Scare War

Mapleview, North Carolina.
October 16th, 2025.
1:13 P.M.

The spirit of Halloween was rife in the air the longer October carried on—and Amory, of course, simply couldn’t be happier about it.

With an absolute stockpile of Halloween décor stashed away in the manor now—one of the unoccupied bedrooms being used solely for storage—he had a blast with decorating. One of the funnest family projects of the manor so far was having everyone gather in the front yard to decorate, and this was a big job, because the front of the haunted-looking manor would be the first thing that every visitor to the event would see on Halloween. So, Amory wanted it to look as fun, spooky, and vibrant with Halloween décor as possible.

The edge of the yard now had fake tombstones peeking out from the tall grass, and on either side of the building—positioned to the left and right of the stoop—were two tall gargoyles made of stone, each of them strung with countless waves of fake spider webs, their eyes painted a bright, menacing red. Along each side of the elongated driveway—stretching out of the yard and traveling all the way down the hill—were jack-o-lanterns with candles inside, and from the branches of the trees in the front yard were many hanging ghosts, not ones that they’d bought from the store, but ghosts that they had created themselves out of sheets and ropes, just the same as the ones Amory and Raven made when they were kids. There were also many ominous candle-lit lanterns hanging low from the branches of the trees, hovering over random portions of the yard. The candles weren’t yet lit, but Amory intended to light them on Halloween, and for them to lead the way toward whatever makeshift tunnel enclosure he would construct out here, which would take the event attendees around back and into the haunted maze.

Inside—there was one particular room that nobody ever used, one that Amory hadn’t even discovered until his third week here. It was to the left of the enormous main room, accessible through a wooden double-door that was tucked near the far corner, a door he had never bothered to explore or even notice until recently. This doorway led into a big room with double-armed sconces on either wall; this room was an elongated dining area with an incredibly long dining table in the center, many chairs on either side of it. A chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, the table covered by an old, dusty tablecloth that was colored a dark orange—and the first time Amory laid eyes on it, he grinned from ear to ear, thinking that the ominousness of the room, the black two-armed sconces on the walls, and the age and color of the tablecloth all perfectly suited the vibe of Halloween.

Discovering this room inspired him to add another event to his Halloween party—a haunted dinner, wherein he would invite everyone into the dining room, share a meal, and use his abilities to spook the guests, and he giggled with delight anytime he thought up new ways to do so.

He spent plenty of time throughout the week wandering the manor, observing everything, arms behind his back, hands intertwined, and eyes thoughtfully scanning over everything around him, his mind working up a storm as he planned and plotted what he was certain would be the greatest night ever. In the main room, he envisioned a normal party; he planned to add furniture, fill up a table with snacks, set up new lights, have music playing, and have plenty of people in costume dancing and enjoying themselves. He also planned to set up Halloween-themed mannequins alongside the walls and the stairway, and he hoped to use his power to make them spring to life whenever the guests were here, hopefully getting a few good scares out of it. The newly-discovered dining room would be the setting of his haunted dinner, and the front yard would be the most eye-catching area, and the place where a secret tunnel would lead around the building and into the haunted maze he planned to create. It would all come together quite well.

In fact—the more Mikey spoke to him about it—the more certain he became that the entire thing would kick off without a hitch. Ever since the décor of the front yard had gotten done—Mikey took pictures of it, styled them, and used them to promote the event all over the internet, and according to him, countless people in Mapleview were now thrilled to attend.

Today, as Amory stood in the center of his manor’s main room with his hands cupped behind his back, his eyes scoped across the place once more, moving from the ticking grandfather clock against the back wall to the empty spaciousness everywhere else in the room, cracking a smirk and feeling rather pleased and excited by the event to come. He wasn’t worried about his meeting at the Canterbury ruins. Right now, he wasn’t worried about anything at all.

“Hey!” Mikey called down to him, thumping down the rounded stairway and holding up his phone. “I gotta ask you something.”

Amory turned on his heel and watched him reach the bottom of the stairs. Mikey marched over to him and adjusted his glasses.

“How much do we wanna charge per ticket?” the boy inquired. “I’m about to be done setting this up, I just need a little bit more info. This is gonna the page where people buy their ticket online and lock in their place for the party. We also kinda need to make a schedule for the dinner part so people know when they have to be here if they wanna eat the dinner.”

“Ummm…” Amory mumbled uncertainly. “Y’know, I didn’t really think about the price. What would be a normal price for a thing like this in 2025? You’d know better than I would.”

Mikey thought for a second, then shrugged. “Thirty bucks?”

Amory’s brows raised, and he laughed and shook his head. “Ahhh… I don’t know… that still just sounds like too much.”

“Twenty?” Mikey suggested.

“Nah… make it five,” Amory decided.

Mikey squinted at him. “Okay… there’s too much, and then there’s not anywhere near enough.”

“Well, sure… but we don’t actually need the money,” Amory reminded him. “I’m honestly just doing this so people can enjoy it. That’s the point.”

“Yeah… but you also have to be realistic about how many people can come here,” Mikey informed. “If you make it too cheap, then there are gonna be hundreds of people coming here… and we don’t have enough food, or room, or chairs in the dining room for all that.”

Amory bit his lip and nodded sideways. “Good point. Okay, make it fifteen.”

“Fifteen is good,” Mikey said, typing into his phone.

“Oh—and not for kids,” Amory quickly added. “Don’t forget, there’s no charge for kids. Kids get to come for free.”

“I knooow,” Mikey uttered into his phone’s screen. “I remember. When do we wanna do the dinner part? And is there gonna be alcohol?”

“Um… I don’t… know,” Amory muttered. “We don’t want anybody drinking until after all the kids are gone, at least…”

“That means I need to set a time on the drinking part,” Mikey said, typing even faster. “And it has to be a ‘bring your own booze’ deal, because I’m pretty sure you don’t have a liquor license to sell it to everyone. Okay, when do we wanna send all the kids home and start the drinking part? What time?”

“Aw, geez… I don’t really even wanna send the kids home,” Amory sighed. “This party’s more for them than anyone…”

“This party is gonna be huge and take a long time,” Mikey pointed out. “The grownups don’t have to have their part of the party until after the kids have already been having fun for hours. After the kids’ bedtime, and after they’ve all been taken home— then the grownups can play. It’s not gonna exclude the kids. A lot of it is gonna be for them. Trust me.”

“Okay… well… you’re pretty much asking me when the nightlife can start,” Amory remarked, scratching along his cheek. “And I don’t really know when a normal time is for people to go out and do that kind of thing. God, where is Crowe when I need him…”

“I’d say eleven at night,” Mikey proposed. “The kids are all gonna be tired and ready to pass out by then. Eleven—kids go home—then whoever’s left here can drink if they want to.”

“That sounds good,” Amory agreed.

“And… last… the dinner,” Mikey said, glancing up at him and fixing his glasses again. “What time is the haunted dinner thing gonna be?”

Amory paused, then eyed him curtly. “Ahhh… what time do you recommend?”

Mikey made a thoughtful face. “Um… probably ten o’clock at night. Some of the other people will weed out by then, and then we won’t have as big of an issue trying to make sure there’s room for everyone at that table. The dinner can also end off right when the drinking time starts. It’ll all flow together pretty well that way.”

“I should’ve just let you choose everything from the start,” Amory chuckled. “You hardly even need my input at all.”

“Well… it’s your party,” Mikey shrugged, holding up the phone. “This stuff is up to you.”

“Yeah… but you’re my manager , and you’re better at this than me,” Amory smirked, planting a hand on his head and rustling his hairs. “So I might as well just trust your judgment.”

Mikey gave him a curious little squint. “Manager…?”

“Definitely,” Amory affirmed, waving his finger down at the phone in Mikey’s hand. “All that stuff you’re doing right there is manager stuff.”

Mikey gave him a look, cracking a smile. “So what’s my commission rate?”

Amory scoffed out a laugh. “What, you want money again? What the heck happened to that big stack I gave you a few weeks ago…?”

“I built a monster computer,” Mikey replied. “I didn’t have a lot left after that, so I put the rest in my savings account, and I’m just gonna leave it there and slowly add to it.”

Amory opened his mouth, then paused and sighed, nodding and tossing up a hand. “Well, I can’t say anything to that… that’s actually pretty smart…”

“I was kidding, anyway,” Mikey said, raising his phone once before turning to walk away. “I said I’d market the haunted house for you a long time ago. I wasn’t doing it for money, dummy.”

He headed back toward the stairs.

“Hey,” Amory called after him.

Mikey stopped and turned back around.

Amory flashed another smile, sliding his hands into his bellbottoms’ pockets. “Where did you think all the ticket money was gonna go in the first place?”

Mikey stared at him, making an odd expression. “Um… into my account? I kinda had to set it up that way, since you don’t have an account… but I’m gonna give you the money.”

“No you’re not,” Amory knew, his smile growing, nodding once at his phone. “You’re earning all that money right now, Mr. Manager. You’re keeping it.”

Mikey blinked, raising his brows and pausing for a second. Then, he buried his face in his phone again and began swiping and typing on it.

“Okay… then I’m definitely making the tickets thirty bucks,” he remarked.

“Don’t do that!” Amory laughed.

“I’m not,” Mikey snickered, pocketing his phone and shooting him a snarky look. “Man… you are really easy to screw with. You know that…?”

“Oh… is that right?” Amory grinned, cocking his head challengingly at him. “You have no idea how easy it is for me to screw with people. You just wait ‘till Halloween!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mikey asked, tilting his head. “What… are you gonna try and scare me?”

“Try? No,” Amory beamed, shaking his head. “I am the King of Halloween, young child—and nobody’s ever beaten me at this game. I am the absolute best at scaring people on Halloween, and I’m not gonna try to do anything. I’m just gonna do it.”

Mikey narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re pretty cocky.”

“It’s not bragging if it’s earned,” Amory said smugly, folding his arms. “There’s never been anybody that I can’t scare.”

“Oh yeah?” Mikey replied, perking his brow and striding toward him. “Well, welcome to the 21st century. I grew up watching horror movies and playing horror games in 4K and in VR, and I’ve seen some pretty messed-up crap in real life, too. I grew up with a psycho mother and I grew up watching and playing all the uncensored versions of everything. I am Generation Alpha. I am desensitized, dead inside, and completely immune to jump scares.”

Amory gave him an interested look, smirking coyly at the boy. “Are you saying I’ve finally met my match…?”

“Hell yeah,” Mikey replied confidently. “I bet you anything I could scare you before you ever scare me.”

Amory shot him a double-take, smiling and gaping at him in slight astonishment. “You really think you can dethrone me…?”

“Deadass,” Mikey nodded.

Amory paused, his smile fading, and he gave him a confused look. “Okay—what the hell does deadass mean? Every time you say that, I’m totally freaking lost.”

“It means yes—hell yeah—damn right—fuck yeah I can dethrone you,” Mikey declared. “I deadass can dethrone you!”

Amory reeled back, his eyebrows raising and his smile returning. “Oh… really , now?”

“Yes!” Mikey yelled.

“Okay—screw it. I’m not waiting for Halloween,” Amory decided, waving a finger at him. “We’re gonna do this now. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars I can scare you before you scare me.”

“Oh yeah? Okay,” Mikey agreed, fixing his glasses and extending his hand. “I have two-hundred and sixty-seven dollars in my savings account. I can take that bet.”

