“No!” Deen stood up so quickly her chair would’ve toppled to the floor if I hadn’t caught it. “That’s something I can’t allow.” She slammed her hands on the table. “Leave that poor innocent girl alone. She’s been through so much already.”

“Deen, tone it down,” I whispered, tugging her clothes. I gave a quick sidelong glance at the annoyed teen couple having a date three tables away, their lovey-dovey time disturbed by her outburst. “Don’t draw attention to us.”

“But I don’t agree with this,” she said in a much lower voice as she slowly sat back down. “We can’t—"

“Let me see that.” I nudged her hands. She raised them up from the table revealing a couple of dents on its aluminum surface.

Reo whistled. “Oof, that’s going to leave a mark.”

“It already did, you dumbass,” Myra said. She nonchalantly rotated her head as if she was stretching. “A security camera by that corner. What do we do?”

“Sorry,” Deen said. “I…I didn’t, I was—”

“You should learn to control your strength.”

“I got it.” Everett was there to the rescue for Deen. “Rotate the table over to me,” he said. “I’ll try to smoothen it out. No one will notice the dent.”

“Can you fix it? I’m really, really sorry.”

“Don’t worry, Deen. I’ve worked at a fastfood place before. We’re not paid enough to notice these things.”

Dario cleared his throat, and we all settled down again. “Before there’s any more violent reactions, let me explain myself first. Out of all the people that Myra, Johann, and Erind saved from the condo, Julie is the only one who knows their faces. Did I get that right?”

“Yep,” said Myra. Johann nodded.

We’re sticking to that story then? Johann and I had told the others a band of fellow residents helped me stay alive in the den of monsters that was my condo. When Myra and Johann finally came to my aid, only me, Julie, and her fatally wounded brother remained of our group.

And on our way out of the building, we did meet a few more people and took them with us, but by that time we already had improvised masks on so they didn’t see our faces.

It wasn’t a very coherent story, but we didn’t have time to make up something award-winning when we got to Deen’s house. We left out our monster pals, Ramon and Lizzie, substituting them instead with generic survivors. We also didn’t mention Pino; all Myra and Johann knew about her was what Julie told them anyway, and I disclaimed any knowledge of her. Curiously, it was Johann who wanted to keep as much details from the others as possible. Apparently, he also told Myra to sync her story with ours.

Now, the question was whether Dario knew the truth—at least Myra and Johann’s version of it. He was the leader of the group after all so, logically, I expected Johann to tell him.

Or maybe he didn’t? I couldn’t tell if Dario was just playing along with the fake story or he truly believed it.

“Julie knows you three are involved with Stella and the 2Ms,” Dario said. “Being enemies counts as ‘involved’. She’s also aware Myra isn’t human. Okay, knowing your faces might not be enough, especially the two of you.” He pointed to Myra and Johann. “But she definitely knows Erind is living in the same building as her. If she told the authorities, they can find the rest of us given time.”

“I have a tiny gut feeling we don’t want that to happen,” Reo said.

Deen shook her head. “Johann said she was in shock her brother died. Right, Johann?”

“Erm…that was what it looked like to me.”

“She did seem a bit out of it,” added Myra.

Dario stuffed some fries into his mouth. He gestured at us, encouraging us to eat too and pretend to hang out. “I’ve seen someone so overcome by grief,” he said in between chewing, “over the loss of a loved one that they couldn’t speak for several days.” He took a long sip of his smoothie before continuing. “But that person eventually recovered. Once Julie recovers—for all we know, she already has—she’ll be coherent enough to be questioned. And then we’ll be in trouble.”

“But we shouldn’t kill her even if we want to be safe! That’s not something heroes—”

“No ones killing anyone,” Dario said. “I didn’t say that.”

“What?” Deen’s eyes widened. “I thought—!”

Everyone of us stared at her with incredulous faces. Did she seriously assume Dario planned to kill Julie?

I mentally smirked. Funny it was the first thing that came to her mind. If she thought of this, did it mean killing Julie also crossed her mind as an option to keep our identities—mostly mine—a secret? I remembered how she was uncharacteristically chill with Everett and Reo killing the thugs sent by the 2Ms and burning their bodies.

Maybe something happened back then that mentally affected her? Was she the one who suggested to burn the bodies? Or maybe she herself killed some of her pursuers? Deen killing someone? I want to see that!

“I apologize…I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

Myra sighed. “Seriously, we’re not that kind of people.”

