In Your Element

While Alice and Chelsea stayed with Zachary, Anthony stayed with Amanda.

The two stayed awake for hours after his arrival, catching up on the time he had missed.

"Why did you ever want to leave the city? What's here for you?"

His younger sister's blue eyes turned fiery as she took a stand. "A strong community to fight for that's going to fight for me. Onyx doesn't fight for you or me, Anthony, Onyx fights for themselves and they won't hesitate to drop one of their own for a conspiracy."

"If that were true, Luke Lowell would have been dropped years ago. He's someone who's on his own side."

"Sure, if they didn't need him as a basic contract killer." She went into the front closet, getting a brown jacket on and heading to the door. "I've got to go check on Leona, you're coming with."

Anthony rolled his eyes, getting out of his seat on the couch and following her out the door.

"Besides, the people here are really nice. You won't find one person here who is more concerned about themselves than they are about someone else."

"And what about your parents and siblings who do care about you?"

Amanda frowned a moment before perking up again. "I've given my entire life to a family who couldn't and wouldn't do the same for me. As much as it pains me to say, it's time for me to do my own things."

Anthony frowned, contingent along the walk in silence.

They eventually reached a building in the middle of the town center. Amanda put in some numbers in a keypad and the door opened to reveal a number of people going back and forth between the main lobby.

Anthony immediately recognized Elizabeth Kennedy who was speaking with a man and a woman, the man in a green trenchcoat, blue sneakers, black pants, and a black bowler hat while the woman wore a long sleeved blue dress that ran just above her ankles.

Elizabeth stopped their conversation, giving a nod to Anthony. "Glad to see you're okay, Mr. Richardson."

"No need for the formalities, Elizabeth, at least not right now." Anthony approached the three, taking in a better look of the man and the woman.

The man gave a mischievous grin as his light green eyes flickered to Amanda. "Amanda, belle, who is this?"

Anthony froze, recognizing the man's thick french accent and immediately stopping the conversation. "Belle? Beautiful?"

He nodded. "Amanda is very beautiful, I agree, belle."

The woman next to him knocked the back of his head, causing his hat to fall off. "Pardon my cousin, he's not normally such a chien, a dog."

Anthony turned to Amanda to see a smile on her face, her eyes fixed on the man. "Amanda, who are these people?"

She approached them, the man taking her hand and kissing her knuckles before putting his hat back on. "Jean Luc and Noelle. They're cousins from the Crusaders, two very influential people in the movement."

Elizabeth looked just as surprised as Anthony did, lowering her voice to a whisper that only he could hear. "That's unnatural for Jean Luc, he and Amanda are usually very private and I never see them together."

"Why does it sound like you're trying to tell me that they're an item?"

She shrugged. "There's been rumors but I could honestly put this show to Jean Luc trying to make you uncomfortable."

Anthony crossed his arms, seeing Jean Luc and Amanda were off in their own conversation and Noelle had split off to talk to Alyssa, who had just come out of one of the nearby rooms. "What else have I missed with her?"

"She's one hell of a personality now. Real quick on the tongue, but her manners are still a priority to her. I'm going to guess you care more about the guys you have to watch out for?"

"Guys, plural? Like there's more than just Jean Luc?"

Elizabeth let out a laugh. "Oh yeah. I can't really tell if Jean Luc is actually interested, but I know Horatio was, Vincent was, Grady joked around about it but I don't think he's really into anyone. The only one who has been bold enough to make any moves is Jean Luc and that's only been in the past five minutes."

He nodded, tapping Amanda's shoulder. "We should get to Leona, right?"

She turned to Jean Luc, giving him a nod then heading past Alyssa and Noelle, Anthony sticking behind her.

They went to one of the closest rooms to the end of the hall, going inside they found Leona sitting in a chair in the corner with a book in hand. She looked up to greet them with a smile. "Amanda, Anthony, how are you two?"

"We're doing well, how are you?" Amanda shut the door behind them.

Leona closed her book, setting it on the end table next to her. "I'm doing better, Carlos was around today and helped me to get adjusted to the cane Alyssa says I need to be using until I get better on my feet but she can't tell me how long that's going to take." She leaned forward in her seat, her vision focusing on Anthony. "Can I ask why you're here?"

Amanda cupped her hands in front of her, a smile on her face. "Anthony ran into the new resistance with Chelsea and a maid of the Hampton family."

Leona gasped, her face overcome with worry. "Are you alright? Are the other two okay? The new resistance is no joke, I've heard they're very dangerous people."

"Yes, we're all fine, just a bit shaken up."

"That's understandable. If you need anything, please feel free to ask the Hunters, we're just as willing to help you guys as the Crusaders and the Voyagers."

They stayed and talked with Leona for half an hour before she requested Anthony's help getting into bed, which he did very carefully.

They left, the lobby being empty on their way out.

Along the way home, they ran into Elizabeth, Alyssa, Jean Luc, and Noelle once again. The four were very quiet, watching someone at the end of the street.

"They're new resistance." Noelle commented, holding a bag close to her.

Elizabeth nodded. "They are, but why are they scooping out Greg and Devin's house?"

"Gregory and Devin are young, they may expect some adult to be in the house with them." Jean Luc turned to notice Anthony and Amanda's company, pointing out the person they were looking at.

Jean Luc continued looking out behind them while the rest of the group watched the person, Amanda eventually joining him.

The person didn't move much, only looking in a few windows before turning to go back down the street towards the group.

Elizabeth stayed put, immediately taking something in her hand. "Alyssa, go alert someone. Anyone, it doesn't matter as long as it gets them out of here."

Anthony turned to see Jean Luc blocking Amanda with his body, holding out an arm to keep her covered. "Make it three, there's two more coming from this way."

Elizabeth turned back to confirm what Jean Luc was saying, muttering a few swears under her breath. "You all need to go back to the surveillance room and alert someone."

Noelle tried to grab Elizabeth's arm, only for her to pull away. "And what is your plan?"

Anthony then realized what Elizabeth held in her hand was a gun, which she was still keeping relatively concealed. "I can handle myself, leave now before we all get caught."

Anthony went to lead his sister out of the area, only to find her and Jean Luc were already gone.

Alyssa and Noelle ushered Anthony back to the building from earlier, going into a side room and the both of them getting straight to work.

Anthony watched the cameras, seeing the three people that they had seen had made it to the location that they had last seen Elizabeth, who had gone into hiding.

As soon as Noelle and Alyssa backed away from the keyboards, a computer with a log next to the cameras started filling. Anthony looked at it, confused by what he was seeing. "What's going on?"

Noelle dragged her finger along the screen. "We sent the alert to as many people as we could, these are doors that are being opened in the community. There's seven people that won't be going anywhere and I know the sensors to watch for to make sure their doors are staying shut."

"Seven?"

Alyssa nodded, watching the cameras. "The three of us, Marshal, Milo, Zachary, and Leona. Marshal has Victor and Whitlock, Milo has Nora and the twins, Zachary has Chelsea and Alice, and Leona can't go anywhere for obvious reasons. Some of them know their worth in combat and choose to stay home because they know people like Pierre and Marie are going to jump on any alert." She pointed to one camera, showing the two she had been talking about heading towards the three strangers.

Before they reached them, an arrow flew into the group, catching one of the strangers in the arm and forcing the other two to react, covering their now injured partner and pushing them towards a vehicle in the direction opposite of where the houses were.

Pierre and Marie stopped walking as they reached the end of the neighborhood, quickly being joined by a number of other people. They didn't attempt to attack the three, they just watched as they sped away from the town.

"They had the upper hand, why didn't they do anything?"

"Because that's not how we work." Noelle threw her hand down, turning to Anthony. "Their injury is a warning, death is not an acceptable punishment for only trespassing."

Alyssa continued watching the cameras until Elizabeth returned to the surveillance room, the gun she had missing from her hands. "It's all clear, please go straight home."

Noelle and Alyssa collected their belongings and left, leaving Anthony with Elizabeth, the both of them just standing there for a minute. "I uh… I don't know how to get back to Amanda's house or get into it."

"Oh, okay." Elizabeth nodded, then left the surveillance room, expecting Anthony to follow her out.

She took him to the residential area, back to Amanda's house where the door was left cracked open, prompting her to go into the house, keeping herself to the wall as she looked around. "Did you guys leave the door open before you left?"

Anthony shook his head, assisting Elizabeth in searching the house. "Maybe Amanda came back?"

There was a noise that resembled a knock on the window behind them, gaining both of their attention. Elizabeth seemed to become unsettled.

Anthony turned back to face the opposite end of the house, catching a blur heading for Elizabeth. "Look out!" He jumped to face her, attempting to grab what was moving.

As the person leaped over the sofa, Elizabeth ducked, just barely missing their grasp.

Anthony hurried to grab her, only getting hold of her just before the person got up from the ground.

Elizabeth tried to push Anthony towards the kitchen, the both of them stumbling to the ground as their feet caught an object blocking them.

They looked to the ceiling to see a man, staring down at them while a woman rounded the couch, pure anger manifesting on her face.

The man quickly moved to pin Elizabeth to the ground, grabbing an object that was tucked in towards the back of her pants and covered by her sweater. He threw the same gun that Anthony had seen in her hands earlier to the front door.

He took his position behind the two of them again, the woman standing over them, looking as if she was finally to regain something stolen from her.

Anthony turned to Elizabeth, seeing she hadn't sat back up after the man pinned her. His body went cold as he grabbed her and leaned her forward, trying to understand what was happening.

He looked back to the woman who pointed her finger at Elizabeth, then pointed to the ground. Anthony eased her back down, looking over his hands for any sign of life, or loss of life, from her. "I don't understand, what's going on?"

The woman took a wicked smile on her face, drawing a blade to her hands as she delivered a swift kick to Elizabeth's side, Elizabeth delivering a shrill scream as she shot back up, Anthony grabbing by the shoulder.

Elizabeth looked back at him, struggling to catch her breath.

They remained on the floor until the front door eased open, a recognizable pair of blue shoes coming into Anthony's view.

He grabbed Elizabeth as the man and woman turned to face the door, the both of them struggling to move along the floor before the man's heavy hand grabbed Anthony by the shirt, throwing him to the ground and pulling a nearby lamp off the table, the cord out of the socket and wrapping the cord around his neck with no hesitation.

Anthony clawed at the cord around his neck, kicking at the man while the woman went to confront Jean Luc at the door.

Elizabeth turned back to find Anthony, seeing him on the ground. She reacted on an impulse, running at the man and jumping into him, using her hands to pull him back by the hair on his head.

As the man turned his attention to getting Elizabeth off of him, Anthony slipped out of his grasps, the lamp cord still loosely around his neck.

The man handled Elizabeth with no hassle, simply grabbing the small woman and throwing her over his shoulder onto the coffee table, which completely fell apart on impact of her body.

He reached down to grab one of the table legs, hovering over a wheezing Elizabeth as Anthony unwrapped the cord from his neck, jumping to his feet and using the lamp in hand to hit the man upside the head.

As the man collapsed, a gunshot rang out as Jean Luc stood firm with Elizabeth's gun in hand, the body of the woman who still had Jean Luc's forearm in hand collapsing to the ground to reveal Amanda just a few feet behind Jean Luc.

Jean Luc lowered the gun, rushing into the house and going straight to Elizabeth while Amanda went to Anthony, looking over the wounds he'd gotten.

He quickly assured her that he was okay and turned his attention to Elizabeth as Milo slid past the body on the floor with Alyssa close behind.

Milo's face went pale as he stayed a distance from his sister who remained lying atop what was once Amanda's coffee table, Alyssa going straight to her side, putting her hands all over her while whispering to herself.

Milo looked at the body of the woman, then the man who laid just a foot away from Elizabeth, then back to Anthony with pleading eyes. "What happened?"

"They were in here when we got here, we thought it was Amanda and she left the door open but they ran right at her. I'm so sorry, Milo, we fought back as hard as we could."

Anthony's vision started clouding as Alyssa ordered Amanda to go get Chelsea and Whitlock, saying that it was an emergency and they needed to be present if Elizabeth was going to make a full comeback.

Amanda left the building, Milo going and dragging the body of the woman out of view then going to the man next to Elizabeth and feeling his neck before taking a pocket knife out and putting it into the man's neck, then dragging the body out of view as well.

Anthony watched him come back, Milo's face still brimming with concern. "Why did you kill him?"

He looked to Anthony, his concern quickly turning to anger. "He came here with the intention of taking a life, whether it be yours or Elizabeth. He hurt the both of you and the punishment for trying to take a life is death."

Amanda ran back in not too soon, a young boy and Chelsea following after her.

Chelsea and the big, Whitlock, took their places at Alyssa's side and immediately took one of Elizabeth's hands in their own. The room went silent as the two closed their eyes and held onto her.

As the two opened their eyes again and let go of Elizabeth's hands, her hands found the ground and pushed her upper body up, taking a few labored breaths as she looked around.

She met eyes with the young boy next to her, quickly taking him in her arms. "It's okay, I'm not hurt."

A wave of relief went over the room as Alyssa and Jean Luc helped Elizabeth to her feet.

Finding herself relatively weak, Milo carried her home with Whitlock and Alyssa following behind them. Jean Luc escorted Chelsea back to Zachary's, leaving Anthony and Amanda in the house alone.

"Do you think we'll be able to stay here?" Amanda turned to face her older brother, taking in the rapidly forming bruise that went all around his neck, along with the scratch marks that he had formed himself.

"I don't know. Do you guys typically stay when a house has been busted into and left with two bodies in the kitchen and the living room in tatters and covered in blood?"

She shook her head. "No, not usually. There's been a special case or two."

Anthony gasped, furrowing his eyebrows. "This has happened more than once?!"

A sly smile crossed Amanda's face as she went to her brother, leaning her head on his right arm, crossing her own arms. "No, this is a first."

The two siblings took in the sight as Jean Luc returned with Noelle, Zachary, and Joseph Duke in tow.

Zachary surveyed the home, returning to the group with a look of disdain on his face. "Are we sure Anthony wasn't the originally intended target of the evening?"

"It is possible, given the new resistance acted with no preparation on our side as soon as Anthony arrived at the Hampton home." Noelle had the same bag in her arms that she had earlier in the night. "However, it may just be that Anthony is a victim of circumstance. We have known from the beginning that Elizabeth would be a target and that Chelsea and Isaac would be targets."

"Sure, but why would they be here in Amanda Richardson's home if Elizabeth Kennedy was the target? There's no correlation between the two women and there was no indication that Elizabeth would be here tonight, she's the victim of circumstance, same with Alice and Chelsea." Zachary looked at Anthony with a bit of sympathy in his eyes. "I just can't stop myself from asking what makes Anthony a higher target."

Anthony shrugged, noticing that Zachary also had some bruising from earlier in the evening. "Was the woman in the kitchen the same one that held you this evening?"

"No, she wasn't. I didn't recognize her or the man as participants in the earlier scuffle." Zachary put his hands in his pockets. "Regardless, you guys can't stay here tonight. We'll get things fixed up as soon as the sun comes up so you guys can be back tomorrow night. Jean Luc and Noelle have offered to house you guys tonight, but I believe that it would be best for Anthony to stay with Joseph. He's a far bigger threat to Anthony and there's not many people in the community capable of defending themselves in the case of a break-in. With Elizabeth out of the surveillance room for the night, Anthony needs to be with someone who's going to keep an eye and ear out as long as they have to and Joseph has already offered to do exactly that."

Amanda looked to her brother giving him a reassuring squeeze on the arm. "We'll be okay, Joseph will protect you."

He nodded slightly, leading his sister over to Jean Luc and Noelle. "Then that's what we'll do." He leaned close to Jean Luc. "Don't let anything happen to her, right now she's all I have and I'm trusting you with her. Don't you do anything to her either, I won't hesitate to kick a frenchman's ass."

Jean Luc chuckled and nodded. "I am no chien, I have manners. Amanda will take my bed, I will take the sofa. There will be a locked door between us, I assure you I will be no threat to her purity."

Anthony looked at his left hand, staring down the band on his ring finger. "Zachary, when do you think I'll be able to return home?"

He looked up to see Zachary had followed his gaze. "I don't think that's possible for the foreseeable future, I'm sorry. I would offer to let her come here as well, but her family would rather torch the entire community than have any ties here." He lightly patted Anthony in the back before guiding him out of the home. "It's time for all of us to get going now."

---

Zachary returned home to find Chelsea sitting on the couch, watching the door for him.

Her concerned eyes went soft as he entered the house, locking the door behind him.

He took a seat next to her, running his hand through her hair. "I thought you would be asleep already."

"I wish I could get to sleep as fast as you think I can." She paused, shifting herself to get more comfortable. "Are Anthony and Amanda okay? Anthony seemed really shaken up when I left."

"They're okay, obviously not too thrilled about being split up but they're going to have to accept it for now. I know Anthony isn't excited about being here any longer but with all that's happening around him, I can't send him back to the city in good conscience."

She frowned slightly. "And Amanda about staying with the cousins?"

"She's fine with it, she's already pretty close with them and Jean Luc swore in front of all of us that nothing would happen between them. I know that doesn't go for much back at home, but here it means everything and I believe him."

She sighed slightly, looking over him. "Things are going to be okay. This group is full of fighters. Hell, Elizabeth took an injury that would have broken any normal person's spine and is expected back on her feet within the day."

"Yeah, emphasis on normal person. She only survived it because you and Whitlock were around. She got lucky."

"And you're saying I'm not normal? Do I have to remind you that she and I share the same gene?"

He turned to her with a smile. "I meant what I said. She's not normal and you are definitely not normal. Like if normal were the sun, you would be Pluto, that's how far from it you are."

