Tyler and Mitch had claimed the back two rows of the bus. As eighth graders and nearly the oldest in the school, it was pretty much without argument. Kelsey had made it on too, to Natalie's relief. Not that she didn't like the guys, but it was nice to have another girl around. There were some things she just couldn't talk to them about, for obvious reasons.

The bus driver, a bald man with an infectious smile and a cheerful belly laugh that Natalie had seen around the school a few times, fell silent as soon as she and Steven walked up to the door. Steven said "Hi" and walked right past without a second glance, but the man's smile faded slightly as he saw her.

Natalie's good mood deflated. "Hi," she said in a muted voice. "I'm Jenny. I… I'm going over to Steven's house today. Okay?" She held out the note.

His eyes were already making that slight circular motion that meant he was following the scar on her face. Natalie held out the note a little more insistently, and he snapped back into his usual self. He took the note and looked it over carefully. He nodded, adding in an overly chipper tone, "Okie-dokey! Welcome aboard!"

Natalie quickly followed Steven to the back of the bus, trying to ignore the stares and pointed whispers from every row of seats as she went by. She gratefully fell onto the empty back seat, across from Kelsey and behind Steven and Mitch.

"Whoah, how'd you get on?" asked Mitch.

"Got permission," she said, holding up the piece of paper.

Mitch recognized it immediately. He grinned. "Nice."

The rest of the group was already talking about something else, some game Kelsey and Steven played online that Natalie didn't know much about. She had a laptop that Lily bought for her, but it wasn't really for gaming. The only games she played were on her phone.

Speaking of which…

Her phone had buzzed in her pocket the moment she'd walked out of the building. Pulling it out, she saw a couple messages, both from Lily.

L: Come home. Something happened.

L: We need to talk. Call me.

She's never texted me before… And she called the school. What if it's serious? Natalie's finger hovered over the big L on the screen. They never typed in a full name on phones, just the first letter. Just in case. There were so few people from Rallsburg she kept in contact with, it wasn't hard to remember who was who.

"Jenny?" Kelsey asked quietly, leaning across the aisle. Mitch and Tyler were arguing about which boss in the game was the hardest. Steven was staring out the window, silent. "What's up?"

"I dunno." What if… what if it's Dad? Maybe he did something…

"Is it Lily?"

"Yeah."

Of all the group besides Quinn, Kelsey was the one she'd probably talked to the most about Lily and Kendra, and their (lack of) parenting. Natalie didn't want to sound ungrateful, since she knew they didn't have to take her in, or help her get into school, or any of the many other things she did, but she still felt like they were only tolerating her. Like she was an annoying distraction in the way of… well, whatever they did all day.

"What's she want?"

"Says I have to come home. That we gotta talk."

"Do you want to?"

"...No?"

Kelsey shrugged. "So don't. I bet it can wait. You're out here with us, Jenny. And you're the one with superpowers. Make your own rules for a bit."

Natalie shook her head. "I don't have superpowers."

"Yeah you do. Or whatever you want to call 'em."

She sighed. "I can't just ignore Lily."

"Sure you can. I ignore my mom all the time."

"You do?"

"She gets mad whenever I stay out late after practice with friends, but it's really not a big deal. Mama always talks her out of it. She just gets super uptight. This is the same thing. Lily wants you home after school." Kelsey shook her head. "You might get yelled at when you go home, but it's totally worth it. She'll forget it in a day or two."

"Maybe…" Natalie said dubiously.

"Look," Kelsey continued. "We're already moving, right? So unless you're gonna use those superpowers and jump out of a moving bus, I think you're stuck with us."

"I guess."

Natalie didn't bother to point out that she could always just take any bus back to the doorway point. She wondered if Kendra could actually just open a door anywhere she wanted. It was pretty hard to make them, from what Natalie understood about the spell. It was easy to make them disappear and reappear, but there was a probably a really hard ritual to actually make them in the first place. And of course, no one would ever tell Natalie about rituals. She was pretty sure they even had a secret section on the website that she couldn't see, just to talk about ritual magic.

She swiped the messages away and clicked her phone off again. Whatever it is can wait. They don't need me to handle this stuff. If they needed my help with whatever they're doing, they would have asked for it forever ago, not totally ignore me all the time.

Natalie leaned against the window, liking the cool feeling of the glass against her cheek, watching the sidewalk full of people stream by beside them. Kelsey turned away, spouting an angry retort to something Mitch had just said. Steven was watching the scenery through the window too, just in front of her on the next seat.

"How long til we get to your house?" she asked.

"It's the last stop." Steven twisted around slightly to look at her through the gap between the seat and the window. His eye briefly flicked down to the scar on her face, then back up again. She winced slightly. Every time. She wondered if she'd ever be used to that feeling. "Hey, when we get there…"

"What?"

"Nothing." Steven looked back out the window, quiet again.

Natalie looked out too, but she couldn't really see anything he might be looking at. She let her eyes drift out of focus, listening to her friends talk. Kelsey and Mitch were arguing about which of them was going to be the better soccer star once they both made pro, and it sent Natalie's mind wandering forward. What was she going to do when she grew up?

