Reunions, Ominous Warnings, and Girls Gone Wild

Yep, that's Yasmine. I'm totally shocked.

"Okay, Vladimir, I know you're shocked, but get over it. You have to listen to me."

I'm floored. How did she? How could she? She...read my mind?

"Ghosts are all equipped with special abilities. Myself, more so, as I was...gifted as a human. You of all people would know that."

I would so want to kill her if she weren't already dead. I look down at Cameo, who's simply looking forward, peacefully.

"She can't see us talking. She's sleeping, and she thinks you are too. I've frozen this moment so we can talk privately. It's another gift, I guess. Comes in handy really. You can get up and everything, just make sure you move back when you're done speaking with me."

Against all reason, I extricate myself from Cameo's icy arms. Normally this would bother me, but for some reason...Yasmine better have a good reason for...

"Oh, I do. Just listen."
"Why should I? You tricked me into revealing the Inside, you nearly killed Delaina, and Cameo for that matter, and you infiltrated the safehouse!" I try very hard not to yell.
"Wait...I didn't try to kill Cameo." She looks bewildered, and totally unaware of my yelling tirade.
"Then why did we find her slashed up and Xanaxed out then?"

"Xanax? Aw man." Yasmine's ghostly facial features are twisted with worry. "I didn't think it would do that."

"Do what, Yasmine?" I ask. I hate being one step behind. I never am.

"Sit down, Vlad. This is going to take awhile."
I comply, against all reason.

She begins her tale.

"Okay. That day in the safehouse was because I wanted revenge. Not on you. On Delaina and Alex. You're their only common denominator. I wanted to hurt them. Badly. I couldn't blame you for ousting me. After all, I'd totally deceived you. But it wasn't their business. They'd made sure I'd lost everything on the Outside. And that wasn't fair. And Cameo had honestly just been a spare. Plus, I'd heard you liked her. Can't blame an ex for being curious, can you? Not like it matters now."
"What happened to you?" Curiosity is winning out over antagonism.

"Isn't it obvious?" she says, smiling with a sincerity I hadn't seen in her for over a year.

I finally take the time to look at her. She doesn't look overly different to me. But she did look familiar. Like I'd seen her before...or rather, I'd witness someone see her before...it finally clicks with me.

"You're the girl Cameo saw. Cutting up the paper."
"Yeah, that was me. I couldn't believe she didn't recognize me either. Or that you'd believe it too."
"I didn't have too much to go on anyway. You kicked me out."
"What?" She looks bewildered. "No I didn't."
"She said 'She kicked you out.'"
"Honestly, Vladdie, you're dealing with ghost people. You ever think there's more entities than meets the eye?" she says with a slightly patronizing air. Very Yasmine. "I didn't do it. I read her mind, yeah, but..."
"How did you read her mind anyway?"
"Can I finish a sentence, buddy?" she says, slightly miffed.
"I can read minds remember? You didn't do it. I believe you. Now how can you read minds?"

She takes a deep breath.

"Ghosts are naturally empowered. We can go through walls because were spirits, but we can also solidify, and walk around as people, which is how your girlfriend saw us. We can also get some other stuff tacked on, like mindreading and time freezing for me. It works best on other ghosts, which was why I was able to read Cameo so easily. You're pretty hard to read, because you're human. We were cutting up a message to send to New York. I was cutting up the Dear the Inside part. The other guy cut out Chicago. He didn't tell me because he knew I knew you guys while I was alive."
"Who was that guy, anyway? I remember him." I ask.
"He was the guy who tried to shoot Delaina. I told you, I really didn't like her. She used her powers to kill off that guy."
"Wow. Rock on, Delaina." I chuckle. "You loved her when we were dating. What changed?"
"Ask Delaina." She's trying to dismiss the subject. The hell with that.
"Why? I want to hear it from you."
"She said she'd kill me if I told. Oh wait, I'm already dead. What the hell can she do to me now? Okay, ill bite. Only don't get mad at her. She was confused at the time."
"Huh?" I'm totally lost. She begins her tale anyway.

"About six months ago, I ran into Delaina at a party. We'd always been friends, even before I'd met you. We were in the same Girl Scout squad, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember." Alex and I had always laughed at her about that.
"I didn't hold the whole me getting kicked out of the Outside thing against her at the time, just Alex. The whole thing was in the past, anyway, and I was working my way back in. So I was letting the whole thing go. So I ran into her, and we got to talking. I was telling her what I was up to, and she was telling me about her recent heartbreak and her rebound guy."

I think of Michael. Poor guy. I just hope he's as detached from her as she is from him. He'd always been sensitive.

"So we were talking, and we'd had too much to drink, and I invited her to hang out with some friends of mine that I'd been hanging out with post Outside. We'd ended up going to my friend Marissa's apartment that she shared with her boyfriend and Delaina and I were hanging out in the spare room. Everybody had gone to sleep and all, and she, well, both of us, started joking around about experimentation."

I already know where this is going. I even remember that morning. Delaina had come into the house with sunglasses, headphones, and a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. It wasn't the weather for scarves. I tried to read her mind as to why she didn't come home last night, and all I got were song lyrics. All in all, very clever of her. It was around the same time she'd come to me about feeling like she was missing something.

"Wow."
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking the whole time. Vlad, you never dated the girl why?"
I give her a withering look. Not what I wanted to know.
"Who started it?"
"She did, actually. I'd never been a questioner, really. I don't remember what happened, just that she'd initiated it, and I woke up wrapped in the girl's arms in a bed I didn't immediately recognize."
"So...what you're telling me is that my best childhood friend got further with my ex than I did?"

She laughed. "She got all the way, so I guess so. You wouldn't think a straight girl would know her way around, but she did. Afterward, she told me to forget about it and spurned me in public. A few days later she showed up at my house asking for another go round. Her rebound guy wanted a relationship and she didn't know how to handle it. I said no...at first. Delaina's not one to take no. Not that I objected, which was my fault. After, she completely ignored me. Again. That's when I began hating the girl. And she started hating me when I never called her back."

I'm reeling. I'm not mad at either of them, really. It was six months ago, I was over Yasmine, I never liked Delaina that way, and obviously, Delaina likes boys now, so she's not going to do it again. And Yasmine's dead, so there goes that. I'm just confused.

"I know it's a lot to process, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here to warn you. You have to protect your girlfriend. She's a lot more valuable than even Alex knows. And they will take her."

"Why her, Yasmine?" I ask.
"Its not so much Cameo, as the ghost inside her." She says this with a degree of worry as she stares at the frozen Cameo sitting on the sofa.

"What does that mean?"
"It means that although they want her too, the ghost is the one they want. And they can't take the ghost, or else they'll take her, and kablam goes the planet."

"Can you stay?"

(Alex to Vlad)

Alex looks panicked. I'm not even sure he realizes how panicked he looks. And he's freaking me out.

Cameo's shaking wasn't like she was having a seziure or anything. She was just cold. Icy cold, give that she was holding my hand and she'd been getting progressively colder. As she gradually stopped convulsing from the cold, she got colder.

"Is she....dying?" Alex asks me. The only thing he'd ever ask me advice on besides matters of the heart is matters of science. He'd done well in history, I'd always kick ass in science. You have dreams of going to medical school, naturally you're good at science.

"I'm not sure." And I really wasn't. She'd always been slightly colder than other people. Next to Delaina, she felt like a freezer most of the time. According to Alex, that's how half ghosts normally feel. Cold to the touch.

Suddenly, Cameo stops shaking. Alex and I look at each other, unsure of what to do.

That's when her eyes snap open.

She looks at us like she didn't know we were even here. Then something clicks in her head.

"Have you guys been watching me this whole time?"
Alex responds first. "No, but I came in to talk to Vlad and you started...convulsing, so I stayed to make sure you were okay."

She considers his explanation, then speaks.

"Alex, can I talk to Vlad for a second, privately?"
He exits.

Am I in trouble or something?

My expression must have given my thought away, because she knew what I was thinking.

"No, Vlad, you're not in trouble." She smiles as she says this. "You just have to understand that I can take care of myself, okay? I'm not used to being taken care of. I didn't have that kind of childhood where people were taking care of me."
"So because you were self sufficient as a kid, you don't want to let anybody in now?" I try to interpret her words. I don't think I'm doing the best job.

"No, its not that." She sits up to look at me. "My parents died when I was really young. Ashleigh was like seventeen when my uncle delivered me to her. She was the closest relation to me, and that's what their will said. The closest relation had to take care of me. Only the adults didn't want me, because...Ashleigh doesn't talk to most of them now, because of the things they said."

"What did they say?" Damn, she had a sucky childhood.
"They said...that there was something weird about me. Something that they couldn't put their finger on. They all thought...I can't believe they'd say that now, but before I believed them."
"What?" I ask. "Do you want t talk about this, because you don't..."
"I wouldn't have brought it up otherwise." She interrupts me. "Like I said, you guys can't protect me forever. They thought...that I'd killed my parents."

"What? Didn't they die in a car accident?"
"No. They did, but they didn't. They said my mother nearly died on the delivery table giving birth to me. I was healthy, yeah, but I'd nearly killed her. She never was healthy after that. My dad suffered along with her. They were on their way to pick me up from ballet class when it happened. I'd been dropped off at the hospital to my aunt and uncle on my father's side, when they got the news. They said my mother would have made it if she had been healthy...had she not had a risky childbirth. Nobody ever looked at me the same, except Ashleigh. Her mom was still alive. Is still alive. She was in the middle of moving out when my uncle delivered me to her house about a month later. They said they couldn't handle me anymore. I heard them telling Ashleigh's mom that I'd been...taking the life out of everything I touched. Like plants, I'd touch them and they'd die. They got paranoid and abandoned me to Ashleigh, who wasn't even legal at the time. So she had to juggle college and raising me. I owe her the world. Everything."

