Thank you for letting us into your home," Erin says as she lingers in the doorway that I hold wide open. "We will see you in a few hours at the Summit for final preparations."

"Goodbye," I say.

I wait until the two of them are in their cars and driving away before I turn to Joey. He joins me quietly at the doorway, looking across the street.

"They've certainly got character."

"They wouldn't have been my first choice," Joey chuckles. "But I guess they know what they're talking about."

"Serving Amara doesn't exactly qualify as experience," I say. "Their feelings towards humans might conflict everything."

"That's tomorrow's problem," he says. "Just focus on tonight and how you're going to survive it."

"I've survived worse."

He laughs and walks through the doorway while buttoning his coat. "You should probably know that since you've promoted me to be your advisor, it will leave you short a head of security. At the moment, Amara's second-in-command is taking over my role while I work with Marcus, but I do advise that you fire him in the morning."

"That bad?" I grin.

"If you want to make the world a better place for humans, then that should be the first thing you do," he says.

"I'll deal with it tomorrow," I say.

He smiles. "I'll see you soon."

I wave gently as he steps backwards and conjures a portal that swallows him up. I hear the birds tweeting in the sky and I spend a moment watching them, until a scream captures my attention from down the street.

I walk out from the doorway and I jog down the porch towards the street. I scan the row of houses until I see a cluster of shadows in the distance. I recognise the house, and its owners, David and Fiona. I've known them since I was eleven, I used to go over to their house to play with their daughter, Andrea. It's been years since I last saw them, the death of Andrea during the dark era turned them into recluses. I tried to speak to them several times, but they would never open their door to me. They would let the other neighbours in. Their human neighbours.

Right now, it appears they're being evicted. A gang of warlocks are gathered in their front yard, and are using aggressive force to stop the couple from re-entering their home. The commotion has caught the attention from all the humans in area, and they've all formed a crowd in the middle of the road, shouting and screaming abuse at the warlocks.

I arrive at the house from the other side of the road, and I watch in shock as Fiona runs at the warlocks with a weapon in her hand. She is met with a blunt and forceful zap that rolls her across the yard.

"This is our home!" David screams as he picks his wife up off the ground. "It has been our home for twenty years!"

"It isn't your home anymore!" a warlock yells. He stands just in front of the others, and he wears dark clothing that adds eeriness to his beard and small, intimidating eyes.

"You've taken everything from us!" Fiona screams. "And now you force us onto the street? Why are you doing this to us?"

"Because you're on the list," the warlock says. "A car will arrive shortly to take you to the camp."

"No!" David yells.

David, in his absolute determination to avoid that, clenches his fists and runs at the warlock. The warlock merely stands still, unnerved, and casts a spell that brings David crashing down to his knees. It's only then that I notice the two warlocks standing at the bottom of the yard, they're not being evicted, they're being imprisoned. Although the crowd opposes it, they don't dare do anything about it.

I walk through the crowd slowly, ignoring the sudden stares at the side of my face. I hear my name being muttered by my old neighbours but I try not to let it distract me. When I approach the gate, the two guards attempt to stop me, but the amulet protects me from their spell and I force them to the ground.

The warlock, who I'm beginning to suspect is the new head of security that Joey just literally warned me about, sees me and narrows his eyes.

"There's nothing to see here, witch, move along."

David and Fiona hold each other on the ground, looking up to me in awe. I smile to them, hoping they remember me, but they just look right through me.

"Why are you continuing Amara's work when she's dead?" I demand.

I hear the gasps from the humans behind me. The human world doesn't know of her death yet, but they will know now.

"That's none of your business," he says, walking towards me with confidence. He's a large man with hungry muscles and a towering, over-bearing height.

"It will be my business when I become the Elder tonight."

He stops walking. "You? The Elder? Keep dreaming."

"What's your name?"

He swallows, flicking his eyes to the warlocks behind him. "Bren. Head of security."

I walk the rest of the distance that he's afraid to cover. "For today. Tomorrow, count yourself fired." I turn to the warlocks behind him. "There will be an opening for the new head of security tomorrow and I will be holding interviews. If you wish to fulfil a lifelong dream then I suggest you leave immediately."

Bren chuckles. "They don't follow your orders, they follow. . ." As his squad begins to vanish one-by-one, Bren swallows down his smugness and I raise an eyebrow.

"You probably had to commit some horrific acts to be noticed by Amara," I say. "But you don't need to do that anymore. The humans are officially under my protection and an attack against them is an attack against me. You can inform the rest of your security team about that and also inform them that if any of them are caught herding humans into Red Camps then they'll be given capital punishment."

"Alright, I will."