Her old childhood dreams were long-gone, not that she'd ever really settled on anything. One week it was a musician playing on big stages with her dad, the next it was a scientist, and after that a car mechanic (because she'd been hanging out with Joe McKinney's dad in his garage that day). Up until she was eleven, she'd mostly just followed anyone in Rallsburg around, learning what they did. They all knew her, and after the first few years (and making a friend of his own), her dad finally stopped yelling at her for running off through town.

She really liked the idea of having a store, like Hector did. A place that was all her own. She had no idea what she'd actually sell — food seemed like way too much of a hassle, based on how much Hector had to do every day — but that part didn't really matter. Just so long as it was her place.

But then Natalie saw a cat in the woods one day at her fort, and everything changed.

What happened to that cat? she wondered. She got distracted, for obvious reasons, and it disappeared into the forest.

Thinking about the cat reminded her of Gwen. I hope she's doing okay. No, she's gotta be fine. Scrappy might not be though. He got really hurt in that fight with Jackson… I'm sure Gwen is taking care of him.

Hey, maybe when I grow up, I should do something with animals.

It would never have occurred to a younger Natalie. Back then, she hadn't cared about them at all. She didn't really get why people kept pets. Animals were supposed to be out in nature, and people in towns and cities. That was normal. Sometimes they'd visit — she loved visiting nature, actually — but they didn't live there. People who went on and on about how smart their dog was, or how much they loved their cat? She just rolled her eyes. Pets weren't people.

So why do I love Gwen and Scrappy and Percy so much…?

They weren't really like people. Gwen was definitely smarter than a lot of people she knew, at least. Totally smarter than stuck-up Blake and Lydia. Plus, she didn't really treat them like pets. Gwen came and went whenever she wanted to, same with Scrappy. Natalie didn't feed them, though she did share some food sometimes if they hadn't had a good hunt. Gwen had actually fed her once, when she'd spent way too long out once. She'd lead Natalie to a few berry bushes that were safe to eat, and a stream where she could refill her water bottle. They'd spend all night out there, before she'd come home.

That was the night her dad had gone missing.

I want to go home.

Tears started to drop down her face. She quickly rubbed them away with the sleeve of her jacket, before any of her friends saw. She missed Rallsburg. It was her town, from the nooks and crannies of Hector's shop to the secret fort she'd built in the woods across from the park, or the many trees dotting the hills that she'd marked as hers, leaving little flags and finding the best ones for climbing, reading and spying. She'd spent almost her whole life there (except for some unpleasant memories of Chicago). Where she'd made fun of the college kids with Jenny, where she'd climbed up on top of the town hall building and spent the afternoon reading in the sun (and getting horrible sunburns). Rallsburg was her home.

But it was gone.

She tried to distract herself with the scenery outside, before she completely burst into tears. She reached into her purse and pulled out the little card. It was always right at the top now, with how often she picked it up to remind herself.

The golden-haired elf woman stared back up at her, a steely glint in her lavender eyes, one hand on the head of her wolf, the other clutching her elegant bow. Natalie held up the card to her chest, as if embracing it, and imagined she were hugging Gwen instead. She tried to remember her soft fur, her scent, the way she nuzzled up to Natalie or curled around her protectively when they slept. Even the little things, like playfully flicking her with her tail.

It helped. Natalie started to calm down. She opened her eyes, and they weren't so blurry anymore. She wiped her face off with her sleeve, put the card away again and leaned up against the window. They were passing through a thicker part of the city now, on the way to the suburb where Steven lived. As she watched, she realized something she'd never noticed before.

There were people between each block, stuck into the alleys like they'd grown there. Little camps, just like the one Cinza had taken her to, or just single people sitting up against the wall and staring blank-faced into the street. Dead-eyed, just like the people in the city park. The ones who were so empty they hadn't seen her.

Natalie shivered, though the bus wasn't cold at all. Were they always here? No, this was a part of the city she'd never been to. It must be the area. This couldn't be what the whole city was like.

"Hey, Steven?" she asked hesitantly. He lived here, and he was the smartest person she knew.

"What's up?"

The other three were still comfortably occupied with yet another argument, as Tyler stubbornly insisted some movie was better than the other two. Natalie hadn't seen any of them, but she didn't really feel like getting into that conversation anyway.

"Is…" She paused, trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to. He waited for her to speak again, to which she was grateful. "Is Seattle always like this?"

"Like what?"

Natalie felt awkward saying it out loud, so she just pointed. They were at a red light, and right outside their window — across the sidewalk and a shadowed alleway — were four or five people. Bundled up in windbreakers and threadbare blankets, one sitting outside a tent in a ray of sunlight that snuck through the tall buildings around, quietly talking or just staring at nothing in particular.

"Oh." Steven shrugged. "I guess so. I never really thought about it."

"Why, though?"

"Why is it like that, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"I dunno. It just is. I think there's nothing we can do about it."

Natalie wanted to ask more, but something else caught her ear. She twisted around. A voice out on the street. Someone had said the word "awakened".

She looked around frantically, but there were too many people on the sidewalk. It could have been anyone. And they could have been talking about anything. Not magic. Why would they be talking about magic? No one knows about it. That's the whole point.

"We're getting off soon," Steven added. "Just one more stop, then a pretty short walk and we'll be at my place."

"Okay." The sooner the better, she thought glumly. I don't want to be out here. I want to go back to the forest. Nobody in sight. Just me and Percy, or me and a book to read, no one else.

No one who can hurt me.