"Guess that's our goodnight," Mikey says with a shrug. Everything about her screams nothing happened before Aurora appeared, but her eyes tell a different story. She's unsure. Scattered.

But do I really want to call her out on it?

She moves to the door, slipping off her heels as she struggles to keep from falling over.

I just don't know what else to do to protect us.

I can't help it.

"Mikey."

"Hm?" She turns, draping her shoes over her shoulder.

I can't make myself ask what I want to ask. So, instead, I find another question. "What do you think about what Aurora said? About us saving the world?"

Mikey blinks like she'd expected me to ask something else. But this is the more pressing issue.

She purses her lips and brings her shoes back around, mulling it over as she shifts her weight. "I think she's wrong."

Mikey holds my gaze, biting her cheek in thought. Then, "I think we have the potential to change the world for the better. But I don't want to change the world to save it. I want to change the world so me, my family, and others like me can live without fear. We'll never escape prejudice or racism entirely. There will always be people who hate others for the DNA they hold, history tells us that. But from what I've seen is there are a whole lot of people who don't know where they stand. It's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. The loudest voices are the ones heard, and those are usually the extremists."

I nod. "No one listens to the ones in the middle."

She was talking about this back then, too, when we stayed overnight at the moving shelter together.

"No one lets the silent majority speak. Because the silent majority doesn't fit the narrative." She pauses. "And the narrative is written by those with money to spend and power to flex. People who couldn't care less about those they look down on."

Her eyes harden.

"But I want to believe good will always prevail."

"And if it doesn't?"

She shakes her head. "Then I will fight until my last breath to smother evil."

I stuff my hands in my pockets. "You would risk your life and everything you stand for to fight against an unstoppable force."

Mikey's jaw tightens. "If I'm against an unstoppable force, I'll just have to be an unmovable object." Her eyes bore into me, a fire behind her pupils. "I'll brace myself for the tidal wave."

"But what about your siblings? If you die, then who's going to take care of them?"

Her gaze wavers. "They'll have Maverick and Sonny. And I know Maverick has friends that can help him."

"So you're going to shove it all onto him?"

Mikey exhales, exasperated as she looks at me with annoyance. "Why are you trying to poke holes in what I've made up my mind in doing?"

I take a step forward. "If you die, then you can't save anything. If you really want changes to happen, you have to stay alive to do so." My heart aches at the memory of Tanya. I can sense she's thinking about her too as rain fills her irises. "If you go, someone else will hijack your dream and twist it into their own."

She grimaces. "I didn't do that to Tanya. She was still alive."

"I'm not talking about what you did. The responsibilities were placed on her husband and Maverick and Rick and Raquel and me. Everyone followed Tanya, not us. And when she was gone..." I drop my hands at my side. "She was gone. Humans were happy to be reinstated into society, but... they didn't share the dreams Tanya had anymore. They were gone."

Mikey's eyes have hollowed out, her breathing shallow. She rips her attention away and stares at the floor, lost in her head. I can almost feel how chaotic her mind is right now, fighting with itself.

"That's okay," she breathes. "No one will miss me anyway. Even Sonny said so: my siblings can take care of themselves. My mom's probably still donating her blood to that vampire coven, and my dad is nowhere to be found. The moving shelters have disbanded and dispersed, and I'm hated by everyone I want to help. If I die a martyr... I can redeem myself and change something."

I watch her for a long moment. She talks with a hard resolve, but her sorrow seeps into my own emotions.

"Do you really think that?"

She bites her lip, still staring at the ground. "Yeah." She quickly adds, "And I'm not saying these things to make you say Oh, you have it wrong, Mikey, I'd miss you so much, how could you say that about yourself?" She sets her shoes down by the front door. As she notices me kind of following, she makes her way to her room. "You're the best, don't you know I'm so in love with you and I would die without you?"

She laughs to herself at the last part and I shake my head, fighting a smile.

"I just want to kiss you so bad and hold you close all night," she continues to mock and stops, turning around and making kissing noises as she crosses her arms over her chest and runs her hands up and down her back. "You're such a good kisser. I can't get enough of you."

Mikey laughs loudly as she enters her room and turns around.