What kind of people then? I wanted to say to her, but I kept my mouth shut. The murderous type? Very tempting to look in her direction. I did my best to keep the sides of my mouth down because I was about to grin.

“What I meant by ‘I need to get to her’,” Dario said, “was I needed to get close to use my powers on her.”

“That makes more sense,” Deen said timidly, her cheeks a pinkish shade.

“Like what you did with Ramello?” I asked.

“In a way,” Dario said. “Your friend, Ramello. His situation was much easier to…fix. He already suffered severe head trauma so even if I did nothing, he would’ve forgotten many parts of the time both of you were kidnapped. Julie’s case is different. If I correctly assessed what Myra described to me, Julie didn’t forget anything. She’s only incoherent because of shock. To make her forget a day or two, I need to exert more of my power to…you know…”

“Scramble her brain,” Reo said. Myra elbowed him, causing him to squeeze the burger he was chomping on. “Hey, you got ketchup on my clothes!”

“That was your own fault.”

“Why so grumpy today, huh? And what I said is true.”

“Deen, before you say anything,” Dario said. “I know it doesn’t sound good. We can sugarcoat what Reo said, but it will be…like…that.”

“It’s not so bad as it sounds,” Everett said. “Sometimes people get so drunk they forget a day or two. Just think of it like that.”

“There’s this one time,” Reo said, “that I—”

“I understand,” Deen said. “I’m not naïve about our situation. My reaction earlier…that was because I promised myself I will never take an innocent life in the fight against the Adumbrae. But I do know we have to do these things to survive, to keep on fighting.”

There was silence. Then Johann suddenly exclaimed. “Damn it, there are pickles—oops. Sorry, I told them not to put, but they still did.” They all chuckled. I heartily joined in because I just found it so amusing that Deen might’ve killed someone judging by how she was acting.

“We don’t kill the innocent,” Dario said. Everett stopped eating and bowed his head. “That’s something we can all agree on.” I also looked down just in case a smile popped on my face. “We can now move on to planning how to get to Julie. It may have some difficulties.”

Before a giggle could escape me, I said, “Does that mean you already know where she is?”

“We do.”

“How—where…I mean, I was so worried about her,” I said, feigning distress. “I was planning to ask for your help to look for her to make sure she’s safe.”

“Johann’s the one who found her,” Dario said, gesturing at our eyes-and-ears at the police to continue explaining.

“Her name is Julie Conti.” Johann pulled out a small notebook. “She was found by a couple detectives around half an hour after the Corebrings killed Stella. I’m not familiar with them because they’re from a different precinct. But one of them was injured during the Serenade Bazaar incident last Tuesday while pursuing a possible Adumbrae.” He briefly looked at me, meeting my gaze, before reading from his notebook again. “That’s the only notable thing I found out about them.”

Did Johann know I was part of the thingy at the Serenade? I couldn’t recall injuring any police officer. “Where did they find her?” I said.

“From their report log I got when I hacked our system, they found her beside a destroyed pub a few blocks away from your condo.”

“A pub?” Deen said, “Didn’t you mention you hid at a pub?”

“Yes, we stayed in one," I said, "but we split up afterwards. We’re the ones Stella wanted, so we decided to separate to keep the others safe.”

“This is likely that same pub,” Johann said. “There’s not a lot of those in that area. A stray laser from Stella probably hit it.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Myra dryly said.

“How about the other survivors we picked on our way out of the condo?” I asked, subtly hinting at him to give me details about Ramon and Lizzie. “What happened to them?”

“They didn’t find anyone else besides Julie. Or rather any other human. Their report stated they chased away a suspected Adumbrae. Rather than an Adumbrae, I believe this is one of the mutated people from the condo. Or…maybe the others we saved…”

“Also mutated?” Deen said with a gasp. “Those poor people. They already escaped.”

“That is the likelier scenario,” said Dario. “In the end, Julie is the only survivor who interacted with Myra, Johann, and Erind, and could provide the authorities a lead to find us.”

I nodded, agreeing with whatever they were discussing while mentally processing what Johann said. This meant Ramon and Lizzie probably left Julie behind to hide; the most logical choice. Good luck to them. I hoped they hid well for my sake. This left Julie as my only concern. Technically, she was the concern of the whole group, but not for entirely the same reasons as mine. Our goals did overlap.

“So where is she now?” I asked.

“At EFU Medical Center by Marshall Avenue,” Johann said.