"That's why I haven't been good with people taking care of me. I altered Ashleigh's life, and either killed or drove crazy everybody else. I can't do anything about them, but I can do something about you guys. Your lives shouldn't be altered because of me." She finished her speech.

So she has deep seated feelings, not of abandonment, but that she'll kill us. Okay. What else can I say?

"Cameo, listen to me. Just like you can take care of yourself, so can we. I can't speak for Alex, but I know you've already changed me. There's nothing that can be done about that. It's for the better, so don't worry about it. And I'll be sure to give you space. Everybody will. But we're dealing with invisible, malevolent, ghost people who want to use you as a weapon of mass destruction against all humanity. So we're going to end up being a little close."
"I understand that. But as much as I'm half ghost or something like that, I'm human too. I don't want to destroy the world. You guys know that. I know you do. You guys are going to have to trust me. If I feel anything that I shouldn't, or feel like there's one more ghost then there should be, I'll let you know, okay?"
"That sounds fair, I guess."

I'm unsure as what to do next. I decide to get up and leave her alone for a bit.

"Okay, so...I'm going to go now, give you some space, get some breakfast, talk to Alex. He's trying to get Delaina. It's kind of cute really."

She smiles as I get up to leave.

I'm almost to the door when...

"Vlad?"
I turn around. She's off her bed and walking toward me. She's maybe five steps away from me.

"Can you stay?" Without waiting for an answer, she closes the gap and hugs me like she'll never let go. I'm actually pretty surprised.

"I thought you wanted space?" I question her.
She squeezes me tighter than I ever thought her capable of. "Not right now. Not from you." She lets go, only to lead me to her room's sofa. We both sit down.

"I don't want you to leave." she says simply as she leans her head on my shoulder and grabs my hand. She's still cold, only not as cold as before. If anything, she's...getting warmer. Odd.

I look down at her. She's staring down at my hand in hers. I focus my head to look into hers.

She's happy. Unequivocably happy. It's not a feeling I've seen in her often. And I made her that happy. Yay.

That's when I look up. And get the bejesus scared of me by...

Yasmine?

Organized Mess

What the hell was that?

I've known the girl my entire life. When have I ever gotten tongue tied around here? Never.

I guess we started having trouble when Vlad, Delaina and I met Michael and Daniel. Michael was the only boy at my table at school, and it didn't take us long to start hanging out. I brought him home one day, and Vlad and Delaina, both in the second grade, were waiting for me, and they didn't expect me to bring a buddy. But I had, and there was nothing to be done about it. Delaina had always been very...fond...of Michael. I didn't know why that had bothered me even as a kid, but it did, enough that I stopped speaking to Michael as frequently. It didn't stop him from going out of his way to run into Vlad, and by association, Delaina, "accidentally" at every opportunity. So Vlad's okay with him, and Delaina grew up staring at him. Even when he got that asinine mohawk. Dyed it blue once. That was terrible. And Daniel had always been hard to understand. He wasn't Michael's brother, really, but they were about as close.

Now Delaina's with that bastard.

Vlad was always one for the analyzing, especially after that psychologist came to our junior high school. He tried attributing my jealousy (I had no problem admitting it) to mutual feelings for each other. I dismissed this theory, mainly because it involved Delaina liking me. To me, that's impossible.

I remember Vlad as a kid. He always hung with Delaina, to the point where kids in his grade gave him issues because he hung out with cooties (kids are idiots). But Delaina and I always had this weird understanding with each other. I used to be able to calm her down by just looking at her. She used to be able to know what I was thinking from the way I moved and walked. Vlad always teased us about being the third wheel. And he sort of was, considering he had the ability to see into our heads, so we never told him things. Delaina did, but I considered it a waste of time to tell him when he could just read my mind.

He was the third wheel, until that day when I felt a new psychic presence moving into our street three days before the moving van actually pulled up. I never actually got a real manifest power, all I had was a lie detector in my head and psychic and spiritual GPS. Sensitivity. Way to screw me over, psychic gods.

Anyway, Vlad was just finished healing over the blow Yasmine had given him a year ago, both to his heart and his head, considering she fooled him and disguised her mind to her purposes. It took him a while to realize he wouldn't fall for that again. We spent three days trying to figure out how we would get this new person, or thing, on our side. As it got closer, Vlad was even able to get a few thoughts from it, revealing it was both a person and female. We found out that she lived with her sister, had a biting wit, and liked retro technology. When the van actually pulled up, I got Vlad to go meet her with the time tested welcome basket. My idea really. Underneath the innocent enough exterior of fresh baked cookies and fruitcake (our mom likes making fruitcake) lay a small device that measures the psychic ability of whoever is holding it. Delaina and I watched from our window down the block, holding the tracker. It glowed with the sea green color that came up whenever Vlad held the basket, showing that he was above average when it came to ability. We watched him ring the doorbell, and watched the door open. We didn't see the exchange, but we knew from knowing Vlad for so long that he'd been floored by her. Absolutely floored. She looked pleased with what she saw as well, actually. We saw him hand the basket over, stare at each other, and saw him leave and her close the door. The basket's tracker nearly exploded scarlet as Vlad walked back through our doorway. She jumped off the measurements.

From then on, we knew Vlad was not only over Yasmine the blonde bitch, we knew he could love again, ten times as much.

If only I were as lucky.

I sit there for a few minutes, trying to forget my freezeup. What the hell did I do that for?

I decide to pay a visit to Vlad and ask once I notice that Delaina has left the room. I never saw him leave, he's gotta be in there. Hopefully he's decent, although this has to be true. He never even touched Yasmine, and he thought he loved her, and she was all but begging him to take her.

I walk to Delaina, Lily, Anna, and Cameo's room, trying to figure out how to ask my little brother for advice. God, I hate doing that. But he alone knows more than Delaina about matters of the heart. And I can't go to Delaina now, can I?

I open the door, to find Vlad, half asleep (he looked wide awake, but I know my brother), an arm around Cameo, who looks like she's been through hell. She's gripping Vlad like she doesn't want him to leave her, and she looks like she's sleeping fitfully, like she's having a really bad dream. I would be too, if I found out I had an extra soul buzzing around inside me.

I jump slightly when Cameo jerks violently in her sleep, semi waking up Vlad. He looks up at me. I smile. This is amusing.

"I wasn't sleeping." Vlad protests.
"Stop trying to lie to a lie detector, Vladdie. You never win."
"That's not fair, Alex." He looks like he's trying very hard not to move. I observe this. He knows I am.

"She's been through hell. And back. She came in here to get away from everyone. She called me in here too to ask me about what you saw a few days ago."
"Vlad, im your brother. I've had girlfriends. I know what I saw. You kissed her. Say that." I love when I irritate him.
He rolls his eyes. "Shut up."

"So what happened bro? The whole safehouse has been talking about you two. I want the story." I laugh at his previous reaction. And his next one. He blushes. I've never seen him blush in my life.
"We're...officially together. As of...ten minutes ago." He looks at the digital clock next to the sofa that they're sitting on.
"How do you feel? Its commitment, to say that you're with someone." I know him and his ability to get serious fast.
"Since when is ten minutes commitment, Alex?" he says. He looks down at the clearly troubled sleeping Cameo. "Not like it was hard or anything. I really like her, ghosts and all." He falls silent. "You think she's okay?"

"I don't know." I honestly didn't. Cameo was an anomaly in every sense.

We look down at her, concern building. She hadn't been sleeping well since she traveled back into the past the way she did. For her to be sleeping this deeply...something wasn't right.

Five seconds later, Vlad was nearly panicking. Damn him. I wanted him to think she was just having a bad dream. Watching someone go through something like this had to be hard. Especially when we had no idea what was in her head.

Suddenly, she starts shaking.

Talks Over Kitchen Knives and Empty Bottles of Xanax

Upon entering the kitchen, I fight the urge to burst into fits of uncontrollable rage.

He's always there! The one person I've wanted since I admitted a crush to Vlad when I was seven became a huge fucking softie. He's always caring and cautious and he thinks im unbearable breakable. Like he's always guarding me. And he had to undergo this lobotomy right before we started messing around.

Then there's Alex. The one guy, aside from Vlad, who has continually understood me straight from the cradle. Another lobotomy.

My mother once told me a story about when I was a baby, and she had just met to Jovanoviks. The first day, my mother couldn't get me to stop crying, and I kept on screaming through hers and their mother's get together. Vlad wasn't born yet, their mother was actually pregnant with him, but Alex was about two. He's probably getting annoyed with my wailing, so he goes into my nursery room, and knowing Alex, he was probably reading so he didn't want noise or anything (apparently he'd been really advanced as a kid), he probably wanted to knock my head off. But all he did was sit by my crib and start reading me his book. And apparently that was all I wanted, to hear someone's voice. When Vlad was born about a year later, and I was older and Alex was three, our mothers claimed, predicted even, that wed be stuck with each other. And so it has been. Alex the researching de facto leader who always knows something about everything, Vlad the slightly naïve mindreader, not to mention the only one of us who isn't afraid of love, and Delaina, the smartass telekinetic who challenges everything, even fate. The three of us have been good together for awhile.

Until Alex graduated high school. To everyone's surprise, he didn't jump on the college bandwagon. He traveled. Hitchhiked actually. We were freshman, Vlad and me, constantly worrying about Alex. We were always the more stable, you know? He hitched all the way to New York, and we hadn't heard from him for almost a year. He comes back to us, meets with us privately, and tells us of an organization he's brought back to Chicago. He had gotten money, which he'd acquired on his own, aside from his and Vlad's seemingly infinite trust funds, and bought a house on some sidestreet of inner city Chicago and started a new branch. Vlad and I took the door test first, as our abilities became running inside jokes for years. Vlad's mind surfing like we were the Internet, my scaring the shit out of them by making the room shake whenever they pissed me off, Alex and his knowing whenever we were lying, but never getting about what...

