(Updated every Sunday by 6pm EST. I'm sorry for the short length of this chapter, but I'm dealing with a family emergency and don't have much time. Thank you so much for your support! Also, I love the guesses and speculation you guys make. Some of you are scary-good. :D)

"Finding them should be our first priority," Janie says.

Pablo snorts as he puts his handgun back together. It's fifteen past one, and we're all in the living room together. Marcus is on the big white sofa with Willow. Pablo is sitting on the loveseat, and Janie is perched on his armrest, her expression hardened by determination. The rest of us are sitting around them on elegant chairs we dragged from the dining room.

One of the servants is serving us tea and coffee, neither of which I'm interested in. I lean back in my chair and keep silent. I'm not worried Marcus will kick me out if I say something. I'm quiet because I'm not sure what to say. What Janie's suggesting is suicidal. It's the right thing to do, but it's also something that could get us killed or captured. But I'm guessing Pablo's disagreement is for another reason: he doesn't care enough to try to save them.

"You getting anything about Alec?" Marcus asks him.

He shakes his head. "Radio silence."

"He's lying," Janie says angrily. "Why would he admit to picking up something if he can get out of helping Adam and the others?"

Pablo gives her a mocking smile. "You'll never know, will you?"

It sounds like this conversation is about Pablo's ability. It didn't cross my mind until this moment that he might have one. I study him curiously. His ability helps him pick up things. Is he a telepath? An empath?

I lean forward as they continue to bicker, resting my elbows on my knees. "What's he supposed to pick up?" I ask Willow.

"He has a predictive ability," she answers quietly as we watch Janie get up and pace the room. Janie rants about how much Adam and the captured kids have done for us and how we can't just abandon them. She even throws in a line about poor Saige being lost and lonely without her boyfriend to keep her safe. Meant to win over Marcus, I'm sure. "He can make predictions about what's going to happen in the future to some degree of accuracy," Willow adds.

My eyebrows shoot up. "You mean he can see the future?"

"Not exactly. It's more of a hunch about something that's going to happen. Like, he can guess the winning numbers of the lottery numbers way better than humanly possible. And he's usually right about the weather. Unlike Marcus, Pablo isn't hot-headed. He's calculating and likes to plan things ahead. Hence the ability to predict the future."

"So why is he getting nothing from Alec?"

"It doesn't work one hundred percent of the time. It could also be because Alec has gone somewhere our powers can't reach. Just like the Shroud couldn't get to us back at the facility."

"That's where he is now?"

She shakes her head. "Gardiner cleared out of there before the police got to it. They probably set up another base, but we have no idea where that might be."

Something else she said sticks in my head. "Did Pablo win the lottery? Is that how we have all this money all of a sudden?"

"Yes."

"That's a relief," I sigh. "And here I thought you guys robbed a bank."

Willow laughs. "The only time we cheated the bank system was when I set up accounts for us under fake names and distributed the money between them, but other than that, we try not to blur the line between good and evil too much."

Marcus gets up suddenly, and Janie stops yelling at Pablo. "Janie is right," he says, turning to the gathering. Behind him, the servant comes back with a fresh pot of coffee and begins to pour it into mugs. "We can't just give up now. Because Gardiner sure as hell won't. Besides, without them we're screwed. There's no way we'll be able to build our numbers to face off against the Shroud when the time comes."

"How are we going to find them?" Jones asks irritably, snagging a scone from the plate the servant brought in with her.

"We wait for Alec to pop back up." Marcus nods to Pablo. "Then you figure out what he's planning to do next."

Pablo lets out a heavy sigh. "Whatever you say, boss."

Janie is frowning. "We can't wait until he shows up again. It could take weeks, maybe months."

"What do you want me to do?" Marcus barks, losing his patience. "We have nothing to go by here. So I suggest you keep the whining down until you have something for us."

Her face turns red. "I have an idea," I say before she blows up on him. I pause, thinking of Doctor Hansel and his ties to Gardiner. He might be able to give us the information we need, but at what cost? There has to be a good reason I didn't tell Marcus and the others about the man. And yet every reason I can think of pales in comparison to saving our friends.