"Goodbye, then."

He scowls at me as he walks down the yard, and the humans stare at him in anger as he turns and descends down the street. I take a deep breath to compose myself. I can't believe I just did that. I did that. I want to bounce in joy that I just survived my first encounter with an anti-human warlock but I refrain respectively and I approach the terrified couple on the floor.

David and Fiona gently get back to their feet. Their heads must be spinning, and I can't help with that, but maybe having their home back will outweigh the confusion.

"Thank you," Fiona says. The last thing I expected was for her to launch herself at me but I meet her embrace with a smile. "Theresa," she whispers. "It is you, isn't it?"

I nod, looking between her and David. "It's been a long time. I am so sorry for what happened to Andrea, I tried so hard to stop it. It's taken a while to finally get there."

"Before she died, Andrea said that we should go to you," David says. "We ignored her and said you were one of them. We're sorry, too."

"Your mother was my best friend," Fiona cries as she holds my face. "And I know she'd be so proud of what you just did. I just wish we could have been there for you, because you must have been going through hell."

"It's in the past," I whisper, my eyes beginning to well up. "I don't blame you for being cautious, you were just trying to protect your family. Amara took mine from me so I don't have one anymore, but I promise I will protect you all like a family would."

Fiona smiles and takes her hand away. "Is it true what you said? Are you going to be their next leader?"

"If all goes well, hopefully," I say.

"Then we should count ourselves damn lucky that we have you to look out for us."

The other neighbours begin to enter the yard and I am slowly passed around like a ball from old faces to new faces as they all rejoice in my return. I reunite with people that were once too afraid to approach me but now only see the girl that they used to know. The girl that would help them carry boxes from their cars, that would sit on her porch and write in a journal for hours through the day, that would always smile at them when walking past and would dream about the day when she could own a house that grand and spend her life with someone that matters.

They are just people. They are just like me. Their emotions control them and their fears consume them. They want more from life and they wish for less, they dream of changes and they hope for freedom.

"Theresa?"

Through the crowd, I follow the call of my name. My eyes land on a young woman that stands at the bottom of the yard. With her dark blonde hair and her tanned complexion at first it is hard to recognise her, because I knew her when she was brunette, but the remembrance suddenly hits me.

"Nat?" I say.

She nods to herself, holding back tears. "Joey said you were back in town and-"

I run towards her and I wrap my arms around her. Nat was my best friend in junior high, she was as close to a sister as a friend could be. After my mother died, it became almost impossible to get close to anyone I used to know. My friends became memories, school became a birth ground for rising witches and warlocks, and human teenagers were pushed to the bottom of the list. I haven't thought of Nat in years, and I'm ashamed of myself for that.

"I tried to contact you," she whispers. "I tried for months. But I couldn't get anywhere near your house or your school."

"Yeah, it's been a bit of a mess," I laugh, pulling away from her. "How have you been? Did your family make it?"

The vein underneath her eye twitches. "My parents, they. . . my brother and I are the only ones left."

"I'm sorry."

"It was years ago," she says. "For the last few months, Joey has been looking out for us. He's the only one that cared. We don't live in a house like this but we're comfortable. We survive, you know?"

"Yeah, it's-"

"When I learned you were a witch, I was so mad at you," she laughs to herself. "You were my best friend; how could you not tell me that? How could you not warn us about what was about to happen?"

I glance back to the crowd in the yard that are staring at us and I take Nat by her arm and I gently lead her onto the footpath. "It's complicated. But I promise, if I had known, I would have told you. It all happened so quickly, no one could stop it. I went through a lot, too."

"I know," she says. "I'm not here to fight, I just wanted to see you. Are you planning on sticking around?"

"Do you want me to?" I whisper. "Only, it feels like you're still mad at me."

"We're not kids anymore, Theresa. I've had to grow up fast in the last five years and so has every other teenager. I've changed. You've changed. If you can help us, then yes, I want you to stay."

"Then yes, I'm staying."

"Good." She smiles for a moment and then turns around. "See you around."

I turn back to the crowd and I try to smile but it doesn't come out truthful. I wave to them before I leave. I walk back to my house slowly, disguising the ache in my heart at how reality just burned me. I understand why Nat is like that, it's not due to resentment or anger, it's just who she is now. It's who she's had to become to survive living in Amara's world. I was immune to it because of my witch side, but being a part of Sam's world changed me too. We've all had to undergo changes to adapt, but I never thought it would hurt this much to acknowledge it.

When I enter my house, I run up the stairs and I pull apart my bedroom looking for a paper and a pen. After finding them, I sit at my desk in the corner, and I write the hardest letter of my life.