Amory grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake.

Then—all of the sconces along either wall of the main room suddenly brightened to life—every single candle simultaneously lit by a force unseen, several quivering candle flames dancing from their respective platforms, giving the room an ominous orange glow.

Mikey looked around, surveying all the double-armed sconces and the candle flames that had seemingly come from nowhere. When he faced forward again—Amory was smiling knowingly at him, a gentle spiral of light gliding through his eye.

“Good luck,” Amory said with a wink, releasing his hand.

“Yeah… good luck to you too, cheater,” Mikey quipped in response, fairly unfazed. “Do we need to make a ‘no superpowers’ rule? Because it seems like we do.”

Amory smacked his lips and rolled his eyes. “Oh… fine, I guess that’s fair. But we need a ‘no fireworks’ rule, too.”

Mikey hesitated, staring at him blankly. “Who the hell would use fireworks for this…?”

“Ask Crowe,” Amory sighed.

As if on cue, both of them heard the distant echo of Crowe’s voice from the back hall.

Elaine was on her way into the main room with an old wooden broom, and Crowe and Raven were both following her, Crowe carrying a black, circular device in his hands.

“Nonono—lookit, look ,” Crowe insisted, rushing in front of Elaine and blocking her path. “I’m telling you the truth! Honestly! Just lookit!”

Elaine stopped and huffed out a breath, giving him a caustic look. “There is no way on God’s green earth you’re going to convince me that you have a floor-cleaning robot in your hands right now.”

“I do!” Crowe exclaimed.

“It’s true,” Raven vouched for him, nodding and facing Elaine. “It’s really true, Miss Morgan. It’s called a Roomba.”

Elaine fell silent, her eyes shifting skeptically between the two of them.

Amory and Mikey watched from a distance, trading glimpses and smirking.

“Lookit this… watch,” Crowe insisted, bending down and placing the Roomba on the floor.

He pressed the power button, then stood and stared down at it, waiting for it to move or make a noise, but the Roomba merely sat there, doing nothing.

“Oh, c’mon ya’ piece of…” Crowe grumbled, hunching down again and scanning over the device. “I hit the right button, didn’t I? I did…”

He placed it back down and gave it a little shove from behind, as if he was nudging a small animal and trying to teach it to walk.

The Roomba still showed no response.

“ Go , ya’ little moron… scoot! ” Crowe yelled at it. “Go! Sweep! Activate! Cleaning mode activated! What the bloody hell do ya’ want from me?!”

“It probably wants to be charged,” Mikey said.

Crowe glanced over at him, then down at the Roomba, straightening up and giving the boy a look. “It needs to be charged…?”

“Oh my God… I told you to read the manual,” Raven mumbled. “You’re so stupid…”

“It comes with a charging stand,” Mikey informed. “What did you do with it?”

“A charging stand?” Crowe griped, scrunching up his face. “What, that thing in the box? I thought that was a coffee maker. That’s what it looked like.”

Amory sputtered out a laugh, Raven smiling and quietly covering her mouth.

“No… that other thing in the box was the charging stand,” Mikey said with a flat smile.

“Right…” Crowe looked away, scratching his cheek. “Okay… I s’pose that makes more sense, because I was wondering what the hell a coffee maker was even doing in there…”

Amory and Mikey both laughed, Raven groaning out a loud sigh before lifting the Roomba and walking down the back hall with it. Crowe followed her, insisting that he could still figure it all out himself, and Elaine merely resumed her task of striding through the main room, stopping at the corner and beginning the long process of sweeping the floor.

“Well… I’m gonna go check on the treehouse,” Mikey decided. “Those guys said it would be done before Friday, so it should be almost done now.”

The boy walked off, and Amory watched him go, waiting until he was out of sight before he suddenly speed-walked down the back hall.

Smirking to himself, Amory opened the bedroom in the far back—the one everybody had been using for storage—and he collected one of the mannequins that he’d gotten Xena to order for him, one that he planned to dress up and decorate for Halloween. It was a simple bare mannequin as of now—but he tucked it under his arm and carried it all the way up to the third floor, pulling many of his 70s-style outfits out and dressing the mannequin in layers of clothes. He spent nearly an hour doing this, then he planted it down beside his window, surveyed it up and down, and nodded at it, thinking it looked just real enough for a brief momentary scare.

He planned to wait for Mikey to stroll around the first floor again, then send the mannequin plummeting down from the top of the stairway. This was only one of many plans on his mind—and, if none of them succeeded, then he would finish off the day by hiding under Mikey’s bed at nighttime, reaching out, and grabbing him by the ankle. That trick had never once failed.

Amory snickered to himself as he played the scenarios through his mind, not noticing the person entering his bedroom behind him until he heard a faint creak in the floorboards. Then, he turned around—seeing Zyon, stepping into the room and slipping his hands into his pockets.

“Oh… hi,” Amory said, surprised to see him up and about. “Wow… I can’t believe you still look tired. You’ve been doing pretty much nothing but sleeping for weeks.”

Zyon sighed, blinking twice and glimpsing off to the side, not replying right away. Truthfully, he did still appear rather dreary, and he still felt quite drained and heavy.

“This recovery is taking longer than I anticipated,” he uttered with a rasp. “I imagine my show of power at your parents’ house didn’t help…”

Amory shrugged and nodded, crossing his arms and giving him a curious look. “So… what’s up? Is… everything okay? More or less?”

Zyon continued staring to the side for a second, then faced him, eyeing him rather thoughtfully.

“I need to do something,” the angel told him. “It’s something that I’ve been putting off for a later time… a time when I feel a bit more capable… but… I don’t believe I should wait any longer. I’ve already waited for too long as it is.”

Amory made a nod, narrowing his eyes at him questioningly.

Zyon sighed heavily. “I have influenced… many people… in Canterbury Lab. For whatever reason… you, Crowe, and Raven are the only ones that I was ever able to remember clearly. I suppose it’s because you three have shared a connection with me for far longer than anyone else at the lab. The point is… in order to seek out the lost children, and determine their whereabouts… I believe I need to walk through time… but… in the spiritual realm. I need to find the children… see their faces… see where they landed… and then… the next doorways can be made.”

Amory nodded along, still staring at him with intrigue.

“So… what are you gonna do? I mean… how are you gonna… do that?”

“Well… that’s the thing,” Zyon replied, meeting his gaze. “I will need to shadow-walk through time and space, and follow my connections with humans until I find the ones I’m looking for. It will put me in a very deep state of sleep… during which… I will be unresponsive. I will not be able to hear you calling to me… and I won’t be able to come to your aid, either.”

Amory hesitated, gnawing on his bottom lip.

“When… um… when are you gonna do this?” he asked.

“Right now,” Zyon stated. “It simply cannot wait anymore.”

Amory frowned. “How long is it gonna take…?”

“I couldn’t say for sure,” Zyon answered. “I imagine days, at the very least.”

Amory swallowed, his expression now serious, and his heart pounding with an anxious throb.

Tomorrow was the day he was meant to travel out to the Canterbury ruins alongside Aravali in order to meet with Vincent again. If something happens to go wrong at this meeting while Zyon is in a deep and unresponsive sleep, then Amory and Aravali will be left entirely on their own, with no angel waiting on standby to swoop in and save the day.

“You… you remember what I’m going out to do tomorrow, right?” Amory asked him.

“Yes… and that is why I strongly recommend that you tell someone now,” Zyon replied grimly. “Particularly Raven and Crowe. They are the ones who have the power to help you with precarious situations such as these.”

“No… God, not them,” Amory sighed, shaking his head and looking away. “They’re the two people I definitely can’t tell. Raven would just try everything in the world to stop me, and Crowe would just go out there to try and kill Vincent…”

“Listen to me… I do understand your incredulity,” Zyon said genuinely. “Especially concerning Crowe. He has a much harder time with forgiveness than you do. However… this issue no longer just involves us keeping peace in the manor and avoiding social conflicts. It now involves your safety, and the safety of your doctor. If I am unavailable, then someone else needs to know your plans and your whereabouts… just in case something goes awry.”

“I’ll make a backup plan, I promise,” Amory told him. “But I really think I can handle this. I can zap from one place to another, remember? I won’t let anyone get the jump on us, and I’ll be ready to pop out of there with Ari at a second’s notice. I really will.”

Zyon stared at him uncertainly for a moment.

“I would suggest telling Xena,” the angel remarked. “She is a bit more of an unbiased party when it comes to the issue of Vincent Hawthorn, and she’s not likely to react in the same way Raven or Crowe would. Tell her what you’re going to do, and instruct her to tell Raven and Crowe after you leave to meet Vincent at the ruins. That way, they won’t know until they cannot stop you, but they will still know in time to arrive there and assist you.”

“That’s a good idea,” Amory agreed. “I think I’ll do that…”

Zyon nodded, sighing and turning to leave the room.

“Be careful,” Amory advised. “Don’t wear yourself out even more whenever you’re… shadow… walking. Whatever the hell that is…”

Zyon turned back and offered him a smile, then nodded and walked out of the room.

Amory stood still there for a moment, pondering on tomorrow and feeling a touch of anticipation. Then, he shook it away and faced his mannequin again, snatching it up and hurrying out of the room, smirking as he thought about how badly he would scare Mikey today.

During the time when Amory wandered the property, peeking around corners and searching for the boy—while his mannequin remained parked at the top of the stairs on standby—Crowe shut himself in his bedroom, deciding to simply let Raven deal with the Roomba.

Crowe’s bedroom was messier than many of the others, the bed unmade, the blue blankets in disarray, and the walls were covered with countless band posters, a series of speakers placed around the room with a large Bluetooth stereo positioned just across from his bed. He walked into the room, swung his door shut, and plopped back on his bed, gazing up at the ceiling and feeling a wave of sleepiness. He’d stayed up rather late the previous night, as did many others in the house, as all of them had shared a movie night together in Xena’s room.

Deciding to indulge in a quick nap, Crowe yawned, outstretching his arms behind his head as his eyes began to drift shut. The light was turned off, the room only illuminated by the gentle sunlight peering in from between his half-drawn drapes, and soon, he was lost to a restful slumber, snoozing lightly with his legs hanging off the side of his bed.

At first, his sleep was peaceful, simply quiet and undisturbed.

Then—a vivid, lucid dream began to flourish with color amidst his mind, depicting a real and detailed scene, a scene like every other prophetic dream he’d ever had.

He saw a vast open area coated with autumn leaves before him—a wide, spacious clearing amid a seemingly endless woodlands, and in the center of the clearing was a place that looked vaguely familiar, an abandoned, empty place surrounded by a mostly-collapsed wall.

Outside of the lab’s ruins—he spotted a man in a tan overcoat and a hat to match, standing alongside the unmistakable Amory, wearing the same type of outfit he usually did, complete with a pair of dark bellbottoms, navy blue ones that Xena had ordered for him weeks ago.

Amory stood alongside Vincent Hawthorn, something lying on the ground nearby them, the two merely talking—

And Crowe’s eyes tore open—inhaling sharply and suddenly finding himself awake again.

He lay still on his back for a long, silent moment, his brow hardening, making a peculiar expression as he glared up at his ceiling, his thoughts beginning to race.