Chelsea chuckled, getting off the couch. "This is coming from the guy who just compared normalcy to the planetary alignments."

His smile faded as he watched her walk away. "Chelsea." He didn't mean to say anything, he looked up to her with surprise.

"Yes?" She turned back to face him, her smile turning into a look of concern once she saw the look on his face. "Is everything okay?"

He left the couch and made his way to her side, taking her hands in his. He didn't look up at her for a moment, simply looking over her hands before sighing and meeting her eyes. "Chelsea, I would like to try and rekindle our relationship. I understand it'll take time and effort on the both of our sides, but I feel that you're well worth the time and effort."

Chelsea nodded, her concern look wearing off. "What makes you say this?"

"I've spent a fair amount of time living with you and faking a relationship with you for benefits on both of our parts, I've spent a fair amount of time living on my own and seeing other partners that I believe I have a connection with. What I've realized in the time alone is that what I felt for you was real and it was irreplaceable. Even now, after months of being without you, I feel like you haven't even left."

"How long have you been thinking on it?"

"Since the day you left for Onyx in my place. That was a decision you made to protect me and the group, I realize that now." He let go of her hands and took a few steps back. "That's all I have to say, I just ask that you think on it as well."

---

Noelle went home before Jean Luc and Amanda to clean up and put a few confidential things away before their guest arrived. She later found them in the garden and gave them the all clear to come home.

Jean Luc stayed by Amanda's side the entire time, only departing once they had gotten home and the doors had been locked.

He had gone into the kitchen and brought out a bottle of water for her while Noelle went and started running a bath for her.

Jean Luc showed her around the house, ending the tour in the back bedroom that belonged to him. "This is where you will be staying, very far away from the doors and it has a lock of its own with a bathroom connected to it, so you don't even have to leave unless you want to."

"Thank you, Jean Luc." Amanda looked around the room, Noelle coming out of the bathroom and leaving the room. "I uh, I realize I've left everything at home."

He nodded. "It seems you did. I have some clothes that you can borrow for the night and go by your home when the sun rises to bring you your own clothes for the day." Jean Luc went to the dresser, pulling out a tie dye t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. "I'll go see if Noelle has anything you can borrow."

After Jean Luc left the room, Amanda went to the dresser and gathered the clothes he pulled out and took them to the bathroom counter.

Noelle returned in his place, handing her a pair of socks and underwear. "If there's anything else you need, I'm right across the hall."

"Thank you."

Noelle left, shutting the bathroom door behind her.

Amanda took some time in the bath, thinking over the events of the night before submerging herself in the water for a moment, coming back up and finishing her bath.

She dried off and got dressed, exiting the bathroom to find Jean Luc putting something in the closet.

He closed the door and turned to leave the room, giving a slight jump and a gasp as he saw her on his way out. "You startled me, I'm sorry."

Amanda gave a smile, shutting the bathroom door as she walked to the bed, taking a seat at the foot of it. She noticed that what he was putting away was likely his trenchcoat and shoes, as he had neither of those on anymore and his black jeans had been replaced by a pair of basketball shorts. "I'm not very tired, will you stay and talk with me for a bit?"

He hesitated at the door. "On one condition."

"What's that?"

"I will stay and talk if you lay down and actually try to sleep."

Amanda shrugged, pulling the covers back from the bed and climbing in, bundling herself up. "It's okay to shut the door if you want, so we don't wake Noelle."

He put his hand on the door handle, then froze and looked for her as if to ask if she were sure. He shut the door quietly, then went to the side of the bed that she was laying on and sat on the floor in front of her. "There, is this okay for you?" She nods as he reaches up to turn the bedside lamp off. "What is it you would like to talk about?"

"I want to know a bit about France."

"Ah, France. It is not too beautiful at this time of year, there is a lot of rain and snow at this time, it is very dry. It is very kind to the eyes, the landscape and the art we have to offer. The waters are a sparkling blue most of the year, it's wonderful. After the revolution, the people became nicer too."

"Do you think fondly of your home?"

"I do and I can proudly say that I've fought for my home and what it has become, I wouldn't change that for a second, but I also wouldn't go back so soon. I've met some incredible people here who share my same passions and drive and it would devastate me to leave before the job is done."

"At least you feel that. Sometimes I feel like my best option is to just go back to Onyx, admit to my family that I was wrong and beg them to let me return home."

Jean Luc stayed quiet for a moment before clearing his throat. "In times of a revolution, the bond of a loving family is always going to be the strongest thing you'll find. I will admit that I have heard some difficult stories about Isabel and her family and Carlos' former connections, but I am a firm believer in family. If it wasn't for Noelle, I would have never gotten away from Aquamarine. She didn't help me because of sympathy, she saw her idiot cousin getting into trouble and she knew she had to do something. If the rest of your family is anything like Anthony, you are quite lucky; he seems to be very understanding and concerned about your well-being."

"He wants me to go back to Onyx, but I really feel like there's nothing for me there."

"Onyx is all he knows, you know more about life here than he would be able to comprehend in such a short amount of time that he has here. You can only try to help him see better ways, but you can't force his mind. Besides, I do think that he cares more for family than he does Onyx, I can tell that he's very concerned about his wife. Do you know if he was able to see her before he left?"

"No, I don't think so. He said he went to Chelsea just to get a trade deal from her dad, nothing more. I don't think he expected to be a target so quickly."

Jean Luc stayed quiet, eventually prompting Amanda to sleep.

---

After Amanda fell asleep, Jean Luc went back into the closet to retrieve his shoes, trenchcoat, and pants again. He quickly got dressed in the living room before going into the storage room and grabbing a bag of tools.

He left the house through the living room, locking the door on his way out.

He went to Amanda's house, leaving the bag of tools on the doorstep, going to the backyard and taking a wheelbarrow from the shed. He wheeled it to the backdoor, then went inside through the front again.

He unlocked and opened the back door then went into the kitchen.

The kitchen had began to gather a smell as Jean Luc looked over the two bodies that Milo had out there to prevent his nephew from seeing them.

Going to the first body, the man, he lifted him as much as he could and dragged him to the wheelbarrow, slumping the body into the bin. He went back inside to the woman's body, taking a look at his forearm and the bruising that had occurred because of her, then out his sleeve down.

Her body was light enough that he could pick her up with a bit of effort. He walked her to the wheelbarrow and out her body on top of the man's.

He pushed the wheelbarrow to the middle of the yard, dumping both of the bodies there and going into the side building once again, grabbing a bottle of lighter fluid and dousing the bodies.

He went inside the house again, grabbing a box of matches from the kitchen and dragging most of the split wooden living room coffee table out to the two bodies, dousing that as well before striking a match and dropping it in between the two bodies, which then went into flames, the table being used to feed the fire more.

Jean Luc shook his head as he looked on, letting out a sigh as he returned the wheelbarrow and lighter fluid to the side building.

He went back into the kitchen and took the broom, sweeping up what remained of the table's mess before getting some mop water ready in the sink. He made it a point to add plenty of bleach, noting the blood that ran all over the living room and kitchen.

After putting away the broom, he mopped the house until there was no sign of the night before, then he wrung out the mop head and washed that himself to clear it of any blood.

Once the inside was clean, he shut and locked the back door and went to the front door, focusing on the lock to figure out how the two had gotten in in the first place.

He completely removed the doorknob to figure it out, learning that the lock had been picked and easily popped back into place.

Jean Luc reattached the doorknob and went to shut it, stopping himself and reminding himself that he told Amanda he would grab some stuff for her.

He grabbed a bag from the kitchen, then went into the main bedroom stopping at the foot of the bed, his skin going cold as he looked around.

Jean Luc was familiar to the feeling of being watched and now he was feeling it more than ever.

He pulled Elizabeth's gun out of his trenchcoat pocket, watching the room around him as he went to the closet and looked in, finding nothing. He went to the bathroom, once again finding nothing.

It was after he left the bathroom that he spotted something sitting just above the doorway. It was a small square, whatever it was. He put the gun away and quickly grabbed clothes for Amanda, taking his leave from the house.

"Jean Luc!" He turned to see Zachary approaching him as he was heading the street. "What were you doing in there?"

"Cleaning up. If anyone asks, you did it." Jean Luc considered showing Zachary what he saw above the door, but he knew he had to get home pretty soon if it was going to seem like he hadn't left. "If you do go back in there, look above the bedroom door."

Jean Luc then turned on his heel, going back home as Zachary went to Amanda's house.

Jean Luc locked the door as soon as he got in, getting changed in the living room again before going to his bedroom and putting his clothes and shoes away, quickly realizing he had left the bag of tools.

He hissed under his breath, leaving Amanda's bag of clothes on the dresser and heading out of the house again.

As he got back to the front porch of Amanda's home, he heard people talking inside while bent over to grab the tool bag.

He stood up straight and poked his head in to see Zachary was still there, now joined by Elizabeth.

Zachary had Elizabeth boosted by her sitting on his shoulder, evidentially looking over what Jean Luc had found in the bedroom.

"It's a camera." Jean Luc saw Elizabeth reach down, Zachary handing her something flat and the small square falling to the ground a moment later.

Zachary let her down, Elizabeth going straight to looking over the camera. "Who do you think put it there?"

"The safest bet would be the new resistance. The woman was back here and the only other people who've been in the bedroom in the past twenty-four hours would be Amanda herself and Jean Luc. I fail to see an incentive for Jean Luc to do it and I don't understand why Amanda would want to put a camera in her own room. It would leave the news resistance."

Jean Luc took his leave with the bag of tools at that moment, seeing Zachary getting ready to leave the home.

He put the tools away when he got home, taking his spot on the floor next to Amanda. He spent the rest of his time awake watching the sun slip into the room before drifting off.

A small meeting had been called by Zachary with Chelsea, Alice, Elizabeth, Anthony, Jean Luc, Noelle, and Joseph after the discovery of the camera.

Jean Luc noticed only one thing he had in common with Joseph and Zachary, despite being directly responsible for the people staying at their homes, was that the two of them looked to be just as tired as Jean Luc was.

The participants of the meeting had a bit of small talk while Zachary took his place at the front of the room, looking over a small item in the palm of his hand.

They went quiet as he let out a long breath, likely unintentionally. "I know you guys want to know why we're here. It's come to my attention that we're under the microscope of the new resistance." He held up his hand, the small black square sticking to his skin. "Jean Luc, this looks familiar, right?"

"Yes, it is the camera that I found in Amanda's bedroom this morning."

"It's not, actually." Zachary chuckled, putting the camera onto the table. "It's the same type of camera, except it was found in my own bedroom. Mind you all, I never sleep in my bedroom, I feel more comfortable on the couch. That's a common known fact among the group, but not any outsider. I've got reason to believe that the person who installed these cameras is someone who was only among us for a short time, but still managed to get in all of our good graces. Noelle managed to connect to the camera's network by having access to two of them and we found that they're all over our homes."

Joseph furrowed his eyebrows, keeping his gaze on the floor. "And what proof do you have of the cameras being all over?"

"Extensive proof, actually. Jean Luc, you went home and slept on the floor next to your bed after you found the first camera while Amanda took your bed. Elizabeth, you and Marshal let Victor and Whitlock share the bed last night, but not the night before. Anthony woke up at about five thirty and paced for a solid fifteen minutes before Joseph woke up. Noelle was awake the entire time Jean Luc was gone, she was reading a book." He looked over the group, humming slightly to himself. "Milo and the twins left home about nine today, knowing their usual route they would be walking in the doors to this room in about ten minutes since he lets the twins wind down in here and do what they want."

Joseph nodded, looking at Anthony. "It checks out on my end."

"Yeah, same here…" Elizabeth looked at the cup of tea in front of her. "The boys usually won't sleep after a hard day unless they're with us. It's a bad habit to have, but I don't have the heart to break it."

Jean Luc looked to his cousin for a moment, cupping his hands in front of him. "Okay, we know that there are cameras. Now what? Do we remove them? Do we go along with what we know? How are we certain that this meeting isn't being surveillanced as well?"

"There were no public rooms in the network, only rooms inside the homes of people. There are also no cameras in the network on the street." Noelle tapped her finger on the table, her head resting in her hand with her elbow on the table. "There is also no camera in the infirmary, which tells me that they were trusted but not as trusted as to be let in."

"And what if it was multiple people?" Elizabeth looked up from her cup. "Zachary, this is going to be invasive and I apologize, but if Zachary isn't sleeping in his bedroom and for the past three months, has been seeing a few different people and I doubt they stay on the couch as well. I know of one or two people that he's seen and I can say for certain that they're not people I would trust in my own home. That's not to mention that Anthony is the first person that Joseph has allowed into his home for over a year now."

"Joseph, when Greg went to talk to you about Devin, did he go inside? Has Devin been inside since you've started sponsoring him?" Zachary avoided Elizabeth's first point, his face turning a bit red.

"No, neither of them have. Between Anthony and Eris, there's been nobody in the house besides me."

All eyes turned to Anthony, Noelle quickly clearing her throat. "I think one crucial fact that Zachary is forgetting to mention is that they were all installed at a different time. The ones in Elizabeth's home were installed on Victor's second birthday, the same with the ones in Milo, Kyle, and Leah's homes. Going back on our own cameras shows that the entire family was out in the garden with the inclusion of Alyssa, Marshal, and all five of the kids. Joseph's were installed on the day Eris passed away, our cameras showed him in the infirmary with her the entire night and day. I can say with confidence that while Zachary's partners are what we would see as untrustworthy, none of them were responsible for the cameras as they had been installed before Chelsea left for the city."

"Then it couldn't have been someone we know. I mean, it's unlikely but not impossible. There's absolutely no way that Joseph would have let someone be in the home he shared with his wife while she was actively dying. Joseph has no part in it, I'm going to go on a limb and say that Marshal, Milo, Elizabeth, Alyssa, Kyle, and Leah are clear as well." Zachary looked at the camera on the table in front of him, letting out a huff. "In regards to Jean Luc's earlier question, I think our best decision is to ignore them. Pretend we don't even know they're there. The new resistance has likely already noticed two being out of service, any more would probably be a red flag to them."

Jean Luc looked to Anthony, seeing him almost completely zoned out as he stared at the empty chair sitting in front of him. "Anthony?" After getting no response, Jean Luc reached out to him, taking a light grab at one of his shoulders. "Anthony, are you okay?"

He snapped out of it, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I just need to know when I can go home. I have a job and a family waiting for me back at home and I need to go."

Zachary frowned, a look of uncertainty on his face. "You're free to leave whenever you like, I don't agree with leaving this soon but if it's what you desire then I can only let you go about your business. We'll escort you back to the city but that's it. What happens to you from beyond that point is neither our concern or our fault." He cleared his throat, taking a stand from his seat and putting the camera in his pocket. "I strongly recommend you talk this out with your sister."

Alice and Chelsea followed his lead, the three of them leaving the room, Milo and the twins entering just as they left.

Milo went to his sister's side, lowering his voice to a whisper. "What was that about?"

"Just a little meeting about Anthony, Chelsea, and Alice." Elizabeth and Joseph shared a look before the two of them left in a hurry.

Milo looked over the remaining people in the room, crossing his arms. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he quickly returned his attention to the twins.

Jean Luc and Noelle got up and left before Anthony and Amanda, knowing the siblings had a discussion to make.

---

Returning to work the next day for Isaac was simple. It wasn't like he had forgotten what happened to Chelsea, it was more as if he had more work to do as a result of it.

He knew Chelsea was going to be fine and that was all he cared for.

The day he returned to work, he had an address to make to the public regarding the invasion of his home.

It was going to be short and simple, as he was used to Anthony making and giving his addresses to the public. Instead, he'd have to include Anthony in the one he made himself.

As he took his place at the head of the steps in front of Onyx, he took a deep breath, seeing a number of people sitting silently waiting for something, anything.

"Onyx has faced many challenges in the time from the founding to now, it will continue to face challenges long after I'm gone. Onyx always triumphs over challenge because we are almost always aware of what we're going up against. However, as of three nights ago, we've been put against a challenge that nobody could have seen coming. You're all very likely to be aware of the assault on my own home and I'm sure we all already believed that it was the Voyagers resurfacing after an extended break, as they typically do once in a few years. I want to stress that the culprits were not Voyagers, they were people who intended to shed blood to take Onyx from the hands of you, the people. The attack resulted in my daughter, her night maid, and Anthony Richardson to go into hiding for their own safety, which is a priority to me. I cannot say for certain when they will return, but what I can swear to all of you is that this new threat is going to be neutralized the instant they set foot in this city. I will see to it myself that the people that I lead will never have to fear for their lives as long as I'm here and head of Onyx."

The crowd started to cheer but one woman stayed glued to her phone, a slight look of distaste as she looked up and met eyes with Isaac. Naomi quickly left the grounds, seeming to head home.

He watched her for a minute before Lyla came to his side. "Mrs. Richardson, please do me a favor and go check on Naomi. See to it that she's going to cause no trouble."

---

Lyla made it to her son's home just a few minutes after Naomi did, staying on the porch for a minute before she knocked.

Naomi answered after a minute more of waiting, seeming hesitant to let Lyla in the house. "Good evening, Lyla."

Lyla gave a courteous smile, looking the woman up and down. "Naomi, how are you holding up?"

"The best I can, all things considered." She looked like she had something on her mind. "I can't imagine what you're going through, though. It must be difficult on you for both Anthony and Amanda to be gone."

"I'm not concerned about it. Anthony is grown, he can handle himself and he'll be back home in no time. I'm sure he's already on the way home as we speak." Lyla gave a gentle smile to her daughter-in-law, keeping her hands politely folded in front of her.

