(Updated every Sunday by 6pm-ish. Sorry for the shorter length. Also, next week will be back to the action, so hang tight).



It's the first time I've seen sunlight in over a week. A feeble warmth right above my head, barely breaking through the thick clouds, but the sight of it does wonders for me. Reminds me of mornings spent trekking over hills and through woods back home in Pennsylvania, losing myself in the world as I explored it and slowly shedding off the stress that came with living under Sam's watchful eye.

My surroundings also help me to relax. Tall pine trees that are just now regaining their coat of leaves and a pristine river with shrubbery and slippery rocks flanking it on both sides and the untamed songs of nature in my ears. It's been over a week since I met with Dr. Hansel, and we've had almost radio silence from Hermes. Almost because he reached out to me that night when we got home. Texted me the address for a cabin hidden out near Ogden, Utah. Told me to use the well-stocked cabin and wait for further instructions.

That would take us back to the state we were in when I woke up, and I have no idea why. He won't tell me. I've texted him nonstop ever since, pleading and bargaining and threatening, but nothing has worked. We had a long and hard debate about what to do before the vote came down to following Hermes' instructions. And here we are, spending our days eating, sleeping, training, and waiting for a sign from the mysterious Hermes.

Nothing to lose and everything to gain.

"Did you see that, Carson? Pretty sure that was a blue catfish. Man, there's all kinds of fish down here. Pops has no idea what he's missing out on, does he?"

I look over to the brothers standing a few feet away on the riverbank. Davey's pointing his stick the water, talking animatedly about the types of fish he's spotted so far, but it's hard for me to pretend the situation is normal. Carson's hands are tied behind his back, and he looks so small and frail. He's wearing the new khaki pants and blue sweater that Davey bought for him recently, but already there are stains on the seat of the pants and the front of the sweater.

My heart aches as I watch Davey talk to his brother like he can understand him. Like nothing's changed between them when the truth is that, given half the chance, Carson can easily rip his brother's head off. It's obvious what he's doing. He's fueled by a desperation to get his brother back. Maybe by acting normal with him and talking to him about the memories they've shared, Carson will come back to him. He'll snap free of the Shroud's influence.

It's been months, and he still hasn't given up. I wish I had his kind of unflinching hope.

"You're quiet," Davey says, glancing at me before he skips a rock across the river.

Beside him, Carson stands completely still. A flesh-and-blood mannequin.

I smother a yawn and instead rub my gritty eyes. "Are you saying I'm usually talkative?"

He snorts. "No. But normally I can get a word or two out of you every few minutes. You've barely said a thing since we got here."

"Before I lost my memories," I begin, "I called Hansel and talked to him. But you didn't know that, did you? Why would I keep that from you?"

He picks up another pebble and rubs his thumb across its smooth surface. "You tell me."

I stare at his profile. Maybe days ago, I would've accused him of being untrustworthy, but now I'm not so sure. Because of the nightmares. They're more vivid, more real. Fragments of the past eight months that show me just enough of a picture to make me reel.

I've seen myself screaming at Marcus and Willow and Janie. Telling them to leave me alone, to stay out of my life. I've seen myself curled into a ball, prepared for the world to explode around me. I've seen myself wandering through cold and unfamiliar streets, wearing too few layers and shivering and crying miserably.

I've seen dead bodies. The cold press of a knife handle in my palm. The reverberating shock of a gunshot. Blood on my hands. Lifeless human eyes.

Just this hazy dream of a buried memory is enough to knock the breath out of me now. "Oh God." I sink down on the ground and cover my face with my hands. No wonder I kept disappearing all these months. I must have been blanking and killing innocents.

Davey comes over and lays a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, what is it? Are you okay?"

"I remember blanking." Tears blur my vision. "I killed people, Davey. Why didn't anyone stop me? The others must have known."

"I don't think you killed that many people."

I stare at him. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"I—I mean, I don't think you were blanking for that long. Sure, you were paranoid as hell and didn't trust anyone, and you always acted like you were trying to solve a riddle to prevent the world from exploding, but you were still you. All that stress piled on until eventually you did start blanking. And that's when your buddies started keeping you under lock and key."

"How do you know that?"

Davey stares out at the river, his teeth grazing his bottom lip. "You called me and asked me to break you out. You said you had an important job and you were afraid Willow was going to block your memories before you got around to it."

"Did I tell you what was so important?"

He shakes his head, smiling wryly. "You didn't even tell me about Hansel. What makes you think you shared such a gigantic secret with me? Whatever it was, I'm guessing it had the power to save the world. Or end it."

His words tickle the back of my brain, which aggravates me more than it helps. Growling, I rub my eyes with my knuckles until they hurt. "I hate this. I hate not knowing something so important. Dammit, I need to remember."