The more he replayed it in his mind, the less sense it made; Crowe knew without a doubt that it was one of his future-sight dreams, but for the first time in his life, he’d seen something in a vision of the future that was simply not possible.

Crowe made a faint shake of the head, mulling over everything intently, wondering if he was somehow mistaken. Perhaps it wasn’t a future-sight dream. Maybe it was just an ordinary dream that turned out to be a lucid one.

But, no—the future-sight dreams always appeared that way, always the same, clear and precise with great, vivid detail. He’d even noticed a pair of brand new dark blue bellbottoms on Amory, a thing that Xena had only just purchased for him recently here in the year 2025.

It had all of the usual tells and trademarks of one of his future-sight dreams.

Still—Vincent couldn’t have ever been in 2025, and as far as Crowe was aware, the man had no way of arriving here. Beyond all of that—he was supposed to be dead. Crowe saw his body himself, lying dead and bloody in the gravel driveway of the Evervale home.

“Can’t be,” Crowe murmured to himself.

Knock, knock, knock.

A gentle rapping thumped against his bedroom door, followed by a voice.

“Crowe,” Aravali called out from the other side of the door.

Crowe sat up on the side of his bed and made an upright nod at the door—making the knob turn and the door swing fully open.

“Oh… all right,” Aravali muttered, lowering his fist from where the door was seconds ago. “Um… have you seen Mikey? Amory’s been looking for him for hours, apparently… and he can’t find him anywhere…”

Crowe rested back on his elbows, gazing absentmindedly over at his stereo and shaking his head. “Nah, haven’t seen him.”

Aravali nodded and prepared to pull the door shut, then hesitated, narrowing his eyes at the strange, distant look on Crowe’s face.

“You all right?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah. Yeah…” Crowe nodded, sitting fully upright again and running a hand down his face. “I jus… I dunno. I just had one of them dreams of the future, but it doesn…”

He trailed off, shaking his head again and looking perplexed.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Crowe said, meeting Aravali’s eyes. “I dreamed that Amory and Vincent were standing out by where Canterbury used to be. Like… here . Here in 2025. But that can’t be right…”

Aravali stared at him, falling expressionless.

“Vincent is dead , right…?” Crowe uttered, throwing his hand up. “And even if he was still alive somehow… he can’t get here. Not if that door really is warded against everything demoney. Vincent is as demoney as they come.”

Aravali gulped roughly, now looking and feeling disturbed.

“What happened in the dream?” the doctor asked, stepping inside and gently nudging the door shut behind him.

“I dunno… nothing, really,” Crowe replied. “They were just standing out there talking. It didn’t last that long…”

Aravali squinted at him. “Just them? No one else…?”

“Nah… it was just them two,” Crowe answered.

Aravali made a slow, thoughtful nod. “That’s interesting…”

“Not really,” Crowe muttered. “The interesting bit is the fact that it literally can’t happen. I mean… wait… Zyon said there’d be other doorways through time, didn’t he…?”

“Yes… he did,” Aravali said. “At Canterbury.”

“Okay… but even then… even if there’s some other doorways at the lab… the bloke is dead,” Crowe insisted, smacking his palm. “How the hell could he be alive? And how the hell would he find himself out there with Amory, just talking and chatting like old mates…?”

“Well… I would imagine… if Vincent was still alive, then… Amory would want to… reason with him,” Aravali shrugged. “But, that would just be my guess. It might not have been a vision of the future at all, for all we know.”

“No… no, I know a vision of the future,” Crowe stated, reaching his feet and jabbing a finger at him. “Do you know that I painted Evervale Manor before I ever saw the place? That’s the haunted mansion painting I made before we came here. D’you wanna see it? I’ll go back into Moonvale and get it right now. I can show you, I know my visions of the future, and I can see ‘em clear as day. That’s exactly what this was.”

“Well… first of all, no one is going back into Moonvale,” Aravali told him firmly. “And second of all… there’s not much you can do about this other than speculate, so you might as well just let it go and not stress over it. It doesn’t really matter.”

Crowe lowered his hand, giving him a deep, skeptical stare.

“What do you know?” he barked at the doctor.

Aravali blinked. “What do you mean, what do I know…?”

“You’re not acting very shocked at all,” Crowe observed, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes suspiciously at him. “And I would think that me seeing Vincent Hawthorn alive in my prophetic dreams would be, uh… y’know… actually concerning to you.”

Aravali glimpsed down, opening his mouth and shaking his head once. “I, ah… well… I don’t know what to tell you…”

“See… in a situation like this… the Ari I know would go straight to action and worry, not dismissal and apathy,” Crowe ranted. “Especially if it involves some shadow-government demon freak coming to endanger his patients. Now, it is really unlike you to look at a possible danger like that and just decide not to care about it. Seems to me like you’re covering something up now… and I’d really like to know what that is.”

“Well… I just… I really can’t talk about it, Crowe,” Aravali said, feeling conflicted. “Patient confidentiality. I really can’t.”

Crowe’s eyebrows shot up even higher, ogling him in surprise. “Ah, excuse me? That kind of confidentiality is null and void whenever someone’s life is in danger, right?”

Aravali opened his mouth, hesitating again and making a reluctant nod. “Well… yes…”

“And the possibility of Vincent being alive and being here means that lives would be in danger again, does it not…?”

“I… well, yes, I suppose so…”

“Then—fucking— out with it ,” Crowe growled through gritted teeth, leaning so close to him, their noses nearly brushed.

Aravali gazed into him with a torn expression, pausing for a second and taking a deep breath.

“All right…” he uttered, nodding and reaching over, grasping the doorknob and locking the bedroom door. “All right… just… try to keep an open mind and a level head.”

Crowe took back, giving him a look and sitting on his bedside.

Aravali sat down beside him, faced him, inhaled heavily, and began to speak—and he told him everything that he had heard from Amory, everything that had happened with Vincent, and everything that the two of them planned to do tomorrow.

When he was finished—there was a long, grave silence, Crowe glaring down at the floor, his hand clenching into a fist atop his knee, and he didn’t reply for nearly a full minute.

“And… he didn’t want to… tell you yet,” Aravali concluded moments later. “I suppose because you would… you know… probably react. Understandably.”

Crowe barely appeared to hear him, still staring downward, his jaw twitching as he lost himself to his thoughts.

Aravali went quiet, merely watching him and waiting patiently for him to process everything he had heard. It was a huge bombshell, and he knew how Crowe must have felt about it all. The doctor anticipated him erupting with anger or frustration any moment now.

But, the longer they sat in silence, the more intense Crowe’s expression of deep thought became, and he showed no signs of wanting to yell, or curse, or leap to his feet and pace in place while ranting. He simply sat there, staring intently down at the floor and pondering deeply.

Aravali examined him, slightly surprised to see no ferocity coming out of him yet.

“You… all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m just…” Crowe uttered, nodding mildly and tapping two fingers to his mouth, still staring at the same spot in the floor. “Just thinking…”

Aravali made a nod. “Can I ask what about…?”

Crowe paused for a moment longer, then straightened up and sighed. “Well… I was thinking… it kinda makes perfect sense.”

Aravali gave him a quizzical look. “What does…?”

“Vincent,” Crowe answered, turning and meeting his eyes. “I mean… I can’t lie… I’d noticed something off about him a good while back, probably long before Amory did. I also noticed… well, honestly, I noticed some of the nice things about him, too… but that was a lot longer ago. He was a friendly sort when we were younger. He really did try to play father, and big brother, and all that. But, as time went on… and, I guess as Valek got more and more impatient with the procedure not really working well on us… Vincent started to get different. It happened kinda slow, so I guess Amory didn’t notice it the way I did… but he started getting more… strict. Authoritarian. No-nonsense. Y’know. He started getting a bit meaner, and a bit more short-tempered. He still seemed to have a soft spot for Amory, but… I dunno… he had less patience with people like me, and I never liked being told what to do by people like him in the first place. Besides, at that point, I was old enough to know that they weren’t legally allowed to just keep us there, and it really pissed me off that they were trying to… so… I really just grew to hate him.”

“But Amory didn’t,” Aravali mumbled.

“No… Amory didn’t hate anyone,” Crowe sighed. “He was always just playing peacemaker, trying to make us all not fight each other… but Vincent was crossing some lines, and what he was doing was not okay. I lost any sympathy I had for him. I didn’t wanna be kept anymore.”

“Naturally,” Aravali said with understanding.

“It really does, though,” Crowe murmured, stroking along his chin. “It really does make sense… and y’know what else… the night we met him, and the first year or two we were there… Vincent’s dark eye was gray. It was gray back then.”

Aravali eyed him curiously, thinking back to the night he’d seen Vincent for the first time just outside of the King’s Place. He hadn’t gotten the clearest look at him, facing him at nighttime after an evening of drinking, but Aravali could have sworn that his right eye was a deep, stark black color when he’d seen the man.

Crowe read his face and nodded. “Yeah… wasn’t gray when you saw it, was it?”

“I… don’t believe so, no,” Aravali muttered.

“It got darker,” Crowe stated. “The longer we knew him, and the more time he spent in that place with all the rest of us… the darker it bloody well got.”

Aravali looked down, his brow wrinkling. “That’s strange…”

“It could’ve been being in that place, with the demon rifts everywhere and whatnot… or it could’ve been all the repeated times of Valek doing the procedure on him more and more, whenever that started,” Crowe speculated. “Or maybe it was a combination of both… but, whatever it was… the grasp that the demons had on him was definitely getting worse. By the time we all left Canterbury… I think he was probably more demon than human anymore.”

Aravali mulled over this, considering some of the things that Amory said and feeling that many of them aligned fairly well with Crowe’s synopsis on the matter.

“Can I tell you something I was never gonna tell anyone?” Crowe asked.

Aravali nodded.

Crowe glanced down at the floor again, sighing and wearing a deep grimace.

“I honestly didn’t expect him to do that,” he conceded, facing Aravali again and looking vexed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—I hated the bastard, and I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt, and thrash, and break, and put the hardest fear of God into him just so he’d never try and keep me locked up again—but I was never actually gonna kill the prick, and I was honestly shocked that he resorted to opening fire on me. I didn’t think he’d actually go and do that.”

Aravali spared a moment to think.

“Well…” the doctor said. “It seems like the, um… demons… tend to fuel everything negative in a person. That would include anger. So… maybe if Vincent had a reason to be angry with you… you specifically… then… it might have made it easier for the evil influences to make him act against you that night. I mean… I’m certainly not condoning what he’s done at all… but… it’s worth noting that he seemed to hold his fire more for Amory, or when he spoke to me directly. He did seem quite a bit more eager to pull the trigger with you around.”

Crowe thought on this, remembering his last interaction with Vincent before he left Canterbury for the final time.

“Well’p… yeah,” he mumbled, nodding and running a hand over his mouth. “Yeah, I reckon he still would’ve been pretty pissed at me at that point… not that he didn’t deserve getting choke-slammed, but still… yeah… makes sense. He’s a Manchurian candidate more than any of the rest of us… and he’s been in Hell in his own mind this whole time…”

Aravali stopped for a second, surveying him interestingly.

“You’re not really taking this how I, um… thought you would,” he remarked.