"She has an idea," Pablo says with a chuckle. "That's new."

I glance around, suddenly conscious of the fact that half of the people in this room don't trust me. Don't even like me. "Can I talk to you alone about this first?"

His eyes narrow in speculation before he nods. I follow him into the massive kitchen and stop by a vase of flowers on the marble-topped counter. Sunlight warms the kitchen's harsh white-and-black theme, adding hues of gold that create much needed life. "Have you heard of a doctor named George Hansel?" I ask.

"No. Am I supposed to know him?"

I fill him on what I know, watching the expressions that shift across his features: curiosity and surprise and suspicion, even anger. I'm betting the anger is directed at me and all of my past secrecy.

"You think this doctor knows where Alec might've taken them?" he asks, rubbing the side of his neck. When I nod, he continues, "Can we even trust this Hermes character? He might still be working for Gardiner. It could be a trap for all we know."

"I don't think so. I don't remember much, but I have these . . . feelings about things. About people. Like my body remembers even if my mind doesn't. Something in me believes in Hermes. And look, you don't have to come with me to Oregon if you're so worried. I'll ask Davey to take me."

I realize my mistake the moment his expression shifts to anger. "Right. The boyfriend you've been hiding from us. All of your disappearances the past few months make sense now. And those overnight trips." He steps close and rests his hands on the counter on either side of me, leaning down until I feel his harsh words on my skin. "Were you with him? All those times I wondered where you were and when you'd come back, if you'd even come back, were you letting him touch you?"

I swallow thickly. "You had Saige to keep you warm, so why would you care?"

He locks eyes with me. I'm frozen in the path of his dark and smoldering gaze, wanting to know his answer and hoping I never have to hear it. The anger leaves, replaced by something equally heated. His eyes drop to my mouth, and I feel more than see the muscles in his forearms bunching as his hands grip the edge of the counter. "Aren't you going to tell me to get away from you?"

His breath caresses my face. His cheekbones flush with the heat surging through me. The tension between us blooms into something more. It's as wild and electrifying as I remember it to be, and my eyes fall shut as I give in to sensations I never thought I'd feel again.

"Aren't you disgusted?"

My eyes fly to his. "Why would I be disgusted?"

I'm even more flabbergasted as confusion enters his eyes. I watch him fight to regain equilibrium, fight off the puzzling, captivating vulnerability I know he must hate in himself.

The moment has passed. There's nothing but cool air between us now. He straightens his body and says, "Looks like we'll be making that trip to Oregon after all."



With nine of us left now, the vans are less crowded on the drive to Oregon. We leave the manor as close to undisturbed as we can before Willow compels the owners and employees one last time to make sure they don't remember us. She also compels the employees to accept the payment that Marcus hands them, which makes me wonder how much money we have. The money Davey stole suddenly seems inconsequential. I have no doubt Marcus's anger was more about being cheated by his ex-girlfriend's supposed boyfriend, than the loss itself.

The trip is uneventful, a stark contrast to that wildly exciting moment with Marcus in the kitchen. I listen to the chatter in his van—I'm riding with Willow and Janie this time—and keep Davey in the loop through text messages. He was pretty upset when I told him that the others know about the doctor now. Hansel is supposed to help us find a cure for Carson, he griped. You're letting them sidetrack you!

It doesn't have to be one or the other, I responded and reassured him that Carson is still my priority and nothing will ever change that. His mood refused to improve. Next thing, he started in on Marcus and me.

So you guys are back together now?

Where does that leave us?

You can't trust the guy.

He broke your heart already.

Fed up with the bombardment, I eventually replied with, I'm not going to keep arguing about this with you, Davey. We have bigger things to worry about, so stop it please.

Thankfully, that calmed him down. The messages we traded after that were about Hansel, Hermes, and Carson. Nothing else. I tried texting Hermes about Alec, but by the time we pull into Hansel's neighborhood that night, he still hasn't responded.