---

Pierre and Jean Luc had met up for lunch after what had happened at Amanda's house.

From what he knew, Jean Luc had never even considered pulling a gun on someone, let alone pulling a trigger. Jean Luc had always been a key background player, never putting himself into the action and instead creating it from behind the scenes.

He'd been encouraged to talk to Jean Luc by Marshal, who was also going to talk to Milo about his own actions in the home that night.

"Jean Luc, you know I'm not good for casual conversation. Be truthful with me, why did you shoot the woman?"

"She was a threat to me, Elizabeth, Anthony, and Amanda. I gave her multiple warnings to back off and she decided to lay her hands on me, then I saw Elizabeth and Anthony having a difficult time with the guy and I decided I had to defend the people that were there."

Pierre nodded, taking in Jean Luc's tone and words, hanging onto them as if his own life depended on it. "The gun, where did you get it?"

The question was a test. Zachary hadn't been able to recover the gun and given that Jean Luc was the last person to handle it and was also the last person in the house, he was believed to have it.

"It was on the floor when I walked into the house, I picked it up before the woman came at me. I've been told it's Elizabeth's; I still have it, I want to return it to her myself in private."

"How are you doing mentally now? How did you sleep?"

Jean Luc shrugged. "Nicolas, I'm fine. I did what I had to do and while I'm not thrilled about having taken a life, I know it was to be one life or four lives. I would choose the one over the four again any day if I had to."

---

Chelsea had been spending her day with Alice, Whitlock, and Victor as Elizabeth and Marshal had some business to attend to and had asked the women to watch over the boys.

Chelsea herself didn't mind it since it gave her a chance to reacquaint herself with Whitlock, which would be important to them if they needed to use the gene again, and it gave her an opportunity to get to know Victor.

Alice, however, was terrified of the boys.

She had gone to make lunch, the boys following after her and roughhousing as they typically did.

At one point after Chelsea joined them in the kitchen, Whitlock had knocked Victor down to the ground. Victor retaliated by kicking his brother in the stomach, causing him to back into the counter and fall down himself.

Alice looked to Chelsea, her face white with fear. "If they get hurt, are we going to get hurt by their parents?"

Chelsea shook her head. "Where do you think they learned to roughhouse? Even after having kids and getting older, Elizabeth and Milo are relentless with each other. Now if this were Milo's daughter, I wouldn't be so confident in my answer, but I know Elizabeth and Marshal believe that the boys playing rough with each other is a good thing."

"A good thing?" Alice hissed. "Allowing your son's to beat each other up is not a good thing."

"Maybe not where we're from. Alice, you and I were raised in a different environment from these boys. You and I were not brought up to fight for our lives, these boys and their parents were."

Alice seemed defeated as the boys ran back into the living room, Chelsea following after them to make sure things didn't get too out of hand.

Zachary returned home before Alice finished lunch, prompting her to revive the topic as soon as the boys got rough again in his presence.

"Zachary, tell me, if those were your boys would you not be concerned about how rough they're playing?"

He focused on the boys just as Victor dodged a tackle from his brother, leading Whitlock to belly flop on the coffee table and roll off of it with ease, quickly returning to his chase.

Zachary shook his head. "Nope. It's good for them. Alice, I don't believe you've met their parents or uncle; that kind of behavior is normal from their family and a lot of the families around here. All the kids play like that and it's generally encouraged so long as none of them draw blood." He points at Whitlock, making the boy stop in his tracks. "You gotta watch that one, though. He doesn't feel pain and so he doesn't typically know when he's reaching his limits." He lowered his finger as the boy started to go after his brother again. "Whit, that was a hint that you should cool it. It's too much right now, dude."

The brothers stood in front of each other, giving a handshake before Whitlock went into the kitchen with Chelsea and Victor stayed in the living room with Zachary and Alice.

"What's with the handshake? Why did they stop so suddenly?"

Zachary looked to Victor, the younger brother simply looking at the two adults. "My dad says that respect is inportnant."

"Im-port-ant, Vic, but you've got the right idea." Zachary ruffled the boy's hair for a moment. "Marshal has his quirks and I'm not surprised they've rubbed off onto the boys because they're some pretty admirable quirks to have."

Alice took a deep breath, crossing her arms. "How did you get them to listen to you?"

He shrugged slightly. "I don't know, they just do. Whitlock has known me almost his entire life and Victor has known me since the day he was born, I'm not a stranger to them. Though, you might want to decide which one would be the best to talk to. Whitlock is older so you're going to have a better chance of him listening, but he's a lot like his mom, so when he gets in one of his moods then you're not going to get a thing out of him. Keep Victor entertained and help him learn some stuff and you're automatically his best friend, just make sure that you follow his daily schedule."

"What's their schedule?"

"They both know it by heart, they act on their own so all you really have to do is let them follow the schedule they normally do at home." He looked at the clock on the wall. "Like right about now is when they would be settling down for lunch."

"What about Elizabeth and Marshal? How are they with the boys and leaving them with people?"

"They only leave the boys with people they trust, they won't leave the boys with anyone if either one of them is in a mood. They're used to the boys being rough with each other and if they do get hurt under your watch for some reason, they expect at least an explanation before they take them home. If you upset them for some reason, they won't do anything about it. They typically just go home and calm down, then talk about it later, but they wouldn't hurt anyone over being upset." He gave a small smile. "Does that make you feel better?"

Alice nodded, letting her arms fall to her side. She went back to the kitchen, Victor leaping off the couch and following her.

Chelsea went to the living room, taking a seat on the couch next to Zachary, who immediately went tense. "I've been thinking a bit about what you said the other night."

"I mean, I'd hope so."

She rolled her eyes, giving a light chuckle. "I've got a few questions about it."

"Naturally. Let's hear them."

"When I return home, how exactly do you expect it to work? You can't be in the city or stray too far from here because of your role and I can't leave the city because of my role."

He tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch, seeming to give the question a bit of thought. "I can't make that decision by myself, your input is going to have to be involved as well. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make it work, though, even if that means going back to the city and renouncing my share of Onyx."

"Are the Voyagers still intending to act against Onyx?"

"I can't say for certain. Your dad has been pretty lenient with them, even personally seeking out and paying a few of them for help. Right now the focus for them is the new resistance because they're a threat to Onyx and the Voyagers."

"What if my dad doesn't approve of us seeing each other again?"

He stayed quiet for a minute before letting out a sigh. "I want to be completely honest with you this time through, even if you don't like it. I don't particularly care if your dad approves or not, I have no reason to care about your dad's opinions compared to yours but I completely understand why you do care about it. If you'd like me to actively seek his approval, I'll do it."

---

Lunch and dinner had passed with Whitlock and Victor remaining with Chelsea, Alice, and Zachary.

The boys had grown nervous, knowing that their parents were supposed to be around for them before dinner was prepared.

The five of them left the house, going to the surveillance room to see if Elizabeth would be there.

Alice looked over the empty room, holding the younger brother tight in her arms with a blanket draped over him as she tried to ease him to sleep. "Is it normally this desolate?"

"No, not usually." Zachary took a seat at the computer and started typing away, pulling up a set of times. "The last time I saw them today was when Elizabeth was in this exact seat and Marshal was escorting Leona home."

They all watched the cameras, seeing that whenever Marshal dropped off Leona at her home, he returned to the surveillance room and shared a few words with Elizabeth before the two of them left the building, the cameras showing them going home.

Zachary looked at the time on the computer and the time on the cameras. "They went home about two hours ago." He got out of the seat and reached into the top drawer of the desk, pulling out a key. "We should probably get the boys home."

After leaving the surveillance room, they went to the house. Zachary unlocked the door and went in first, telling Alice and Chelsea to stay outside with the boys just in case something had happened.

He didn't return for a good five or six minutes, the women growing more worried as they waited.

When he did return, he allowed them inside. "They fell asleep."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to leave the boys here then?" Alice questioned, still holding Victor tight.

Zachary nodded, reaching out to take the boy from her. "It's their bedtime either way. It would be different if Elizabeth and Marshal weren't here, but they are." Alice handed over Victor with plenty of hesitation.

Whitlock had already gone to the boys' shared room and changed into his pajamas. Zachary got Victor changed into his pajamas and laid the younger brother to rest.

Getting Victor to sleep wasn't hard, as he had already fallen asleep in Alice's arms. Whitlock looked pretty tired as well, but not fully ready to go to bed.

After he tucked Victor in, Zachary turned to Whitlock, seeing the boy looked a bit sad.

He sat on the side of Whitlock's bed as the boy crawled under the covers and turned to face his brother. "Whit, what's got you down?"

"I'm sad."

"Why? What happened?"

Whitlock stayed quiet, his eyes focused on his brother's blanket that was decorated in dinosaurs. He sighed, tears running down his face as he did. "My mom and dad want to have a daughter. Did me and Victor mess up?"

Zachary shook his head. "No way. Your parents love you guys a lot." He looked towards the open bedroom door. "Your parents don't want a daughter because you guys messed up, they want a daughter because they think it would be a good experience for you two to grow up with a little sister."

"What if we don't want a little sister?"

"That can change in the years and after some time, you won't get the opportunity to have a little sister." Zachary put his hands in his lap. "Whitlock, I don't have any brothers or sisters and I really wish I did now. I don't really have anyone who can fully understand me and help me in the ways that a brother or sister could."

"I have Victor, isn't he enough?"

"No, not really. Think about it this way, if you're having a problem with someone and you need to talk about it, who do you usually go to?"

"My mom."

Zachary nodded. "Exactly. You're close with your mom, gene or no gene and even though it's scary, your mom isn't going to be around forever, same with your dad. What they're trying to do is make sure that you have siblings that you can lean on when you need help and that Victor has the same."

Whitlock stayed quiet but he finally looked away from the blanket.

Zachary got up and crouched in front of the bed to meet the boy's eyes. "Whitlock, it's not a form of punishment to have a sister and I think you're going to make a great big brother to a girl. It's going to teach you things that you can't learn on your own and I think you're eventually going to come to terms with it. Your parents didn't forget about you today, they were just really tired and lost track of time; accidents happen and those accidents have no effect on what your parents think of you, okay? You're going to be fine."

Whitlock slowly nodded, bringing the blankets up to his face. "Goodnight."

"Night, bud." Zachary turned off the bedroom light, leaving the night light on as he returned to Chelsea and Alice.

They left the house, Zachary locking the door behind them and returning the key to the surveillance room.

"What took you so long?" Alice started a conversation as they walked into Zachary's home.

"I was avoiding a meltdown."

"Right." Alice didn't stay to talk long, going to the room that she had come to know as hers.

After Alice had shut and locked her door, Chelsea turned to Zachary. "You can sleep with me if you'd like, I know there's a shortage of beds around here."

He chuckled. "Only if you're certain that you're okay with it."

"I wouldn't have offered if I had any doubt."

In their time with the Voyagers, the twins had learned as much as they could from basic knowledge to their survival skills and combat skills.

Milo had always been hesitant to have them learn combat, but he eventually gave in after the twins convinced him that it would only benefit the group. After that, they took on hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and some basic blade skills that they had picked up on their own.

Despite learning these skills, the two knew their manners and boundaries.

At dinner, they usually asked their parents about things going on within the community that most adults wouldn't normally tell them. Their parents believed in keeping the kids in the loop to allow them to keep their guard up.

"Do you guys trust Amanda's brother?" Kimber looked at her plate, stirring a single carrot around it.

She looked up when they didn't answer, seeing Alyssa looked a little uncomfortable with the topic.

"Kim, Anthony was a victim, same with Chelsea and Alice. The only person here he cares for is Amanda and that's reasonable." Milo looked to meet her eyes. "If you were separated from Jude for years and only just found him, only for someone to try to kill him, you'd want to protect him."

Alyssa nodded slightly. "You haven't even been separated from him your whole life and you two want to protect each other from anything that shows up."

"Well I would protect Nora too so that doesn't count."

Milo gave a soft smile and shook his head. "No, you just made the same argument that we did because Nora is your sister, just like Jude is your brother. They're both a sibling to you."

Kimber looked back at her plate to find the remaining carrot had disappeared in the time she had looked up. "You guys don't think we'll ever have to fight someone, do you?"

Alyssa sighed, looking over the twins. "It's a pretty likely possibility that you'll have to just because of how things have been for the community lately. I think you guys will be okay, though. You're both strong, smart, and fast enough to deal with any problem that comes your way."

---

During the night, Milo had awoken to a light pounding on the front door of the house.

He looked to his left to see Alyssa, still fast asleep in the bed. He got up and locked the bedroom door, shutting it on his way out and trying the handle to make sure it had locked.

Going into the room across the hall, he saw Kimber, Jude, and Nora all asleep in their beds. He locked their bedroom door from the inside as well, shutting it on his way out, trying the handle again.

Through the process, the knocking hadn't stopped for a single second and only had gotten more forceful.

Milo looked through the peephole to see two people unfamiliar to him, a man and a woman. They shared a word before the man wound up a kick and hit the door, right by the handle.

Milo backed off, staying just a few inches from the door. He was watching the crack of the door until with one firm kick, light from the porch started to come into the house.

He pushed back against the door, managing to get it shut just as it was opened.

He was only able to hold it shut for a moment before almost double the pressure was added against him, the door opening just to be shoved back and then opened again.

For a moment, all pushing ceased and Milo eased his weight off of the door, trying to keep within the door's range while trying to reach a baseball bat that Jude had left lying in the living room.

The bat was barely within his reach when the door was shoved open, knocking him to the ground.

He had landed on his stomach, quickly rolling onto his back to find that the man and woman had made their way into the house, the woman crouching in front of him. "You know, you weren't a target for months before yesterday. Will you be doing this the easy way or the hard way?"

"Depends if you can answer my question. If I just let you have it, will you leave without bothering the other people in the house?"

She nodded. "They didn't stab one of our men in the neck so yes, they'll be fine."

Milo looked over her and the man, then looked at the baseball bat next to him. "Fine then, that's what it'll be."

The woman took a gun out of her hip holster and aimed it at Milo's head, the air in the room going cold. The man briefly grabbed her arm, whispering something to her that Milo could barely make out.

"It's not a set up, sir. It's four in the morning and the odds of anyone else in the community being able to help are close to zero if they haven't responded already. As long as my family is fine, I don't particularly care what happens to me, especially when it's only karma for what I've done."

The man and woman shared a look before he let go of her arm, prompting her to take a deep breath. Milo could tell she was new to what she was doing. She'd started sweating, her hands were shaking, and she overall didn't seem too confident in pulling the trigger.

Behind him, Milo heard a door open and a little girl, Kimber, scream.

The woman reacted before anyone could stop her, a single shot ringing through the house.

Milo looked over himself before a sinking feeling took him over, turning around to see the blonde haired girl with the bright blue eyes that he'd raised as his own for years lying on the ground.

"You… you…" He turned back to see the very woman behind the shot had thrown the gun to the ground and collapsed on the ground as well, the man who had been with her almost vanishing without a trace.

He went to Kimber's side as the door in front of him opened, Alyssa immediately jumping into action.

"Noelle and Amanda, I need them but I need you to stay here and help me with her." Alyssa briefly looked up, tears welling up in her eyes. "Jude, Jude needs to go get them and he needs to go get someone to handle her before she runs."

Milo had his right hand pressing down on the wound while Alyssa tried to work out a clear hand, using his left hand to creak open the door behind him.

He didn't even have to say anything before the boy left the room, breaking into tears as soon as he saw what had happened to his sister.

"Jude, hey, look at me." Milo reached for him with his left hand, trying to keep his own head while he talked to the tearful boy. "I need you to go get Amanda, Noelle, and Marshal. I need you to run and I need you to be fast, do you understand me?" He simply nodded before running past the woman on the ground, going out the door.

"I won't run." The woman stayed on her knees, her hands on her knees as she simply looked on at what she had done. "I thought she had a weapon, I didn't even register that she was a kid."

Milo looked along the ground, quickly identifying what the woman thought to be a weapon as a doll that Kimber relied on whenever she became afraid, the sinking feeling in his chest getting worse as it became increasingly difficult to control himself.

Noelle was the first person there, followed by Horatio, Amanda, and Jean Luc. Jean Luc stayed by the woman until Marshal got there to take her away.

It was only after the woman was gone that they attempted to move Kimber. Jean Luc scooped the little girl into his arms while Horatio continued to put pressure on the wound by pushing on it, the two of them working together to get her out of the house.

Alyssa decided for herself that she needed to go to help Amanda and Noelle, quickly taking her leave with the rest of the group.

Milo stayed with Nora, easing her back to sleep by convincing her that nothing had happened because she didn't see anything. After about fifteen minutes, Jude still hadn't shown back up.

Elizabeth and Leah had since then arrived, the two of them trying to talk to Milo. "Nora is still in their room, I need you two to watch her so I can go find Jude."

"I'll go with you." Elizabeth tried to follow after him, her brother simply holding out a hand to stop her. She seemed to want to protest before sharing a look with their mother and sighing. "Marshal said he was heading towards the creek when he last saw him."

Milo left with that information in mind, going to a place where he knew the twins would go to spend time together or cool down by themselves when they wanted their time apart.

It didn't take long for Milo to find the boy in his blue jacket, his knees pulled up to his chest and his face buried in them to muffle his sobs.

He got on his knees, sitting by the boy and watching the water for a minute. He quickly wrapped up the sobbing boy in his arms and held him tight. "I'm so sorry you had to see it. I'm sorry that it happened." Jude reached out, burying his face in Milo's chest as his weeping grew heavier. "You got Horatio too because you knew he knows a lot about medicine, that was smart, you did good and I'm proud of you, you helped her."