Crowe glanced at him again, sighing and making a shrug. “Well, it… it’s been bothering me ever since… John died. I didn’t even realize how bad it was until that happened. I mean, I knew demons were getting in people’s heads, and screwing with them, and whatnot… but… I didn’t realize it… it was like… taking control of people like that. I still hate that… I still hate that John had to die the way he did… and… now, it sounds like Vinny-Boy’s in the same boat. Only, with him… it’s been going on a lot longer… and… he’s in a lot more Hell.”

Aravali stared, feeling somewhat surprised that Crowe seemed to be feeling anything resembling compassion for Vincent Hawthorn—but, he hadn’t considered how witnessing John’s death might have affected his perspective on this issue, and it certainly made sense that another person facing that same agony did not sit well with Crowe at all, even if that person had been an enemy of theirs up until now.

“Y’know… you nearly died on me, Ari,” Crowe murmured grimly. “I could maybe look past someone shooting at me… but you? I dunno if I’ve got that in me…”

Aravali gazed over at him, flashing a faint little half-smile and patting him once on the back.

“Well… if it makes you feel any better at all… I was told that Vincent was apparently completely unaware of that even happening,” Aravali informed. “According to him… he and his unit had retired for the evening after the shootout at the King’s Place. If that’s true… then… they weren’t the ones who went to my apartment that night.”

Crowe turned and gave him an odd look, glimpsing over and making a thoughtful face.

“Oh. I s’pose it was either Valek or the succubus,” he said.

Aravali gave him a double-take, trying not to laugh. “I’m sorry, the succubus …?”

“Yeah, that sex-addicted freak lady who worked there… that’s just what I called her,” Crowe replied. “Her name’s Victoria, but she really could be a succubus for all we know. She’s a bit of a second-in-command for Canterbury in the same way Vincent is. Well… she’s more of a third-in-command, but she likes to think she’s a second-in-command, far as I could ever tell. Christ… now that I think about it, she was probably doing half of this stuff herself. Her and Vinny were probably a team effort on this, especially if Valek was going out of town a lot again. Those two did everything for the lab themselves when the boss wasn’t around…”

Aravali nodded quietly.

Crowe paused for a moment as well.

“So, um…” Aravali uttered, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. “What are we going to… do about this now?”

Crowe glimpsed at him, then stared at the bedroom door, thinking and sighing.

“Ah… well, Ari…” he said. “First and foremost… we need to cover this.”

He suddenly reached over and smacked the doctor hard on the back of the head.

“Ow…!” Aravali winced, grasping his skull and shooting him a disgruntled look. “What the hell was that for?!”

“Don’t you ever leave me out of things like this again,” Crowe snapped angrily, jabbing a finger closely to his face, his eyes burning a fiery blue. “You were gonna go out there with him? Just you two by yourselves, hanging out next to a gateway to Canterbury? And what if they sneak out and shoot bullets or trank darts at you by surprise? Huh? Because I got news for ya, buddy—if they trank Amory, then there goes your ride! You’re not getting zapped away if Amory falls unconscious! Did you think of that? Hm? Or did you think of Vincent possibly arranging a fucking double-cross and having a bloody army march out of that Hell portal to kill you both?! You fuckin’ prat—I need to be a part of these things, for God’s sake.”

“Well… it’s not as if I enjoy keeping secrets from you, or anyone else here… but there’s a reason I did,” Aravali replied, staring sternly at him. “None of you should be put in situations where you may have to take someone else’s life.”

Crowe ogled him, his mouth falling agape. “How can you say that to me, and then go swanning off with Amory and letting him be a part of it?”

“Because Amory doesn’t kill people,” Aravali said flatly. “And frankly—I’m not worried about him getting too accustomed to doing those things, because he abhors doing those things. But you? You seem to think that doing those things is simply your purpose , and that is not the way things are.”

“How could you say that?” Crowe griped. “How could you even know that?!”

“Because I won’t let that be true for any of you,” Aravali growled, raising his voice. “Do I have to spell it out for you? Far be it from me to be an idealist—but I like to think that all of you can have a purpose in life that doesn’t revolve around killing people. Especially you.”

Crowe took slightly back, staring strangely at him as if he’d said something ridiculous. “What the hell d’you mean, especially me? Ari… I get that you’re trying to be supportive and all, but be fair. I’m a rebel, I’ve got superpowers, and I’m willing to kill people who come after us and try to kill us. So… yeah. Where d’you think my usefulness is in all this? Singing and playing music? Doing paintings? C’mon, mate, be real.”

“Oh… I am, and let me tell you something,” Aravali said seriously. “I understand that the few times you have had to kill someone, you were doing it for a good reason, out of self-defense and defense of others… but the more often that happens, the more you begin to normalize the behavior, and that’s not something you do on purpose. It’s something that just happens, because the events become repetitive and expected, and you become hardwired for those drastic circumstances above all others. There are people who become addicted to the kind of sick rush and adrenaline that comes from killing another human being… and that isn’t even something that those people intentionally do to themselves. That is not something I want for you. That’s not something anybody wants for you. This is the kind of thing that, if you ignored it and just kept on doing it, then it could completely ruin your ability to write those songs, or compose your music, or create all your masterful works of art in the future… because you won’t be able to feel the things necessary to make art anymore. You won’t be able to feel anything fully, or process anything correctly… hell, you won’t be able to function normally ever again for the rest of your life. Do you understand what I’m telling you…?”

Crowe fell momentarily silent, looking down and huffing out a heavy breath.

“Enjoying the simple pleasures of a song… or an art piece… or a game… or a crush,” Aravali listed, giving him a sincere look. “All of the simpler joys in life will become nothing to you if everything inside you is only hardwired for the monstrous and drastic life events. You will become someone who doesn’t care about anything that isn’t monstrous and drastic… and, if you live long enough to move past the days of the monstrous drastic events… then you will be very, very empty inside… because you’ll feel nothing towards all of the other things in life that you’re left with once the monstrous drastic things are all gone. It’s a long, slow process… but, the more you do those big, terrible things… the more like that you will become .”

Crowe fell silent for a long, somber moment, and he found himself pondering on something that he hadn’t spared a thought in many years.

“Honestly… that sounds like my father,” he murmured faintly.

Aravali stared at him and sighed.

“My father wasn’t right, though,” Crowe muttered. “He wasn’t well in the head… y’know… mad as a hatter. He did a lot of insane things back in the day, too… broke a lot of laws, hurt a lot of people… and there were rumors around Birmingham that he’d killed a couple. I dunno how he managed in the military for as long as he did, but he did eventually get tossed out of there, too… and he really was… y’know… a wild bloke. If he wasn’t going rip-roaring mad at a party or fighting someone tooth and nail, then he was just… bored. Didn’t do anything. Didn’t care about anything. Didn’t seem to make a difference to him at all that I was there. He really, truly did not care about anything. Drove my mother mad, too. She’d do psychotic things all the time just to try and get a rise out of him, to try to make him care, but he never did. I dunno why, but… everything you just said, there… it made me think of him…”

Aravali slowly nodded, releasing another cloud of breath. “It sounds like he did the monstrous and drastic things throughout a lot of his life… and then… well… he ended up the way he did.”

Crowe glared at the bedroom door with a dark, stoic expression, now looking disturbed.

“Well… fuck that,” he griped. “I don’t wanna get that far gone… Christ…”

“And… listen… don’t get me wrong, I do understand,” Aravali said genuinely. “I know a lot of it comes from protection, and I very much appreciate that, believe me… I just really don’t want you to get too carried away in some of the things you do.”

Crowe went quiet again, frowning at the door and thinking of yet another memory, a much more recent one, when Aravali had been gunned down outside of his apartment, and when Crowe had stormed toward one of the assailants and strangled him with a psychic grasp… and raised him high above the ground, smashing him viciously to the concrete, once, twice, thrice…

His face slowly grew graver the longer he replayed it in his head, remembering the sheer ferocity that had been coursing through every part of him in that moment, his mind blank in a white hot rage, his body moving and acting on nothing but pure wrath and fury, feeling as if he simply could not pulverize the mangled man hard or fast enough. He’d felt so inexplicably angry, so instantly and uncontrollably furious, he couldn’t seem to stop beating the man into the ground, wanting desperately for the assailant to feel every last moment of it, despite that he had likely died after the very first strike, when his head had cracked open on the sidewalk.

Crowe slowly ran a hand over his mouth again, this time leaving it there, still staring forward with a distant, gaunt expression, his stomach churning with a dark, anxious nausea.

Yes—every time he’d killed someone, it was because he was forced to out of self-defense or defense of someone else, just as Aravali had said—but that time, the most recent time he was forced to take a life, was something different from all the rest.

It was worse.

In the beginning, when he first assigned himself to the role of Moonvale’s guardian, he never had to kill anyone. He merely found himself standing between Elaine and the men in black, throwing them all across the air with his mind and chasing them off whenever they would bother her—but as time passed, and as the actions of Canterbury became more brazen and hostile, Crowe’s anger escalated very much the same.

Before he knew it—he was facing violent shootouts and using his power to explode the firearms in the enemies’ hands, creating wicked eruptions of blood and killing the two men on the spot. He didn’t want to—he didn’t enjoy it—but it was simply necessary in that moment, and it just had to be done.

Then—he ended up at Aravali’s apartment complex later that night, where he watched his friend get riddled with bullets, and he reacted with far more than just necessary protection; he was purely dominated by the anger that overtook him in the moments after, and he did not mind surrendering himself to that rage at all.

It was only just dawning on him now—but through all this time, throughout this entire struggle between Moonvale and Canterbury, Crowe was going down the same dangerous path that his father had, and he was traveling that path at a rapid pace, speeding toward the finish line of warped, angry apathy that it would inevitably lead him to.

In fact, he suspected this was why John’s death bothered him so very much. It disturbed him to know how much the demons had controlled him, and he did feel apprehensive toward the situation on a whole—but there was more to it than that. Crowe himself was the one who seized John by the throat, held him until he began to suffocate, and threw him across the room to Zyon, where he ultimately met his death.

He knew it wasn’t exactly his fault that the man died—but in that moment, he’d felt the very same way he had when someone had shot Aravali. He saw John try to choke Raven—he felt the white hot rage—and he allowed it to take over him in an instant, no longer caring to show mercy and patience for John and his struggles anymore.

And—now that he really, truly thought about it—Aravali may not have come so close to a permanent death after the shooting if Crowe had just tended to him in the first place.

Just as this thought occurred to him, Crowe slowly lowered his hand from his mouth, giving his bedroom door a long, mollified stare.

Quite honestly, he’d lost himself so deeply to the rage and adrenalized blur that night, he had no idea how many times he had smashed the assailant’s body into the pavement. He might have been standing there for minutes, simply beating a corpse into the ground, all while Aravali lay nearby, bleeding to death as his life drained away from him.

He chose to give himself away to the wrath that had exploded inside of him—and because of that—Aravali’s heart had stopped beating before they ever reached Moonvale.

Crowe swallowed painfully, his severe expression beginning to fracture. He turned to Aravali, staring at him, studying every detail of his face, still somewhat astonished that the man was even here, alive, breathing, and sitting right beside him, even after all that had happened.

“I didn’t even…” he uttered breathlessly, shaking his head once and looking away again. “I didn’t even notice …”

Crowe stopped and took in a heavy, shaky breath.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he mumbled hoarsely, emotions beginning to wage war inside. “I didn’t even notice I was getting carried away… but I was. I definitely was. How could I just not notice I was turning into a… bloody fuckin’ psycho…?”

