“I mean, it’s pretty easy, easy to get distracted.”

Tick held a playing card by the tips of his fingers above a six-story house of cards—one he’d rebuilt at least fifteen times in the midst of the conversation we were having. He squinted his eyes as if he was disarming a bomb and stuck his tongue out to one side like a cartoon character. Then, ever so gently, he placed the card on its side on top and carefully stepped away to get the next card in the pile.

And, like every time before, it tumbled down.

Most of my frustration with Michael had faded after sleeping on it, allowing me to properly tell the rest of my crew about my brief conversation—if it could be called that—with him from the day before without sounding like I was competing with Jane for the most swears used in a single sentence.

“So, we’re distractions now?” Lestrade said sipping her midday tea. I couldn’t tell if she was sarcastic or serious.

“Never. Each of you were—are—important not just to this mission, but to me. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. There’s no way he was calling you all distractions.” I looked over the ones present as I spoke, remembering how each of them had contributed in some way to our “luck”—the good kind. I wouldn’t even be alive without some of them.

“And finding our parents isn’t a distraction?” Irēn helped Tick pick up the cards. “I’ve been looking for years.”

“You didn’t have us, though!” Jane smiled and high-fived John. “We get shit done here.”

“Tell us more about them.” Instead of returning to his seat on the packed sofa, John slid down to the floor and sat cross-legged. “Maybe that’s why you’re with us now—and why Michael said to look for them. You didn’t have us before, but now you do. Maybe I can get inside their heads.”

The twins exchanged a questioning look, and Ira shrugged.

We all knew the Adlers were exiled for being part of the Order of the Iron Rose. And after speaking with Walden from the Hoard, we began to assume that the weapon their parents were looking for—the one that could start or end a war—had to be the teleportation device Akim tried to buy from them.

I couldn’t help but wonder why they were looking for a weapon to begin with though. Were they planning on taking over the Ironlands? Yet, despite differing opinions on the dish that led us to Irēn, the twins shared the same love and want for their parents—they definitely did not fit the description of someone who would retaliate in that way. Irēn described them both as kind and thoughtful. I couldn’t help but get a little jealous as I listened to tale after tale of the Adlers, and how they’d been a proper, happy family once. Ira didn’t have many memories with them, but the ones he did have were enough to make him smile.

That was more than I had.

“I mean, Dad did get a bit stern from time to time,” Ira added. Irēn waved the comment aside and proceeded in telling a story about how their dad stood up to an Oracle in little troublemaker Ira’s defense.

Family had always been an unspoken sore subject between us, afraid that we’d bring up the wrong thing. But seeing Ira with Irēn, and hearing them talk about their parents, made me feel…

Alone? Jealous? I had no idea. But the truth was that I was actually happy for him. Yes, alone and jealous fit me as well, but I loved seeing him smile. Besides, like Jane had said, Michael was back. He was no longer truly missing, even if I was the only one who could see him and communicate with him. And I had my crew, and the love of my life. Truth is, I was lucky—very much so. I did my best to take solace in that.

“What would they want with teleportation technology, anyway?” John asked, head tilted and eyes closed, deep in thought. He began muttering to himself as Irēn and Ira listed off a few possible reasons. He didn’t seem to hear them though.

Then his head straightened and his eyes opened. “Irēn, what brought you to the precursor vault?”

“Came across some encrypted data from New Bohemia while I was poking around on Stella. Two individuals fitting our parents’ description were seen boarding a passenger vessel; I nabbed their flight plan and it led me past the precursor vault. Decided to go in and take a look first.”

“Do you know the destination of the passenger vessel?” John asked.

“It made a few stops, so there’s no telling where they could have been dropped off, but my original plan was to check out each of them. Ran into you all before I could finish with the vault. Its final destination was New Bohemia, though.”

Lestrade inhaled sharply. “Getting to Saffron was one thing. Making it to New Bohemia without being caught is another.”

“But, when aren’t we being hunted or something?” Blackstone said. “This is a typical Thursday for us.”

“We tried to expose Jack Moriarty while he was on the same planet,” Jane added. “Running past some Salvi ships is the least of our worries at this point.”

I smirked. “Yeah. Truth is, there’s nothing we can’t handle anymore. We’ve seen it all. We’ve been running and fighting for so long now. Even if the ships do find us—even if they catch us—we’re going to find a way out of it.”

