I know that they all think I'm stupid. Normally, it didn't bug me. I'd laugh along, give a dramatic reaction and we all moved on. But I found it increasingly more difficult to hide behind my silliness. I was trying to with the same way I am with Sis, with Kalysta, but I could tell it wasn't working. She's a lot more serious and I was clearly agitating her.

  When I heard her fall asleep, I sat up in the tiny bed, pulling my knees into chest. I hadn't actually been able to fall asleep, but I wanted her to think I had. It was just easier that way. The darkness outside was still. No streetlights, no moon. When I looked across the room, I could barely make out the shape of Kalysta laying in the bed next to me. But I could make out the shadows moving. Whatever had been watching me had followed me all the way out here. I reached for my phone and flicked on the flashlight, exhaling heavily when I could see nothing else was in the room with us.

  It reminded me of when Sis and I were kids. When we were little, we had shared a room in a small apartment in London. Our parents hadn't quite risen to fame within the Order yet, and the living quarters at the Citadel were reserved mostly for trainees and personnel.

  Our tiny room had deep, dark shadows, that shifted as cars drove by in the street at night. To counter this, our Mom had given us a little carousel light, that cast fun little shapes of horses, monkeys and lions into the darkness. It had been soothing, and reassuring, especially for Sis, who was scared of the dark back then. It's funny how things change.

  Back then, despite the two of us being twins, I was the big brother. I protected my Sis from everything. From bumps in the night, to every scratch and bruise. I'd be goofy just to see her laugh when she was sad. I still did.

  With both of our parents busy with Order work all the time, Sis and I relied a lot on each other. We even had that weird twin thing; when she hurt, I could feel it, and the other way too. Somewhere down the line, I guess we grew out of that stuff, but I was still her big brother.

  I looked over at Kalysta, as her shoulders raised and lowered, her heavy breathing, the only reminder that time was passing in the still room. She reminded me a lot of my Sis, although neither of them would admit it. Kalysta was a little colder, and little more rough around the edges, but on the inside, very similar. At least to me.

  I knew that somewhere deep inside, someone had hurt her and that she didn't mean the hurtful things she said. We all say things we don't mean when we hurt. Chase was important to her, and with no parents, sadly like a lot of Chosen, she had latched on to her mentor. The thought that someone as tough as Chase could be rotting on the side of the road was horrifying. I could only imagine what the news had done to Kalysta, who was already in such a fragile state.

  A ticking noise shattered my train of thought, and I looked around the room, panicking. There at the window, I saw the red eyes peering at me. But this time, I could make out the body they were attached to, sitting against the window glass; a bird-like form pecking away. But where its head should be, there was only a crow skull, with little red dots floating in its eye sockets.

  I jumped, putting my back against the wall. When it saw me move, it stopped pecking and pressed its head against the glass, peering in at me, staring.

  I knew what it was instantly; a psychopomp. The caretakers of the dead. In mythology, they would guide newly dead souls to their designated afterlife. That explains why it was following me; I had avoided that fate thanks to Dyson's quick thinking and Sis getting her hands on the Grail.

  The psychopomp began pecking again, more insistently. It was so loud, I was surprised it didn't wake Kalysta up. I went to jump off the bed, when I saw the shadows shift across the floor. I immediately withdrew my feet, peering down at the inky black. When I moved my phone's light to see, it was just the tacky throw rug.

  "What the frick..." I muttered, trying not to wake Kalysta. Looking back to the window, the psychopomp was gone, but the ticking sound of its skull beak against the glass still rang in my ears.

  Was I losing my mind? Was a part of me still lingering somewhere in the shadowy void of the afterlife, trying to pull me back to my end?

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  I laid down on the tiny bed and put the pillow over my head. If I could just manage a few hours of sleep, I'd be prepared for the long hike ahead of us. That's when I began to stress about Erik. He had travelled so far just to be away from us. When I had met Erik, he was so confident. I had never met anyone so sure of themselves and their ability to lead before. I respected it and grew to be his friend immediately. He kept us on routine, made sure we were ready for missions, and would even hang out with us when we did social excursions.