“Well… to be entirely fair, there have been a lot of wild and traumatizing things happening to all of us at once,” Aravali pointed out. “It’s hard to adjust to any big life change… but when so many massive and life-threatening ones happen at the same time… you won’t have a chance to reflect on all your reactions and study your own behavior all that much. Not until you reach a phase of peace, away from all that… like… where we all are now.”

“Okay… well, I’m here now, and I’m seeing everything you’re talking about now, and I don’t like it,” Crowe ranted. “But where does that leave me? Honestly… I know it’s damn important to keep protecting everyone, but I don’t wanna turn into a sadistic psycho…”

“That… right there… is all I’ve been trying to get you to focus on,” Aravali said firmly, planting his finger into his arm. “I’m not saying you have to stop helping and protecting altogether… I just want you to focus on that issue, right there, and start working on drawing a line between necessary actions and getting carried away. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Crowe nodded and sighed. “Yeah, I do now…”

“Good,” Aravali disclosed. “Maybe we can actually work out some plans that involve you playing defense while I pop off some shots. You don’t always have to be the one doing the grisly work, you know.”

Crowe turned his head and narrowed his eyes bizarrely at him. “Well… I don’t want you turning into a sadistic psycho, either. Blimey. Where did that even come from…?”

“Nowhere,” Aravali chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. I do like the idea of being able to do it all for you guys… but, I suppose that’s not entirely realistic.”

“No… and just because I’m there to help doesn’t mean I’m gonna try and take everything on completely by myself and turn into a murderous raving lunatic,” Crowe said. “Maybe what we all need to collectively do is drop the lone wolf shit and just work together on things.”

“That sounds like the best course of action… yes,” Aravali nodded.

“Mhm. So, now we have the question… where does that leave our mate, Amory?” Crowe wondered. “And his little meetup plans tomorrow…?”

Aravali glimpsed down at his lap in thought for a second. “Well, I’m supposed to go with him… but, if you only saw him and Vincent in your dream, then… it’s possible he might try to zap himself over there without me.”

Crowe glared at his bedroom door once more, his mind working up a storm.

Then, he made a few definitive nods, turned to the doctor, and made a solid decision in his mind before he spoke it aloud.

“I’ve got an idea…”

While Crowe and Aravali finished their conversation, Raven returned to the kitchen, bending down next to the Roomba’s charging stand that now stood near an outlet, checking on the device before sitting at the table across from Iggy, who was flipping through a magazine. Elaine was finishing the dishes from dinnertime—and Amory and Mikey had been practically circling around one another like vultures throughout the entire manor as night drew near.

At some point near sunset, Amory had just walked out of the kitchen after eating, waving Raven and Iggy off—right when an earsplitting scream echoed from far down the back hall.

Amory slowed to a stop, making a curious smirk and wheeling around on his heel. When he turned—he spotted Mikey standing down the dark hallway and holding his phone up, which was playing a horror movie screaming sound effect that echoed loudly off the walls.

Seconds later, he lowered the phone and turned the sound effect off.

Amory cocked his head coyly, clicking his tongue and wagging his finger at him. “Nice try.”

He walked away, vanishing from the boy’s sight.

“Nice try, my ass,” Mikey mumbled under his breath, turning to march off in the other direction. “I’m just getting your guard down…”

Amory strode across the enormous main room, and the moment he was out of Mikey’s view, he glanced behind him for a split second before breaking into a run.

He raced across the room, whipped around the edge of the stair railing, and flew up the stairs at once, leaping over them in twos and threes. He hurried to the top, panting and wheezing as he stopped beside his overdressed mannequin. Then, he grasped the railing and gazed down at the first floor, attentively watching the corner below him where the back hall let out, his ears perked, clutching onto the mannequin and waiting for the moment when the boy would emerge.

“Come ooon,” Amory breathed, hovering over the railing with it digging into his stomach, staring intently down below. “Come on, come on, come on…”

“Hey. Are you about to throw that dead plastic body at someone?” Xena’s voice arrived as she strolled down the second floor hallway toward him.

“Yes. No. Wait—okay, yes, but not at him,” Amory stammered, turning to her and glimpsing quickly between her and the area below him. “I’m tryinna scare Mikey. I’m just gonna drop it near him or something.”

Xena squinted at him. “Um… you do know he saw his mom stab a guy she met on Tinder, right? You’re not gonna scare him with a mannequin.”

Amory shook his head once, giving her a double-take. “She did—she stabbed a— what? ”

“Okay… first of all, Tinder is this phone app where you meet people to date—”

“Nonono—go back—the other part,” Amory interrupted, facing her and swatting the air. “He saw his mom stab someone?”

“Yeah,” Xena replied with a strange nonchalance. “My sister is kind of a psycho. I mean, to be fair, this guy was a serious red flag, and he tried to get way too handsy with her way too early… but I still say she shouldn’t have been having date nights with strangers in the house when Mikey was there. That guy did learn his lesson, though. When Kira says no, she damn well means no.”

Amory stared at her in surprise, suddenly forgetting to look for Mikey down below, and forgetting that the mannequin was propped lopsidedly against the railing behind him. He simply continued to stare at Xena with a softening expression, frowning and sighing.

“Can I ask… just… out of curiosity,” he said. “Where is Mikey’s father in all this? Has he ever been around, or…?”

“Oh… that guy was just one of many deadbeat losers that my sister wasted her time on,” Xena replied disdainfully. “When he was around, he didn’t do a single thing for his son. Nothing. He didn’t care at all… and… nobody’s heard from him in about seven years or so.”

Amory paused, giving her another sorrowful stare. “God, it sounds like Crowe’s house…”

“Yeah, well… none of that matters anymore,” Xena replied with a smirk, reaching out and flipping the collar of his shirt. “Because Mikey’s got you now.”

Amory blinked, narrowing his eyes at her. “What do you mean, he’s got me…?”

Xena choked out a laugh, giving him an astonished sort of look and shaking her head at him.

“Um… do you not realize how much you’ve done for him? Or for both of us?” she snickered. “You’ve like completely changed our entire lives. We have an actual home, and bedrooms, and comfort, and new friends, and we don’t have to scrape by and just constantly worry about everything anymore. Not to mention, he’s actually able to do all the things he’s always wanted to do now. He’s always wanted to get into streaming, but we were never gonna be able to afford what he needed for it. He always wanted to be ‘useful’ somehow, even though he’s a kid, and I keep telling him he shouldn’t have to worry about being useful… but he loves feeling needed and fulfilled, and he actually has things to do here, like helping everyone understand all the tech, and filling up that phone with old movies for your dad, and helping you organize the whole haunted house thing. And let me tell you something else.”

Xena moved slightly closer, her cerulean eyes glistening as she gave him a deep, profound stare.

“He is actually happy now,” she said definitively. “And I haven’t seen him happy since he was like three years old. It’s not just the stuff, either. I mean… big house, new stuff, bedrooms, yeah, all of that is amazing, and awesome, and really super helpful… but it’s really not just that. You talk to him like you’re just like him, like he’s your equal, and he’s not just some annoying child that you have to put up with being around. You treat him like he’s another person you wanna hang out with, just like Crowe, or Raven, or anybody else. You treat him like he’s your friend.”

“He is my friend,” Amory murmured.

“Yeah, see? That’s what I mean, right there,” Xena beamed, folding her arms and nodding at him. “I seriously think you’re always gonna be the best friend he’s ever had. I know you’re always gonna be the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Amory’s mouth drifted open, wanting to reply, but he felt himself flush, swallowing and glancing aside, gently fidgeting with the fabric of his sleeve.

“Aw… c’mon,” he smiled bashfully. “You’re making me embarrassed…”

Xena giggled. “Seriously…?”

“Yeah… I don’t know what to say to that,” Amory murmured with a grin, biting his lip and glimpsing back over at her, meeting her eyes again.

“Well… you can say thank you for the early Christmas present,” Xena decided, reaching into the pocket of her tight leather jacket and pulling out a large smartphone, one with a vibrant, colorful case on it. “I got you something that you have really been needing for a while now.”

Amory raised his eyebrows at it, instantly noticing the design on it; the phone’s case was a never-ending swirl of several bright colors that reminded him of all the tie-dye shirts he used to see at the stores, and he also remembered seeing a gathering of people from Woodstock traveling through town once when he was a kid, some of whom were wearing things of a similar design. This phone case was very obviously designed to be reminiscent of the 1970s, and in the center was one large peace sign, colored gold and sprinkled with sparkling glitter.

“I know it’s kind of… sparkly… but it’s the best 70s phone case I could find on Amazon,” Xena informed, holding the phone higher and giving him a clear view of its case. “I think it’s cool, but you can just take this thing off if it looks too girly or whatever.”

“No… I love it,” Amory breathed, his grin growing as he surveyed it even closer.

“Yeah? Well… that’s good,” Xena said, turning the phone around and swiping its screen. “Now… pay attention, because I really want you to remember this. We’re finally gonna be able to actually call each other now. Look… I programmed your first contacts in here already, and I set your background up as a TARDIS.”

“Oh… yeah, that’s the time machine from Doctor Who,” Amory observed, squinting at the phone’s bright screen and examining the image of the blue police box on it. “I remember seeing that show on sometimes in Canterbury. I was actually kind of surprised that Mikey knew what it was. It’s a pretty old show for him to know.”

“Well… they started making more of it in the 2000s,” Xena explained. “There’s a lot of newer stuff out nowadays.”

“Oooh,” Amory uttered. “Okay, now that makes sense…”

“Yeah… and here, look,” Xena said, scooting closer to his side and holding the phone just in front of him, tapping on the blue contacts button at the bottom. “This is where you find your list of contacts… and, for now, your contacts are just me and Mikey. We can add more whenever everybody else here gets a phone. Basically… I just programmed our phone numbers in here and put our names on them. You just pull up contacts, tap on a name, and hit call.”

“Ohhh… kay,” Amory muttered and nodded. “Gotcha.”

“And… I also wrote your new number down,” Xena added, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small pink sticky note with a North Carolina phone number on it. “I figured this would be easier than trying to tell you where to find your new number in the phone… so… here. If you have to give your number to anyone… now you can, and the phone’s all set up and ready.”

She placed the sticky note on the back of the phone, then handed it over to him.

Amory slowly took it, his fingers softly grazing hers, and he glanced over at her, only just noticing how close the two were. Xena raised her head, merely smiling at him, and he breathed out a laugh, feeling another spark of nervousness inside.

“Thank you,” Amory said honestly. “I appreciate it… a lot. I really do.”

“Don’t worry about it… you needed it,” Xena replied, gingerly nudging her elbow into his.

Amory paused, gulping roughly and sliding his thumb up and down the back of the phone, staring at her and feeling a faint, fluttery sensation in his chest. He couldn’t think what else to say, gazing into her pale, beautiful face, his heart making a hard, thumping pound…

Then—a distant noise caught his attention, and he snapped back into reality, sliding the phone into his pocket and leaning over the railing again, staring down at the first floor.

He was just able to see Mikey emerge from the back hall, holding a burger than he’d assembled in the kitchen. Amory grinned and grabbed the mannequin—launching it over the balcony and sending it plummeting downward.