I hear footsteps. I immediately turn around.

It's Alex, standing by the stove.

"Hey, Delaina, are you okay?" he says, actually sounding concerned.
"I'm fine." I answer coldly. As if he wouldn't know I was lying. Stupid me.
"Delaina...come on. Talk to me." He sits me down at the little kitchen table in the corner and looks at me like he really wants to know.

Oh great. That's just what the world needs. Alex trying to get in tune with a woman's emotional needs. For some reason, I feel like he's taking romantic advice from Vlad. Also a novelty. The guy who knows everything, or likes to think so, is taking advice about matters of the heart from his little brother.

"I don't want to talk about it." That's the truth. I don't want to vent about boys to a guy who I've heard from the world has feelings for me. Awkward much?
"Okay, I guess." I have never heard him use the words I guess in my entire life. Since when has he ever been at a loss?

"Do you want to just...sit here then?" he asks, totally serious.
To my surprise, it isn't that bad of an idea.

We just sit there, for about five minutes, until the novelty of the silence dies out.

"So..." I trail off.

I don't know when it happened, but Alex and I just stopped knowing what to say to each other. Vlad has a theory that we don't know what to say because we have deep seated feelings for each other. And we hide these feelings, me in meaningless relationships with guys like Michael, he with practically a hermit existence, living inside books. I think his theory is pure bullshit, to be honest. Not that I haven't considered it from all angles.

"Yeah...so...I think I'm going to see what Vlad's up to..." I get up and head for my room, which was where I last saw him.

"Umm...Delaina?" he blurts out. Another first.
"Yeah?" I turn around.

He just looks at me, simply, like he just doesn't know what to say. Or worse, like he does know what to say, but can't say it. I've had those moments around him before.

He sighs. "Never mind."
"Okay, so I guess I'll see you later then." I walk out and head very quickly for my room and open my door, trying to get the confusedness out of my head.

I enter my room, where I am greeted with the most sickeningly adorable sight in the world.

Cameo's knocked out in Vlad's arms, and he's simply watching her sleep. Considering the way she looks and the hell she's been through for the past few days, finding out she's not quite human and all, she needs the sleep. And considering he's been watching her go through all this while he falls ever harder for a girl who feels more and more like a little sister, so does he.

"I resent that, Delaina." Vlad looks up at me and talks quietly so not to disturb Cameo.
"What did she call you in here for?" I ask, curious as to the answer.
"She wanted to get away from the questions really. She doesn't know quite how to handle all the pressure yet. And she...wanted to ask me what the kiss meant."
"No way. What did you say?" I ask. God, I become such a teenager sometimes. Wait, I am a teenager. Oh.
"She finally got tired, like not from an extensive zone out trip, so I decided to stay and make sure nothing happened. I just decided to lie down here. She's the one who got close."
"I'm pretty sure you're not complaining. But what did she say??" I ask, now very excited for the both of them.
"We're officially together, if we weren't really before. We decided that a few minutes before she fell asleep. I'm really worried about her, actually. The ghosts and all."

"She'll be fine, Vlad. I promise." I hope I can keep that promise. He was always the younger brother to me, the sibling figure Alex never was. Alex was always a different kind of figure for me.

"I hope so." He says this like he knows I know there's a chance I can't keep that promise, like it's just words. But he understands why. He always does.

"Now, Delaina, what happened with Alex?"

Here we go again.

Attempter Murder

Vlad, Alex and I head out for the computer room. The epicenter of the safehouse. It'll be a snap from there.

Alex was in the middle of a self aimed rant at himself.

"Okay, if she isn't in any of the rooms and she isn't here..." he trails off as he sees the tunnel entrance.

It's open for one thing. About fifteen pills are spilled by the entrance, and the cap's next to them. A clear film is all around the entrance and inside the tunnel itself, for another. Sitting casually on top of the film was a small but sharp knife.

"She didn't...she couldn't have..." Vlad's already entering the tunnel. Alex and I simply watch as he descends into the tunnel.

About two minutes later, we hear him.
"Oh my God." I hear Vlad say. "Guys, she's here. She looks okay...wait...oh no. Guys, I'm coming up."

Vlad emerges from the tunnel with a practically skeletal Cameo. Well, more skeletal than normal, anyway. He's carrying her over his shoulder.

She looks like herself, save for the small wound on her arm next to her left wrist, which explains the small knife covered in red. Her paper complexion looks tinged with green. That explains the spilled pills and the empty bottle in her hands. And she appears covered in the same filmy clear stuff.

"Cameo? Wake up, please? Please?" Vlad sounds almost tearful as he lays her on the floor, her head in his lap. "Please be okay. Please?"

Alex is just sitting there next to Vlad, doing nothing. Which isn't like him. He feels helpless. Which is really really not like him. He's at a loss. He's not just that guy who knows everything. He's that guy who sometimes feels insecure.

He's finally shown me that he can...

Cameo bolts right up, breathing really hard.

"Get out, get out get out of my head!" she starts screaming. By now the whole Inside is there, sitting around us. Lily and Anna are observing, Izzy's grabbing a glass of water for her, the five thirteen year olds are just watching, Michael's inching toward me, which I can't protest right now, as one of my best friends is currently incapacitated. Daniel is closing the tunnel door, and Serena and the pseudo triplets are running up to us.

Cameo's eyes finally register. She sees me first.

"Delaina...I'm sorry. I really am."
"For what?" I ask. She's the sick one here.
"Because I couldn't protect them..."
"Protect who?" Vlad interjects. Cameo turns around to look at him. And promptly bursts into tears.

This is nuts. I've never seen Cameo so much as sniffle, and now she's in hysterics?

Vlad simply hugs her and waits for her to calm down. Ah, the life of a guy who's falling in love with the enemy's weapon.
"What happened?" Alex asks, but not as forcefully.

She sniffles a couple of times, then speaks.

"They came for me. They came a few hours ago."
"What came?" I ask. Cameo's storytelling skills aren't the best.

"He came. He woke me up and tried to take me. I tried waking you up, but he said it was useless, because you were dead if I did." Cameo told Vlad this. "So I freak out and run for my life to Alex's room, because I knew he'd believe me."
"I would hav e believe you..." Vlad sounds a little indignant.
"But he told me if I called you, he'd kill you. That's why I ran to Alex. So I'm running down to Alex's room and I slam the door, but that didn't wake him. And then he comes through the locked door. And im trying to tell him to help but you couldn't see me, Alex..."

"Then he jumps inside my head and makes me walk toward the kitchen. He makes me grab a bottle of Xanax and a steak knife, and..."
"Alex, we have Xanax here?" I interject. What the fuck? That's retarded.
"It's Lindsay's. I never asked. Cameo, what happened?" Alex closes the subject.

Cameo looks like she'll never be able to talk about this again.
"He keeps telling me that you guys will never be safe unless I kill myself. If you guys have nothing to protect, then you guys can just stay here and be happy. Then he asked me if I wanted you guys to be happy. If I did, I would have done it by now."
Vlad looks shocked, and I probably look the same. So what if spirits keep attacking her. She's the closest thing I've had to a sister, and a guy that's been a brother to me is insanely in love with her. I see no reason for her to die.

"I tell him no, and he makes me take the knife and cut the living crap out of my arm...which I can't really feel..."
"Shit." Alex runs to the first aid kit, grabs some bandages, and has me help patch up her arm.
"...and I drop the knife, and he starts shrieking bloody murder in my head and tries to make me swallow the bottle. He manages to get me to knock back three or four before I drop the bottle. I try t get away, so I open the tunnel door and try to get away. Suddenly he just leaves, and I'm three feet away from a speeding A train. I run back in and I fall and after that I remember Vlad looking over me and thinking thank god he isn't dead.." She looks up at Vlad, who's hanging on to her like white on rice. "You're not dead, are you Vlad?"

I can't help but laugh at this. She laughs too. Thank God.

Alex jumps back into all knowing mode. Which sucks. Just when I was beginning to be drawn to him, he tries to be God again. Damn you, Alex. Damn you.

"Okay, everyone. Here's what we've got to do." Everyone's listening to him now, even Serena. Lives are at stake now.

"We've got to research. Find out everything you can about every kind of specter alive. Find out what their turnoffs are. Then execute any and all plans you have. Lily and Anna are the experts, so go to them if you have questions. I know about as much as you all do, so I'll be learning with you. You've got your cell phones and laptops, and even these computers. Gather all you can." They comply.

"Okay, Vlad, Delaina. She knows you two best, so I want you guys to watch her, whatever that means. For now, make sure she stays away from sharp objects and mind altering drugs."

"Hold on there, Alex." Cameo interjects. "I'm not a little girl. I don't need anybody watching me. If I need a moment, I need a moment. You don't get to decide if I can't guard myself or not. I can handle myself."

Wow. Somebody's grown a spine over the last few days. Or maybe she always had it.

Alex relents. Another first. He's just changing before my eyes, isn't he? "Okay, maybe not every moment of the day. But these...things...want you. Just you. So you're worth protecting. And please, if anything tells you that you have to die to keep us safe, don't listen to it. You've got friends here. They'd probably kill it before they let it kill you."

Cameo smiles. "Okay, that's fair." She looks up at Vlad, who looks tired but happier than he was ten minutes ago when he'd found her in the exit tunnel, delirious and bleeding. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

He nods yes. The two of them get up and head for our room. He shuts the door behind them.

Aw. How cute. Young love.

I'm snapped out of my reflective reverie by Michael, who's taken my hand. Damn you, Michael. Damn you. I very coldly rip my hand from his, get up, and stalk over to the kitchen. Overbearing friends with benefits give me the munchies.