---

After what had happened with Kimber, Milo and Alyssa could hardly be spotted out and about in the community.

On his way to talk to the woman that Marshal had brought from Milo's house, Zachary spotted Milo heading home with Jude and Nora, each of the kids holding one of his hands as they walked.

Zachary knew that Milo and Alyssa had purposely not told Nora the full truth as it was still up in the air on whether Kimber would awake again or not as her small body fought off an infection caused by the wound.

He minded himself, making it to the room the woman was being held to see that Marshal was already there and talking to her. Whatever he was saying, it didn't sit well with her as she looked like she'd been crying for quite a bit.

"Zachary, hey." Marshal gave a nod to him.

"Hey, where are we at so far?"

"She's responded to maybe a question before shutting down, crying for a solid hour, then answering another question, shutting down, and restarting the whole process."

Zachary nodded, meeting eyes with the woman. "Cut that shit out and stop crying. You're responsible for the critical condition of a little girl whose house you broke into and tried to kill her father. You've got a lot to answer and to be honest with you, I can't stand to even look at you right now so you better talk fast. Start with your name."

She looked at him with pleading eyes before looking back down at the table. "Angie."

"Okay, Angie." Marshal didn't sound convinced by her name. "Why were you at that house?"

"The man we were going after, Milo Neil, he had killed one of ours and we were instructed to go after him." Angie looked at her own hands. "I never killed anyone before and I was told to go because I bear some similarities to his sister and they thought I could trick him into opening the door but the guy I was with decided to kick in the door. When the door opened, Milo was already right there and I didn't have time to give the gun to my partner and I had to take control. Milo told me to kill him if I left the kids and the woman alone and I was trying to convince myself to pull the trigger. The girl left the room and she screamed, I saw something in her hand and I panicked, I pulled the trigger."

"What you saw in her hand was a doll that her biological parents left behind. It was something she held onto whenever something was scaring her because she always said it made her brave. She knew you were there, she knew you were about to murder the man who raised her and her brother. She came out of the room to try and stop you." Zachary could tell that Marshal had been hit particularly hard by what happened as Kimber and Whitlock, along with Jude, Nora, and Victor had all been raised together.

Angie's eyes started welling up with tears once again. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"You're sorry?" Zachary scoffed, shaking his head. "Do you want to tell that to her mother and father, her grandmother, her aunt and uncle, her cousins, and her siblings? Do you want to tell that to the girl herself? You probably won't get the fucking chance because with every hour, every check that our doctors do on her, her condition is worsening with no expectations of improving."

"Her mother is one of the doctors here. Angie, can you imagine the pain of seeing your own child lying in a hospital bed fighting a fight for her life that you know she's going to lose because she wanted to be brave? Can you imagine being a ten year old boy and watching your sister bleed out on the floor of your home, where you're supposed to be the most safe?"

There was a frantic knock at the door before Angie could respond, a distressed Elizabeth going straight to Marshal's arms as she entered the room, a stream of tears going down her face as she passed Zachary.

There was silence in the room as Elizabeth took a moment in her husband's arms to collect herself before turning to Angie, tears still in her eyes. "You're no longer being held for a girl's critical condition, you're now being held for the murder of a person proven incapable of defending themselves at the time of death. The punishment for your offense being seeked by the majority of the community is death."

Angie went pale, shaking her head while she looked at the table. "I didn't mean to do it, it wasn't supposed to be her."

"But you did do it. You helped in kicking in the door, you held the gun, you pulled the trigger. A child is dead because of you." Elizabeth looked to be restraining herself as her face turned red.

Zachary and Marshal quickly ushered her out of the room, leaving themselves to go to what was Kimber's room in the hospital.

Chelsea stood in the doorway already, watching the grieving family inside. "We tried everything we could… an hour ago, Alice noticed that Kimber was having cold sweats and her fever had risen to a hundred and six so we tried getting it down with medicine, we tried some home remedies, then we tried using the gene to transfer energy to her but she was already too far gone, it was hurting Whitlock to keep going but he kept pushing until he passed out. She was only conscious enough to squeeze Alyssa's hand and then she just slipped away."

Zachary had known Milo and Elizabeth to be pretty resilient people, but the way he was seeing the two of them now hurt him to see. They were absolutely shattered.

Milo was with Alyssa next to the hospital bed, Elizabeth was buried in her mother's arms while Marshal tried to console her from her side. As far as he could remember, this was the only time he'd ever seen Milo cry.

At the center of the room, Zachary looked over Kimber's body. Her small body had gone pale long ago, her eyes remained shut, her hands had fallen to her side. She looked at peace for the first time since she'd been shot.

"There's not going to be a trial, not if I can help it…" Zachary whispered under his breath, turning on his heel and going to the community center.

Putting the community through a trial would be expected because of the rules they had set in stone, but Zachary knew Alyssa and Elizabeth couldn't handle being put through it so soon after Kimber's death.

The only way to secure a trial win without the family would be to call on someone who could place Angie at the crime scene, which Jean Luc could do, then he'd have to bring up the initial severity of Kimber's injuries, something Horatio could do. Finally, he would need a confession from Angie in front of the community. He could easily keep the family from a trial.

As he walked into the community center, he saw Gus and Isabel sitting together at a table, a thought crossing his mind. He could hire Gus to handle Angie as a way to avoid a trial completely.

Or he could just forge papers to make it seem like a trial happened and handle Angie himself, which had been his original plan as he knew nobody in the community would protest it at this point.

A more humane option he could go for would be letting Angie go. She swore it was an accident and he believed that part, but that didn't change the fact that she originally intended to kill Milo instead. She showed regret, but for the wrong reason.

[Have a trial]
[Avoid a trial by hiring Gus]
[Avoid a trial by forging the papers]
[Avoid a trial by letting Angie leave]

Zachary weighed his options, looking over the empty pages on his desk, giving a sigh as he put it back in the desk drawer and pulled out a notepad and a pen.

On his way out, Gus stopped him for a moment, giving him an inquisitive look. "You okay, man? You look lost."

He nodded, raising the notepad and pen. "Just needed to grab something from my desk."

He went back to the medical center, a small blur catching his eye before he went back to what was Kimber's room.

Following the blur, he caught Elizabeth at the door to the room where Angie was being held. She had her hand hip as she hissed under her breath. "Dammit, Jean Luc." She turned, jumping slightly as she saw Zachary. "What are you doing back here?"

"What were you going to do in there?"

"None of your business."

"Elizabeth, she's a criminal and being the person leading the trial against her, it is my business." He crossed his arms. "If I didn't know any better, I would assume that you were going in there to kill her except Jean Luc still has your gun."

"She's guilty and we all know it, putting the community through a trial is just twisted and you know that."

He nodded. "I don't want to do it, I would much rather skip it and I've thought about it but we're not animals. To be able to fit naturally back into civilization, we need to start adapting before we move into it. You can help me bring some justice to Kimber by helping me gather some witnesses and evidence from the surveillance systems and your brother, or you can stay out of the way. Your attachment is too personal and I can't let you ruin the odds both for yourself and the community."

Elizabeth looked at the door, letting out a sigh as tears started welling up in her eyes again. "Leona. You're going to need someone that matches your intellect and who is also detached from the situation to go against in a trial, Leona should be it. Jean Luc, Horatio, Noelle, Amanda would be your best witnesses that aren't family, other than that it would be Jude, Milo, and Alyssa."

"Your mom was there, wasn't she?"

Elizabeth turned to him, nodding slightly. "Yeah, she and I got there after it happened. The only thing I noticed beside the door being kicked in was that the kitchen window was slightly open."

"Right, go tell Leona about her new task while I get as much information as I can so we can get this over with, okay?"

"Got it. I'll be in touch in a bit." Elizabeth walked past him, leaving the medical center.

He looked at the door himself, shaking his head as he turned and went to what was Kimber's old room, her body now missing from the bed while Amanda changed the sheets on it.

He knocked on the door frame to catch her attention. "Amanda, do you have a minute?"

She looked up, then back to what she had been doing. "I guess so, yeah. What's up?"

"I need to know your version of what happened with Kimber."

Amanda's hands froze, then she pushed herself away from the bed and crossed her arms. "I woke up to somebody basically beating the front door down and when I opened it, it was Jude and he told me that his sister had been shot. By the time I got ready, I managed to catch up to Noelle and Jean Luc, then Horatio came last. I never saw Jude go back. Alyssa and Milo had been trying to keep her around until help came around because Alyssa said there wasn't much they could do for her besides keep her alive. Horatio and Jean Luc got her to the medical center, Alyssa came with us. We got the bullet out and tried to control the bleeding, which had already been out of control. She was bleeding internally and she'd lost too much blood when she got here, we couldn't risk keeping her open any longer so we closed the wound. We thought we could give it some time for her blood levels to rise slightly before we tried anything but that never happened."

"Where was she shot?"

"Just above her stomach. It probably punctured her stomach, if I'm remembering correctly."

"Angie was there, right?"

Amanda nodded. "She was sitting on the floor, her gun was in front of her. Jean Luc said he saw a man leaving the house just before we went in, but I didn't see anything like that."

"Alright, thank you. Horatio's doing the autopsy, right?"

"Yeah, he said to give him until the sun goes down before you ask him anything."

Zachary took his leave from the medical center, heading for the houses to go find Noelle and Jean Luc.

He didn't even have to knock upon arrival, Noelle immediately opened the door and held it open for him to come in.

As he went into the living room, he found Pierre sitting on the couch next to Jean Luc. Pierre gave a nod as he got up. "I must admit, I was only around to see if you would be doing the right thing and holding a trial."

"Well, while you're here I need a favor from you. I need you to watch over Angie's holding room until the trial begins. I don't want anything going wrong with this and given the involved parties, it's far too easy for something to go wrong." Pierre agreed then went on his way, leaving Zachary with the cousins.

Noelle had taken a seat with Jean Luc, the both of them waiting for Zachary to speak. "I just came to get the version of that night from the both of you. I'm trying to keep from involving the family and if I can do it with you guys, that's great."

"We got woken up by Jude and were told that we needed to go to his house, then he just disappeared without us. We met up with Amanda and went into the house." Noelle stopped, looking at her cousin.

"When we were running there, I swear I saw a man leaving the house but nobody else saw it. Anyway, after Horatio got there, he and I moved Kimber to the medical center and then they told me to get home. Or for exact wording, Noelle told me to go find a way to be useful, so I went back to Milo's house and fixed the door, the kitchen window, and the bathroom window."

Zachary nodded, writing down everything Jean Luc was saying. "What was wrong with the door and the windows?"

"The door was obviously kicked in and there was a struggle to get in involving it because the hinges were completely ruined. The kitchen window was missing the screen and it was open about two or three inches, then it was stuck and wouldn't raise any more. The bathroom window was also missing a screen and the glass was cracked, but nowhere close to breaking."

"The man you saw, could you describe him?"

Jean Luc stayed quiet for a minute. "I could try. It's not really going to be the best because it was dark, but he was a bigger guy, about Cyrus's size and he was wearing dark clothing. He made it a point to avoid us on his way out, so that was all I noticed."

Zachary then turned to Noelle. "Noelle, what was going on with you at this point?"

"I was working with Amanda, Alyssa, and Horatio. I was in charge of administering medicine and anesthetics when we operated on her. She was shot above the stomach and bleeding pretty heavily and I tried to keep her unconscious through it all, which worked. They came up with a plan to operate at a later time because they didn't know her blood type and the only thing we could do besides a transfusion was let her blood levels rise themselves."

"Isn't there a universal donor, though?"

"Yes, but because of how much blood she had lost we couldn't use any blood type other than her own without a severe risk of her going into shock and losing her even sooner." Noelle sighed, her face falling flat. "I kept her under because she was showing no signs of improvement and I believed she was in a lot of pain. Elizabeth, Chelsea, and Whitlock tried to do something and it ended up with Whitlock passing out even though Chelsea and Elizabeth both begged him to stop what he was doing. It had something to do with the gene, so you probably can find a better source of information on that."

"And you both recall seeing Angie there?"

They both nodded, Jean Luc speaking. "She was on the floor, unarmed when we got there. Marshal took her from the house."

Zachary paused. "I'm sorry, Marshal did?"

"Yes, he was the last of us to arrive. Jean Luc was beside Angie while we waited for Marshal."

"Right then, that's something that I didn't know about until now. Better late than never, I suppose." Zachary finished his notes then shut the notepad.

Noelle walked him to the front door, stopping him before he went out the door. "Was there really a man there?"

"Yeah, Angie already told me about him being there, but other than that I know the same as you."

He already knew that what Noelle had referenced regarding Chelsea, Elizabeth, and Whitlock was the three of them making one last attempt at saving Kimber's life. It was an energy transfer between the four of them with the three conscious ones focusing on pushing their energy towards Kimber and Whitlock overexerting himself.

By sundown, he went back to the medical center and found Horatio waiting in the lobby. He still wore scrubs soaked in blood and a mask as he led Zachary to where he had performed the autopsy.

He showed him where exactly the bullet went in, where it ended up, and all that it hit in its course.

He showed him all the notes that were taken on Kimber's care while she was there from Horatio himself, Alyssa, Noelle, Amanda, and Alice.

He showed him records that Noelle had made showing what exactly she gave to Kimber and how much she was given. Zachary asked if Horatio believed any of the medicines given to her in the dosage provided could have overdosed the girl, which Horatio disagreed with and said that she was treated properly for someone her size and age.

He finally told Zachary his side of what happened that night, which lined up perfectly with what Noelle had told him earlier.

"My findings see the cause of death as internal bleeding caused by a gunshot wound to the abdomen."

Zachary nodded, making copies of all the papers Horatio had shown him. "Thank you for all your answers, Horatio."

He left the room, taking a moment to collect himself before going to the surveillance room where Elizabeth was.

She'd pulled footage from the night, showing Angie and her partner trying to get into the house from the kitchen, the bathroom, then the front door. She then skipped until the man left the house, Jude almost right behind him, then the first responders going to the house.

She passed him a USB drive, keeping silent as she stayed put. "Leona is making her own rounds, looks like you might actually have a bit of competition."

"Get a jury together. Nobody who has been involved with the family can be part of it, I would recommend the rest of Pierre's group, Anthony, Lecia, Joseph, and Gregory. Devin can't be part of it, he knew the family back in quarantine."

"Why Anthony?"

"He's as uninvolved as you can get, his verdict is going to weigh heavier by default."

Zachary left the surveillance room, heading back home.

He hadn't been home for five minutes before there was a knock on the door. Chelsea answered it, a little boy in a puffy blue jacket running in and going straight to Zachary. "Jude, what's going on?"

"They're here, they're back and they're threatening my dad, saying they're going to do something if Angie isn't released tonight."

"I'd like to see them try." Zachary went to the front closet, grabbing his coat. "Jude, after tonight your dad isn't going to be a target anymore, I promise you that much."

---

Zachary had Elizabeth gather Leona, the witnesses, and people she had enlisted as the jury to meet in the community center as soon as she could.

While she did that, he went to the medical center to grab Angie, taking her to the community center himself.

He passed her off to Leona when he got there and sat at the table next to them on his own.

As everyone got into place, Cyrus took a place at the front of the room. He waited for the guests in attendance to quiet down before he said anything. "Tonight we see the court against Ms. Angie Park in her involvement of the murder of Kimber Neil. Mr. Bennington, go ahead with your case."

Zachary got out of his seat, catching a glimpse of Jude and getting a reminder of what he had been told less than an hour ago. "My role here tonight is to see that Ms. Park faces justice for her undeniable role in the murder of ten-year-old Kimber Neil. I intend to do so by presenting facts obtained through a thorough investigation on my end while also setting up the scene of the crime and the crime itself for the jury and community members in attendance so that everyone is getting the full story."

Leona stood as Zachary sat. "My role is to defend Ms. Park from the allegations that have been presented to the court. I will be doing so by giving the jury and community results from my own investigation that I've conducted with extreme care."

Leona took her own seat and Cyrus cleared his throat. "That being through, the court calls Jean Luc Barre to the stand." Jean Luc made his way next to Cyrus. "Mr. Bennington, your witness."

Zachary stood and gave a nod to Jean Luc. "Mr. Barre, can you just start us off with your story for that night?"

"My cousin and I were woken up about four in the morning by someone pounding on our front door. She answered it and told me that we needed to go to Milo Neil's house, saying that there was an urgent situation. We went to the Neil house and found Angie sitting on the ground with a gun in front of her, Kimber was laying on the ground and her parents, Milo and Alyssa, were already working on trying to help her."

"From what you could gather from the situation, was Kimber Neil armed with a weapon?"

"No, the only thing I saw near her hands was a doll."

Zachary nodded. "Alright then, go on please."

"I stood next to Angie for about five minutes while we waited for Marshal to come take her out of the house. When he got there and took her, I picked up Kimber and Horatio put pressure on the wound while we walked. We took her to the medical center and from there, I was told to stay out of the way."

"Where did you go?"

"I went back to the Neil house to fix up the damage. The front door was kicked down and showed signs of a struggle, the hinges were basically torn off. The kitchen window was missing the screen and pulled up until it had been jammed, then it wouldn't open any more. The bathroom window was also missing the screen and appeared to have been hit by something as it was cracked from the top to the bottom of the window."

"Was Angie the only person you saw that night?"

"No, there was a man leaving the house as we got there. I hesitated outside the house trying to determine if I really saw him or not."

Zachary took a seat, Leona taking a stand. "Mr. Barre, how long would you say it took you and the others to get to the house?"

"Fifteen minutes for all of us to be there."

"Fifteen minutes. You said Milo and Alyssa were already working on Kimber by the time you got there, what had they done for her?"