"You need to relax," he says soothingly, squeezing my shoulder before returning to his brother's side. "Stressing out didn't help you the first time. You'll probably keep remembering little by little, so you shouldn't let yourself get worked up."

That's why I asked Davey to meet me here when he asked to catch up. I need to relax and unwind. I thought sitting around for a week straight would've done the job, but all it's done is give me plenty of time to ruminate over my thoughts and worry about the unknown.

I watch Davey with Carson again, noticing the caring and loving way he interacts with his zombie brother. It's starkly clear that he loves him.

"We're not together, are we?" I say to him.

He turns around, his eyebrows raised. "Uh, what makes you say that?"

"You don't act like someone who has feelings for me."

His cheeks flush red as his gaze drops. "I didn't know what else to do."

"What do you mean?"

"I kissed you one day after you broke up with Marcus. We both went along with it because we were hurting, but it didn't last more than week. We just don't feel that way about each other. That's when you started going M.I.A and being secretive about everything. You didn't seem to care about finding a cure for Carson."

It doesn't take long to put two and two together. "So when I forgot the truth, you thought pretending to be together would get me invested again."

"I told you before. There's nothing I won't do for my brother. I'm sorry for tricking you, but I'm desperate, alright?" His face looks like it's aged a decade in less than a minute. "I don't know how long I can keep this up. Look at him. He's dying right in front of me, and I don't know what to do for him. Can't take him to a hospital or Gardiner will come after him. Can't just let him go because he's my kid brother and I love him too much to let those monsters take him. You're the only chance he's got."

I swallow the heaviness in my throat. "He's one of the first people I've ever met who accepted me for who I am. I love him too, Davey, and I refuse to believe for a single moment that I ever gave up on him. I'll never give up. So have some faith in me."

The wrinkles on his forehead clear up, and he smiles. "Thank you."

Don't thank me just yet, I think glumly.

"Where were you?"

My body tenses as Marcus joins me on the deck of the cabin—which is more like a lodge than a cabin, really. It has four rooms and plenty of space to accommodate all of us. And it's pretty removed from civilization, which is a bonus lately. Except for me, the rest of the kids have already flipped, so there's no chance of them blanking. And if being around humans increases the risk of human Blanks popping up, being far away from normal people while we figure this out should give the others some ease of mind.

Doesn't do much for me.

Marcus sits in the folding chair next to me. "I went to see Davey," I answer. I think it's time to put the secrecy behind me and start living honestly. Well, except in Carson's case. That's a dangerous secret that could get the brothers in trouble, and I can't have that on my head.

"Ah," he says. "The boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend. He never was."

Marcus squints at me and I can't tell if it's because the sun is setting right behind me or because he's not buying it. "I asked you where you were because it's not . . . safe for you to go off on your own."

He sounds sincere. Things have been up in the air between us for a while now. We've been cautiously polite with each other, careful not to trigger any explosions or step on each other's toes. At the moment, it's hard for me to juggle my emotions while being sensitive to his. "You mean it's not safe for other people if I'm on the loose. I might not remember everything, but I know what I did. How I—I killed people." My voice cracks.

"We've all killed people."

His words should reassure me, but all I feel is patronized. I lift my feet up on the chair and wrap my arms around my knees, trying not to tremble. "You don't get it. These weren't Blanks or Gardiner agents. It wasn't in self-defense. They were innocents. How am I supposed to live with that?"

"You think I don't get it?" He pulls his left arm out of the sleeve of his sweatshirt and then lifts the whole thing until half of it is bunched around his neck, exposing the tally marks on the left side of his chest. "Twelve kids. Not the ones who blanked, no. I'm talking about the ones who just had the symptoms. I killed twelve kids because Blaine wanted me to."

Marcus shoves his sweatshirt back into place, covering the tattoo of his horrific past, as well as the one declaring his feelings for me. He looks angry, but not at me for once. At himself. "I could have said no. I could've taken the beating Blaine would've dished out and the humiliation when he threw me out like his own son. But I chose to hurt them instead. I saw their fear and heard them begging me for mercy, but I never let it stop me."

He clenches his teeth, his throat moving severely times as he attempts to swallow more words. "I know what it's like to hate yourself," he says carefully. "But you didn't choose this. You've never hurt anyone. You have nothing to feel sorry for."

"It doesn't change the fact that their blood is on my hands." I stare out at the woods, avoiding his scrutiny. "And I know this will sound crazy, but I feel responsible. I wasn't strong enough to stop them from using me to do awful things to people. Did I even try to fight it? To find some way to stop their influence?"

Because it sure does sound like I gave up on Carson, too.

Marcus's expression eases into a wry smile. "Knowing you, I don't think you tried to do anything less."