Disappearance (or "What the hell?" part 2)

(change from Vlad to Delaina)

Two Days Later

My eyes snap open. How long was I out? The night was pretty long.

I'm not exactly sure anymore. 

I get out of bed, rubbing the tiredness from my eyes. That's when I feel what feels like a Post-It on my forehead. Upon removal, I find a message, written in Cameo's telltale, teeny, loopy handwriting.

"hey delaina. left to train with alex. god that sucks. hurts most of the time. tell vlad im with him, kay? thanks. cameo" She's the only person I know who could get a message that long on that tiny of a Post-It. I stick the note in my pocket.

"Delaina?" It's not Cameo, the Post-It has informed me of that. It's not a girl at all. I turn around.

"Where are you going?" It's Michael. On my bed. How did I not see him? How long did he stay for? Damn me and knocking out early. Damn him and his wanting to stay. 

"Outside. Wait, no... I've got to get ready. You, get out."

"What? Why?" He looks surprised. "You had no problems with me staying before. Why now?"

"Because you're invading my space. Now leave. I'll see you at Alex's meeting. Bye bye now." I pull him up, open my door, give him a kiss on the cheek, and push him out of my door. 

I feel like screaming. God, he's annoying. Michael's nice and all. But he's always there. Always calling. When we were all in Chicago it wasn't so bad. I had parents to answer to. A home to go home too. Homework. School. We could sneak off, have our fun....and we could then go home. Michael was the one who said we were dating. That was never it. It was just some harmless fun, is all. When I say harmless, however, I mean fun that won't get either of us pregnant. Hee.

"Damn, girl, you went THAT far?" 

Shit. Stupid Vlad. He's always here. Either he's bothering me or he's hanging with Cameo. Most of the time he does it at the same time. 

"No. Shut up."

"You can't fool a telepathic, you know... Anyway, have you seen Cameo?" He looks around the room a bit nervously before sitting down on a bean bag sofa across from the room's only TV.

I may not be a mind reader, but I certainly know what he's thinking. He's been doing that look around nervously bit since we were kids. How is a mindreader so easy to read?

"She went with Alex. He called her out early, so he could train her."

"Oh... okay..." he says. 

"It's okay. SO what if Alex doesn't let you help? You like her, she likes you. And why didn't you tell me she kissed you?"

He looks embarrassed. "Because... you'd laugh and think it was funny."

"I probably would." I say through laughter. "But you're my best friend, I love ya, and I've got no problem talking about significant others like we're schoolgirls."

I manage to get a smile out of him. "Okay, fine. I will talk to you about stuff like this. But you've got to do that with me too, alright? Now what was all that you were screaming in your head. He's annoying, he's always there.."

"Well, he is! He was sleeping in my bad right next to me, without my knowledge. It was downright retarded." I counter at him. "The Michael you grew up with is not the guy I mess around with."

"Well, Delaina, maybe, just maybe, you've gotta think about more than just messing around." Vlad says knowingly. Please. I'm older than him. Whatever.

"Alex is good for you. And you know it. " Vlad says even more knowingly.

"He doesn't understand my need to be unattached. All he understands is what he researches and reads and what he knows. I couldn't ever trust him with matters of the heart." I'm bordering on ranting. I best shut up now. 

"You'd be surprised." Vlad says simply. 

Suddenly, my door bangs open. Speak of the devil. It's Alex. And he does not look happy. Or even angry. he looks...eeriliy freaked out.

"Please tell me Cameo is sleeping soundly on her bed, completely unharmed... Please?" He climbs the ladder attached to my bed and checks. "Dammit."

"What the hell is going on, Alex?" I have never heard Vladimir Jovanovik sound so worried in my entire life. He really does like he, does he?

"Delaina, shut up." I hear him say. "Alex, what the hell?" Alex looks a cross between guilty and freaked out.

"What happened?" I break in, before Vlad kills him.

"I'm not exactly sure. I wake up from this dream I can't remember and all I hear through the darkness is this really thin, small, pale girl with a thin, small, pale voice saying 'Help me.' really tearfully over and over until it suddenly stops. But it doesn't stop cold, something stifles it. That's when this really low, gravelly, scary movie type voice breaks in and says 'Don't ever come after her,' and I hear a really loud thump noise and the little voice dies out. And then this light fills the whole room, then everything in the room turns on. Lights, TV, radio, everything. I turn everything off really quick because I have no idea what's going on. And nobody's there. No little voice, or big voice. I leave it alone in my head because it was really creepy. But I can't get it out of my head, so when I run into Izzy, I ask her if she's seen Cameo. I'd been worried about her since that whole thing, and she needs to get her brain in order in case the ghosts find her. But Izzy says she hasn't seen her in over a day. Nobody had. I went to EVERYONE. Even Michael, just now, when he came out of your room." Now he looks a bit uncomfortable. Damn. "He hasn't even seen her, and he was just in her room."

"I brought her to her room last night." Vlad says reflectively. "She looked fine. I stood here last night, actually. That's why I was already here, Delaina. But I didn't see Mikey come in. I think both of us were already sleeping."

"You stood here? And you tell em I'm going too fast?" I'm indignant at this news. He can't judge me!

"At least she knew I was here. She wanted me to stay, actually." He looks triumphant at his verbal sparring victory. Damn you, Vlad. Damn you. 

"Well, anyway, I checked everywhere. She doesn't know the code to the door, so she didn't leave. And the safehouse is small, so someone would have seen her. She's... vanished." Alex finishes.

"But wait... Didn't you call her out? She left a note on my pillow." I take the Post-It out of my pajamas pocket and hand it to him. 

Alex stares at it. "I was going to. But I had that dream, got freaked out, and abandoned the idea."

"If she's not sleeping, and she's not with you, or us...what the fuck happened to Cameo?" Vlad says worriedly. 

"No idea." I say. "We've got to let everybody know that she's gone."

Relationship Questions

Leaving me alone in the computer room with Cameo. She's not even really doing anything, she's just sleeping.

I wonder if she even knows what she is. If she knows exactly how much I like her. How much I worry about her, and how much more I'll worry now. Just because she can't go digging into my head and find out doesn't mean she doesn't know.

Just when I feel like I have to get up, she wakes up. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and looks around.

"Where'd everybody go?" she asks simply.
"They went to bed. Which you should do." With that, I stand up, help her t her feet, and walk with her to her room. She's still a little wobbly, but she'll be fine.

"What happened?"

Should I tell her? That she's a lot more that I though she was, and she could be the key to the salvation or demise of the human world? That I'm breaking the unspoken guy rule and falling for a girl before I know she's fallen for me? That I have dialogues with myself concerning her? Like this one?

Not now.

"Nothing, really. You just got a little sick after you went to look for the message, that's all." I feel a little sick now. I don't want to lie to her.

She studies me like she knows something's up.

"You're lying." She says this with finality in her voice. "Don't try to protect me, I can take care of myself, okay?" I nod yes. Better to agree with her.

We walk together in silence to her doorway. When we reach it, she doesn't go in. She just stands there, looking at me.

If I'm the mindreader, then why is she always there? How does she always know? Does she even know? What haven't I seen in her head yet?

I'm still kicking myself for that whole date bullcrap. Damn Delaina, and Alex, and the fucking ghost people, for screwing me over. We were this close...and I've never been one to initiate anything. Yasmine was always the dominant one, and I let her do it. Ack. I need another shot at that kiss...

"So..." she says, sounding about as embarrassed as I felt. "Thanks for the whole date thing. It was really sweet."
"No problem." I say. What else is there?
"Umm...okay, then...so I guess I'll go in now..."she says, but doesn't actually do it.
"Okay." I give her a hug. She needs one. She's been through a lot.

What the hell is scaring me about her?

Fuck it, I'm just gonna do it, and screw the consequences.

It's not the best kiss ever, but given that it's five thirty in the morning, it'll do. I'm not complaining, anyway.

About ten seconds later, against all instincts, I pull away. She needs sleep, why should I keep her?

She looks entirely shocked. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I decide not to question it as I walk down the hall back to the computer room, on my way to my room.

"Vlad?" I turn around.

She walks back toward me and gives me a really big hug. This is new. She's never been one for hugging. Two in one night?

"Sorry I've been so weird lately." She's been weird? I'm the one who effing kissed her.

That's when I get a surprise of my own.

This time, its almost surreal. And I'm not one for the word surreal. This is why she scares me sometimes. She puts her heart and soul...can I even say she has one? Or does she have an extra soul?...into everything she does. Including this kiss. If I wasn't sure how she felt about me before, even with the trips through her head, I am defanetly sure now.

I probably had the same look she did when she pulled back to look at me.

"Night." She walks back to her room, opens her door, waves at me, and shuts the door. Im still glued to the same spot.

When I make my way back to the computer room, Alex was waiting for me.

"Congrats, bro." He sounded almost surprised. "You got kissed." He says that like he's saying I got served. I hate that.

I try very hard not to smile, but my facial muscles can't quite pull it off.

Alex suddenly stops smiling. "You're emotionally involved."

Crap. Emotional involvement isn't good when you're falling for the thing you're supposed to protect.

"What?" I'm completely blindsided.
"You can't protect her objectively. This is bad for her security. Go out with her if you want, but you can't protect her when it comes down to it."
"Yes I can, if anything even more so. Because I care about her, I can protect her like no one else can." I hope this argument works.

It does. "Fine. But you probably can't help train her. I don't need you two making goo goo eyes while she's supposed to be learning to get through the muddle that is her brain."
"Fine." This I can live with. "Are you really pissed at me for getting emotionally involved, or pissed at yourself because you let your childhood friend have Delaina?"