The mannequin landed feet in front of the boy—smacking the floor with a dull thunk —its arm and ankle both popping off and skidding across the black and white floor.

Mikey stopped walking and chewing, merely staring at the shambled plastic body with a vacant expression on his face. Then, he upturned his head—spotting Amory hovering far above him with the railing of the stairs pressed into his stomach.

“Oh man,” Amory laughed, shaking his head. “I really have met my match.”

Mikey gazed up at him with a deadpan visage, simply raising his free hand and brandishing his middle finger. Then, he took another bite of his burger and walked past the broken mannequin like nothing had happened.

“Ooo… look at him. He thinks he’s gangsta,” Xena laughed, leaning over the railing beside Amory and calling down to her nephew. “Hey! Did you think I wasn’t watching you just now?! Don’t flip people off!”

Mikey continued walking toward the edge of the stairs as if he couldn’t hear her.

Xena snickered and swiped her dark bangs aside, facing Amory again. “Hey… while I’m thinking about it… I also had an idea about inviting his friends here for Halloween.”

Amory turned to her. “Mikey has friends…?”

“Yeah… like, his old friends,” Xena clarified. “The ones he hung out with when he still lived with Kira. He’s homeschooled, so he doesn’t make friends at school. He made friends out of the other kids who live out in the country around where his mom’s place is. He just can’t see them much anymore because he lives too far away now.”

“Oooh… yeah, we can invite them here,” Amory smirked. “Honestly, they can come over here whenever they want, not just on Halloween. It’d be nice if Mikey could hang out with his friends normally again.”

Xena tapped her chin, pondering on this. “Y’know what… since I have more time nowadays… I can be the designated child taxi service. I could bring them out here and take them home whenever their parents wanna let them come over.”

“Yeeeah… oh, and me and Raven and Crowe were talking about getting another car, too,” Amory replied. “Because Ari and Miss Morgan and Iggy are just kind of stuck in the house all the time, and they can’t really get around all that much. Maybe they’d be willing to help with that, too… after we get the car, I mean…”

“Yeah… Crowe already gave me the money for that, actually,” Xena remarked. “He’s kind of anxious to go get that done, and he wants me to do the actual payment part for him so he doesn’t have to just outright pay with mountains of cash.”

Amory stared, suddenly falling expressionless. “He gave you enough money to buy a car? Like, a new car? In this time?”

“Yeah,” Xena shrugged.

Amory paused for a second, looking down and making a face. “Oh, that asshole went into my closet without asking…”

Xena sniggered. “Oh, is that where you’re keeping it all? Good to know. I’ll make sure the cops don’t go near your closet if they ever show up here with a warrant.”

“They won’t!” Amory gasped, laughing and shaking his head. “Don’t say that! Sheesh! You’re gonna jynx us!”

“I’m kidding,” Xena smirked and smacked his arm. “If they haven’t shown up by now, they’re not going to. I kinda figured they’d be totally freaking lost. You might wanna keep it a secret from Jacob and Daniel, though.”

“Who…?”

“Jacob and Daniel… they’re Mikey’s friends. They’re the ones I could see actually coming out here and hanging out with him. They’re not bad kids, but they’re kind of… um…”

“Troublemakers?” Amory guessed.

“Ehhh… kind of,” Xena replied, making a wincing sort of face and a sideways nod. “They like to do daredevil crap, and neither one of them comes from a very well off family, so… if they see what’s in your closet, then they might be tempted to, uh… run off with some of it.”

“Well… that sounds familiar,” Amory mumbled, thinking of a young Crowe Quintrell.

“What’re you saying about Jacob and Daniel…?” Mikey asked, traveling up the stairs and approaching them.

“We were talking about them coming and hanging out here,” Xena replied. “You think they’d wanna come by sometime…?”

Mikey reached the top of the stairs and stopped, nodding at her. “Yeah… I was actually gonna ask about that, anyway, because their bus goes all over the north side of town before it heads out to where it usually drops them off. There’s one bus stop that’s like right at the corner of the cemetery. They could just get dropped off there after school and walk right up here, if they wanted to… and then you could take them home later.”

“Yeah… or they could spend the night, if they wanted,” Xena suggested.

“That’d be cool,” Mikey agreed, turning to Amory. “Do you care if my old friends spend the night here…?”

“Nope,” Amory smiled. “They can come over whenever they want. You don’t have to ask me that anymore. Just assume the answer’s always yes.”

“N’awww,” Xena beamed, grasping Amory’s shoulders and shaking him to and fro. “Look at him! He’s such a sweetie pie. Isn’t he the best father ever?”

“Wait, wait, wait… father? I’m not old enough to be his father,” Amory laughed, then made a strange face and looked down. “Wait, am I? Hold on, I need to do math in my head…”

“You would’ve had to conceive me when you were seventeen,” Mikey knew immediately.

Amory blinked and shot him a look. “Oh, well, never mind… sorry, I forgot there was a human calculator standing here…”

“I wouldn’t call you a father, anyway,” Mikey added, waving around in front of him and gesturing to him up and down. “It’s giving big brother energy…”

“What’s giving what now…?” Amory uttered.

“He means you’re more like a big brother,” Xena explained. “Which kinda makes perfect sense, because you’re like half adult and half child.”

Amory whipped his head around and gave her such a baffled look, she instantly choked out a laugh, placing a hand on his arm and resting her forehead to his shoulder. After a moment of snickering breathlessly, she straightened up again.

“Okay… I’m gonna go chill and binge on some Stranger Things,” Xena decided, turning to leave. “G’night, children.”

“Wait, wait… I actually have to, um… talk to you about something,” Amory suddenly remembered. “Can we talk for a sec…?”

“Yeah.” Xena faced Mikey, planting a hand on his head. “And you… text Jacob and Daniel and see if they wanna come over.”

“I am,” Mikey replied, walking past her and heading toward the spiral staircase that led up to the third floor.

They both watched him march through the doorway and climb the rounded stairs, vanishing from their sight.

When Xena turned to face Amory again, he stared and sighed, hesitating and assessing his thoughts. Only now, in this moment, did he recall that he still hadn’t told her the full truth about his first visit to the Canterbury ruins; as far as she knew, Amory had zapped out there last week and simply found nothing there.

If he were to tell her the entire truth now—that he had met Vincent Hawthorn there, decided to heal and forgive him, and even planned a second meeting with him that was meant to happen tomorrow—then she would likely turn quickly to worry, and she would also feel rather unhappy about him keeping all of this a secret from her in the first place. It would be a lot for her to take all at once, and she would probably try to talk him out of it just as she had the first time. She may even resort to telling the others about it just to stop him from going at all.

Amory bit his lip, glancing down and pondering on many second thoughts about telling her. Zyon had suggested he do so, just as a safety net—but quite honestly, Amory believed with full confidence that he could go out there with Aravali, speak with Vincent, and deal with whatever other surprises might arrive there.

Perhaps he didn’t really need to tell Xena anything about it right now.

Silently deciding that it was better not to tell her just yet, his mind suddenly began to scramble and race, trying to think of something else he could say to fill this heavy silence.

“Ummm… how would you feel about a… field trip?” Amory said randomly, placing his hands together and aiming them both at her.

Xena blinked and raised her brows. “Field trip to where…?”

“Aaahm… to… the 80s,” Amory told her impulsively. “You said you were getting into Stranger Things… so… how would you like to see the 80s for real?”

Xena stared at him incredulously for a second, breathing out a laugh. “Well… yeah, that sounds freaking awesome… but… I thought it wasn’t safe there right now, because of…?”

“Oh—no, I don’t mean right now,” Amory uttered, shaking his head and swatting the air. “I mean later—sometime after Canterbury isn’t a problem anymore. Or—who knows—maybe you could come with us when we go home for Christmas. I know we’re supposed to be with my parents for Christmas in ’88, so we’ve been planning for that, anyway.”

Xena tilted her head curtly at him, studying him intently and flashing a smirk. “Sooo… are you asking me to come and meet your parents?”

Amory paused, then nodded and smiled. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“All right… I would love that,” Xena grinned. “Oh, but you have to tell me right now… am I supposed to be your date, or what? Like… are you gonna try to impress your parents by showing off someone you’re dating? Because you can get some good brownie points pulling that trick, if sitcoms have ever taught me anything.”

Amory almost answered, then stopped and thought for a moment, smiling again. “You know what? I didn’t even think of that… but I like it. Yeah. I’ll tell them you’re my date. It’d be nice for them to be proud of me for something.”

“Oh… dude… they should be proud of you for lots of stuff,” Xena remarked, reaching out and gently straightening his crooked collar. “How much do they actually know about everything you’ve been doing…?”

“Not enough,” Amory said, his smile waning. “I didn’t have the chance to tell them very much about all this when I saw them last… but I’m hoping I can catch them up on a lot more when we go back for Christmas.”

“Okay… cool… then we’re having Christmas at the Evervale’s,” Xena figured.

“Oh… no… wait… um,” Amory stammered, closing his eyes and pressing his fingers into his temples. “Sorry… no… we’re not having our Christmas there. We’re having their Christmas there. It’s December right now on the other side of the door.”

Xena stared at him. “So… we’re gonna end up celebrating Halloween and Christmas in the same month, pretty much…?”

“Pretty much,” Amory confirmed.

“And we’re still gonna have our regular 2025 Christmas too.”

“Yup.”

“Okay. Man, this is gonna get confusing…”

“Yup…”

“All right… wait,” Xena muttered, raising a hand. “What exact time of the month is it over there right now? Do you know…?”

“Ahm…” Amory made another quizzical face, massaging his temples even more. “I’m not really sure. It was the beginning of December the last time we were over there, and it’s been about three weeks since then…”

“Sooo… it’s coming right up on Christmas Day for them,” Xena said.

Amory lowered his hands, gazing down at the floor as this realization slowly sank into him.

“Oh my gosh,” he breathed. “We have to do this soon. We have to do this really soon…”

“Yeah… and, um… do your parents actually know you’re coming home for Christmas?” Xena thought to ask. “Or how many people you’re bringing, or anything like that…?”

“No… I was just gonna pop in and surprise them,” Amory muttered. “I just planned to take Raven and Crowe with me, and surprise Mom and Dad with a couple of presents…”

Xena gave him a long, thoughtful stare. “Okay, well… if you’re taking me and Mikey too, then that’s five guests, right there. Your parents basically have no idea that they’re about to be hosting a family holiday at their house. You might wanna figure out some way to warn them.”

“Yeah… probably,” Amory mumbled. “I guess I can go through the doorway tomorrow… after I’m done with… other stuff…”

“Why do you have to take the doorway?” Xena wondered. “You can just zap-travel there by yourself, can’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but I’d rather use the doorway… just because there’s no chance of me getting the time wrong that way,” Amory explained. “I figured I can just walk through the doorway into Moonvale, and then I’d zap right over to Mom and Dad’s.”

“Ohhh… gotcha,” Xena nodded. “Well… just make sure you remember to warn them before we all show up there. I’m just taking a guess, because I don’t know your parents… but they’d probably wanna know beforehand, especially if they like to make big dinners for holidays or anything like that.”

Amory made a nod, thinking of his mother and knowing for certain she would want to make a humongous dinner. “Yeah, you’re right…”

The two of them were silent for a moment.