"But it wasn't enough."

"Sometimes it just isn't. You just gotta accept that fact and move on. We're going to see a lot of messed-up things, April. We're probably going to do messed-up things, too. That's the kind of world we live in now."

"Normal rules don't apply," I quote, remembering something he said to me back at the facility.

He laughs humorlessly. "Exactly."

I can't believe his unconventional pep talk is actually helping. Knowing that Marcus and I share a burden most people have never known makes me feel less alone. And he's right. How can I feel guilty for something I didn't do to begin with? Something that was forced on me? It's all the Shroud's fault. I'm their victim, too.

"Why are you being nice to me?" I ask, hoping I haven't ruined the peace by bringing up the elephant on the deck.

He slouches more in his chair, tilting his head back slightly to look at the afternoon sky. "I know I haven't been fair to you lately. I've been running on old hurts, but if you're willing to play nice, I figure it wouldn't hurt to do the same."

I scowl. "I'm not playing nice, Marcus. I have nothing against you. At all. Except for the fact that you were being an absolute asshole, but I'm willing to overlook that."

He looks at me with a sidelong glance and then turns away.

"What?" I growl.

"Alright. I believe you."

"No, you don't."

Marcus sounds amused when he says, "You're telling me how I feel now?"

"No, you're just easy to read." I lower my legs to the floor and angle my body toward his. "Please. Just tell me what you think I did wrong."

"Like I said, it's not—"

"What I did; it's how I feel" I finish. "But how do you know what I feel?"

"You told me. Pretty clearly, I might add."

He can't help the bitterness in his voice, an undercurrent that's there no matter how much he tries to mask it. It's clear he's not willing to fess up, so I decide to tell him what I think and hope the truth shows up on his face. "Whatever you think I feel didn't start After—meaning, it had to have existed back at the facility. Or . . . sometime between leaving the facility and the hospital?"

His eye twitches. Bingo.

"Okay, so it's clearly something I should remember regardless of what Willow did. And it's not something I did, so it's how I felt. I do remember feeling betrayed when you handed us over to Blaine, but I get it. I got it when we talked in the hospital that day. You were confused and lost. You were trying to save us without betraying everything you stood for."

Marcus looks away. It's not enough. It's more than that. I'm missing something.

The answer sucker punches me in the gut. Of course. He literally talked about it five minutes ago. It's permanently engraved on his skin.

"Your tally marks."

The slight wince that flickers across his face is all the confirmation I need. "You think I blame you for what you did to those kids?"

"Don't you?"

"God, no." My stomach twists agonizingly. "Are you kidding me?"

Even as I open my mouth to protest, I hear the echoes of unfamiliar words. Words delivered in a voice that sounds exactly like mine, cruel and biting and meant to inflict absolute pain. I can't breathe.

Did you like it? When you shot those kids in the head, did you get off on it?

What kind of a person does that? You're not human at all.

You're sick and twisted. At least Blaine stood for something. And you? You're just a psychopath like Eli.

Redemption? There is no redemption for people like you. You deserve to burn in hell.

Stay away from me. My skin crawls just looking at you.

I can't stop the tears that flood from my eyes. We both get up at the same time, and I can see in his pain-hardened eyes that he's remembering what I said, and that he now knows I know. "Wha—" I reach out to stop him, confused and guilty and so sorrowful it feels like my heart's breaking. "Why would I say those things?"

"I don't know," Marcus says tersely, trying to extricate himself from the clutch on the front of his sweatshirt. He grabs my wrists and pulls my hands away.

I study his face, understanding his need to push me away. I hurt him worse than I ever imagined. "You have to believe me. I've never felt that way about you."

"Does it make a difference? You still said those things."

I hate how soft his voice is, like he's too wounded to get angry. And he's right. The damage's already done. My words hurt him, well-intentioned or not. Which is a ridiculous thing to think. Well-intentioned? What justification could I ever have for putting him through such degradation and mockery? For throwing his feelings for me back in his face?

The more I learn about the past eight months, the more it paints a picture that chills me to my soul. I'm the villain in this tale.

"I'm so sorry," I say, my words twisting into a sob.

Marcus steps away from me until his back almost touches the sliding door behind him. "I don't know what's worse, believing you really meant all those things or knowing you were just saying them to get to me."

I lift my hand toward him, trying to gap the distance between us. "I hate myself for hurting you."

"You didn't just hurt me, Rose," Marcus says softly, his eyes a deep black despite the sunlight.

He doesn't say more, but his unstated words hang between us. You broke my heart. I feel lower than an ant. He's right. He gave me his heart and I treated it like it meant nothing to me. I chose this over being with the person I have no doubt I loved. I did this.

The question is, why?