"They tried to get the bleeding under control."

Leona looked at Zachary, the two of them nodding to each other. "Mr. Barre, you can step off."

Jean Luc went back to his seat, Leona doing the same.

Zachary grabbed the papers he had gotten from Horatio and took them to where the jury was seated, handing them to Anthony. "The papers being handed out right now are findings from Kimber Neil's autopsy. I've already spoken with the doctor responsible for it, as I'm sure Ms. Williams has as well, and I have concluded that Kimber's death had nothing to do with the medical treatment she had received. I was also present for the final results and can say for certain that Horatio's final say stands with no doubt to it, the cause of death was most definitely internal bleeding caused by a gunshot wound to the abdomen."

Because Horatio had kept very detailed notes from Kimber's arrival, they didn't need to call anyone else to the stand as they all shared the same story, with Jean Luc only being called so he could share his findings on the condition of the house.

Zachary showed the jury the contents of the USB drive Elizabeth had given him showing Angie and her partner trying to get into the house, then her partner leaving and the other getting there, then Jean Luc and Horatio carrying Kimber out of the house.

The last thing that had to be done was get a confession out of Angie or call someone who had heard, which would only be Zachary or Marshal and given Zachary's position in the case, he couldn't be called.

Angie stood from her seat with a look of pure anger on her face. "I refuse to testify."

Leona quickly walked up to Zachary. "She can't do that, can she?"

"No, she can and she's doing it because she knows that without a confession, our evidence against her is circumstantial at best." The two walked up to Cyrus, keeping their voices hushed. "Cyrus, there's only one person I can call that can keep this from falling apart but he's been here since the trial started."

Cyrus knew the right thing to do in this situation, he'd seen plenty of court trials play out in his time. He also knew the right thing would devastate the community. "Do it."

Zachary went to where Marshal and Elizabeth were sitting, whispering something to Marshal. He simply nodded and got up, following Zachary to the front of the room.

Angie and Leona took their seats, Zachary remaining standing. "Mr. Kennedy, why don't you start from the beginning and tell us what you know about Angie Park?"

"I was woken up the same way the doctors were and Jude told me that I needed to hurry to his house and deal with something, that's all I was told. I saw Jude head towards the creek and figured something was really off if he didn't go back home, so I went straight to his house. Jean Luc was standing next to Angie, the doctors were all working on Kimber at this point. As soon as I got there, Jean Luc broke off and picked up Kimber and they started moving. Angie was on the floor with a gun in front of her and she just got up and started walking herself out."

"Would you be able to identify the gun?"

"Probably, yeah."

Zachary nodded to Leona who got out of her seat and walked over to Marshal, handing him a bag that had a gun in it and a single bullet that was covered in blood.

He looked over it for a minute then set it flat on the table. "This is the gun that I saw, yes."

"You've got a good knowledge of guns, would you say that the bullet that's also in that bag belonged to that gun?"

"Without a doubt."

Leona took the bag back, returning to her seat. Zachary gave Marshal a minute, knowing this probably wasn't easy for him. "Alright, so what happened from there?"

"I took her to the medical center where she was going to be held. I tried getting some information out of her and the best I could get for a solid four hours was her name. Zachary came in first thing in the morning and managed to get her to admit that she shot Kimber and that she had done it accidentally, however she also admitted that her intention of entering the home that night was to kill Milo."

---

Anthony had been assigned the task of delivering the verdict.

He stood and took a deep breath, looking straight at Angie. "We the jury find Ms. Angie Park guilty in the murder of Kimber Neil, guilty in the charges of breaking and entering, and guilty in the charges of conspiracy to commit murder."

Cyrus stayed silent for a minute. "And what punishment does the jury suggest?"

"Given Ms. Park's affiliation with a dangerous group that has shown no hesitation in bringing harm to the people of this community, the jury suggests death."

"Then that's what it'll be." Cyrus got out of his own seat. "Mr. Bennington, I'm leaving the rest to you."

---

Zachary waited for the room to clear out before he even approached Angie, who had been staring at her table since Anthony delivered the verdict.

He took her to the edge of town that the surveillance footage had routinely caught her people sneaking in, put her on her knees and took out his gun, putting it to the back of her head.

There was no hesitation pulling the trigger, the body fell in a few seconds.

He turned to see Leona and Milo standing there, watching him. "Are you going to leave the body there?"

"Yeah, her people will probably be by for it before morning anyway." He put the gun away and approached the two. "What are you guys doing out here?"

"We were having doubts that you'd actually do it. There's been plenty of times you've let someone live who didn't deserve it, we didn't think you'd start taking things like this seriously with some woman who looked like she couldn't hurt a fly."

"That's where you're wrong." Zachary sighed. "They have cameras set up in everyone's houses and Noelle has access to them. I was late that morning because I had already watched what she'd done through the cameras they set up in Milo's house. What she did wasn't an accident, they were stalling with Milo and waiting for one of the kids to send a message."

Leona gasped, furrowing her eyebrows. "If you knew that, why did you let a trial play out?"

"Because he had to." Milo had his hands in his pockets as he stared at the sky while he walked. "He said it to Elizabeth, we're not animals and if we're going to adapt to civilization, we need to start now."

"You heard that?"

He nodded. "Yup. I was behind you the entire time but you were right with what you were saying, so I wasn't going to stop you."

The three of them walked back to the residences in silence, Leona reaching her home first.

Zachary stopped when Milo went to go home, watching him walk away. "Hey, Milo?" Milo turned back to face him. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help her. There was a lot of confusion over who was supposed to be in the surveillance room and it was me, I could have figured that out if I just paid a little more attention. It's my fault that nobody caught them going in and I know I can't bring her back, but I'm going to make sure they don't step foot in this community again."

"Hold yourself to that but remember what you told Elizabeth." Milo turned back, going into his home.

Zachary was left alone on the street, taking a minute to think over what Milo had said.

He looked up to see a woman in front of him. The same woman from Isaac's house. "You made a pretty stupid decision today but taking you out right now would be too easy. I want you to watch the people you care about die, one by one, they're going to die because of what you've done tonight." She spun on her heel, walking away from him and giving a slight wave. "See you soon, Bennington."

This was a very revealing part. Devin was MVP this part figuring out about the other deaths and finding the hit list. It's weird that they have a specific hit list. I wonder what connects all the names together, if anything specific. It's possible that the ones who killed Samantha and Vincent were the ones killed by Jean Luc and Milo. That seemed to be what Devin suggested to Greg and Zachary. If not them, then maybe Angie and the guy who was with her were responsible. Truthfully, it could be anyone from their group. However, it was suggested that Samantha and Vincent were caught off guard because they let him in. This means there is perhaps a traitor within the Voyagers who, for some reason, is working for this new group. This makes things difficult trying to figure out who they can share certain information with. They should maybe have a guarded someone, maybe DR. Alyssa, check for wounds in the community for guys who have wounds that match what their speculating the culprit should have. I think the A on the list would have to be one of the Richardson siblings. They were caught rummaging through Amanda's house and almost killed Anthony. I believe they knew Anthony was staying there because of the cameras, but he and Elizabeth caught them off guard when they entered the house. They both ended up in danger because of that. I'm not sure if it is Anthony, but it could be either him or Amanda since it was her house. However, I'm not sure who it could be for M. I don't want to pick wrong and one of the others just dies. Zachary seemed to lean toward it being Marie which is possible. Realistically, all potential targets should have people protecting them. Marie could have some of Pierre's people protecting her. Milo, Marshal, and Morgan could have some Voyager guards. Maybe Marie should use her skills in fashion to make disguises for all potential targets and all go to a secure location, maybe within the city. That last suggestion might be a bit of a long shot, but hey you don't know unless you think over every possible scenario. Whatever the case, Zachary should let the possible targets know their targets, so they can at least prepare. I hope I'm not wrong, and I was considering making this choice later, but Zachary seemed to think the target was Marie. However, on the other hand, no one from Pierre's original group has been targeted yet. If his girlfriend is targeted and killed, he may call on more of his forces from France to come help destroy this group. Well... I'll go with Zachary's gut this time. If I'm wrong, I blame him. [Marie]  I just hope the other targets get some form of protection. I somewhat feel the stress of Zachary himself. This is one of the hardest choices I've had to make for this story, and I hope I don't regret it. 

That same evening Jean Luc decided to join Marie and Pierre for dinner at the community center along with Carlos, Isabel, Gus, and Noelle.

Marie seemed distant from all that was going on through the dinner, but she still seemed to be keeping her head up despite the news she'd gotten first thing that morning.

The others were discussing the situation that the community was in now that the new resistance seemed to stray from targeting Onyx. Jean Luc had admittedly zoned out from the conversation, as he still had yet to get any sleep.

He did recall that Pierre mentioned the idea of calling more people from France, but that he didn't want to do it unless it was a last resort. He'd set it up so that a last resort was clear to anyone in the group. He had always said that if any of the Crusaders died or specific Voyagers that included Elizabeth, Marshal, Joseph, Zachary, Whitlock, or Chelsea died then it would be done.

As the night came to an end, the group broke off to go do their own things.

Carlos was supposed to be in the surveillance room that night so he went to go for his shift and get a debriefing from Horatio.

Noelle had some research to do on the new resistance's cameras to try and figure out who was behind Samantha and Vincent's deaths so she went with Carlos to the surveillance room.

Isabel and Gus never disclosed what they had to do, but they were both in a hurry to leave so they were excused the same time Carlos and Noelle were.

Pierre said he had to go help Zachary with something involving Milo, saying that the two had gotten into a disagreement earlier in the day and they left things unresolved with Milo even knowing why Zachary had to talk to him.

Zachary had met up with Pierre and asked Jean Luc to see that Chelsea and Marie both made it home since he and Pierre wouldn't be able to see to it themselves.

Chelsea seemed to be thinking over something the entire time she was with them so it was a pretty quiet walk.

They took Marie home first, then started on the way to take Chelsea home. About halfway through the walk, she stopped in place. Her arms were holding each other as if she were cradling herself as she looked to the ground.

It took Jean Luc a minute to realize that she had stopped, but he went back for her as soon as he did notice. "Is everything okay?"

She looked back up, her blue eyes now being a bright green. "Morgan." She fell back, hitting the ground in an instant.

Jean Luc picked her up and hurried back to Pierre and Marie's home. He told Marie that he was leaving Chelsea with her for a moment while he went to check on something and then took off running to Lecia's home.

Lights were on, which meant that someone was home. He knocked on the door frantically, getting no response. He stopped knocking and tried forcing the door open as the feeling of unease grew inside him.

He ran to the back of the house and took out his gun, taking aim at the glass door and firing. The glass shattered, allowing Jean Luc to go inside the house.

The house was already a mess with nobody in sight. He went from room to room trying to find someone to no avail.

He was about to leave as he caught something that stuck out to him. The attic door wasn't fully shut.

He pulled the rope to lower the door, the ladder to the attic coming down as the door did. He climbed to the attic where he found Morgan clutching to her knees, staring at the attic door as if she had expected someone else to climb up.

She broke out into tears as she recognized Jean Luc, immediately crawling to him when he got into the attic. He pulled the girl into his arms as she continued to cry. "What happened here?"

"They tried to kill me, they broke in and they tried to kill me. They chased me up here and I don't know where they are now."

"They're not here anymore, I checked the house already."

She pulled away, her tears not stopping. "That's not true, they never left and I know that. Please, go check one more time."

"I will, but I need to know where your mother is before I go down."

"She's been out with Leona all day, they're working on the garden to try and plant harvestable food there."

Jean Luc nodded, going back to the ladder. "Morgan, everything is going to be okay."

He climbed back down and went to the kitchen on the far end of the house to start searching for the people that Morgan swore were still there. He went from the kitchen to the living room, both rooms being empty.

He went to the hall and into Morgan's room, checking the entire room and getting no results.

He then went across the hall to check Lecia's room, which is when he heard some movement behind him.

Before he could even turn around, he had been hit upside the head with an object that sent him straight to the ground.

---

Jean Luc regained consciousness to hearing a woman scream, followed by sobs. He then felt a pair of hands on his own shoulders before he got rolled onto his back by Carlos. "Jean Luc, what the hell happened here? Who did this to her?"

"Nobody…" Jean Luc reached up for his head, an unbearable pain as he strained his eyes to even look at the ceiling. "Morgan is in the attic, she's scared. I told her I would look around and make sure she would be safe."

The woman's cries continued outside the bedroom, prompting Jean Luc to get onto his feet. He stumbled past Carlos and went out into the living room where he saw Lecia on her knees, struggling to breathe through her tears.

He followed her eyes, seeing Morgan's body leaning against the glass door. She had had her stomach cut open and was left there to bleed out.

Jean Luc fell to his knees next to Lecia, shaking his head. "This couldn't have happened, I… she.. there wasn't anybody here.. I don't understand."

Carlos joined the two in the living room, Horatio and Elizabeth being the first to arrive.

Elizabeth sighed, looking at the scene before her. "I tried to warn you."

As Jean Luc turned to respond to her, he saw marks on Horatio's arm that resembled a scratch. He then looked up to meet his eyes. "Horatio, what happened to your arm?"

"I got injured this morning, but I believe there's a situation more important right now."

Jean Luc got back to his feet again, shaking slightly. "How did you get injured?"

"Don't worry about it." Horatio snapped at Jean Luc, going to kneel by Lecia. "Lecia, come on, I can't leave you here."

It took him a minute to convince her, but she eventually got up and left with him.

Jean Luc went for the now open front door, stopping next to Elizabeth. "When Zachary gets here, tell him I'm already on the next letter and he needs to look into Horatio's injury."

---

Jean Luc had gone to Amanda's house, where she, Anthony, and Alice were gathered already. Amanda seemed concerned about his appearance, but let him into the house.

He waited until Amanda joined Alice and her brother on the couch before he said anything. "One of you is the next target. We don't know which one of you it is. I would trust no guess and stay alert, all of you."

He immediately went to leave, Amanda following him out. "Why did you say that? How do you know?"

"I can't tell you right now. Not out in the open, it's not safe." Jean Luc continued on his way home, knowing Chelsea would be just fine with Marie until Pierre returned and took her home himself.

Amanda stayed at his side, doing her best to keep his pace. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me."

"Then I guess you're coming home with me because I still refuse to tell you out in the open."

Amanda did exactly that. She stayed with him until he got home, crossing her arms as soon as he shut the front door. "Will you tell me now?"

He nodded. "They had a list of targets, we found it at Samantha and Vincent's. They were the first two targets, followed by Kimber. We knew this because the list had letters on it instead of full names and the letters corresponded with the victims we had so far. The first letter we didn't know was an M. We believed it was Marie, we were almost certain but Zachary still was warning the other M's in the community. When I was walking Chelsea home, something weird happened and she told me to go check on Morgan. I did and I talked to Morgan, I held her, she was fine. I went to check over the house one last time and I got knocked out. When I came to, Lecia and Carlos had already found Morgan's body." Jean Luc paused, realizing he'd gone off track. "The next letter is an A."

"Where is Lecia?"

Jean Luc shrugged and ran his head through his hair, now feeling a knot on the back of his head. "I don't know, she left with Horatio. I left Carlos and Elizabeth at the house to warn you guys."

Amanda looked a little shaken up as she uncrossed her arms. "You should probably meet up with Zachary and tell him what happened from your perspective."

"I know, I intend to but it wasn't an immediate priority to me."

She sighed, putting her hands in her pockets. "Can I be honest with you?" He nodded. "I don't feel comfortable returning home knowing what you've told me. Anthony stays in his own house now with Grady as a neighbor and Alice stays with Chelsea and Zachary, they're both going to be perfectly fine but I'm concerned that if something happens to me then I'm not going to stand a chance." She shook her head. "Nobody knew Samantha and Vincent were dead for at least three days and both Kimber and Morgan were killed with someone else in the house, I don't like the odds."

Amanda had a point. Anthony would be okay because Grady typically stayed up all night and woke with any slight noise, he was always armed, and he would always investigate any strange happenings. Alice was probably even more set than Anthony was as she was staying with the one person in the community who knew what to watch for and when to expect it.

"You can stay with me."
"I'll stay with you."

The woman leading the new resistance, or at least speaking on their behalf, she's a bit reminiscent of Leona pre-Voyager and unfortunately, Leona pre-Voyager would lie or cheat her way out of anything. The main difference between the two being Leona was afraid and generally unknowledgeable of the Voyagers, their specific abilities and the gene. This other lady knows all about it, she's done her research and she's picking her targets accordingly.

One thing I can say about this target is that we have yet to see them fail a target besides Anthony, we don't know yet if they try again or just move along after failure. Maybe it's Anthony, maybe it's Amanda. Though there's always Alice who has been pretty under the radar so far.

The day after Morgan's murder, Noelle met up with Zachary in the surveillance room. She didn't seem optimistic.

"I've got the footage from Samantha and Vincent's deaths, but there's no clear identity that can be determined from the camera's angles." She sighed, pulling up the footage on the computer.

He watched as Vincent opened the door opened the door for the person, they walked in and Vincent went back into the living room. He watched as they went into the living room with Vincent, talked to him for about ten minutes before they went into the kitchen and grabbed the knife.

They then went to Samantha's room, hiding the knife behind their back as they talked to her for another ten minutes, then stepping closer to her.

She didn't seem bothered by them being so close, which immediately raised a red flag to Zachary. "It was someone Samantha's been intimate with."

Noelle paused the footage, turning to face Zachary. "And do you have any clue who that could have been? The only men I've ever seen Samantha be alone with are Horatio and Grady."

Zachary hesitated on answering the question before he let out a sigh. "It would be Horatio or Milo. She and Milo used to date but I don't think he would cheat on Alyssa, I've never known Milo to be like that."