“Well… okay… that’s all I wanted to ask,” Amory disclosed, walking past her and sparing her a wave. “I’m gonna go check on Zyon. He’s in an extra deep sleep right now, so I just wanna pop in on him real quick before I go upstairs.”

“M’kay,” Xena replied, heading toward her own room. “G’night.”

“G’night,” Amory said, marching all the way down the hall and stopping at the last room to the right, the one that belonged to Zyon.

While Xena walked into her bedroom—Amory slowly opened the door to Zyon’s room, peering into the dark, spacious bedroom and squinting over at the full-size bed, where Zyon lay on his back, his eyes closed, his trench coat still on, and his blankets underneath him, as he never seemed to use them like an ordinary person would.

Amory slowly walked into the room, the light from the hallway washing into the darkness behind him, and he eased to a stop at Zyon’s bedside, gazing quietly down at him and wearing a solemn expression.

Zyon looked drained, not peaceful, but not in duress; he simply appeared exhausted, somewhat pale, his eyes closed, and his mouth just the slightest bit agape, the dark, old bruise on his neck still fairly prominent, even though it had lightened a little bit since he first arrived here.

Amory watched him, sighing and wondering when the time would come when Zyon would finally be able to spend more of his time awake than asleep. None of them had any way of knowing how long it would take for the mysterious and powerful serum known as Devil’s Venom to finally works its way out of the angel’s system, and he silently hoped and prayed that it would be a matter of only weeks or months, and not years or decades.

After all, even though he was an angel—Amory couldn’t help but simply think of him as a person, especially now, gazing down at him and seeing him look so sickly and drained. The man seemed so human, or at least, somewhat human—and he, like everyone else, should be allowed to have a break from pain, or sickness, or exhaustion, or anything else negative that would wound or hinder them in some way.

Amory knew Zyon was busy now, doing something that he called shadow-walking, and that—during this moment—was part of the reason for the deepness of his sleep. Still, Zyon had been almost constantly sleeping in this room ever since the endgame at the Evervale home, and Amory had to wonder how long this would have to carry on.

Hopefully, the angel could be allowed to walk among the living again someday soon.

“Goodnight,” Amory said softly, patting him on the arm before he turned to leave.

He strode down the hallway, reached the opposite end, and traveled up the spiral staircase, entering his bedroom and swinging the double-doors shut behind him.

Then—he walked straight over to the bureau beside his bed, put on a John Mellencamp record, nodded along to the music, and began rifling through his closet, pulling out many different outfits that hung crookedly from the hangers, most of them lying lumpily on the top of the mountain of money that occupied the majority of the closet now.

Most of the outfits—both the ones his parents had placed here for him, and the ones Xena had gotten for him—were mainly outfits that suited the 1970s, as they were what Amory had always preferred. He laid out several shirts and pants across the side of his bed, picking them up one by one and examining them, trying to decide what to wear tomorrow.

“Big… big day tomorrow,” Amory muttered to himself. “Oh man… I have to meet Vincent, I have to make some kind of plan with him, if he doesn’t go and double-cross me… and I have to go back home and talk to Mom and Dad again too… ohhh, geez…”

He lifted many shirts and draped them over the front of himself, glancing over at the full-body mirror that now hung on the wall beside his large family Christmas portrait. He did this with several shirts before tossing them down and sighing, raking his fingers back through his hair.

“God… how am I more nervous about seeing my parents again than I am about seeing Vincent again?” Amory griped at himself. “Yeah, that makes sense… get it together, Amory…”

He surveyed the pants—most of which were bellbottoms of many darker colors and shades—and he selected the newest ones of the collection, a pair of dark navy blue ones. He set them aside, then returned his attention to the shirts.

BANG.

A sudden noise echoed from the hallway outside his room—and he stopped and looked to the double-doors, staring fixedly at them and feeling his heart jolt.

For a long, tense moment—Amory stood perfectly still there, rooted to the spot beside his bed and glaring at the doors intently. He listened, closely, his heart pounding, waiting to hear anything else that might explain the sound he’d just heard—but he couldn’t hear a thing, aside from the music playing from the record player just beside him.

Swallowing roughly, Amory slowly reached over, lifting the needle off the record and making the music stop, the room falling silent.

Then, he faced the doors again, listening as attentively as he could to whatever was outside of his room—but he didn’t hear anything at all now.

He knew what the banging noise sounded like; he’d heard it before, during some of the worst instances of his life.

It sounded exactly like a gunshot.

But here?

In this mansion, far from anyone who was a threat to he and his friends, in an entirely different century than everyone in Canterbury Lab—how could any of those threats be here? How could they invade his home without anyone downstairs noticing and retaliating? How could they have gotten through the blue door if it was warded? And if they came from the gateway at the lab ruins—how did they know where to go to find Evervale Manor from there?

His mind raced fervently, trying to piece together any explanation possible, but every thought came up short; it simply did not make sense. They couldn’t be here. Right?

Amory shook his head once, trying to push the sudden paranoia away and forcing himself back to reality. Then, he summoned his nerve and walked toward the double-doors, grasping the handles and taking a deep breath before he began to pull them open.

The first thing he noticed was that the hallway of the third floor was very dark now. Someone had switched off the lights, with nothing to brighten the area except his bedroom light and the faraway light from the room of the spiral staircase illuminating the hallway from the end.

Amory stepped out of his room and followed the only other source of light in the hallway, staring at the end of the hall where the spiral staircase room was—and then, his eyes landed on something else, a figure, lying on the floor just down the way.

His breath cut thin—inhaling a sharp gasp—feeling as if his heart had stopped.

He didn’t notice the long, cylindrical speaker sitting on the floor beside the sliding glass doors of the balcony—and he didn’t notice that Raven was now peeking out of her bedroom from the opposite end of the hall, gazing out to investigate the noise.

No—Amory’s eyes were locked onto the body of the child on the floor, Mikey lying motionlessly on his side, his eyes open, not blinking, and a single, crimson-spotted hole appeared to be oozing from the center of his forehead.

Amory stared, mortified, his expression gaunt and terror-stricken, a trillion things flooding through him—things he’d felt before—horrid things that he wished he’d never feel again. It was just the same as it was that night at the King’s Place, when gunshots ripped through the glass doors toward Raven and Crowe, when Amory had looked up from his seated position at the chapel, watching the scene in horror—the same as the morbid shock that overtook him when the deafening 12-gauge blast shredded the side of Vincent’s skull apart right before his eyes.

He hoped, wished, and prayed that nothing like that would ever happen again—that he’d never have to worry about anyone he loved being shot at again—maybe even killed—

Yet—here Mikey lay, still, unresponsive, and with a fresh bullet wound in his head.

Amory’s mind raced even more—feverishly reaching for an explanation—couldn’t be Canterbury—they couldn’t be here—no one else was in this hall—or in the stairway—no one—how could this—?

The thoughts began to shatter as emotions fought to take their place, his chest aching, and his eyes beginning to water.

“No, no, no… please , no…” Amory choked, shaking his head and breaking into a quick stride.

He hit his knees—instantly hunching over Mikey and scanning him up and down with a terrible fear overwhelming him.

“Mikey!” Amory cried, clasping his face and searching his eyes for any sign of life. “ Mikey …!”

The boy’s face felt warm, but his body showed no response, his eyes remaining open, gazing out into nothingness. Amory continued to yell his name, growing more panicked by the second, shaking him and begging him to awaken, but he still did not stir.

Raven took a step out of her room, staring down the hallway with concern.

“Oh my God… no,” Amory croaked miserably, tears streaming down his face. “No, no, no… come on… come on …!”

He gritted his teeth, placing his hand to the boy’s head, his eyes brightening with twin spirals of bright blue light—

Then—he stopped, gulping and making a strange face, feeling no indention beneath his palm, no hole where the gunshot wound appeared to be. He wanted to use his power to attempt to heal the injury—but it seemed no injury was there.

Amory looked vexed, withdrawing his hand and leaning forward, giving the boy’s forehead a closer surveying.

The dark, rounded circle was in the center of his forehead—but it was flat and painted on, not a hole at all, and the blood smeared on it had no metallic scent. It looked and felt like the fake Halloween blood that they had both purchased together in town a few days ago.

Amory’s eyes flickered down to Mikey’s.

Mikey stared back up at him, now wearing a smirk.

“Gotcha,” he said.

Amory said nothing, merely sitting on his knees and remaining eerily still, his expression grave and distant, his cheeks shiny and tearstained, and his breaths still trembling with every inhalation. For a long, quiet moment, he simply stared at the boy, feeling more shaken, disturbed, and frustrated than ever.

Mikey pushed himself upright, sitting partially up and collecting his glasses from the floor. He pointed over toward the glass sliding doors that led out to the stone balcony, gesturing to the small Bluetooth speaker he had placed on the floor there.

“Look… you see that?” Mikey said, jabbing a finger over at it. “I put the volume on MAX, and I downloaded the best gunshot sound effect I could find and played it from my phone.”

Amory still didn’t respond, several feelings inside still screaming, but he just sat there, still staring and not speaking.

“That was pretty good, come on,” Mikey grinned. “I got you.”

Amory continued to gaze into him, wearing a graver face than he usually ever did, his breaths still shaky, and his emotions still waging an absolute war inside. Eventually, feeling lightheaded and wounded, he lumbered up to his feet, standing and nodding mildly.

“Yeah,” Amory breathed with a rasp. “You did…”

He turned and marched toward his bedroom.

“Hey… don’t be mad at me, come on,” Mikey laughed, leaping to his feet as well. “I told you I could scare you—”

“You know what—?!” Amory yelled, whipping back around to face him.

He instantly stopped, pressed a fist to his mouth, and forced everything he wanted to say back down, not allowing himself to snap angrily at the boy. He shook his head once, glancing over at the small, strange speaker and resisting the impulse to smash it against the wall with his mind, and he was quiet for another long moment, until he managed to ever so slightly simmer down.

“Don’t… do that… again,” Amory growled in a low, rumbling voice that hardly sounded like his own, thrusting a finger at him and giving him a sharp, severe glare, one like he’d never given Mikey before. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

Mikey suddenly fell silent, his smile fading, staring back at him wordlessly.

Amory lowered his hand, giving him a final, disapproving look before turning on his heel and storming into his bedroom—jutting his hand out behind him and unleashing a burst of his power—slamming the doors shut so hard, they both rattled loudly against their hinges.

There was a deep, heavy silence lingering in the atmosphere in the moments after.

Mikey was left standing alone in the hall, staring at the double-doors with perturbed confusion. He felt uncomfortably serious now, as if something very grim and unamusing had just befallen them both, which was the opposite of his intention—and he felt genuinely surprised that Amory had reacted the way he did. Truthfully, he thought the prank would be appreciated for its cleverness, but that certainly didn’t turn out to be the case. Rather than feeling clever and praised, he instead felt a bit hurt and disappointed in. Amory had never gotten stern with him, angry at him, or even mildly upset with him before now.

Mikey blinked and glanced over, only just noticing that Raven was now approaching from her room. She glimpsed over at Amory’s bedroom doors, then back at him, sighing heavily and wearing a grave visage.

“Hey… buddy… you can’t do that to him,” Raven said softly, dabbing her thumb to her tongue and pressing it to his forehead, wiping off the face paint and the fake blood. “He’s actually seen stuff like that in real life before.”