“The hospital ran by our school?” Deen asked, shooting a questioning look at Myra.

The acronym stood for Eloyce Federal University, which included both Cresthorne College of Law where Deen and I went to, and Melchor Institute of Eloyce Field Studies for Myra. EFU was funded by the federal government, the US Bureau of Interdimensional Defense to be more specific, and it had various institutions connected to it like the huge hospital along Marshall Avenue.

“We Melchor students go there for some practical classes,” Myra said.

“Isn’t that place far from my condo?” I said. “Why didn’t they rush her to a nearby hospital? Southern is way closer.”

“She was at Southern, but was transferred to EFU Medical Center yesterday evening,” Johann said. “The many casualties from Adumbrae attacks—both this recent one and last Saturday’s—were spread out through various hospitals all over the city. However, there were tons of complaints from other patients that they didn’t want to be in the same building as someone involved in an Adumbrae-related incident.

“The hospitals decided to setup special wards to isolate these patients, but it wasn’t enough to ease the fears. This is the first time we experienced this, so people are hysterical. In the end, the city decided to designate a specific hospital to house all of the patients connected to the Adumbrae attacks. That’s EFU Medical Center, one of its buildings anyway, the big block at the corner of Marshall and Pennway.”

“I passed by there earlier to scope out the place,” Dario said. “The roads were closed, police are everywhere. They also called in the National Guard to help push away protesters. Some groups are even attempting to attack the building. I hope it calms down over there.”

“Huh? Is that true?” exclaimed Deen. “I haven’t watched the news yet. Why do they want to do that?”

“Irrational fears that another Adumbrae seeding outbreak may occur,” Johann said. “People believe that what happened at Erind’s condo was a seeding outbreak—of course, we know the truth that it was a mad-scientist-experiment of the 2Ms—so the people rioting over there want all of those patients thrown out of the city.”

“Idiots,” Everett said, “all of them.”

“At least you’re not at their level, Reo,” Myra said, raising her smoothie to him as a toast.

“You’re really picking on me,” Reo said. “Don’t tell me you’re falling in love—Ow! Don’t throw your fries like a fucking brat.”

“Anyway, it’s a huge mess out there,” said Dario. “But we need to study the place. Myra, Reo and I will go there after this meeting. Myra can go in with her Melchor ID, make up some story for research or a school project.”

“If they allow me in with the protests going on outside.”

“Reo will use his fairy while I guard him and take notes. Good luck at the police station later, you guys. Johann will brief you on what to do.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Johann said.

“Our aim is to come up with a plan by tonight and break in as soon as possible to get to Julie. The fact that the police already had her name on file means she could already have answered basic questions. I don’t think they realized she’s one of the survivors of the attack on the condo since they found her so far away from the building. That’s a detail I’m sure would be on the report logs.”

“You know what?” Johann said, tapping his finger on his notebook. “I think she might be the only survivor. I tried looking for others in our logs but couldn’t find any.”

Not the only survivor, I thought. I’m here too. He was right though that there might not be any others. Stella rounded up all the remaining living humans she could find and forced them to turn into monsters. Anyone lucky enough to escape her would’ve died from the fire or the collapse of the building.

“Deen,” Dario said. “Whatever plan we come up with, I’m sure you’ll be a key part of it with your powers.”

“You can count on me,” she replied with a determined expression.

“So, that’s two of our main concerns. We tackle one thing at a time so that we can focus and not make any mistakes. For now, we just eat and relax. If you guys want more food, I can go in and buy.”

“We’re good,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Deen?” I stuck out my tongue at her while she glared at me.

“Ye-yes, all good,” she said with a forced chuckle. We stared at her until she took a nibble of her burger. Then all of us clapped and cheered her on to eat more. Just a random group of friends doing goofy things, nothing suspicious here.

“How about you buy us ice cream?” Reo said.

“What are you,” Myra said, “a kid?”

“Ice cream is good for celebrations. And we should celebrate because the Corebrings killed Stella!”

“I was surprised she’s that strong. You’re right. The Corebrings taking her out is something to celebrate.”

“Wait a minute…” Deen said, putting down her burger.

“If you don’t like it,” Everett said, “I can buy you something else.” He looked around. “There’s a Salad-To-Go across the street.”

“Isn’t this a more pressing matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Corebrings came here! They know there’s something wrong going on in this city. Isn’t our goal to keep them from knowing about the 2Ms and their experiments?”