"What excludes Grady?" Noelle pushed the question. "He was always around Lecia and Morgan before she was killed, now he's nowhere to be found."

"What excludes Grady in this case is his sexuality. Grady's gay." Zachary put his hands on his hips. "Nobody's supposed to know that, so don't say a word about it and let's move on."

Noelle's face turned red as she nodded and turned back to the computer, playing the rest of the footage.

The person spoke to Samantha once more, she crooked her neck to look at them while they stood so close to her and as she spoke, they wrapped their arms around her and stabbed her through the stomach.

They pulled out the knife and let Samantha fall to the ground. They dropped the knife in the closet and took their coat off, dropping it onto the knife.

Samantha had since crawled out of her room and gone into the living room to Vincent.

He was tending to her when the person went into the living room, immediately going to grab Vincent. Vincent managed to scratch them but by the time they had gotten their hands on Vincent's head, fighting back was useless. They snapped Vincent's neck with ease and stepped out of the way as his body hit the ground in front of Samantha.

They then went back into the kitchen, grabbing the letter opener off of the counter and going back to Samantha's room and driving it through their own shoulder. They then dropped it in front of the door and went back to the closet, grabbing their coat and shaking it before putting it back on and leaving the home.

Noelle stopped the footage there, then started typing in something new. "I have two more things to show you." She pulled up footage from the night before, the house very clearly belonging to Lecia.

Zachary watched the glass door in the back of the house shatter and Jean Luc step inside. Jean Luc wandered around the house before climbing into the attic and out of the camera's view. It was when Jean Luc was in the attic that a second person stepped through the broken glass door.

They were still unrecognizable, but they now had their sleeves rolled up to expose a scratch similar to what Vincent had done to his attacker. They went into Morgan's bedroom, going into the closet.

Jean Luc climbed down and started searching the house. He wasn't even out of the room when they left the closet and grabbed a snow globe off of Morgan's dresser. They attacked him in Lecia's bedroom, then climbed into the attic themselves.

They dragged Morgan down and threw her to the ground. They stood over her for a minute before they took a pocket knife out of their pocket and stabbed her, dragging the knife down her stomach as she struggled. They then propped her up against the glass door and looked at what they'd done for a moment before leaving.

Noelle skipped forward about half an hour when Carlos and Lecia arrived. Carlos only looked at Morgan for a minute before he went straight to Jean Luc. Horatio and Elizabeth arrived next, Horatio mainly talked to Lecia before reaching out to her and helping her out of the house.

Noelle stopped the footage. "Do you know anything about Horatio's relationships here?"

"I can't say I do, he's a really private guy. He and Grady are close, always have been, but that's all I know." Zachary crossed his arms. "How did Carlos know where Jean Luc was? Jean Luc hadn't moved from that spot for half an hour and he wasn't in view from the living room."

"I was hoping you could explain that to me." She rewinded the footage and paused on Horatio reaching out to Lecia. "I was also hoping you could have an answer as to why Horatio has an injury that resembles scratches on his forearm and it escaped all of our views."

---

"You can stay with me." Jean Luc offered Amanda a kind smile. "It would probably ease my own worries as well. Noelle's also not the worst person to be stuck with in the event of something happening."

Amanda nodded. "I'll do that then, but do you think you could do me a favor?" She paused, making sure she had his full attention. "If the target is Anthony or myself, I know we both want to see our parents again and he wants to see Naomi. Is there any way you could get us into the city to do that?"

"I could probably pull some strings. I know Zachary is due in the city some point this week to talk to Isaac, I could probably get him to take you guys along."

---

Jean Luc waited until after Morgan's funeral to discuss it with Zachary, knowing he was having a difficult time with all the losses around the community.

He was originally hesitant to even entertain the idea, but agreed to it after Jean Luc pestered him into it on the condition that he, Horatio, and Grady went along as well. They brought Chelsea along as well, knowing she didn't have many opportunities to see her own father.

They went into the city on a Friday evening, meeting with Isaac and the Richardson's at Isaac's house. Isaac made it a point for the Voyagers and Chelsea to be out of the Richardson's view the entire time, which wasn't difficult to do.

---

After seeing Anthony and Amanda again, Naomi and Lyla both broke into tears. Lyla and Bradly focused on Amanda while Naomi focused on Anthony.

The two eventually broke off and went to the dining room on their own to be able to speak freely. "How are you doing out there? I know it's more than likely nothing you're used to."

Anthony knew a lot of the things he had learned in his time with the Voyagers were classified, but he didn't even know where to begin if he wanted to talk about it. "Well, a lot of people who we believe to be dead are actually living there and thriving. Zachary Bennington is in charge there, his secondhand is a guy from France who's got a real big interest in Amanda from what I've gathered. It's a real weird combination but they're making it work. They hold trials there for crimes committed against people there and Zachary made me speak for the jury, it was a bit satisfying honestly. I haven't been given a job there but I've been given my own place to stay. The only people I really talk to there are Amanda, Alice, and Elizabeth."

She frowned slightly. "You've only been there a week and a half and you've already had to go through a trial? That's unsettling, Anthony."

"The new resistance killed a child right in front of her father, I'd say it was almost a necessity to have it." He sighed, looking at the decorations along the wall. "They know that the next target starts with an A and Zachary's been really hesitant about letting me go home until this target passes. He said it doesn't sit well with him because he doesn't know for sure that I'd be safe."

"How frequent have the attacks been?"

"At least two incidents per week from what I've seen. The last murder was two days ago." Anthony took her hand in his. "The first night there, the new resistance raided Amanda's house. Elizabeth saved my life at the expense of her own."

"I mean, I'd hope so. Elizabeth can come back from death, you can't."

"That's true." Anthony nodded. "Probably a day later, a pair of cousins end up murdered in their own home and their bodies don't get found until four or five days later. In those four or five days, the new resistance breaks into Milo's home and shot his daughter right in front of him. That was the one we had a trial for. Two days ago, they just walked into another home and murder a fifteen year old girl. If I'm not wrong, they're going to make a move against Amanda, Alice, or myself tonight."

Naomi shook her head, looking at the ground. "I don't like the odds presented so far. What you've told me is four deaths on the Voyager's side and one for the new resistance?"

"No, three for the new resistance. Milo and Amanda's french guy both killed one before the cousins died."

"Those still aren't good odds." Naomi let go of Anthony's hand. "What other letters are there?"

"G, I, and C were the last ones given to Zachary. The new resistance lady wanted it to spell magic."

She didn't respond immediately, looking to be in thought. "You're going to come home as soon as you know you're in the clear, right?"

"Of course I will, I promise. As soon as I get that green light, I'm going to come back and things are going to go right back to normal."

---

While Amanda stayed in the foyer with her parents and Anthony went to the dining room with Naomi, the rest of the Voyagers stayed in the sitting room.

Chelsea had been given her time with Isaac, then it was Zachary's turn to talk with him. Chelsea went with Horatio, Jean Luc, and Grady into the sitting room.

Zachary took a seat across from Isaac. "She's told me that the next targets are A, G, I, C. I'm fairly certain of G and I, however I'd like to hear what you have to say on Santa Fe."

Isaac cupped his hands. "You, Marshal, Pierre, and myself need to go to Santa Fe before they can get to G. If my sources are right, G is a Crusader and losing one of them would severely damage our chances."

"Figures. G is Gus, Pierre's hitman. The I is probably another Crusader, yeah?" Isaac nodded. "That's not great. Why Santa Fe?"

"Ever since Marshal went around the states, Santa Fe has been in a bit of limbo. Almost anything is legal there and I've left it alone intentionally. If we can lure the new resistance to Santa Fe with the four of us and get Marshal to sway the people there again, we would have a better chance at taking the new resistance in numbers." Isaac got out of his seat, putting his hands behind his back. "We would have to leave tonight if we're going to have a chance at it."

"Then let's do it." Zachary got out of his seat as well. "We can't waste time."

---

Isaac went along with the Voyagers to the community.

Zachary briefly explained the plan to the group he had in the car, gathering rather negative responses from them.

"We're all aware that whoever A is is going to be attacked tonight, why do you think it's a good idea to just leave the community at this moment?" Horatio was the most vocal about his disagreement to the idea. "What about Chelsea and Alice? They're staying in your house so that you can be there to protect them, how are you going to do that when you're in Santa Fe?"

"He's got a point." Anthony slumped in his seat. "What are the chances that the new resistance recognizes that you're gone and tries to make a move against Chelsea and Alice?"

"Listen, it's not going to be that difficult. The next target is an A. Alice, Anthony, and Amanda need to stay away from each other. Amanda is staying with Jean Luc and Noelle, Chelsea can stay with Anthony, and Alice can stay with Horatio."

"Isn't Lecia staying with Horatio?" Grady finally spoke up. "Lecia is with Horatio and that's fine, but I think we need to be more careful where we put the rest of them. Amanda should be okay with Jean Luc and Noelle, Anthony should stay at his home but I think someone else needs to be there with him to protect him, he shouldn't focus on protecting Chelsea when he's probably in the most danger."

Horatio nodded in agreement. "Chelsea can stay with Grady, I'd recommend having Marie stay with Anthony since she's probably one of the two most experienced fighters and Pierre isn't going to be around."

"Horatio, can I ask you something?" Jean Luc had his arms crossed, tapping his foot furiously on the floorboard. "Why do you have an injury on your arm that matches one that Vincent's murderer has?"

"I don't; Vincent's murderer has scratches, mine is a cut." Horatio dodged the question, catching a glare from Isaac.

"Horatio, what happened to your arm?" Zachary looked at him from the rearview mirror.

"I tripped?"

Zachary scoffed, shaking his head. "Alright, I guess I'll just have Alyssa look at it when we get to the community, yeah?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." Horatio crossed his arms, his face flushing red for a moment.

---

Zachary did exactly what he said he was going to do as soon as they got back to the community and gathered Marshal, Pierre, and Alyssa.

"What's going on?" Alyssa seemed concerned but kept her distance from Isaac.

"I need you to take a look over a wound on Horatio's arm and tell me how old it is."

Horatio immediately held out his arm and raised his sleeve to show Alyssa the wound. Zachary noticed the fashion in which he only dragged his sleeve up, rather than rolled it as the person on the camera had done.

Alyssa took his arm in her left hand and used her right hand to touch the surrounding area of his arm. She focused on it for just a moment before she started whispering to herself. "It's not even a day old, pretty deep and a clean cut that could have only been done with a pocket knife or a box cutter. It's already on the way to infection because it hasn't been properly handled."

Horatio took his arm back, lowering his sleeve again. "It was washed with soap and I put antibiotic cream on it, so I don't know what to tell you."

"How long did you keep it bandaged?" Alyssa furrowed her brows. "There's still residual bits of tape from when it was wrapped, but that's it."

"It was bandaged for like two hours, that's good enough."

Alyssa scoffed, shaking her head. "Oh whatever, I'll see you again when it's time to cut your arm off because you aren't taking care of yourself."

Horatio gave a soft smile to her. "Hey, maybe I can get a robot arm from Amanda. There's perks to everything in this world."

She let out a small chuckle before she went past him, heading back home. It was the first time any of them had heard her laugh since Kimber died.

Jean Luc put his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, his eyes immediately going wide. "Right then, I'm sorry for accusing you, Horatio. I've gotta go find Elizabeth." He hurried off, Amanda going with him.

The rest of the group split off with the exception of Marshal and Pierre who ended up going with Isaac and Zachary.

Horatio went with Chelsea back to Zachary's house to collect some stuff and let Alice know of the plan for her to stay with Leona for the night.

He took Alice to Leona's first, then walked Chelsea to Grady's home. Neither of them knocked, the two of them staying on the doorstep for a minute. "Does it not offend you to be accused like that?"

"No, not really."

"Why didn't you defend yourself?" She questioned. "You and I both know what happened, I could have backed you up."

He hesitated before leaning in close to her and lowering his voice to a whisper. "If I say anything about her being in Zachary's house, I'll be dead. The same goes for you." He got a bit closer, leaving virtually no distance between the two of them. "I knew if I didn't say anything then you wouldn't say anything but if either of said anything, it would get back to Zachary and he would confront her. Leave it a secret between us, yeah?"

"How do you know she'd kill you?"

"Come with me and I can show you." He left Grady's doorstep, heading to his own house. Chelsea followed after him purely because of her own curiosity. He paused as soon as he walked in the front door. "The only room in my house that doesn't have a camera is the bathroom."

They went to the bathroom, Horatio shutting the door and turning on the light behind them. He took off his shirt to expose another cut on his shoulder along with a bruise on his stomach, allowing Chelsea to look over them. "What happened?"

"After I left you with Zachary yesterday, I came home and she was here. She went on a tangent over how I should have let her hurt you because you were disrespecting her and you needed to learn a lesson. I obviously disagreed with it and she started talking about how the man responsible for Vincent and Samantha's deaths had scratches but he had also stabbed himself in the shoulder and that only Zachary, Noelle, and Jean Luc knew it. She stabbed me and then hit me in the stomach a few times to try and fuck me up enough to the point of me going to see one of the doctors, which probably would have been Amanda. She knew Amanda would go right back to Zachary with her findings and that would have been it for me."

"The cameras in the house, they caught what happened at Zachary's, right?"

"I don't know." He sighed. "Noelle needs a few days to access the new resistance's cameras and given that you're involved, Zachary wouldn't have waited a few days."

Chelsea looked over the cut on his shoulder some more. "You need to go to Alyssa and get yourself patched up or she really will be seeing you to cut your arm off."

"I can't do that without telling her what happened and I'm not going to risk my life like that."

She put her hands on her hips before closing her eyes. She stayed silent for a few minutes before she opened her eyes. "Elizabeth can do it. She already knows what happened and I didn't even have to say a word to her about it."

Chelsea went with Horatio to Elizabeth's house, trying to find out more from him on the walk. "How did you know which room in your home didn't have a camera?"

"I don't sleep well at night and I end up taking in every detail. Walls, floors, door frames." He shook his head. "They're all crooked. I've got a window that won't lock and a door that will trick you into thinking it's locked and then it'll just pop right open if you apply any pressure to it. It's kind of useless."

"If you knew more about the new resistance, you'd tell someone, right?"

He stayed quiet, putting his hands in his pockets. "If you knew something that would result in your own death and the deaths of multiple other people, would you say something?"

They stopped on the doorstep of Elizabeth's home. The door was opened by Elizabeth before they even knocked. "Yes, she would."

"Excuse me?"

Elizabeth stepped out of the way, allowing the two of them in the house. "Chelsea would tell someone who could come up with a plan in just a matter of minutes. We've got a number of people like that here."

Chelsea went forward into the house, waiting for Horatio who seemed to tense up at what Elizabeth was saying. "How did you know what we were talking about?"

"Hell if I know." Elizabeth disappeared into the bathroom for a moment before coming back out with a box in her hands. "No, I wasn't eavesdropping. When Zachary was here, I was able to hear his thoughts. I didn't want to, they just invaded my mind. Your thoughts are doing the same to me now that he's gone."

"If you're just thinking about something and Elizabeth says it, it wouldn't necessarily be you giving up any information." Chelsea took a seat on the couch, Horatio sitting down next to her and taking a deep breath.

"She's right and you know she is, you're literally thinking that right now." Elizabeth pulled a chair from the dining room, putting it in front of Horatio and taking a seat, laying the box in her lap. "Which one do you want done first? I'd recommend your shoulder, it's going to hurt more."

Horatio held out his hand, sinking into the couch. "Why does it have to hurt?"

"Because I'm not a doctor, I don't have numbing agents." Horatio tried to get out of the chair, Chelsea moving closer to box him in while Elizabeth pushed him back into his seat. "Take the shirt off, you need to do this."

He looked to be weighing his options before he sighed and did what she said. He held his shirt in his hands, wrapping it around his knuckles as he leaned his head back to look at the ceiling, his foot tapping rapidly.

Elizabeth opened the box, taking a needle and threading it with what closely resembled fishing wire. She then slid on a pair of gloves that were also in the box and leaned closed to Horatio, holding her breath as she delivered three gentle taps on his shoulder as a way to warm him of what she was about to do. He took a deep breath just before she put the needle into his wound.

"I'm afraid to tell anyone about what I know because I don't want anyone else to be hurt." Horatio clutched onto his shirt, his knuckles going white. "She's got an attraction to Zachary and he's using it to his own advantage. He knew about the attack om Anthony days in advance, he knew that they were going to try again so he tried to ensure that Elizabeth would be with Anthony to reverse the effects."

Chelsea saw Elizabeth pause for a moment before she returned to focus on stitching him up. "Why did she show up in his house the other day?"

"Just because she could. She was trying to taunt you and me both by setting off the sensors. She knew Alice wasn't there and she knew Zachary wasn't there. She knew she needed to set up injuries to match her guy and she lured me into it, the easiest way was to threaten you since the group needs you alive."

Elizabeth nodded slightly. "Good, keep talking. What really happened to your shoulder?"

"She showed up in my house the same night she cut my arm and told me that if I didn't let her do what she wanted to me, she was going to start picking off people in the group herself. She was pissed about Chelsea comparing her to Leona and said she was going to be better than Leona could have ever wished."

"She added targets and you know who. Who are they?" Elizabeth finished off his shoulder, tying a small knot at the end and cutting the wire.

"Alice and Leona. She told me the letters and gave me a few guesses to figure it out, for each guess I got wrong, I got hit in the stomach. The next targets are Amanda, Gus, Isabel, Chelsea, Alice, and Leona." He finally looked at Elizabeth. "Chelsea wasn't the original C, she just pissed her off enough for her to change targets."