Marcus parks the van on the side of the street, a couple of houses down from the address. Pablo's van is waiting for us a couple of miles across town in case this really is a trap. Marcus takes his seatbelt off, his gaze searching the darkness before he opens his door.

"Janie, get in the driver's seat," he orders. "It'll be just me and April. Anything happen to us, drive away and don't turn back. You got that?"

"Abandon you to your doom and destruction," she quips. "Got it."

He checks to make sure he has his handgun before getting out of the van. The night is chilly when I open my door. I follow him, feeling oddly naked without a weapon. When did being armed become the new normal?

Shaking my head, I walk alongside him to the Victorian-style house with dark shingles and white trim on the corner of the street. The lawn is shortly trimmed, the hedges and flowers well-kept. There's a child's bicycle lying on the asphalt driveway.

Someone definitely lives here.

We ring the doorbell and wait. Footsteps inside. Marcus and I make eye contact, our faces identically guarded and grim. His hand inches to his waistline, but he withdraws it when a preteen boy opens the door and eyes us suspiciously, "What do you want?"

Talk about blunt. He's a skinny kid with unruly dark hair and a band aid on his cheek. He rubs it like it itches and looks back into the house. "Dad! A couple of weirdos are standing at the door! I think they're Mormons or something."

Marcus looks like he wants to strangle the kid. The dad shows up behind the boy and opens the door wider. His suspicious and gruff expression is identical to his son's. It's clear where the boy gets his charm from when he opens his mouth and says, "Who the hell are you?"

"Um, my name is April Parker and—"

Slam! I stare at the closed door in shock, not sure what to make of this. Marcus scowls and jams his finger into the doorbell button repeatedly until the door opens again. "You are not supposed to be here," the heavyset man hisses at us, his mustache quivering with indignation. He wags a finger at me. "I already told you I want nothing to do with this! How did you find me anyway?"

"We talked?" I ask. "When?"

Hansel looks at me disbelievingly, and I think quickly. If Hansel and I talked before, it couldn't have been in person. By phone? His phone number is disconnected, so that couldn't be it . . . unless it wasn't disconnected when I called him the first time. He must have gotten rid of it immediately, assuming I'd lose track of him.

"Never mind that," he mutters, starting to close the door again. "I want you gone, you hear me? I'm through with all of that nonsense."

"Wait, please—Mr. Hansel, we need your help," I protest.

"Go away!"

"Hermes sent me!"

The words, born out of desperation, make him freeze. His eyes are impossibly wide behind his glasses. They dart around behind us before he holds the door open for us, quickly ushering us into his home before slamming the door shut.

His wife and son are waiting for us by the staircase. He goes over to them and they speak in hushed and urgent tones before they disappear upstairs together. "Come with me," he says impatiently, taking us through the hallway, down a short flight of stairs, and into his study.

It looks like how I'd picture an explosion at a paper factory. Stacks of newspapers and books and documents everywhere, piled precariously on top of one another and arranged in no specific order I can see. I step over the papers littering the floor and make my way over to one of the two worn upholstered chairs in front of his desk.

Hansel collapses into it and slides off his glances, leaning back heavily. He studies me for a long moment with watery green-blue eyes. "Sam is dead, isn't he?"

He says it flatly, with resignation. My heart shrinks in my chest. "Yes."

"I feared as much. There is no other way Hermes would be loose."

"Loose, sir?" I say. "I—I thought he was an ally."

He waves his glasses by the stem. "He very well could be. Or he might have ulterior motives. It's not like we know enough about his kind to gauge his loyalty."

"What do you mean by his kind?" Marcus asks.

"The Others, of course."

"The Shroud?" I ask, my forehead crinkling into a frown. "Wait. Wait a minute. You're saying that—that Hermes is one of them?"

"Shit," Marcus breathes, and I swear every hair on my body is standing upright.

Hansel stares again, letting the moment drags on unbearably. "My dear children. Hermes isn't just one of them. He's the Source."

"The Source? Of what?" I ask, even though I know.

"Everything that you are."