Mikey was quiet, his brow hardening, gazing up at her with chagrin.

“And… he is a really protective big brother, trust me,” Raven told him, lifting the flap of her jacket and using it to wipe what remained of the paint from his face. “And… he’s had to deal with the people around him being in danger… and even shot at… and even shot successfully … up until we all came here.”

Mikey frowned, feeling a surge of regret deep inside.

“So… even though we’re all safe now… he’s probably still really scared of anything happening to the people he cares about,” Raven disclosed, lowering her hand and giving him a look. “So… please don’t pretend to die when you’re doing the scare war thing with him, okay? You probably really hurt him a lot just now.”

Mikey swallowed, glancing over at the doors, then back at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know…”

“Well… we didn’t tell you,” Raven replied with a shrug. “Not all the worst parts of it, anyway. But… well… now, it seems like you need to know. We don’t need any of that stuff from the past following us here. He needs love, and support, and fun, and a safe space when he’s here at home. Okay?”

Mikey nodded somberly.

“That’s what we all need… and I know you understand that, too,” Raven said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You guys help each other a lot in feeling that way, so don’t throw any monkey wrenches into that, okay?”

Mikey nodded again.

Raven gave his shoulder a light little shake. “He loves you a lot, y’know.”

Mikey adjusted his glasses, squinting questioningly at her. “Why do you think that…?”

“Well, he loves kids in general… but the way he acts with you now is like…” Raven shrugged again, smiling warmly. “It’s like the way he’s always been with me. He’s really getting to the point where he sees you as family. I can tell he is.”

Mikey gulped again, feeling guiltier by the second. He looked to the doors once more, feeling a spark of anxiety at what he wanted to do next, but he decided to do it anyway.

“I understand,” Mikey said. “I wanna apologize to him.”

Raven nodded and released him. “You’re really mature for your age, you know that?”

Mikey managed a smirk, though it was somewhat forced. “Thank you.”

“No problem. G’night,” Raven said, giving him a wave before walking off toward her room.

Mikey returned her wave, then faced the bedroom doors, grasped the handles, and took a deep breath before pushing them open.

Inside—the large window was dark, the curtains open, the closet door standing ajar, and the bed was coated with several random articles of clothing, some spread out, others in mounds. The room was fairly bright compared to the hall, and Mikey blinked a few times as he walked inside, his eyes moving over to Amory, who sat on his bed beside the bureau, facing away, hunched forward, and resting his head on his hand, staring down and crying in silence.

Mikey gave him a stare, then turned and eased the doors shut again before quietly walking over to him. He briefly surveyed the many bellbottoms on the bed, then pushed them to the side before leaping onto it and sitting beside him.

Amory didn’t look at or acknowledge him. He remained hunched forward, pressing his fingers to his forehead and hanging his head low, another tear crawling down his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Mikey said meekly. “I didn’t think it would… bother… you.”

Amory didn’t reply, sniffing and huffing out a breath.

“I mean… I didn’t think it would… bother bother you,” Mikey tried to clarify. “I just thought it would be like a split-second fear thing when you first saw me. I didn’t think it would be like… way worse than that…”

Amory gulped and took in another trembling breath, his eyes still closed, and his head still low.

“Just please don’t do that again,” he breathed in a weak, raspy murmur.

“I won’t,” Mikey assured.

Amory’s expression worsened, wincing and frowning, gently shaking his head at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he choked.

Mikey narrowed his eyes at him. “Why’re you sorry?”

Amory took a moment, inhaling shakily once more and finally lowering his hand from his face, releasing a massive breath and turning to him.

“I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” Amory said, his voice throaty, and his eyes glistening with despair. “And I thought I was doing the right thing, because why would I go and tell a kid all the worst things I’d ever been through? You don’t expose kids to all that… you’re supposed to shelter kids from all that… but… at the same time, if I would’ve just told you everything, then you would’ve known not to do that…”

Mikey paused for a second, looking down, then reading his expression again, seeing more sadness in him than he ever had since meeting him.

“You could tell me now,” Mikey suggested.

“Yeah… yeah,” Amory nodded and sniffled. “I just… I always hated being exposed to all the worst things in the world when I was your age, and I always knew… I always knew that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. You’re supposed to be protected by the adults around you… and they’re supposed to keep you away from things like that. I was totally failed in that way… and it sounds like you were too, before you were with Xena. That’s just not right… and I just wanted to… I don’t know… I just wanted someone to do it right for you, and this is the perfect place for that. Xena, and me… both of us together… we can make sure you’re not over-exposed to all the worst things in the world ever again…”

Mikey pondered on this for a moment, then made a mild shrug.

“Well… I mean… it’s not like you telling me that stuff is gonna… hurt me,” the boy said. “It’s just us talking. It doesn’t have to be a really big deal.”

Amory gave him a deep, conflicted stare.

Perhaps Mikey had a point; after all, it wasn’t as if Mikey himself had to experience any of the things that Amory had just because he was hearing about it. Maybe Amory simply felt too strongly convicted to shelter the boy from anything and everything bad in the world.

But—as reality dictated—not everything that needed to be confronted or talked about would be good. Bad things needed to be discussed and understood, too, and that was true for everyone no matter how old they were.

“All right… all right, I’ll tell you,” Amory decided.

“Okay,” Mikey agreed.

Amory stared forward, gazing out his dark window and clasping his hands together.

“Basically… in Canterbury… the reason I found out what they were doing there… is because… I found… bodies there,” he explained, fidgeting his thumbs as he spoke. “There was a room… full of body bags… and, some of them were… small. Really small. Like… your size.”

Mikey nodded silently.

“And that just… terrified me,” Amory breathed. “The thought of them killing people was scary as hell by itself… and when I saw children in there, I just… I… could not… believe they could just… do that to little kids…”

He gulped painfully, inhaling and sighing before he continued.

“And… then… I left, ended up here, met your aunt, and… then went back home,” Amory mumbled. “I tracked Raven and Crowe down to this club called the King’s Place, and I sat at the chapel across the street from it, just watching from a distance while they had fun inside… and then… a bunch of Canterbury’s hired mercenaries showed up there, and just… opened fire.”

Mikey listened quietly.

“And I remember… looking up… seeing that… and my heart just… stopping,” Amory recalled with grim severity. “Because it really looked like they just shredded the entire place with bullets and killed my little sister… and my best friend…”

His voice trembled more as he spoke, and he sniffed and ran a hand down his face.

“I should’ve done something faster when that happened… and I still kick myself for that,” Amory murmured gravely. “But I was just so… shocked… and… just… terrified again…”

Mikey nodded.

“And I went through a lot when I was your age… I really did… but I spent a lot of time being sheltered, too,” Amory went on. “I’d been living in a cozy little prison for fifteen years… and then, all the sudden, everything is body bags, and destruction, and gunshots, and…”

He paused and shook his head.

“I just… I was just shocked… I don’t know how else to explain it,” Amory laughed breathlessly, another tear cascading down his face. “And then they almost shot Ari, and I just barely managed to get him away in time… I mean, I don’t know if Vincent was really gonna do it or not, but I was scared enough to think he was. And then, Vincent… God, he just got his head blown off right in front of me the next day, and he was my friend, as screwed up in the head as he was… it’s just… it’s just… it’s a lot. It was a lot… and it all happened back to back, too, just a total bombardment of fear and terror. But… now… we’re here. So… there you go. Now you know. I don’t like worrying about people dying because I’ve been really terrified about that ever since I left Canterbury… and I hate it… I hate it so much…”

He shook his head once more, holding his fingers to his forehead again and looking down.

Mikey examined him, looking serious and squinting questioningly at him.

“And all of that happened… right before we all moved in here?” the boy asked.

“Yeah.” Amory nodded mildly down at his lap. “That last part happened in the same hour that you and Xena first came here. I still had Vincent’s fresh blood on my shirt when I was showing you both around the house.”

“Holy crap,” Mikey exhaled.

There was a long pause, both of them falling momentarily silent. Then, Amory lowered his hand and faced him again, somehow managing to smile and laugh.

“Honestly, though…” Amory smirked, chuckling faintly. “That was really smart… and I’m not gonna lie… I might’ve done the exact same kind of thing when I was a kid. I could definitely see myself getting carried away and doing a messed-up prank just like that back then, ‘cause I always got way too carried away on Halloween… I jus…”

He stopped, inhaling heavily and shaking his head yet again.

“I just can’t think that’s funny anymore,” Amory croaked, another tear escaping the corner of his eye. “Not when it’s death… and not when it’s… you.”

Mikey stared, taking in a deep breath and feeling a sudden wave of emotions inside him.

“So… as long as you promise to never, ever do a death prank again… I concede… that you are now the King of Halloween,” Amory disclosed, wagging a finger at him and reaching his feet, then sauntering over to his open closet. “And you officially win the bet. So… here.”

He lifted one of the bundles of cash from the closet, slid a hundred-dollar bill from it, and walked back over to the bed, smiling and offering the bill to him.

Mikey gazed at it, then glanced up at him, feeling both perplexed and empathic, hardly able to believe what he was doing right now. Quite honestly—he couldn’t believe all that Amory had been through right before they all wound up here, and he couldn’t believe that Amory was still managing to smile, to snicker, and to honor the bet they had started, even after Mikey had very intensely reawakened some of the worst and most recent traumas of his life.

The boy merely stared at him in disbelief for a moment, his own eyes beginning to water.

“Fucking…” Mikey swore, leaping off the bedside and smacking his hand away. “I don’t want your stupid money…”

He moved forward—snapping his arms around Amory and hugging him tightly.

Amory stood still, another rush of feelings fighting to escape him, but he took a deep breath, made himself calm, and simply returned the hug, closing his eyes and embracing Mikey like a long lost brother.

For a quiet, somber while, the two simply hugged, the boy crying softly into Amory’s shirt—and Amory wore a simple, peaceful smile, his hand resting on Mikey’s head, and he felt, strangely enough, very glad to see him opening up so much now.

Mikey smiled far more nowadays than he did the day they met, and now, he felt close enough to even cry in front of him. Perhaps Amory truly had created a safe place for him, a place where he could finally just feel and express, whether it was happiness, fun, or despair. Not to mention, the boy was so intelligent, both logically and emotionally; he was sure to learn how to process things correctly and grow his character well, now that he was finally in a place that gave him the safety and comfort to do so.

And—most kids would jump at the chance to grab a free hundred-dollar bill.

Mikey, on the other hand, was simply concerned with how Amory felt in this moment, showing no regard for the money at all. He was uncommonly selfless and perceptive for a child his age, on top of being intelligent and sharp.

As Amory stood and held him, he felt a spark of pride in him now.

And—despite detesting the prank that the boy had pulled—he had to admit, it did come with at least one important wakeup call.

Now—while Amory’s gaze became distant, staring across the room at himself and Mikey in the mirror—he watched as his smile dwindled away, and he knew for certain that his plans for tomorrow had to change.

Aravali was a fantastic doctor, and he truly meant well by all of his patients—but he simply could not accompany Amory out to the Canterbury ruins.

If there was any chance at all of yet another friend of his being shot or killed—then everyone else needed to stay far away from the uncertainty and potential danger.

Amory came to the decision in silence, giving his reflection a single, definitive nod.

He would go to the ruins of Canterbury Lab alone when the time for the meeting finally came.