Elizabeth took the needle and began threading it again. "And Gus wasn't the original G, the original was a lot harder to come by for her, wasn't he?"

Horatio nodded. "It was Grady. She realized that it would be a lot harder to get to Isabel if Gus was in the way and that Grady wasn't easy to get alone so she switched the two, said she was going to try for another two for one."

After threading the needle, Elizabeth carefully took Horatio's arm in her hand and leveled the needle. "What did she decide with Chelsea?"

"She decided that she would leave her alive long enough for Zachary to let down his guard down around her and that she would have her inside person take Chelsea somewhere out of range and kill her."

Elizabeth started stitching the cut on his arm, holding it steady with her other hand.

Chelsea let out a sigh. "Why did she tell you this?"

"Because I begged her not to. I didn't want to know any of this. Chelsea, I was going to leave the group and go back home but now I feel like I have to stay."

"But if you stay, you risk your life because you've just told us everything you know." Elizabeth finished with his arm faster than his shoulder, tying it off with a knot as well and cutting the wire once again. She put the needle and wire back in the box and got out of her seat and went to the bathroom, coming back without the box or the gloves on her hands.

Horatio put his shirt back on, heading to the front door. Chelsea went with him, her mind clouded by all the information Horatio had given the two of them. They left the house, Elizabeth locking them out as soon as they stepped out the door.

"You don't know anything else, do you?"

He shook his head. "No… part of me wants to so I know how to stop it, but part of me knows that I can't do anything to help." He walked her back to Grady's but hesitated on knocking. "I want to show you something, something that only I know that might help you figure out who the person on the inside is."

Chelsea only nodded in response, following him away from Grady's house.

They seemed to be heading into the town before he stopped suddenly in front of Amanda's house. "She's with Jean Luc, right?"

"Yes, why?"

He looked as if he wanted to go to the house, but held himself back. "Smell the air and stand where I'm standing." Chelsea moved to stand in front of him, following where he pointed. "What you're seeing in the sky looks a lot like a cloud, it's smoke. What looks like lights on in the house is fire." He leaned closer to her, whispering as he spoke to her. "You need to get out of here, they're still here. They don't leave the scene until they know their target is dead."

"They have to know that their target isn't in the house then."

"We know exactly where you all go, we know where you sleep at night and with who. We also know when to switch a target because of the difficulty." Horatio and Chelsea turned to see the woman standing a few feet behind them. "I know who my target is now, but I want to know if you do, Ms. Hampton. I want to know how intelligent you really are."

"Horatio. You already know about the gene and you know Elizabeth and Whitlock are in range, you know it's pretty stupid to try me right now. You also know he just gave up your foreseeable plans and that he was about to give up your inside man so you're pissed at him, you want him to shut up permanently."

The woman gave a dark smile that was only lit up by the light produced by the flames that were engulfing Amanda's house. "Very good, you're a bright girl."

The woman raised her gun, taking aim at Horatio, who had already accepted his fate.

A shot rang out, Horatio flinching at the sound of it. He let out a long breath when he watched the woman fall to the ground to reveal Elizabeth standing a few feet behind her with her own gun drawn.

"Chelsea, you should go get Alyssa, have her meet us in the medical center. Horatio, go make sure that Amanda's safe with Jean Luc. I'll handle her." She holstered her gun, going straight to the woman she incapacitated.

---

It wasn't long before Alyssa, Jean Luc, and Joseph had joined Elizabeth, Chelsea, and Horatio at the medical center.

Alyssa quickly got to work on stabilizing the woman per Joseph's orders. The rest of the group stayed in the lobby. "Who was the target?"

"It was changed from Amanda to Horatio at the least minute." Chelsea crossed her arms. "What are the chances they'll follow the list they've already conjured when she's out of power?"

"Barely any." Elizabeth muttered under her breath.

"If you knew this then why did you shoot her?" Jean Luc quipped right back at her.

She shrugged. "Because I wasn't okay with what was happening with Horatio. The easiest way to fix that is handle the person starting the issues."

Chelsea raised her hand slightly. "They're bonded for the moment, she's protective of him because she's hearing every thought he has, you'll have to forgive her."

Horatio put his hands in his pockets, looking at his feet. "What's the plan with her?" He looked up at Joseph. "It wouldn't hurt to learn some stuff from her, but I can't say I'd trust a word out of her mouth."

"We'll use her as a bargaing chip."
"We'll question her."
"We'll hold her responsible for what she's done with a trial."

"Elizabeth, do you know what's bonding you to Horatio right now?" Joseph crossed his arms. "If we can figure out how to get you unbonded from him and bonded to her, we'd have an easier time with figuring out how well we can trust her word."

"I don't know. I was bound to Zachary before he took off, then as soon as he was out of the gene's typical range it switched to Horatio. As far as I'm aware, I wasn't anywhere near him when it happened." She put her hands on her hips. "The one thing the two had in common is that they were both in rather inconvenient positions that put a lot of weight on their shoulders when I got bound to them. If I had to guess, the gene targets the people in range who are mentally struggling because they don't have it in them to fight back."

Chelsea gave a quick look to Horatio. "The easiest way to disrupt the connection would be to get him out of range but given his actions tonight, I don't think that's the smartest thing to do. We've probably got a few hours before she's even conscious."

"It's either that or the two of them find a way to break the connection." Jean Luc crossed his arms, looking between Elizabeth and Horatio. "Those are the only two options, but they've got time to figure it out."

"Try it, it's not going to hurt anything to try." Elizabeth seemed solely focused on Horatio.

He nodded, taking his hands out if his pockets. "Alright then. Elizabeth, I don't need you anymore. You've done enough for me and while I appreciate your help, I think it's time for you to move on."

Chelsea looked to Elizabeth to see her skin had gone pale and her eyes cloudy. She was back to normal in a few seconds before she cleared her throat, quickly brushing a hand through her hair. "She expects to be dead within the week, that's the only clear thing I could get. It's a bit difficult to understand what she's thinking, but we can probably try again whenever she's awake again."

Elizabeth excused herself from the group, going into the room Alyssa was operating in to speak with her.

Joseph turned his attention to Jean Luc. "How is Amanda doing?"

"She's a bit shaken up at the news of what happened to her house, but she's safe and that's all that matters right now." He slid his hands into the pockets of his trenchcoat with a sigh. "I guess I couldn't have picked a better day to give Elizabeth her gun back."

Jean Luc went on his way as soon as Elizabeth came back out to the lobby as he had agreed to walk her home earlier in the night.

Joseph got ready to leave himself, briefly turning to Horatio before he walked out the door. "Watch after yourself."

Horatio nodded in response, giving off a sigh as soon as Joseph walked out the door. "My head actually feels empty now." He noticed the confused look Chelsea gave him. "Ever since Elizabeth got in my head, it felt like someone was just crushing my head."

"Do you think Grady's still awake?" Chelsea looked at the clock, seeing it was approaching three in the morning.

"Probably not. I honestly doubted he was awake when you almost went back at twelve thirty." He turned to her with a genuine smile on his face. "Considering it's my fault that you're out this late, I'd be happy to keep you company until he wakes up."

Chelsea went along with it, the two deciding to go for a walk through the neighboring town. Horatio said it was normally a place he'd disappear to whenever the community was too much for him and that he knew a lot of the locals by name and they knew him.

"I know a lot about the other Voyagers and my personal life has never been very personal, given my dad's position, but you're the one person that nobody seems to know much about. Marshal mentioned before that you joined the group pretty young so what's your story?"

"I came to South Dakota from Stratford in Ontario, Canada. It's mostly farming going on over there and my family was no exception to that. When I was in school, I spent every weekday in the classroom then I would come home and help my dad with the animals. Every Saturday, I had to work on maintaining the land and then on Sunday, it was church and whatever I didn't finish on Saturday. I had three little brothers to help with the land work on the weekends, but they weren't allowed to help with the animals because my mom was afraid that the animals would hurt them, which she was probably right about; I've been kicked by a horse, head-butted by a cow, chased by geese, bitten by a pig, harassed by all sorts of animals."

Chelsea could tell he thought fondly of his home as he spoke with a bright smile that she typically never saw from him. "A farm boy from Canada with an Italian name and you ended up in the states with the Voyagers, how did all that come to be?"

"My parents honeymooned in Italy and some guy named Horatio was their guide and kept them from getting robbed on their last night so they decided to name me after him, a complete stranger." He chuckled and shook his head. "I had a fiancee who had come from the states, she had talked all about the group and how she wanted to be part of it. We went to the same church and she ended up saying something about it there, someone reported it and she was brought back to the states just to be executed. I joined the group when I turned nineteen because she couldn't."

"But do you actually believe in the group's beliefs?"

His smile faded. "Yes, I agree with the beliefs and most of the actions. The way Marshal, Joseph, and Zachary have led, I agree with. Rocco made me do things that I look back on now that I feel physically sick to think about. I didn't go with Joseph and the others because I was young, I was grieving and Rocco took advantage of it, made some henchman or something out of me."

"Do you still talk to your family?"

"I wish. They practically disowned me after I came to the states to join the resistance. They had said that it shouldn't matter to me because I'm Canadian and the girl I was doing it for was dead." He shrugged. "I tried writing to them and calling plenty of times, they just don't want to hear from me. I definitely broke my mom's heart coming down here but I know if I were to return, they'd take me back."

"Why don't you open up to the other Voyagers? You've known them all for well over ten years, seen most of them daily the same amount of time and most of them know nothing about you."

He stopped in front of a glass door that went into a diner, holding it open for her. As soon as the two entered, an older woman poked her head out from behind a wall, a wide smile crossing her face as soon as she saw Horatio. She rushed over, wrapping him in a hug. "We were getting worried, we haven't seen you in a bit. How've you been, Horatio?"

The woman pulled away, looking over him. "I'm doing fine, thank you." He gestured to Chelsea. "Mai, this is Chelsea. Chelsea, Mai."

Chelsea held out her hand for the woman who only looked at it for a moment before wrapping her in a hug as well. "Welcome, Chelsea, it's a pleasure to meet you." She pulled away and led the two to a table. She handed Chelsea a menu, then turned to Horatio. "The usual?"

He nodded. "Wait until she orders to make it, though."

"I wouldn't have done it any other way." She stayed standing at the end of the table, giving Chelsea a chance to look over her menu. "What happened to your arm? Let me guess, you fell and hit a very straight corner at the perfect angle to make it look like a cut."

"Yep, you're right on the dot, couldn't have explained it any better myself."

Chelsea chuckled and shook her head, still looking over the menu. "Mai, I feel like you've got good taste, surprise me."

Mai simply smiled and took the menu back. "That's exactly how he ended up with the usual." She turned and went back into the kitchen.

"You're still in range for the gene, right? Elizabeth's not going to get cut off from the chick's thoughts because you're out this far?"

"Yep. It's a little fuzzy but considering Elizabeth and Whitlock are asleep and hopefully not moving any time soon, I should be okay to be out this far." Chelsea rested her arms on the table. "You didn't answer my question."

"I just never had the interest to get to know them. I didn't plan on being with the group this long and every time I think about getting to know someone, someone else comes along to them and I just don't want to get in the way."

"You're out here talking to me, though."

He rolled his eyes. "Chelsea, you are popular but you don't exactly have a line of people waiting to talk to you at four in the morning."

"Alright, you've got a point there." Chelsea put her hands in her lap. "Why did you have Mai wait on your food?"

"I don't want to eat before you, that's rude."

"And how do you normally pay for stuff whenever you're out and about?"

He took some cash out of his pocket, briefly flashing it to Chelsea before returning it to his pocket. "I occasionally do work around here in exchange for spending cash. There's not much keeping me in the community unless it's my turn for surveillance, to be honest with you."

Mai returned not too longer later with two plates balancing in her hands. She put one in front of Chelsea and the other in front of Horatio, then went back into the kitchen.

Chelsea looked over the plate, which only had two plain pancakes on it. "Pretty simplistic."

Horatio nodded. "It's simplistic, but you can make something great out of it. It all depends on your view."

"Not all of us have time for pancake art."

He chuckled in response. "That was a good one."

After finishing the food, Horatio talked to Mai for a few minutes before paying and heading back to the community.

As soon as they got back to the community, Joseph left the medical center and approached them. "Did you two see Milo while you were out? Alyssa went home after she finished operating and from what she said, he just vanished. The cameras show him going the same way you two did about twenty minutes later."

"No, sorry." Horatio crossed his arms. "We stopped somewhere in the next town over, so it's highly possible he slipped by us if he did stay going the same way we did. I can go back to look for him if you want."

Joseph nodded. "Go for it." He then turned to Chelsea. "You should probably get to Grady's now, yeah?"

Horatio had already turned and started back for the next town. Something didn't sit right with Chelsea. "Joseph, if the new resistance were to miss a target, do you think they would try again if the target had revealed some pretty damning information against them?"

"Without a doubt. Elizabeth hasn't had much to say about the woman's thoughts, but the woman is convinced that she's going to be killed just for being in the town this long." Joseph shrugged, turning back towards the medical center. "I wouldn't know, though, I'm not the leader of the new resistance."

[Catch up with Horatio and search for Milo]
[Go to Grady's and stay in town]

Chelsea turned on her heel, breaking into a sprint to catch up to Horatio. He stopped for a second when he realized she was going after him, then continued on once she caught up. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to help find Milo. If I could remind you, you nearly got shot in the face last night so I don't think it's a great idea that you go alone."

"I was also nearly shot in the face while you were the only one around, I'm sorry to say but I don't think they're too intimidated by you." He was hurrying this time along. "I won't make you go back though, it's your choice to be out here."

They decided to keep walking past the diner, which Chelsea knew wasn't too good for the connection as she'd very likely go out of range by going any farther. "Where do you think he would go?"

"I'm not sure. I've heard that he has a habit to just take off whenever he's not well off but that he always comes back." Horatio started to look through the windows of buildings as they passed by, coming to an abrupt stop in front of a bar.

Chelsea looked through the window as well, having a difficult time seeing anything as most of the lights were off. She was barely able to make out that Milo was there.

The two went inside, taking the stools beside Milo. He didn't acknowledge the two, just continued looking lost.

"Milo, this isn't the way to grieve, you know this. You definitely can't just up and disappear from your house in the middle of the night while your kids are asleep and alone."

"They're obviously not alone now. You had to find out I left somehow." He turned to Horatio, his tone rather confrontational. "You know we're the two who are suspected the most, right? Even though I was there when Kimber died, I'm a suspect."

"How do you even pay here? You have money?" Horatio dodged the topic.

"No, but I have a tab."

Horatio sighed and shook his head. "That's not paying."

Horatio waved down the bartender and started a conversation with him, leaving Milo and Chelsea on their own.

"Milo, we both know that you don't want to be here. You're here because you feel empty and powerless. How do you think Alyssa feels? What about Jude? They both tried to save her and just like you, they failed. You're all going through a difficult time and you need to be with them. Jude's used to just being abandoned and left with Kimber, he has nobody now so you need to step up and be there for him."

Chelsea looked back to Horatio and the bartender to see Horatio pull the same money he had earlier out of his pocket and put it on the counter between himself and the bartender.

He returned to the two shortly after. "Your tab is paid off and the bartender isn't going to serve you anymore after what you're on. You need to be back in town by the time the sun's up."

He started out the door, Chelsea following after him. "Shouldn't we be staying with him? He's obviously not in good condition."

"No, he wants to be alone right now and if we don't respect that, he'll get violent soon enough. He's not going to be served anymore, he doesn't owe anything to the bar, and we know where he is so he's fine and we did our job."

They made it most of the way to the town before they were stopped on the way by a man. He was walking away from the town and looked to be a little lost. "Excuse me, could I get some directions from you two?"

Horatio didn't answer and tried to keep walking past him until Chelsea grabbed his wrist, making him stop with her. "Sure, where are you going?"

The guy smiled, holding a paper in his hand. "Great, thank you, I'm trying to get to headquarters."

"What's your business there?" Horatio took his wrist back from Chelsea, crossing his arms.

"I made an appointment with Mr. Hampton months ago and he just up and decided to go to Santa Fe, but I figured that I could still get seen."

Horatio froze, grabbing Chelsea and pulling her until she was behind him. "How do you know about Santa Fe? Nobody knows where he went."

"What's with the third degree, sir? Are you going to give me directions or not?" The man's smile faded, his grip tightening on the paper in his hand until he slid it into his pocket, getting ready to pull something else out.

Horatio kept hold of Chelsea, pushing past the man and then moving Chelsea to put her ahead of him.

Before he could say anything to her, they were both grabbed and separated from each other, a piece of cloth being forced over their faces before Chelsea couldn't see anything else.

---

She woke up in a room unfamiliar to her, a bit of light coming through a window that was close to the ceiling. She sat up and found herself on a cot with a blanket. She looked around the room, seeing that it was empty besides her cot and another that stayed across the room.

At the foot of her cot, she recognized the bunch of brown curls that sat on the floor, faced away from her. "Horatio, where are we?"

"I don't know." He got off the ground, dusting off his pants with his hands. "All I know is we're unarmed and they won't talk to me unless you're awake. Are you in range?"

Chelsea took a deep breath, focusing on her connection with Elizabeth. She released the breath she was holding, the results confusing her a bit. "I think I am, I'm not too sure. One of them is awake and moving towards the edge of the range, that or I'm on the edge."

"That's a little uncomforting and relieving at the same time." He looked to be a little on edge himself as he kept fidgeting with his hands. "You're the only reason they didn't kill me. They were talking about it earlier and said that because you had seen the guy on the street, they couldn't kill either of us. He was the only one there with the intention of killing me on my way back to town until you followed me into the bar."