“Yeah, plus, I’m assuming since, since I’m not screaming at you all to run and hide, we did pretty okay.” Tick’s house of cards fell over again and he rolled his eyes, starting over once more.

I looked over all of them, my jealously from mere moments ago banished. I had my family right here. I felt safe with them, and I hoped they felt the same with me. There wasn’t anything that could break us apart or make us falter. 

“Let’s head to New Bohemia.” Everyone nodded at my words and dispersed—except Tick, who made it to three-stories before the house collapsed again.

Jane went to retrieve Kaisa and Fletcher, and in what felt like mere moments, we were a safe distance from New Bohemia. There were no distractions along the way, luckily.

And, ever vigilant, we pushed past whatever ships we saw, Yelena’s cloaking tech still up to help us infiltrate the area. Before we knew it, Ira and I stepped foot on familiar dusty cracked soil of New Bohemia’s desert, solar panels off in the distance, and a large tree standing tall with an old house in its shadow.

I took Ira’s hand as the others filed out of the ship, John and Watt enthusiastically pulling everyone along so he could show them around. “One rule here: make sure you knock.”

I simply stared at Ira, memories of our time here flooding back.

“Welcome home.”

Our home was much smaller than I had remembered. There were only two bedrooms and two bathrooms, just barely big enough to house John, Ira, and I. In no timeline would all eleven of us fit in here comfortably. Luckily, some of the others offered to sleep in the Scarlet Adler. Tick never moved his things, while Kaisa and Fletcher were able to share a room alone. Blackstone, Lestrade, and Yelena shared the other sleeping quarters, while John shared his room with Irēn and Jane .

After working through that fun little puzzle, and Ira tended to the plants that did not survive our absence, I did my best to convince everyone to relax. Yes, we had parents to find, a war to stop, and a great evil to destroy, but that could wait until after—

“S’mores!” Naturally, Tick was very, very excited about the stash of chocolate we had.

After the sun went down and the desert temperatures became a bit more bearable, we sat outside around a roaring campfire. Well, most of us. Kaisa and Fletcher decided to wander off again.

“Save me some!” Yelena rushed down the ramp of the Scarlet Adler and rushed to join us, tossing a rag off to the side before she exited. She’d been making a lot of progress, much more than I had expected, honestly. But then again, she was always surprising me. 

I couldn’t stop my thoughts from wandering, though…Was this one of the distractions Michael was referring to? If it was, he could have just outright told me. If we weren’t supposed to be working on repairing the automaton, it would save us a lot of time. That’d be one less thing to worry about. Or maybe he was talking about this moment—

Nope. No, no, no. I wasn’t going to let my pessimism ruin our night. The s’mores looked so delicious and smelled entirely too sweet—just the kind of vice I needed right now. Just the kind of vice we all needed, considering what was waiting for us.

So, once again in relative safety, we did our best to unwind and bolster our spirits. These moments didn’t come often enough. If the fates allowed, I wanted to show them around Port Wreck tomorrow, give them a glimpse at what my childhood was like.

Watt, ever the social butterfly, helped tend to our wants while we talked and ate. Seeing him and John interact somehow made me feel even more at ease. There was a bliss to it all. Watt made John into the carefree child he never had a chance to be.

A flash of anger rose within me: our childhoods were stolen from us. Ever since we discovered our Brandings, we’d been fighting for our lives. But I once again pushed away the bad thoughts and did my best to settle my nerves with a few bites of s’mores and a surprise kiss from Ira. 

Things were going to be fine.

Laughter filled the desert and I wondered just how far away we could be heard. I wondered just who in this group was suppressing the same types of thoughts that I was. My eyes trailed to Lestrade. She was mostly silent, sipping either tea or something stronger—my guess was the latter, considering the hour. I caught glimpses of a smile occasionally, but she always seemed lost in thought. I’d seen the look on Kaisa and the others when they first joined me, worried about something off in the distance. Perhaps she was thinking of her loved ones back on Saffron.

Speaking of loved ones, as Ira laughed next to me about some joke I missed from Jane, I caught a glimpse of a familiar child off in the distance. I let Ira know and excused myself from the group.

