Lily winced as Jack cranked up the volume in the car. She could feel the bass in her toes as the witch started to jump and dance in her seat while driving, her croaky voice breaking as she tried to sing every line to one of Lily's favourite songs.

"Oh mamma mia, mamma mia!" Jack screeched and Lily burst into laughter as the words built up to the highest note. They both sang together through their joy, Lily touching her paralysed arm that was beginning to tingle.

"For me, for me, for me!" Jack's voice was nails on a chalkboard but Lily surprised herself by actually hitting the high note.

"Wait, hang on!" Jack stopped singing and turned the volume down. "We've been badly singing for hours and then you pull this on me? I thought we were vocal equals!"

"I don't know what happened," Lily laughed, clearing her throat. "I sang a little when I was younger but I haven't sung properly in a long time."

"Well, no more of that when I'm around. I'm the star of this car karaoke, okay?" Jack teased, her bright green eyes gleaming. She focused back on the road, pulling off the main highway and following the sign labeled Widderin.

"Almost there." Jack sighed, swallowing the lump in her still bruised and scratched throat. The damage her mother had done to her neck only yesterday was still healing, but even if she was meant to rest her voice Jack wasn't going to not sing Bohemian Rhapsody. "You have good taste in music."

"Thanks." Lily said, fiddling with her fingers. "My dad was a big music fan."

"My mum only likes the sound of the microwave when it's done cooking." Jack joked.

"Don't we all?" Lily smiled at her friend but noticed the swallow of her bruised throat. Jack wasn't wearing the choker she wore yesterday so Lily had a clear view of the marks on her neck. Neither of them had spoken about the day before, not yet.

"How's your neck?" Lily gently asked and her stomach sank seeing Jack stiffen.

"Oh this? It's nothing. I ate some crisps and they got stuck in my throat, you know when you don't chew them properly and it's spiky all the way down?" Jack waved aside her question. "It looks worse than it is."

"Your breaking voice says differently."

"I'm fine Lily, it's okay."

Lily hesitated. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here and I'll listen."

Jack didn't respond to that, pretending to focus on driving when she had a thousand words running through her head. How could she explain her feelings to her mother? Freida had given her those bruises - did Jack do something wrong?

"How was the formal, by the way?" Lily asked, trying to change the subject.

Jack scoffed. "There were so many sparkles it was like a unicorn's fart."

"Do you have pictures of you? Of Claire and Karen?" Lily smiled.

"Yeah I think there's one on my phone," Jack waved to the glove box, "have a look."

Lily grabbed Jack's phone from the compartment but frowned when she saw her notifications ablaze. "Andrew's been calling you."

"He can suck it."

"What if it's important?"

"He can importantly suck it."

Lily sighed, not going into that conversation and instead swiped to unlock the phone. "What's your password?"

Jack paled. "Oh."

"Oh as in zero?"

"...It's my middle name." Jack slowed when they came to a red light and slammed her head on the wheel. "Damn it."

Lily shifted in her seat so Jack could see her wide smile. "Stop it." Jack said, holding a hand up that swirled with magic. "I can hear your smugness even though you'd said nothing."

"What's the password, Jack?" Lily said coyly, her thumb hovering over the number pad.

"7243." Jack muttered but Lily caught it. "Sage."

"As in the-"

"Yes as in the herb." Jack hissed and quickly drove away, grinding her teeth when Lily awed.

"That's not a bad name, I like it!"

"The name isn't bad, it's the reason that's bad."

"...Do I want to know the reason?" Lily flickered through to the gallery on Jack's phone to find a picture of her friends all in their formal attire.

"No. I can't even say it." Jack shuddered. "Let's talk about the pictures, like, for all eternity."

Lily smiled as she turned the phone to look at the picture on landscape. Someone had taken the picture for Jack, and her friends were leaning against the table of drinks and nibbles. Claire had taken Lily's advice and wore a lovely pink strapless dress with nude heels and was sparkling in joy as much as in jewels - the fairy had glittering bangles, earrings, rings and a necklace to match her bubbling personality.

Karen was wearing what must have been one of Claire's accidentally-ordered dresses; a beautiful purple halterneck with a necklace of an amethyst slate. Her hair was down and pinned to the side, shyly smiling at the camera.

Jack, however, had an eyebrow raised and a wicked smirk on her face. She was holding a plate of food and a drink in her other hand, pulling a fun pose. She was wearing a mid-length silk green dress with small straps and a black choker to match her small black shoes.

"How was the food?" Lily asked, looking up at Jack's red face. The witch was still embarrassed Lily knew her middle name, even if she didn't know the horrifyingly traumatic story behind it - Lily would laugh but Jack would legitimately throw up if she told anyone.

"Mediocre." Jack pulled down another road leading to Widderin, deeper into the forest. Lily's stomach twisted as the shadows of the trees reached towards the car in the arching sun, her paralysed arm tingling once more. "You didn't miss much."

Lily frowned when Jack's phone vibrated. It was another call from Andrew, the tally going to seventeen. "Andrew's calling again."