"I don't sound like that," I remark, clearing my throat to hide my amusement. Mikey being able to switch from serious to joking so fast makes sense when you look at her life. Hiding she's a human until five when she was scratched by a Bleeder on a playground, devouring everyone including her own mother, and then hiding she's a Bleeder for twenty years, fighting for her life in the Hum-fights, and trying to take care of her siblings—anyone would create a sense of humor as a coping mechanism. She probably would have gone insane long ago if she hadn't been able to laugh whenever she could.

"Besides, I can't stand you, remember?"

She pouts. "Boo." There's a sly smile that grows on her face. "Didn't seem that way when you came to rescue me from that guy on the dance floor, though."

Her eyes glimmer as she looks at me. I turn away, swallowing hard as I struggle to keep from flushing. Leaning against the doorframe I answer, "If he got too close, he'd be able to tell you were a Bleeder."

"If he got too close, I'd turn him into a girl." Her grin is impish before it turns to thoughtful. "You know what I think is funny?"

She twists her hair up in a low ponytail, stray hairs sticking out around er face. It's too short to put it all up.

I grunt in response, staring at the other side of the doorway.

"I know you want to hate me, and I know you try to, but I keep feeling like you can't. Like you're unable to hate me."

"Think again," I sigh, kicking my foot against the wood behind me. "You're reading too much into it."

She watches me for a long moment. I swivel my head around to look at her and realize she's gotten closer.

"You're calmer than you used to be." Strange subject change from Mikey, but not surprising. "You're able to control your emotions a lot better than I thought you would. Maybe it's because you had six months of practice, being a human and all. But then you had that incident tonight where you couldn't change back, like you just had it all pent-up."

"I get pent-up," I nod. "It's easier to just push emotions away."

Why am I telling her this?

"Don't do that," she advises, serious once again. "You need to work through what you feel. If you bottle them up... Bottling them up and putting them on a shelf won't do you any good, because when an earthquake happens, it'll all come crashing down."

I raise an eyebrow, shifting uncomfortably. "What are you talking about? Bottling them up is fine."

Rolling her eyes, she explains, "Wrong-o. Do that and tonight will happen again. Trust me. Been there, done that."

I want to say something smart back, but instead I just stare. She's been through so much. And why do I care?

She squints her eyes suddenly. Looking like she's about to say something, I cut her off. No more sappy stuff. I'm tired of being under the microscope. It's her turn.

"What were you going to say earlier?"

She blinks. "When?" She asks, but the way she shifts tells me she's putting on a front. She knows exactly when. It's apparent when she tries to disappear into the bathroom.

I put my hand and foot in the way, not letting her close it.

"Let go, I have to pee."

"No you don't," I argue.

"Wow, look at that, all better. I don't have to go anymore." The sarcasm is thick with this one. "Let me pee."

"Then answer my question. You know what I'm talking about. Before Aurora appeared."

She pushes against the odor. "Doesn't matter."

"Does."

Mikey glares up at me, biting her cheek. The annoyance is palpable.

"Why do you care?" she asks, her tone coming out mockingly. "You hate me, remem—"

"Just answer the stupid question. What were you going to say?"

Her eyes are angry as she meets mine, but I can feel she's wrestling with something. It's like I can almost hear her fighting with herself, her voice echoing in my head.

"I want you to know I don't hate you." Her words are spat in my direction, but I sense the genuine emotions behind them as they seep into my system. "And... and I wish I was like you. I wish I could be like you." She pauses for a second, her voice growing wobbly. "Maybe you believe I'm the villain in your story, but frick, Zeke... you're the hero in mine."

She holds my gaze, shock filling my system. There's no way she sees me like that, right?

"Don't believe me all you want," she mutters, turning her eyes to the side as gray tears rise along her lower lids. "But I mean it. And I know you can feel that. Now let go." She swallows hard and finally meets my eyes again, a tear falling down her cheek. "Please."

In a stupor, I take a step back and she quietly shuts the bathroom door. There's a pressure against the seaweed slab, as if she's leaning on it. The pressure is released and I hear water running in the bathtub.

Finding my wits, I make my way slowly over to my room had hesitate in the doorway, her voice resonating in my head.

...but frick, Zeke... you're the hero in mine.

I stare at her closed door, knowing I can never unhear that.

I won't get a wink of sleep tonight.