As I approached Michael, I did my best to tamper down my worries. His presence did not mean that our bliss was over. Perhaps he wanted s’mores, too, or at the very least to get to know the rest of the crew. He was our secret twelfth member, after all. 

“Long time, no see,” I said as I came to stop arms length from the mental projection in the preteen form of my brother. I could barely hear the crew from where we stood, but their joy was hard to mistake.

“It’s happening…”

Never a dull moment. I sighed heavily and ran a hand over my hair. “What do you mean? What’s happening?” I kept my annoyance to a minimum, thinking of the warmth of the campfire and Ira’s hands on my skin. 

“He’s almost here…Malice…You can’t stay here too long. You have to find the Adlers.”

“Michael.” His name came out of my mouth sharper than I had intended it to, but I couldn’t help it. I had done such a great job of putting my pessimism and worries and fears aside. I could still taste the s’mores on my tongue and feel the stickiness on my lips—and here Michael was trying to ruin it. Again. “We have no idea what we’re even doing. You said we’re distracted, but won’t tell us by what. Our only lead right now is the work Yelena is doing and finding Ira’s parents. But, knowing us, neither will directly lead us to where we need to go. We’re grasping at straws here. Why don’t you just tell us what we need to do so we can go do it?”

“He…he’ll know. The more I interact, the more he’ll know.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. The thought of Malice knowing everything Michael did worried me, but I needed more. I couldn’t just keep running without something to go on. We were at our Wit’s end.

Michael seemed to sense my frustration—or, if he was in my head, he simply knew. “You have to figure this out on your own. You have to ask the right questions. Some things are…misleading.”

“What things, Michael? We’ve learned so much already and none of it has helped us! How am I supposed to know what is misleading?”

Michael gulped and looked around, as if expecting a predator to somehow creep up on us out of the shadows or burst forth from the ground. “I…”

“JUST TELL ME!” 

The desert fell quiet. The pops of laughter in the distance faded. Michael looked up, catching my gaze, face filled with worry and fear.

And then his face brightened, an idea visibly spreading across his face and twisting a smile on his lips. “I think I know how. I don’t think he sees your visions—what we show you.”

I instinctively took a step back. No. I was having fun here. I was eating so many sweets I could terrify a dentist. I was laughing and having fun. I had already planned on showing Ira how much I loved him tonight—with a properly locked door! I wasn’t in the right head space to be bombarded with visions of another time, filled with revelations that just left me more confused. 

No, not now. Honestly, never again.

And yet Michael stepped forward, matching my pace as I continued to stumble back.

“The truth is, I tried to stop him,” Michael said. “I tried to convince him there was another way. But…he did it anyway. He wouldn’t listen. That would have solved all our problems right there. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want him to know.”

HE’S LYING TO YOU. HE’S WORKING FOR MALICE.

“Wh—what are you talking about?” Fighting with my inner saboteur and my Hivebranded brother. What a perfect way to end the night.

“That fool. He started all of this, got you on this path. He ushered in so many inevitable events, all so…so Malice could win.” He was disgusted at whoever he was talking about. Angry, even.

“Who? Maybe I can stop them.” I found myself pleading with my brother, anticipating the worst. Michael was getting uncomfortably close, and yet I had no where else to run to. My back hit the side of the Scarlet Adler, my crew standing to see what was wrong with me. I began choking on my fear.

HE’S GOING TO BREAK YOU. YOU’RE NOT STRONG ENOUGH FOR THIS.

RUN.

But I couldn’t. I was frozen.

“It’s too late,” Michael said. “But…I can show you my conversation with him. Maybe that will put you on the right path. Get you to make the right choices. End this war.”

“With who?” It was my turn to speak in barely a whisper.

“That dumb and dead Salvi.”

Michael gripped my wrist and his eyes shot open. I’d never seen him this crazed. His hands felt electrified, a tingle running up through my hand and into my arm and then my entire body.

I’d felt this before—and I couldn’t stop a tear from falling.

I knew what was about to happen.

As I screamed, the world faded away, and the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled my nostrils.

Want to know what Locke is being shown?

Inevitable Event #2: That Dumb and Dead Salvi

Next week on ⚡️THUNDERFANG:

Locke can't catch a break.

And there's still more left to learn.