BRRT— the alarm sounds and the testing room door swings open, a yellow-outfitted person walks in and straight up to me. “Welcome back, mischievous 487. Do you understand why you’re back here?” They turn a knife out of their pocket, a wicked grin on the Curio’s face. “Tested don’t escape, if they try, they get hurt.” He clutches the weapon and stabs me in my chest.

  The shock of it quickly snaps my eyes wide open as I gasp for breath. Wow, dreams suck. Makes me glad I don’t have Mist’s power. Then it’d suck even more.

  “Finally, you’re awake,” Mist’s voice grumbles from beside me.

  “I thought I was… oh…” last night hit me like a rock.

  “Move Aside.” The growling voice of Knives demands.

  “What’re you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be with me mom?” I ask. Is Knives the killer? No way, he’s a Tested. Like me, he wouldn’t kill another Tested’s friend, right?

  “I’ll go back once I do something. Now move.”

  “N-no. If you’re here for Ross, you can’t—” I shift to a defensive position. Or at least try to before he lunges, slamming a hand into my torso. I feel a sharp, growing pain in my side as he does. I feel the wind knock clear out of my lungs as I get thrown onto the inn wall.

  “I will, but I don’t want to harm another pure in the process,” he replies, jerking the palm of his hand with a sickening snap, his answer a chilled rumble before I blacked out.

  “Oh…” I repeat, coming to terms with the memory.

  “Yeah…” Mist mocks slightly. “So I assume you know the killer now,” she huffs.

  “You knew already?!”

  “Did you forget the reason I was at the Labs?”

  I go quiet, “... how long did you know?”

  “Not relevant, what is is a plan of how to stop him from doing so. We could corner him in some abandoned warehouse, or—”

  “Does Jyra know?” I stare.

  “What?” Mist stares back.

  “Does Jyra know?” I repeat, only slower.

  “The boys have no clue. Though I’m worried telling them will remove all trust gained over the past days,” Mist answers bluntly.

  I go to argue but.. That’s valid. Knives did kill Jyrasck’s dad and is tryna kill Ross. We sit in a small silence, “do they know I’m awake?”

  “No… and we’re not gonna prank them either. Ross is jittery as is.”

  I pout, “boo. Should we tell Ross? Then we could act like we never kne–”

  “No acting, you’re horrible at it.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t seen my skills!”

  “And I can assume those ‘skills’ are bad.”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “Wow, mean. But still, we should tell Ross.”

  “As long as he doesn’t tell Jyra,” Mist sighs, getting up. “I’ll go get him,” she walks out, only for Ross to enter a few moments later.

  “Good afternoon,” he studders awkwardly as he sits down.

  “Good after noon,” I repeat. “Did Mist tell you anything?”

  “Just that it was my shift, like some factory worker.” He answers, “why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering… If a Tested were to go rogue, would you still try and save the rest?”

  He blinks, “um… I would just be more aware..? Could you define ‘rogue’?”

  I bite the inside of my cheek, “like go crazy.”

  “Well, I’d just be more aware of their behavior. Shielding my past and avoiding getting them activated.” Ross shrugs, “is something up with Mist or something?”

  “No, not Mist. One of the people at my mom’s.”

  “Who?”

  “... Knives…”

  Ross makes a confused face, “I don’t understand. What’s your point?”

  I nip my cheek some more, “... you gotta promise me you won’t tell Jyra.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “The killer, it’s Knives.”

  His eyebrows raise a little, “that’s great. But if Jyra finds out, and he definitely will, would he trust you two anymore? Plus the other’s at Amara’s, are they in on it?”

  “Mist doesn’t think so.”

  “Fun, fun,” he says sarcastically. “So how do we go about capturing Mr. Killer? Catch him by a river near here? What abilities does he have anyway?”

  “He can grow his bones out from his body and use them as weapons.”

  Ross pauses, “no disarming him then. Should we get the police involved? No, they’d capture you all too…” he starts muttering to himself.

  “If we could find an out-of-the-way place, we can lure him there while someone lures the police there.” I chirp, moving to dangle my feet off the side of the bed.

  He snaps his fingers, “yes! And how do we lure him there?”

  I stare at him.

  He stares at me, discontent, “...really?”

  I shrug, “you’re the only one he’d go for in a long-enough lasting pursuit.”

  “... I’m too young to be writing my will..”

  ??????

  “Okay, Ross lures the K to a secluded area, Cana and Jyra tie him up, and I lure the police to K’s location,” Mist summarizes, pointing to each one of us as she does.

  “But where’s this ‘secluded area’? Do we have one in mind?” Ross chirps.

  “Oh I think I know one. Behind the inn is an old stable, we could trap it and lure the killer into there,” Jyrasck offers.

  “Shh! The codename is K, remember?” I chide softly, to which he rolls his eyes.

  “I don’t understand why we need codenames anyway,” he fusses.

  “Why, don’t they fit? Ice for Mist, Ivory for Ross, Smokes for you, and Fire for me,” I point respectively with a proud smile.

  “Whatever you say,” Jyrasck shrugs dismissively. “Ross and I can go set traps while you two shake out the plan su’more.” He gets up, followed by Ross.

  “...”

  “Follow?”

  “Follow.”

  We rise from our seats and sneak out behind the boys. Sneaking through the alleyway a short sprint behind them, we follow swiftly and quickly. Mist’s ears atop her head rotate the more we advance. I assume she’s listening into the boy’s conversation as occasionally she freezes in place.

  They go through a tall grassed pass before we all arrive at an unappealing looking stable (which takes me a minute to realize what it actually is since there’s no stablehand). The grass was climbing up the walls of it, enveloping the majority of it. Mist’s ears stand at attention, pointing towards both males.

  “Anything interesting?” I ask.

  “If ‘interesting’ is Ross-y talk,” she whispers back.

  “Is Jyra Ross-y talking too?”

  “Yup.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup, he’s nodding to it too.”

  “Oh, I thought he was just startling flies.”

  “Nope, he’s nodding to a Ross-y talk ramble.”

  “I’m surprised so many people understand Ross-y talk.”

  “Same.”

  “Even my mom understood it.”

  “Yeah, I remember that.”

  “Boy talk is so weird.”

  “Yeah.”