That does it for him. He tackles me to the ground. "Shut up!" he says as he knocks me in the stomach, while I'm laughing at him.

I love when I set Alex loose. He's always this expository all knowing type of guy. I love it when he's just my asinine older brother.

He lets me up, then asks me the most random question. For Alex, anyway.

"How do I get her?"

This takes even me aback. "Well...I don't know. I don't like her in that way. How about showing her that sometimes, you don't know everything. That might help." I say. "Now get some sleep." With that, I head off to my room.

That's when I slip and fall, and end up skidding all the way to my door. What the hell?

I get up, trying not to hurt my throbbing left arm. What I see shocks me.

The entire floor of the hallway was covered in water. Crap, I'm soaked. This bites.

I carefully try to open my door, and feel a piece of paper on the doorknob. I detach it, and unfold it.

What I read scares the living shit out of me. I skid back over to Alex, tell him about the water and show him the note. He reads it aloud.

"To the Jovanovik brothers: We know who you are, we know what one of you leads, we know the other has our weapon. If you do not return our weapon to us, you will pay. And you'll still lose her."

A Little More Backstory

"What's a human specter?" A new voice joins the commotion. Alex turns around to see who it is.

It's Serena. The pyrokinetic eleven year old. With light brown hair, hellfire auburn eyes, and interesting freckles all over her face, she was by far the most conspicuous looking of all of us. Elementals tend to give themselves away that way in their genetic and general appearance. Mikey was saved on account of his kind not having any kind of appearance differentiation. Serena walks in, makes a teeny fireball in her hand so she could see, and sits down by Delaina. Serena always had an admiration for her.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Michael teased. They were cousins, and extremely close.
"Oh, hell no, you're not my dad. You guys wake me up, I want to know what's going on." Serena shuts us all up most of the time. Pyrokinetics.

With that, we all concede. Alex tells her what happened with the computers and the message and Cameo.

"But how do you know that's really what she saw?"
"Because I was reading her mind the whole time, and I saw everything until..." I really don't want to talk about it.

Serena doesn't make me. "You guys didn't answer my question. What's a human specter?"

"Nobody really knows. Most scientists that deal with it aren't really well known. The only guy who really dealt with it was a parapsychologist named Matthew Donnely, an American of Irish descent, but he died about ten years ago. I don't know much about him, except he had an astronomer for a wife who died with him." A new voice answered this.

It's Anna, forcefield twin number 2. She's the one out of them who is more skilled with forcefields. Lily was better at invisibility. Lily was shielding them while in the tracks, and Anna was creating a forcefield around everyone in case the train came and they couldn't make it.

Alex stares at her blankly. "How did you know that?"
"I read. People other than you know what they're talking about." She says this rather icily. Anna and Alex have a history. An interesting one, in fact. The twins and Alex went to elementary school together, and Alex tormented them until junior high, when he went off to high school. Anna held a little more of a grudge about it.

"I had to do conceptual parapsychology for a project awhile back, so I had to study his work. A human specter is a very rare type of ghost."

"So she's dead?" Delaina looked down at Cameo worriedly. Frankly, I'm worried too, but I'm trying not to wake her.
"Not quite." Lily said. She'd entered unnoticed after Anna. "Regular ghosts, or specters, are born when their bodies die, and their spirits then live on for an untold amount of time until the spirits themselves diminish."

"Half ghosts, on the other hand," Anna picked up seamlessly where Lily left off. "are extremely rare. It happens when a ghost knows it's about to diminish and die, and happens to be around where new life is occurring. In this case, this ghost was around a hospital. It picks the child it knows will give it the ability to live to the fullest. If she is a half specter, the ghost knew her future. He knew she was going to have special abilities, like retroclairvoyance, and the ghost has been making Cameo herself more powerful. Even if the ghost leaves her today, she'll still have her retroclairvoyance, and she may even pick up another ability. The ghost was simply taking what was already in her and making it better."

"The problem is." Lily took it from there. "is that for a very long time, this ghost has wanted to make itself known to her. The ghost is trying to unlock her spirit so it can fight the ghost war."

"The ghost war?" I don't buy it. I'm already a member of a secret psychic society with different chapters. One unbelievable thing at a time.

"Yeah, the ghost war. For millenia, ghosts have been trying to kill off humankind so that nobody will die. We've been killing off our earth that we even live on after we die, and the spirits don't like it. It sounds crazy, but we found books written thousands of years ago proving that every few hundred years, they have a ghost posses the body of an unsuspecting child that also happens to have special abilities of its own. It's like their version of a solar eclipse. Never really happens, and when it does, we're not alive to see it."

"They call the child after that a weapon. If Cameo is what Alex says she is, the ghosts are tracking her down right now. And they're ghosts. They don't give a shit about our security." Anna finished off. "She can either be the only person who can communicate with them and call them off, or the only person who can kick humanity's ass."

We all sit in silence, reeling from this information. So we're no longer a simple psychic society training each other and trying to fight for the ability to publicly show the world what we can do. Were a simple psychic society who's new job is to protect the ultimate ghost weapon from falling into the wrong hands.

Delaina's the first to speak. She normally is. "So...what are we gonna do?" She's moved over next to Michael by now, and he's very discreetly holding her hand. Do they have a death wish or what?

Alex looks visibly tense. "I'm not exactly sure. Either way, Delaina, you were right before. There's not much we can do, save for speculate. If I'm right, and we've stumbled onto a ghost prophesy, she's got to be trained. I haven't trained a retroclairvoyant before, so it'll be kind of hard."

"I'll help." I offer. Somehow I always find excuses to be around her.
"Okay, thanks, Vlad." Alex looks grateful. "You guys." Now he's reffering to Delaina, Serena, and the twins. "You guys get some sleep. You too, Daniel. Michael." He says his name with a degree of coldness I haven't heard from him since the storeroom. With that, he leaves quickly, but not before glancing sideways at Delaina.

Delaina looks worried. "Vlad, did you...?"
"No I didn't, but I should have, considering he knew about my pseudo date. I won't, okay?" I reassure her.
"Okay, thanks." She looks down from me to Cameo. "Vlad, take her to her room when she wakes up, she's gonna be tired as all hell. She's been there and back." She leaves, Michael at her heels.

"Okay, that's our cue to stay with Serena and Izzy tonight." Lily laughs. "I don't need to see Delaina and Michael in the throes."
"They didn't..?" I'm shocked.
"No, but they're not exactly slow and steady wins the race. Plus, Alex hates the idea. In Delaina's head, its more reason to do it, really. Deep down, she'd want to be with Alex, but she feels he doesn't understand her need to be unattached and have fun, so she rejects him." Anna says. Nice to have some backstory. With that, they leave.

Questioning

(Perspective switch from Cameo to Vlad)

Delaina takes Cameo by the hand and simply leads her back to their room. Neither say anything. This is probably good, considering Cameo hasn't actually zoned out in over two weeks. She needs the sleep. Damn Alex and his wanting answers. He knows she's invaluable to finding where things come from, but that didn't mean he had to use her.

Alex looks a cross between disappointed, confused, and pissed at me for losing her mind. Makes sense. I did lose her.

"What happened in there, Vlad?" he asks simply. Maybe it won't be so bad.
"I'm not sure. They saw her."
"Who's they?"
"This blonde girl and the guard from the storeroom. I lost Cameo when the girl saw her. They were cutting the message out. But I don't think those are the people who sent it. They just put the papers together. They work for whoever sent the message."
"This blonde girl." Michael asks. "Is that Yasmine?"
"No," I quash this right away. "It looked a hell of a lot like her though. Uncanny. But it wasn't her."

"Why the hell did she go to Egypt?" Daniel asked me. Egypt is pretty random, even for Cameo. But we don't know everything about her. All I know about her is that she's been to Egypt, her parents were astronomers before they died, and that she's the single prettiest and most interesting girl I'd ever known. I try not to smile as I think of an answer that won't make Danny and Mikey laugh at me. They like to do that, considering they grew up with me and Alex. Neighbors on either side.

"I'm not exactly sure. She'd been there before, so she probably linked the origin of the paper to the invention, a la papyrus, which is Egyptian." Clever of her.

"When did her mind kick you out?" Alex broke in.
"She didn't. She didn't mind me there." I answer.
"How do you know that?" Michael asked. " I think I'd mind if the person I liked knew my every thought." Crap. Why does Michael always know everything. Damn you, Delaina. I'm so gonna teach her something about keeping her mouth shut later. I love her and her blabbermouth though.
"She said a few days ago that she didn't care if I knew what was in her head as long as I never told anyone. She's a closed book anyway, so I don't know very much about her. Delaina probably knows more about her than I do."

"I do." I hear Delaina say. "But you know enough for now. All you should know is that she really likes you." She smiles. "She thinks you guys think she kicked you out. You know she didn't right?" I smile inwardly. She does care.

Alex interrupts her. "Vlad, don't worry about if she likes you or not, worry about what kicked you out of her head. If she didn't, what or who did?"

I shrug. Its all I can do.
"Well, guys, there's nothing we can do tonight, we should all try to get some..." Delaina's interrupted by the sound of someone entering the computer room quietly.

It's Cameo, and she does not look like she'll be able to sleep ever again.

"She was inside my head. Telling me they weren't who they said they were. She said I wasn't what they said I was. That I had to help them, or..." She suddenly stops talking and looks into my eyes.

Now, I've stared helplessly at this girl nonstop for two weeks. Id know if anything about her was different. This looked like the same Cameo, on the surface. But...her eyes were different. They were, if even possible, an even lighter blue than usual, her hair was a sick black, even more so, and she was paler than usual. She looked ghostlike. Not scary, but still.

"I didn't kick you out, Vlad." She says this like she's sorry I left.
"I know." What else can I say?