"I don't want to talk to him."

Lily's stomach coiled again, instinct sinking into her bones, and she answered his call. "Andrew, it's Lily, is everything okay?"

"Lily?!" Andrew sighed in relief. "Shit, I'm so glad I got a hold of you guys - is Jack okay?"

"We're fine." Lily blinked at his panicked tone. "What's happened?"

"Look, I don't want you guys to panic, okay? But you need to come back to town." Andrew said sternly. Lily could hear him rustling about, snapping his fingers at someone.

"Why? Why do we need to come back?" Lily asked and Jack swerved, slamming on the brakes and the car shuddered to a stop on the shoulder.

"He said what?" Jack snapped, eyes wide in shock. "I'm not going within a thousand miles of Alpha Diarrhoea!"

Lily paused when Andrew sighed on the other end of the phone. "Lily, you guys are on speaker. I know you both may hate us right now but you need to hear what we have to say."

"...Us?"

Lily then heard someone else approaching the phone, a shuffle of footsteps. Lily could almost imagine him nervously rubbing his neck. "I'm here too, Lily." Ryan said into the phone and for a moment she couldn't speak.

Jack grabbed her phone and put it on speaker, seeing Lily's paling face. Whatever Ryan had said to her haunted her more than Andrew's words to Jack, and she wasn't going to let her friend be hurt twice. "Listen, you limp spoon, we're not heading back no matter what excuses you have. We're off on a holiday, a holiday, and we're going to drink, have fun, and not be around idiots like you!"

"Jack-"

"No I'm not hearing it! There's nothing you can say that would make me listen!" Jack went to hang up.

"Yuric's escaped." Ryan snapped through the phone.

For a moment, no one spoke. All Andrew and Ryan could hear was the rumbling engine of Jack's car. The seconds ticked by, no one hung up, then the engine cut off. It was silent before they heard someone step out the car and Jack's voice clear in the phone.

"How." She hissed, the trees tipping as her magic rolled off her fingers. Roots twisted under her feet as her magic responded to her fear and anger, eyes alive from the power branching through her veins. "How did the biggest rogue who is hell bent on killing Lily and I escape from your watch? Where is he?!"

"He had help." Andrew snarled. "One of ours went rogue and freed him."

"The other rogues in the cells said it was his partner who freed him. He had an insider the whole time." Ryan explained, shifting at the term partner and how close he was to officially dating Lily yesterday. "They said they're coming after you two."

"It's why you need to come back," Andrew started, hands splayed on his desk. "We can protect you here-"

"Fat lot of good that did last time!" Jack hissed, watching as Lily slowly stepped out of the car. "Where is he?"

"We don't know, but he's coming to kill you both." Andrew ran his hands through his black hair, icy eyes narrowing on the phone. "I know we had our falling out yesterday but we both care about you two, okay?"

"Falling out?!" Jack spat. "Falling out? You call that just falling out? You lied to my face and have taken credit for something you had no part in!"

"Jack-" Ryan tried to interrupt as Laura walked into the office with one of Andrew's council members.

"You didn't take down Yuric, Andrew, I did." Jack hissed, spitting onto the phone. "You didn't take down his rogues, that was Lily! If you think we need your protection you're blind! We're on our way to find the only two that can - we can take care of ourselves."

"Jack-" Andrew tried to speak but Jack had heard enough. She hung up the phone and threw it back in her car, yelling at nothing. The roots around her twisted, her magic tightening over the forest. A tree further down from the car snapped at the rage and fell over the road in front of them, blocking their path to Widderin.

Lily clenched her jaw, trying to stop the panic clawing up her throat. The mention of Yuric's name made her arm burn, her scars itch, and her knees shake. She didn't want to die, she didn't want to be strung up again to wait for her death. She didn't want to have her powers used against her like that. "Jack." Lily whispered, immediately calming the witch.

Jack's magic evaporated from her hands. "We're going to be fine Lily, I can move the tree out the way."

"Jack..."

"Yuric's not going to find us." Jack ignored Lily's words and trying to steel her trembling voice. "He wouldn't try and attack, he knows what happened last time. I'll... I'll paralyse his legs if it gets him to understand we're not dying beneath his feet."

"Jack." Lily whispered a little louder, all too aware of the shadows moving in the tree line.

"And even with your busted arm, and my throat, we're still stronger than one rogue!" Jack turned back to Lily, forcing a grin. Fear soaked their bones. They weren't just afraid of Yuric - they were afraid of what their magic could do to someone. Lily had taken down a hundred rogues without trying, bruising and breaking them, and Jack had frozen Yuric's shoulder - something a witch wasn't meant to be able to do. "He won't find us, Lily, and we'll be fine if he does. We'll protect ourselves."

Lily shook her head, her dark doe eyes wide in fear and resolve. "Jack, they're already here."

The rogues stepped out of the treeline lead by the pack's traitor; Lily's scowling PE teacher, Ms Winters.