  How did we get to this? How had we all managed to fall so far?

  Back home, I worried about Sis, Tadashi and Orion. Everything I loved, I had left behind, simply to bring Erik home. And he probably didn't even want to come home. What if he just needed a vacation in Amsterdam? What if the stress was too much and he just needed a break?

  It was hard to forget what he had done to my sister though. I worried about whether it would happen again. I worried about if he had pushed just a little further...

  I shook my head. Erik was an asshole, but he was our friend and he was trying to make things right. But I worried I would never be able to look at him the same way again. And I worried if Kalysta, the only one who spent time with him recently, had experienced the same thing.

  And then I worried myself to sleep.

  ~*~

  "We've been hiking for hours," I complained, to which Kalysta heaved her arms in the air. "Can we stop to rest, or at least for a drink? Something?"

  "Drink while you walk." She shouted back at me.

  After we had found the site of the accident, Kalysta had us scouring the hillside to find some evidence of what had actually happened to Chase. Like his body. His phone was sitting on the side of the road. When Kalysta checked it, he had missed calls from Seraphina. We found the mangled motorcycle at the bottom of the cliff, where it had gone over the guard rail, but there was no sign he was ever on it. Kalysta had said she had seen the things he could do and assured me he would have walked away from it.

  But then why did the man from the bar think he had killed him? We had found blood, but it could have been anyone's, I guess.

  "Stop dragging your feet. Keep moving!" She shouted at me for like the twentieth time. She was panicked and angry. I understood, but my feet were killing me.

  "Kalysta!" I shouted finally. It was out of character for me, and she actually stopped and turned around.

  "I agreed to help you find Chase, but this is insane. We're searching blind in a forest in Wales. The trail went dead when we found the phone. I don't want to be lost out here when it gets dark. We are wasting way too much time this way. We have no way to track him now." I stopped too, panting and resting my hands on my knees.

  "Then go! Go find Erik then! You're the only one that cares to go looking for him anyway." She shouted back. She's seething, her shoulders raising up and down. She looks like she wants to cry, but her fury absorbs it.

  "That's not true! Stop acting like you don't care about Erik. He means something to all of us. He's still our friend and our leader." I told her. She shook her head the whole time I was talking. It was frustrating, but I tried to be patient.

  "I have to find Chase. That's more important. Erik is...I've put more faith and time into him than he was worth." She doesn't seem to believe her own words, but there is hurt there; an internal struggle. She turned and began her search again, disappearing into the woods.

  "Please stop walking away from me when I talk. I'm not a child! I'm not stupid." I yell back, my own emotions overflowing.

  Kalysta stopped again, but this time she kept her back to me.

  "I'm not going to ask you to keep helping me. And I told you when we left that I'm not helping you find Erik. We aren't even a team anymore Ethan. This has turned into one big nightmare, this whole thing with the Order. All I care about is finding the one person who matters to me. So, get over yourself. If you want to go look for Erik, that's your own problem. I'm not responsible for you. I'm not your keeper; I'm not your sister." She said, quieter than before. She sighed, and continued walking away.

  I stood there stunned. Her words had hurt more than I thought they would and when she disappeared from view, I found myself crying a little bit and I hated it. I hated when people talked down to me. I was more than just some brawny dude. I had thoughts and feelings. I'm not a burden.

  Am I?

  I found myself turning back up the hill to the cliff side where we had started out search. Looking out over the cliff, down into the valley, I could only imagine where Chase might have ended up, if he was even still alive. Kalysta would be out there forever. And eventually she too would be lost to us.

  I didn't want anything bad to happen to her, even though she was mean to me. But she was right. I needed to find Erik. No one else was going to look for him. I guess this is what it means to be stuck between a rock and hard place.

  When we checked Erik's GPS in the morning, he was in Norway now. Kalysta had been nice enough to set up the hack on my phone as well. I suppose she was anticipating this separation. I just wish it hadn't ended the way it did. I stared out into the forest, hoping beyond hope that she was going to be okay by herself, and then turned back to the village.

  This time I was going to have to figure out plane tickets myself.