She walks toward me with a fragileness I'd never seen in her before and gives me a hug. She's never hugged me before.

"She kicked you out. She jumped inside my head and forced you out. She's gonna say I did it..." at this point, she's too tired to even talk, and she drops off on my shoulder.

I'm not even given the time to enjoy the fact that she trusts me enough to fall asleep on me before Alex has another epiphany.

"This isn't good. If Delaina and Vlad's earlier observations are correct, Cameo's never gotten tired from a history trip before. Which means either she hasn't gotten any sleep..." here he shoots me a dirty look. Crap. He knows about my little date scheme. Damn Delaina and Mikey to hell. If they're not careful, I'll tell Alex they've been dating for nearly a month. Blowing up my spot like that.

"...or she's not a retroclairvoyant." With that, he looks down at her like he's never seen her before.

"If she's not a whatever word that was that you said, then what the hell is she?" Delaina asks. She looks confused. Cameo was her friend, despite how oddly she'd reacted to my bringing her. She always hated when her friends were under a microscope, and she was sure Cameo didn't like it either, her being all quiet and all.

Alex's expression is a cross between worried and excited.

"I've only read about this, and that was from a very questionable source." He says this worriedly, then goes back to excited when he looks back up at us from the exhausted Cameo. "Guys, I think we've stumbled upon a human specter."

Answers, Questions, and a Trip to Egypt

"What? You don't think I..." I'm freaking out. How am I going to figure this out?

"Do what your abilities have always done. Delve into the history of the paper, see who's in the past of this paper. Starting tomorrow, or later today," he amends after seeing 4:16 on the digital clock on the ceiling above the exit door, the one we entered through. "...we'll start training you. Everybody else has some form of control over what they can do. You don't, and now that you know what it is, you do your best to stay away from it. The key isn't avoidng the power, it's unlocking it, and knowing where the key is." Alex finishes.

"Okay...wait...Alex, I can't communicate while zoning. If I could, doing it would be easy. I'd have the information, then lose it once I snap back."

"Well, it's a good thing you've befriended a mindreader then, idnt it?" Alex smiles. Vlad looks slightly uncomfortable. Going into my head to find out if I liked him was one thing, trying to interpret my muddled thoughts with nothing but the thinker to guide him was quite another. Very bad things could happen if he got lost in there. I would know. I think those thoughts.

Vlad turnsb to look at me. "Cameo, I think you can help them. You're the only one who's going to know who's sent this message. Don't worry about me. I can get into your complicated head every day if I wanted to. I don't, but still. If I can get through there and out without a problem, I think I can do it when its a little cloudy." He says all this with a smile and confidence in bhis voice.

"Are you sure?" I say. Im not letting him risk this unless he's sure.
"Cameo, you're not even sure what will happen. Don't worry about it. Just worry about getting the information. It'll be my job to make sense of it. Okay?"

Well, if they're all so sure. "Okay, I'll do it. What do I have to do?"

Alex takes it from here. "Okay. You take the paper in both of your hands. Concentrate on it. Vlad, keep a close eye on her thoughts, and if you can, steer her the right way. I've got a feeling the Outside is behind this. Very behind this. So if she sees Yasmine touch any bit of that paper, you know she's involved. Seeing into the past is hard to recreate some memories, but she's one of the best I've seen. She can do it, provided she's not confused too early."

Delaina breaks in. "Alex, what if its just her paper, and she's not involved?"
Alex sighs. "Then we're in deep shit. At least the Outside isn't a mystery. Pray that these answers don't raise more questions."

She sits back next to Michael, who's got an arm around her. Alex shoots him a dirty look while Delaina checks on the third computer, which was the last to adjust to our group. He shrugs. Two guys, fighting over Delaina. This should be interesting.

But that isn't my concern. My concern is finding the history of this message...okay...where to start? How abut the first letter? Okay, the first letter...D...

While thinking about this, I feel myself falling out of existence...wait...I'm not zoning out...am I?

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I feel like I'm falling. But I'm not...I'm floating...wow...so this is what happens when a mindreader guides you through your own thoughts? Wow...ow. I fall with a thud onto a hardwood floor. Okay, so no out of body experience. Okay, that's fine. I can still use my body.

I don't feel anything upon my fall. All I can feel is paper in my hands...what did I need paper for? No pen? Oh right, the message. I've got to interpret a message for Alex.

I'm sucked backward...onto an egyptian papyrus field? Okay, waaay too far back...although Egypt is rather nice this time of year. I remember my father taking me before he died to see the pyramids...before that drunk made ghosts out of my parents.

Suddently I hear garbled voices, like I'm underwater. The voices sound familiar.

"She's in Egypt! Wow, its nice this time of year...oh wow,,,her parents are both dead. Explains why she lives with her sister...she knows we're listening." The voice directs to me. "Cameo, you went way too far back. Go forward, to maybe two days ago, or yesterday."

It's Vlad. He's the mindreader. I guess forward, away!

The forward happens slow, then speeds up as my head passes through the millenia.

I skid to a stop when I see the D. The very same D that's in my hands....

Is in the hands of a blonde girl. If that's not Yasmine...the girl lifts her head.

It's not Yasmine. It's just a girl who looks a LOT like her. Interesting...but there's something really off about her. Even more so than Yasmine. This girl seemed...soulless...Creepy.

I watch her cut out the paper into the Dear the Inside, Chicago and pass it along to a guy who held out his hand for it.

It's the guard whose bullet meant for Delaina killed him instead...wait...this was yesterday. That guy died two weeks ago. Something doesn't make sense. He didn't seem as creepy as the soulless Yasmine, but he's walking around. He's supposed to be dead.

Both of them, paper in both of their hands, stop working. They turn their heads in my direction. Look into my eyes.

They know I'm here. They can see me.

Crap. This has never happened before. I've walked in on people in my head doing al kinds of things, and they've never seen me. This is not good.

The disembodied voice that sounds like Vlad is relaying this to Alex, Delaina, Michael, and Daniel. They're all debating on how to get me out.

Luckily, they don't seem to hear or see them. It's just me.

"Who are you?" the girl asks me. "How did you get in here?"

"I don't know." I answer. I really don't know, do I?
"Andrew, call them." The girl sounds panicked.
"I can't. They don't allow calls to them remember? They don't want triangulation."
"They'll risk it once they hear this."

"Hear what?" I ask.

The girl turns to look at me, like "why the hell are you asking questions when you're the one who just popped in?"

"Now that's not entirely fair is it?" she says in a really sweet tone. Too sweet. Maybe this is Yasmine after all.

She tries to quickly incapacitate me by knocking me out, but I just as quickly get out of the way. Oh hell no. She doesn't even know me.

"Yes, I do." I hear her say.

Whoa. She can read minds too.

*
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***
****
*****
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*

I feel myself fall to the floor, banging my head on the way down.

I don't fall to the floor, though. Alex grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet.

"Cameo. What did you see? You've gotta talk to me."

Daniel grabs a chair for me to sit down. I slowly begin to settle back into my body again.

Vlad kneels down to look at me in the eyes. "Cameo. You've got to tell us. I lost you at about the time they saw you. Something derailed me. Do you remember anything after that?"

I can't say anything. Nothing coherent anyway. I clear my throat, trying to get the words out.

Why can't I just say it? They have to know what I saw.

I open my mouth, expecting to hear myself say that they have a boss, they've got technology, that those were the lackeys who had no idea what they were cutting out, that the girl read my mind, then I got pulled back.

What I actually say is...

"They're all dead."

"We've been breached."

Five minutes later, I'm following Delaina through the hallway, followed with Vlad behind me.

I'm annoyed. I can tell he is too. Delaina better have a good reason for...

She leads us into the computer room, where it is pandemonium all around. Five of the computers are smoking at the top, and the biggest one keeps spewing paper. Michael and the jock are racing from computer to computer, checking the screens. Michael's staring at the screen, and the jock is opening them up. So Michael is checking for imbalances within the computer, and the jock is fixing them. Nice teamwork. Ill be sure to remember this at an office meeting, if I ever have the displeasu
re of working in an office.
Alex is sitting at the biggest computer like thing, staring at the papers it's spewing out. The papers are like nothing I've ever seen before. They're different colors, all stitched together, and they're cut to say the message. It's a really long message, as paper pieces are sitting all around his chair on the floor. His head is in his hands, contemplating what's going to happen next.

"Alex, what's going on? Delaina got us just now, what happened?" Vlad sounded concerned, but I could hear the exasperated undertone in his voice. He was looking forward to the end of the date as much as I had been.

He looks up at us like we've just saved his life. "Thank God, you guys are here. I need your help. Both of you."

"Okay, guys. There's something I have to tell you about this place. It isn't ours. That's because the Inside isn't just ours. This is New York's safehouse, because the storeroom where we were held hostage by Yasmine and her people was our safehouse. She was interrogating Cameo right above the entrance. Three steps to the left, and that was it. I had to call the New York's Inside leader, a telekinetic named Lindsay. An ex of mine, actually. Didn't end well. She almost didn't help me until I told her of our situation. Anyway, she let us stay here for as long as we needed, unless her people needed the place. They don't. But there's never a guarantee. I think she's funding a spare safehouse for her group. Of course, it's gotta be better than the one she gave us, because she always has to be the best. Because she's better at everything..."

"Alex, stop ranting." Vlad said, his annoyance getting slightly more audible. "Now, what happened? Why is the safehouse going haywire?"

"Those five are going haywire because they don't recognize our group. Those computers are personalized to every Inside faction, and they know we're not Lindsay's group. Michael and Daniel are fixing the computers. Michael's locating the hijinks, and Daniel's going in and fixing them. He's an elemental too, but a different kind. He handles technology. Anything that makes life easier, either he can control it or fix it. They work together for a lot of stuff. "

"The problem with this computer is they can't fix it because it isn't broken. It keeps spewing out paper that's cut out to spell a...."

