bag out of the trash and raises it into the air.

Holding up three fingers to Michelle, I count down silently, then we strike simultaneously. I envelop this guy in my best skinny-boy bear hug (note to self: remember to dunk these clothes in a barrel of Tide when I get home). Michelle, meanwhile, leaps up and snags the bag out of the guy's hands before setting it ablaze and throwing it away once again.

"Whoa, whoa, what the hell?" The guy jumps away from us, staring in shock. Then he points a finger at us and cries, "Freaks!"

"Okay, go back to whatever Stephen King small town you crawled out of," Aimee says venomously as she rejoins us. "Around here, Normals and warlocks don't hate on each other."

The guy runs off so fast he leaves a brief impression of his red-plaid flannel shirt on my retinas.

"Well," Kevin says. He puts out what could easily have become a serious trash bonfire (pollution bad, peeps!) with his Ice, then crosses his arms. "What did that accomplish?"

"Scaring the shit out of a guy who deserves nothing less?" I suggest.

"Burning the clue so nobody else can follow behind us on this stupid Elena challenge?" asks Aimee.

I nod to her. "Yeah, that too."

"Smart thinking," Aimee tells Michelle.

She cracks her knuckles. "All this is just a game to Elena? Well, we're not playing. Not by her rules, anyway."

"Preach!" Kevin holds up his hand, and Michelle high-fives him.

I check my phone again, and Jay's got the next stop on the Whirlwind Warlock-Hater Tour of San Francisco already figured out. The picture of the clue he shows us a visual clue - a loaf of steaming fresh bread and what looks like a sand dune. Aimee looks at it over my shoulder, and together we say, "Baker Beach?"

"That's also on the Presidio, right?" I ask. "Or is that on the Marin Headlands?"

Kevin's quick to look it up. "No, it's still in the city. Oh, but there's no way we're gonna walk over there, it's way too far."

Michelle takes this as her cue to lean out from the sidewalk and look east until she spots an incoming taxi. Even better, it's a minivan, not a Crown Vic or some other sedan, so we can all take it after she successfully hails it.

"Baker Beach, huh?" the driver asks after Michelle tells him where to take us. "What, is The Amazing Race in town?" He chuckles to himself. "It's only two of my buddies have already taken some fares there from Fort Point."

"We're taking a shortcut," I say.

"Oh really?"

"The fate of the world depends on it," Aimee says in her spookiest voice.

"Sure, sure," laughs the driver.

As we pass the Palace of Fine Arts, my phone rings - and I mean it really rings, not just a text alert. "Evan?" I ask as I pick up the call. "What's going on?"

"Where are you?" Her voice is a harsh whisper.

"We're kinda stuck in traffic, I'm afraid," I say, trying to keep it light as I see the sea of brake lights ahead going into the Doyle Drive construction zone.

"Elena's here," she whispers. "She's at Fort Point."

"What?" I put her on speaker. "Say that again."

"Fort Point!" Evan's clearly trying not to raise her voice. "Jay, stop it!"

"What's going on?" Aimee asks.

"Guys...I'm sorry," Evan says.

Then I hear Jay yell, "NO!", followed by the sounds of a scuffle. Evan's voice is faint - did she leave her phone behind or something? - but I can sort of pick up on what she's saying.

"You're gonna start selling off your toys again, huh?" she says. "You heard me, Elena! You're done!"

"Evan! Evan!" I shake my phone uselessly as panic creeps up on me.

Somewhere, I hear Michelle order the driver to take us to Fort Point instead.

"Dammit, Evan..." I moan, biting my hand. "Why do you need to be so reckless?"

I don't know who hangs up Evan's phone, but someone does it, and it only makes me want to jump out of the van and take off running until I reach Fort Point. If only I could fly, but I'm not an Ice.

When we finally get there, an eternity later, Evan's pacing up and down in front of the entrance with Jeremy. Wait...what?

Aimee opens the door, and they both climb in, breathing hard and shaking. Again, it falls on me to ask the stupid question: "Where are the others?"

Jeremy looks up, sniffling and wiping a bloody nose. "They took them. They took Jay and Adele."

"And those other two," Evan says. "Those two morons."

"Who took them?" I ask.

Evan draws a deep breath. "It's Elena...I shouldn't have confronted her like that. I dunno how she got it, but..."

"She's got an army," Jeremy says. "All these scary things."

"What, like robots she invented or something?" asks Michelle.

Jeremy shakes his head. "Not robots. People. But...but they were like zombies."

"And we couldn't save them." Evan buries her head in her hands. "She brainwashed all those people - and they were all warlocks too. Crazy strong. They subdued us like that," she says, snapping her fingers.

"And then she let us go so we could tell you guys," Jeremy says.

Michelle bites her lip, then leans forward to talk to the driver. I, however, stare into space. On the one hand, there's a side of my brain that wants to just say, "Well, that escalated quickly." But with these reveals...oh God. Elena's just never going to stop, is she?

We're fucked.

We are so fucked.

Jay and Adele...where are they now?