The paper stops coming out. The message has been delivered.

"...message."

We take all the paper and lay it out across the floor. Michael and Delaina and Daniel help. Delaina lifts the paper into the air and arranges it so it can be read clearly before we place it down.

Vlad starts reading aloud.

"Dear The Inside, Chicago,You have something we want, and we are going to take it from you. And we know you are here. We don't know where this place is yet, but we know you are here. We are going to find this place. And we will make you pay. Sincerly, like were going to tell you?. P.S, or are we?"

Delaina looks worried, Michael and Daniel look a bit spooked, Alex looks worried, Vlad looks like he's seen a ghost. Hell, he nearly kissed a ghost today. Heh.

Michael breaks the silence, while moving a bit closer to Delaina. "So what does this mean? How do they know we're here?"

"We have a breach. Someone is leaking information to them. I knew they took us to the storeroom for a reason. I just knew it." Alex says, with no hint of himself in his voice.

I can't handle the suspense anymore. "Alex. Delaina said you needed my help. All the computers are fixed, and you have your message. What do you need me for?"

He looks at me, with an expression between doubt and faith.

"You're going to find out how they found us, what they want, and who they are."

The "Date"

I climb off my bed, down the ladder and onto the floor. Where was he taking me at...I look at the clock....one in the morning? When did he get sleep? He seems altogether peppy for this hour.

"I drink a lot of Red Bull." I heard him say. Wow, one can't go on a thought montage alone anymore huh? Not that that's a bad thing. A relationship where someone can actually say "I can read your mind." and it actually be true is something that one doesn't normally pass up.

We exit the room, making sure we don't wake Delaina or the twins. They can all sleep through about anything, they've proven that much. As I leave, I pass the mirror. So that's what I look like at one in the morning. I know how to prepare for anything, don't I?

He leads me down the hall, through the computer room, to the hallway entrance next to my hallway. 

"This is the general living area. Most people simply hang in their rooms, so nobody uses it really." Vlad is explaining as he approached a door on the right and opens it. He politely ushers me inside and shuts the door after himself. 

Once the lights come on, I am rendered totally speechless. How does a safehouse that's practically a bunker have a room like this?

There was the giant TV on the wall on the opposite side, and the massive DVD library on either side. The walls on either side of the door were covered in shelves, filled to the brim with books, save for a mini fridge close to the center of the room. The center of the room had a sofa, a coffee table with a pair of drinks on it and a bucket of popcorn, a bunch of mismatched pillows scattered all over the floor, and more chairs all over the room. All in all, very nice, very pretty, and very IKEA. Does the Inside have some sort of deal with IKEA or something? 

"Actually, we do. We get half off. They think the Inside is a teen guidance center. Funny, right? When Alex told me I barely believed it." Vlad smiles at the thought. "Sit."he says. I think better to ask why. 

He goes over to the DVD library on the left. 

"Okay. Cameo, yesterday I told you I wanted a date with you, which you very graciously accepted. Then we had to go into hiding, which blew that popsicle stand. Personally, I would have risked it and gotten there late. But Alex told me to go on early. Which gave me time to figure out what I was going to do about our situation."

He sits down next to me. I probably look totally bewildered.

"When I say I like someone and I'm going to take them out, I normally mean it. With you, more so. And I said we were going to the movies. Welcome to the Safehouse Multiplex, we have an unlimited amount of movies to pick from." he says this is a really announcer kind of voice. He stands up and goes back over to the shelves. He goes the randomization route and closes his eyes and selects a DVD.

He opens his eyes. "Okay, I've never heard of this movie. But it looks good. Musicals and all." He shows it to me. 

"It is a good movie." I say. It really is. Across the Universe. The joy of trippy movies and good music all in one movie. 

He pops it in the DVD player and sits down next to me, doing that sick date arm around the girl thing. It always annoyed me till now. 

~*~*~*~*~

Two and a half hours later, a new Across the Universe fan is born. I love it. 

"That was so cool! IT got all tie dye and Bono was in it! Bono!" He'd been going on like this for a good ten minutes before he stopped.

"Glad you liked it." I say. What can I say? He made sure he got his date. I respect that.

We sit there in silence. I'm starting to think in my head what's he going to do now. What is he going to do now. He's just sitting there, looking at me. It's not nerve wracking, it's just looking. Doesn't bother me much. 

He clears his throat. "Um...so did you have fun?"

"Yeah. Thanks for going through all the trouble."

"It was none, really...I had fun." Silence again. 

I can feel him leaning in. This is a very new development. New York guys only saw me as friends. THey couldn't handle the fact that sometimes I don't register what people say. It took uprooting to find someone who liked me as more than that.

"I do like you as more than a friend."I hear him say simply. He's moving closer to me when we both hear the door slam open. 

It's Delaina.

"Cameo. Alex needs your help."

The Safehouse

We all jumped onto the tracks. First the guy with the mohawk, then Alex, then the little girl, then Delaina and me, then the hippie, followed by the rest. In last were the Poltergiest twins, who I was going to assume were Lily and Anna. Michael I will safe assume is the mohawk guy who jumped in first. You don't jump in unless you've got something that can save the rest.

Alex led us headlong into the tunnel. The nasty, rat infested tunnel. After this, I'm storming MTA. This is just gross. New York, futuristic? I think not.

We all watched as Alex felt along the walls, trying not to puke. Delaina looked sicker than most of the rest.

"Cameo? You actually miss this city?" she says, her face slightly green.
"Yeah, Tunnel diving doesn't normally happen. From a distance, this isn't so bad. You go in, then it blows. Hopefully well get out of here soon. We have to. Alex, did you find it?" I ask. At this point, im dying of train track grossness.

"I'll find it. Wait, what's this? Wait, no, that's not it."

"Alex, hurry. I see lights really far away, and I can't persuade the rats to stay away any longer. And one of them's got rabies. Its harder to control him, so hurry." The hippie looks totally panicked.

"Easy, Izzy. I think I found it. Yep, that's it." A smile creeps across Alex's face as he removes some train grime off of a computerized security system...computerized security system?

"Welcome to The Safehouse, New York Location. If you are here, then you are in extreme danger. Please enter your password." The smal slab of metal was actually quite polite. Impressive. Alex begins typing away at the tiny number pad numbers we can't see.

"Alex, the train's pulling into the station." Izzy looks worried. "Thirty seconds."

"We don't need it. I got it." Alex said as the wall next to the shiny piece of metal, revealing a skinny tunnel. He ushers us all inside as the C careens past, oblivious to our prescense.

We walk in single file, as not to crowd each other, in silence. Alex borrows a lighter from Michael the electricity guy and lights the way ahead.

So Michael is the mohawk guy Delaina's always staring at, and he can manipulate electricity. Izzy's the hippie, and she can talk to animals. Lily and Anna can become invisible and create forcefields and make other people invisible. And I can just see into the past? God, I feel cheated by the "spiritually sensitive" gods. Delaina can move things with her mind, and Vlad can read minds. Lucky bastards. I want an ability that doesn't render me cut off from the world because I'm going history diving.

Alex interrupts my thoughts by announcing that we've arrived at the safehouse. Finally. This tunnel goes on forever.

He seems to disappear as he exits the tunnel through a hole in the floor covered by an air vent. His hand reenters, to pull Delaina out, then me. He then assists everyone else out of the tunnel while Delaina and I take a look around.

The Safehouse looks like a giant computer room, but they're computers I've never seen the like of before. Huge, advanced looking things. This appears to be the center of the safehouse, as four hallways on all four sides of the circular room seem to lead elsewhere and all around. This is definetely the most important room though, as its the center and the first. The floor is the way out.

Alex, now done with being the leader and helping everyone out, now becomes the customary big brother and searches for his little brother.

"Vlad?" he yells. "You there?"

That's when another rapid acting, disappearing door opens, letting a tall, skinny figure through. He's carrying about four boxes of pizza and a few soda bottles and looking at us like he can't even register that were here.

Its Vlad.

"Alex, you did know there was a door on 43rd right? The Port Authority entrance is an exit, you know that right?"

Alex looks rmbarrased. "I forgot procedure. We've never needed this place before."
"Fair enough. You got everyone?"

Alex smiles. "Yeah." He nodded at me. "Even people who've only just came."

The expression on his face completely changed when he saw me. Delaina is trying very hard not to burst into giggles as she moves out of Vlad's way as he rushes to hug me. I've never been hugged hello before. Its a nice feeling.

"You okay?" he asks me. I nod yes. He simplylooks at me.

"I really am okay." I assure him.
"I believe you." he says. "Im just really happy to see you. Im really sorry about today. I really did mean to..."

"I understand. We had to get out of Chicago. If anything, thank you. I'm home." I smile. I still can't believe I'm home.

He looks relieved. What, like he thinks I'd stay mad at him?

Alex breaks up the reunion by showing us all to our respective rooms. I'm bunking with Delaina, Lily, and Anna in near summer camp kind of rooms. Hopefully they're not as creepy as I thought. The girl who resembled two of the boys was with Izzy, the fire eyed girl, and both girls of that set of five. Michael was rooming with all three of the boys in the set of five. Vlas was bunking with Alex on the other side. Being the leader's brother seems to have its perks.

I follow Delaina to our room, where I am greeted, very surprisingly, with clothes. Looks like Ashleigh packed for me. I've got to thank her when I get home. While im telling her about all this.

#*#*#*#*#

Later that night, we all settled down to sleep. Lily and Anna are actually really sweet people. They just look creepy. I actually think they're funny. They thought I looked creepy. The girl version of the kid from the Omen, they said. Or the Sixth Sense. Either way, apparently I'm creepy looking. Delaina laughed and laughed, until we called her out on liking Michael. She didn't deny it. Aww, how cute. Alex must hate that guy. His attraction to her is apparent, which Lily and Anna totally agree with. After this, we said our goodnights.

No sooner had I closed my eyes did I feel tapping on my shoulder...wait...I'm on the top bunk...who the hell is tapping me?

I turn over to find a familiar face looking at me. The face has a familiar voice. It's Vlad.

"Hey. Come on, there's something I've got to show you."

Something You Should Never Try At Home

With that, the limo door opens. I expect to see my front yard, but I am quite surprised, along with Delaina and everybody else, to see that we're very far away from my house. We all slowly exit the vehicle.

"Alex?" Delaina asks.
"Yeah?" Alex turns from his conversation with the tall jock guy and answers her.
"Where are we?"
He walks toward her after excusing himself from the last conversation.
"We had to go to the safehouse. We're about five states over."

It clicks with me. "Wait, so we're in what state now?"
Alex stares us down. "We're in New York. Manhattan to be exact. Im making that judgement because we're standing across the street from that big pointy tall building on" here he looks at a street sign that's about half the block down. "Its a thirty something street."

I fight the urge to start screaming. I'm home. I'm back in the city where I've lived all my life. Yay!

Once everybody gets out of the limo, it simply drives away, then zooms effortlessly into oblivion.

"Okay, so where exactly is the safehouse?" the mohawk guy asks.
Alex smiles.

"Where no one would expect it." With that, he walks toward the bright lights on 42nd Street. Times Square.

~*~*~*~*~*~

We're all standing in front of the Port Authority train station, wondering where the hell we're all going, while Alex is scanning the area around, making sure nobody ws looking too closely at them.

"Okay, we're good, for now. Get in." he says simply, and we all comply. He leads us down the escalator to the MetroCard kiosks, where he takes out a hundred dollar bill, sticks it in the machine, and waits for a shiny new MetroCard to pop out.

"What's that card for?" Delaina asks. CLearly, she's never taken a train in New York before. I knew how to take these since I was about nine, so this is no surprise for me.

"It's a MetroCard. You pay some money, swipe it through, and you get to take whatever train until you exit whatever station you come out of. ALex is trying to get us all through the station, meanig that it's somewhere else in the city."

"I never said it was somewhere else." Alex said. "Now, walk through, I swiped you in."

I walk through, follwed by Delaina, and Alex after her. Everybody else had already gone through. Alex then leads us through the station, down the stairs to the actual terminal. The A was just leaving the station.

"Alex, what stop do we need?" I ask. A very valid question, in my opinion. Trains go places.

He smiles wickedly.

"We don't need a stop." he says. Everybody looks more than a little confused. He acknowledges this, but doesnt care.

"Okay, guys, a train's going to come in five minutes. We've gotta get into the tracks and get to the tunnel, and get to a door in the middle of the wall. It's toward this stop, which is why I picked this one. We've got about four minutes, so jump."

We're all looking at him like he's gone crazy. He actually has this time.

"Guys, trust me. WE've got to get to the safehouse, and it's here, and the longer you guys stand here, the less time we hav to get to the safehouse. So please, get in. Nobody's going to notice. I've got Lily and Anna rendering us all invisible, so nobody's going to see. And I've got Michael handling the electricity issue. So it'll be okay as long as you guys get down into the tracks right now, before our three minutes are up."

It's crazy, but we all see the sense in it. So wedo something that I was always warned to never ever do ever. We jump into the tracks and head straight into the tunnels.

Hiding

Delaina mind-opens the door. I've been hanging with psychics so much, I have names for things they do with their powers.

But its not Vlad at the door. Its Alex.
Without saying hello, Alexgrabs both me and Delaina by our wrists and leads us out of the door.

"We have to leave. Now."

"What's going on?" Delaina actually looks a bit freaked out.
"Cameo, I told your sister you're coming with us indefinately...and I told her about the Inside. I had to. It was the only way she'd let you come."

So Ashleigh knows. Great.

Alex leads us out of the house, giving me time to lock the door before taking us full speed to a waiting limo...wait, that's a limo?

"So yeah, Alex, the trust fund hadn't kicked in yet, right?" Delaina actually sounded amused. "Whose money bought this limo?"
"Mine, actually. But Vlad's got the driver." Alex laughed as he opened the door and let us inside.

Inside the car sat the rest of the Inside that I hadn't met before. The guy with the mohawk and the little girl with the hellfire eyes that I'd noticed two weeks ago in the room behind the door were sitting together, toward the front of the limo, watching what I believed to be My Life As A Teenage Robot.

I also got a good look at everybody else I'd missed. I couldn't believe I had even missed them in the first place.

Next to the minibar sat a pair of mirror image twin girls, about a year older than me, with platinum blonde hair that actuaally looked natural, and dark blue eyes. All in all, the Poltergiest child, all grown up. They're here. Heh.

Next to the creepy preppy twins was an insanely tall jock type guy with brown hair and brown eyes, that seemed even taller than the mohawk guy. He appeared to be staring into his Blackberry of unknown type. Techies.

In the back sofa, staring into a blaring TV screen, sat five kids, all about thirteen, watching a cartoon I'd never heard of. Two girls, three boys, all with auburn hair, freckles, and green eyes. Even they get scattered melanin. Maybe I really am albino. Nah, it doesn't explain how I've got black hair and blue eyes. I wouldn't have any color regardless. Oh well, I may as well resign myself to the fact that I'll always look half dead.

Sitting next to the jock were two guys and a girl, with varying features and hair and eyes, but somehow looked eerily alike. Even scarier than the horror movie twins. They were playing on their DS's and trying to outrace each other, given the sounds coming from the game. The driver I couldn't really see, but judging from the way he was sitting impatiently, I could tell he wasn't happy.

Alex makes room for Delaina next to him, and the twins make space for me in the corner, next to a girl I hadn't seen. She hada really hippeie look, with practically burgundy, slightly curly hair, and hypnotic looking eyes, that were a bright violet color, and really hippie clothes. Her hippie attitude was further confirmed when she gave me a peace sign and a smile. I returned the smile. She seems nice.

Alex signals everyone to pay attention to him after he closes the door behind me after I sit down. They comply.

"Okay, everyone. You all remember Cameo?"
They all nod yes. He continues.

"Well, she's gonna help us get out of this mess. She may have no idea what she's doing right now, but she will. And that's the important thing."

"Actually," Delaina breaks in. Apparently she's the only one who can really backtalk him. I've never seen the rest of the Inside do it. "The important thing is where the hell we're all going. So, where the hell are we all going?"

He looks at her like she's grown a third nose. "I figured you of all people would know."

I notice an absence in the car. "Um, Alex?"

"Vlad's okay. He got the alert before I did and told me not to worry about him, because he'd get there on his own. There's only room for about eighteen people. One of you guys wouldn't have fit. He texted me before I rang your bell and told me he'd gotten there safe. He really wants to see you safe, too, so its a good thing.."

"And to answer Delaina's question." He directs this to everyone.

"We're going to the safehouse."

Delaina's Slight Outburst

The next day...

Delaina's at my house, helping me pick out something to wear for this random date thing. I'm not sure if it is a date, really. It's an outing. That's what it is. I'm expecting nothing. I've dealt with nice guys who turn out to be idiots, and assholes. I'm not going to expect anything of this.

Delaina tosses me a light blue shirt. I toss it back, because I don't really like frills. She then tosses it back to me.

"It matches your eyes."

"It's frilly." With that, I throw it back.

"He's got a weird thing with blue." The frilly shirt is back in my hands.

"I got this from my cataract addled aunt who thought this was nice." I throw it back.

"Wel, apparently she can still see, because this is nice. It's the exact same color as your eyes, and this would only look nice on you, so you are wearing this, I don't care." She then places the shirt in my hands and leaves the room, taking her new millennium smartphone with her. With that, I change into the long frilly light blue shirt. Better not to argue with her.

I make my way down the stairs to find Delaina squealing into her smartphone.

"I can't believe you! Screw you. No really, screw you. You suck. You deserve to die, and go to hell, and burn." She hangs up quite aggressively. She turns around and sees me.

"Sorry. It's a long story." She looks a bit calmer now.
"You okay?" I ask. It sounds appropriate to ask. "Want to talk about it?"
"It's not that big of a deal, really. My boyfriend's just an ass."
"You've got a boyfriend?" My incredulity must have been obvious, for her face looked like a cross between slightly offended and slightly amused.
"Well, not anymore, really. It wasn't for very long, and I knew he was a complete ass from the minute I saw him. But he wasn't an ass a lot. He was relatively sweet and nice and just generally cool. But then...he cheated. Again. He won't tell me who this time, so I'm a bit worried. Either it's one of my friends or it's somebody he knows I hate. Either way, I don't want to think about it."

I let it go. No need to upset her further.

She looks down at the atrocity that is my frilly shirt.

"It looks nice, really. Don't worry about it. Good thing you put it on yourself. I can move people too. That thing would have been on you faster than you'd know." She laughs a little bit as she checks her phone for messages. Her face goes from amused to a little rushed. "That was Vlad. He's like fivwe minutes away. Let's get you ready."

That's when she removes a large widetoothed comb that was clearly meant for curly hair from her purse. She throws the comb in the air, where it floats, and travels very quickly toward and through my hair. Considering my hair is very long and very straight, it hurts like hell. After about four minutes of this, Delaina's finally done.

"Sorry if I was a little rough on you. My day wasn't the best, you know."

She knows I understand totally. Which is good.

I sit down on the bench which Ashleigh very resourcefully thought to put in the hallway by the door. One never knows when they need a place to sit.

No sooner have I sat down when the doorbell rings.