The door to the room opened before Chelsea could respond, the same man from the street entering the room. By his side was a hooded figure, their sleeves rolled to expose the scratches on their arms. "Ah, you're awake, good." He approached Chelsea, Horatio stepping in his way. "Relax, I'm just trying to make sure she's not hurt."

"Why would she be hurt?"

"She took a bit of a tumble getting here, and fell down a few steps." The man stayed in place as Horatio turned back to Chelsea, only moving out of his way when she gave a nod to him. The man started to shine a light in her eyes before pulling away and going for the door. "I'll be right back, don't move a muscle."

As soon as the man left, Horatio turned his attention to the hooded figure. "Don't think I don't know who you are now." The hooded figure turned to face him, not saying a word but letting their hand hover over a holstered gun. Horatio shook his head. "Guns aren't your thing, I'm not worried about it."

The man entered the room, seeing the hooded figure ready to draw their weapon on Horatio. He raised a hand as if to ease them, prompting them to lower their guard. "They're unarmed, they can't harm you anymore." He went to Chelsea with a bottle in his hands. "Tilt your head back."

She did as he said, only catching a small clear bottle with clear liquid in it. He kept her head in place by holding her chin, then letting the drops go freely into her left eye first. She was overwhelmed by a burning feeling in her eye, prompting her to try and push away from him. "Stop, you're hurting her!" He didn't bother much, simply straddling her on the cot to prevent her from moving. By the time he had let the drops go into her right eye, she couldn't see anything from her left eye.

The man didn't move until she couldn't see a thing from either of her eyes.

She stayed in place, trying to process what had happened until someone came to her, grabbing her left hand and putting their other hand behind her back to lift her up into a sitting position. As they let go, Chelsea could tell they had their back to her based on how the air around her moved. "What did you do to her?"

"The drops are only going to deliver temporary blindness, she'll be back to normal in about three hours." Chelsea felt the person in front of her get closer to her, determining based on the voices that it was Horatio in front of her and he was trying to block her from the other two in the room. "Now, you said that you know who my friend here is, yes? Let's see if that's true."

There was silence before Horatio moved, sounding to go to the other corner of the room. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you're going to have a bit of a challenge for yourself and I'd you fail, it's almost certain you'll die. You'll probably die if you succeed too." Chelsea heard two small objects hit the ground towards the middle of the room. "You were supposed to take every hit, every cut, every mark that my friend over here took unless it killed one of my people. Unfortunately for you, Elizabeth didn't kill my woman on the field. You've got medical experience and a companion who can only listen to you, I wish you the best of luck."

A shot rang out in the room, the sound of it piercing Chelsea's ears and making them ring for a few moments afterwards. She waited until she heard the door shut before she said anything. "Horatio, what's happening?"

She got nothing in response for over a minute before she heard a long sigh come from the opposite side of the room. "I need you to help, please."

"Tell me what to do and I'm on it."

"Start by getting on the floor, you're going to want to be on your hands and knees." He sounded like he was struggling, but Chelsea couldn't hear him moving. She did as he said, easing her way to the ground. "Start going straight and in two places, start going to your right."

"What am I looking for?"

She heard a pained chuckle. "Given the condition of your eyes, nothing." Chelsea started crawling in the directions he had given her. "Stop, feel around your right leg. A needle and thread." She felt around her leg until something metal pricked her, grabbing the needle and the thread that was next to her. "Follow my voice, there's nothing in your way right now."

She crawled towards him until she felt a hand reach out to stop her, getting something on her when he touched her.

Chelsea felt the hand, putting the needle and thread in his palm, getting a sigh in response. "I need you to do one more thing." He reached out, taking her right in in his and pulling it closer. He rested it on what Chelsea figured was the wound. "I need you to take the bullet out. Your fingers are smaller than mine and because of your current state, your body is going to recognize that your hand is somewhere it's not supposed to be and rush to get it out." She could tell from where his hand was that he was having a difficult time breathing.

She did as he requested, sliding two fingers into the wound and going as far as she could before she reached what she thought was the bullet, trapping it between her two fingers and taking her hand out. She heard a muffled groan before she backed away from him.

---

Elizabeth and Joseph had stayed in the medical center waiting for Horatio, Chelsea, and Milo to return. They waited for hours before Milo finally showed up by himself.

Joseph quickly confronted him. "Where is Chelsea and Horatio? They went after you before the sun even came out."

"They left after they found me, we separated before the sun came out." Milo seemed pretty concerned. "Are you sure they didn't just slip past you guys and go home?"

"Elizabeth, go check with Grady to see if Chelsea's there, Milo, go to Horatio's, Lecia should be there. I'm going to go to Zachary's to see if they ended up there for some reason."

Milo did what Joseph said, going straight to Horatio's house. Lecia opened the door and let him in, seeming a bit off. "Milo, is everything okay?"

He nodded. "Has Horatio been home at all last night or this morning?" She shook her head. "Can I look around, please?"

"Uh, sure, but what's going on?" Lecia followed Milo to Horatio's bedroom.

Milo started looking around, seeing the bed was still made and cold. "He and Chelsea left town early this morning to go after me and as far as Joseph's aware, they haven't come back." He looked over the dirty clothes basket for a moment before coming to the conclusion that Horatio hadn't even been home to change.

"Yeah, I haven't seen either of them. I saw them leaving town together at like three thirty last night, though." Lecia crossed her arms, following Milo to the front door. "Maybe they're in the next town over? Horatio goes for pretty long walks out there, maybe Chelsea went along with him."

---

Joseph had gone to Zachary's house, finding that he hadn't been the only one in the house recently. He immediately noticed things were out of place as if someone had been going through it.

He went into the kitchen, finding a few scattered papers on the table. He looked through them, noticing that the writing didn't belong to Zachary but there was a common trend. Each page started with a single letter followed by an address, a paragraph that seemed to be detailing a person, then a number at the bottom.

He started to put the papers in order based on the number at the bottom before the front door opened, Elizabeth and Milo meeting him at the table. "Elizabeth, can't you track her with the gene?"

"No, but I can try to take over her body." Elizabeth took a seat at the table, putting her hands on the table in front of her, taking a deep breath. She sat in silence for a minute before releasing the breath she had taken. "Horatio's hurt pretty bad, I couldn't tell where they are based on what I saw but they're still together in a room with basically nothing in it." Elizabeth sorted through the papers, picking out a specific one at the bottom. "These are coordinates, what are the chances it'll take us to them?"

Joseph shrugged, taking the paper in his hand. "Pretty low, but it's still worth a shot. I'm going to check it out. Elizabeth, I need you to get in contact with Zachary and Isaac, they deserve to know what's happening with Chelsea."

"What about the new resistance lady?"

"No, our people are our priority, she's not going anywhere but there's probably not much time for those two." Joseph hurried to leave the house, going to his own home to gather a few things before leaving the town with the paper in hand.

[Isaac and Zachary both go]

Because Chelsea is involved, I think it would be out of character if either of them stayed behind. It will be interesting to see Zachary and Isaac work together. Especially since Isaac was the one responsible for almost getting Zachary killed, back in the day. However, the woman most important to them is in danger and they must work together. Isaac has plenty of resources he can use to help with the rescue. 

Before Zachary left, he had told Joseph that it was about time that Anthony and Alice went home. Joseph followed the instructions by taking them back to headquarters the very next morning.

After they went home, the next two weeks went by quietly and slowly. The new resistance's almost constant presence completely disappeared enough to alone most people to let their guard down and relax again.

Horatio had spent most of the fourteen days working on his own, having gone back to his reclusive ways now that Chelsea was gone. Elizabeth had removed his stitches for him and as soon as she was finished with removing them, he disappeared from the town as he typically did.

It was a Thursday when a family of four arrived in the town, the parents being shaken up but masking it incredibly well while the children made no effort in hiding it, sticking close to their parents.

Jude was the first one to spot them while they slowly made their way into the residential area of the town, he told Milo and then ran out of the house to greet the new guests.

Joseph managed to cut the boy off before he reached them. He stood face to face with the father who stood a few inches taller than him but didn't seem to be interested in a confrontation. "Sir, you've got a few cuts. We have a doctor if you'd like to fix that up."

He shook his head, looking over the woman Joseph assumed to be his wife and the children. "I don't require that, thank you. What's your name, stranger?"

"Joseph, and you?"

The man stuck out a hand that Joseph cautiously shook. "David Carter." He then turned to the blonde woman who stood as tall as Joseph himself. "My wife, Sarah. Our daughter and our son, Gwen and Jack."

Joseph looked to see the boy in the UFO shirt focused on something behind Joseph. He pointed and then pulled on his mother's shirt. "Who's that?"

Sarah gently whispered to the boy. "I'm not sure, but let's stay put for now, okay?"

Joseph turned to look behind him, seeing Jude still standing and watching. Joseph motioned the boy over, putting a hand on his shoulder when he reached them. "This is Jude." Jude raised his hand slowly to wave at the other boy as Joseph returned his attention to David. "So, Mr. Carter, what can we do for you?"

"The sun is setting and for right now, I just want to get my family somewhere where they can sleep in peace and get a shower and a meal."

Joseph nodded. "I understand, but I have to ask a few questions before I can grant anything. It's a safety measure, I do hope you understand. Can you start by telling me where you came from? It's not often we see people walking through here."

---

The day started out pretty normal for David, he woke up and immediately started driving. Sarah had a contract to fulfill at headquarters and as she normally was, she had gotten ahead of her time limit.

The family had been living in the same RV for about four years now and a different one for years before that when they had to upgrade to provide more space for the family after Jack began becoming more active.

They were only a few hours away from their destination when they spotted a boy, a red-headed teenager walking along the middle of the road by himself.

David didn't hesitate to stop, then Sarah jumped to her feet and went to the door that led to the actual area of the RV that the family lived in. She stayed in the door as she spoke to the boy.

Sarah turned for a single second and in that time, the boy she was talking to had pulled a gun on her and summoned multiple to do the same. He ordered her to step off the RV and then got on himself. By the time David went to go find Sarah, he had basically walked into a gun pointing right back at him.

The same red-headed boy that sat in the middle of the road ordered David to hand over his phone and wallet, which he did, then led him to the door and told him to go outside with his family.

When he stepped out of the RV, there was a small flash of light and a slight push on his back before the door behind him slammed and the RV hurried away, quickly going in the same direction the family was already going.

David's first priority was ensuring his family was okay. He worked hard to calm Jack down, the boy's trembling only being matched by an actual earthquake. Sarah worked on calming Gwen, the family only considering moving when the children were calm.

After an hour of walking, they had noticed a car driving pretty slow near them, all of them getting a bit of a scare when an older gentleman drove up to them with his window rolled down. He spoke directly to David, asking if the family needed a ride because they looked lost.

David and Sarah agreed to accept the man's help, David sitting up front with the man and Sarah in the back with the kids. The man said he was going to take them to headquarters and spoke under his breath for a good majority of the time he spoke to David.

He locked the doors when they were passing through a town and started talking about "people like you freaks." Sarah quickly questioned what the man meant and he told her exactly what he was thinking.

"No normal person gets their stuff taken from the Voyagers. Voyagers get their stuff taken from the Voyagers. You pissed off your own group and they got you back and now I'm doing my job as a law abiding citizen of Onyx and turning the four of you in."

It escalated to an argument before the man started threatening David, who took the wheel from his hands and ended up steering the car into a telephone pole. Sarah had grabbed the kids as soon as she realized what was going on.

She and the kids got out of the car while David searched the man and found his phone, calling an ambulance and then leaving with his family.

---

"That's how we ended up here, the full story." David noticed that while he told the story, he had gathered the attention of some of the locals as they stood and watched him.

Joseph seemed to look past the family, prompting David to turn around and see a man with curly brown hair behind them. "Welcome back, did you happen to see any of this?"

"Yep. I saw the RV drive by while I was on my way out of town, I saw the guy picking them up outside the diner and an ambulance running in the same direction half an hour later. I also know the people he was talking about, so I'd say he's telling the truth."

The man turned to go towards one of the houses, David calling out to him. "You're going to admit that you were watching us and not even give a name?"

He faced him for a moment, giving a slow nod. "Sounds right to me." He stayed in place, watching David before giving a sigh. "My name is Horatio, I'm a doctor here. You can come visit me if you want to fix up your face because I'm pretty sure there's still glass in it."

David brushed his face off for a moment before turning to Joseph, giving a questioning look. Joseph looked to be unphased by the man's attitude. "I'm sorry, he's a bit on edge because of some recent events that have been happening to him. He's normally not very different from what you just saw but he gets his jobs done."

Sarah looked to be making direct eye contact with a woman who had two young boys with her. A man who looked like her was with her, a small girl with red hair in his arms. They were whispering to each other before the woman started making eye contact with Sarah. "Who are those two?"

Joseph briefly turned to see who Sarah was talking about. "Elizabeth and Milo, they're siblings. Milo is Jude's father."

Sarah looked at the boy who was talking to her son, seeing he had blond hair where Milo had brown and the young girl on his arms had red. "I take it Jude's adopted?"

Joseph nodded. "He is. I believe he's been with Milo for most of his life at this point. Milo's wife is a doctor here as well. Elizabeth has some experience in first aid as well." He then pointed out a blonde woman who stood pretty close to a man in a tie dye shirt. "Amanda over there is another one. So your options aren't really limited here."

David turned to see Gwen focused on something that was happening at the end of the neighborhood, two teenage boys eventually coming into his sight, covered in mud. "What happened over there?"

Joseph only looked for a minute before shaking his head. "I'm going to guess one of them fell into the creek and the other joined in just for the hell of it." He sighed, motioning a woman with brunette hair over. "This is Marie, she'll show you where you can stay for as long as you'd like. The townspeople have a community dinner most every night about six or six thirty, you're more than welcome to join us."

Joseph then quickly turned back to the teenage boys, hurrying towards them and whispering something to them as he reached them. Milo called for Jude, the young boy waving to Jack as he went on his way. "Bye! I'll talk to you tomorrow!"

David looked to his son to see a smile on his face as he seemed to have calmed down after talking to Jude. The locals ended up going their own way, Marie taking them to a house nearby and then passing off a key to David.

Sarah looked around the house before going back out front, seeing that Elizabeth and Milo were still outside with the three boys and the girl in his arms. The boys were playing together in the front yard that they stood in front of.

She slowly approached them, their conversation ending as Sarah got close. Elizabeth gave a kind smile to her. "Hiya, welcome to the neighborhood. I'm Elizabeth, this is Milo and it would appear that we're somewhat neighbors." She pointed to the house directly across from the one Marie had taken them to. "I live right across from you."

"It's nice to meet you guys, Joseph said you two are siblings?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Yep, Milo's my brother. Our mom lives in town, she's probably just asleep right now." She looked past Sarah for a moment. "Boys, come here for a minute." The three boys stopped playing and went to her, standing almost in a line from tallest to shortest. The tallest had black hair and green eyes, the one behind him had the same green eyes with brown hair, and the shortest was Jude. "Whitlock and Victor are my sons." She then turned to Milo, motioning at the young girl in his arms. "Nora and Jude are his kids."

"Joseph said Milo's married, are you?"

"I am, my husband's out of town on business with Marie's boyfriend." Elizabeth then looked at the boys, who were still lined up. "We should probably get going, I gotta get the kids cleaned up before dinner."

"Oh, alright then, it was nice meeting you two."

Elizabeth started down the street, the two taller boys going with her. Milo stuck around for a moment. "You seem a bit nervous, is everything okay?"

Sarah was surprised to hear someone ask her that, especially someone she had just met. "I mean, it has been one really weird day. Would you say this town is safe? After the day the kids have had, I don't want them to be afraid too."

Milo gave a reassuring smile. "Of course it is. We have a guy who patrols nightly and we have cameras along the streets that are always being watched, we're all pretty big on safety here, especially when it comes to the kids."

---

It was during dinner that Isabel finally confronted Horatio on his own.

She knew he knew more about what was going on than he was telling anyone and she wasn't okay with only him knowing what was going on.

He immediately knew something was up by her body language, rolling his eyes with a sigh. "You're mad, what did I do?"

"It's not what you did, it's what you're doing." Isabel crossed her arms, keeping her voice lowered. "What is it that you know about the new resistance?"

"I can't tell you that."

Isabel scoffed. "Like how you can't tell anyone who it is in the group that's actively trying to kill us?"

He nodded. "Exactly like that."

"You're making the choice not to tell anyone, why?"

"Because you don't need to know, it's being handled and that's all you should care about. I understand wanting to know all the details but I can't keep you updated on everything so you're going to fall under the impression that nothing is happening regarding the situation when things are constantly happening, you'll get scared and nervous and that will rub off on the others, I can't let that happen." Horatio seemed determined to keep it a secret, but Isabel knew all too well that she could get him to talk if she really wanted to.

She remembered that Chelsea had to guess before he would tell her if she was right or wrong but she also knew he and Chelsea were somewhat close. Or at least as close as he was going to let anyone get to him. She could use it to her advantage as she and Chelsea shared plenty of physical qualities, which could easily be used to get the information she wanted from him.

Isabel was also aware that he made frequent trips out of the town, so money was likely important to him for his travels.

[Try making some guesses]
[Try to seduce him for information]
[Try to bribe him for information]
[Leave it alone]

David and Sarah took the kids to dinner so they could get to know the people who lived there. They sat with Elizabeth, Milo and their kids but kept their eyes on everyone in the room.

They saw Amanda was with the same man from earlier who had a brunette woman by his side. Marie was with Joseph and the two teenage boys, Horatio was talking with a blonde woman. People kept coming into the room, heading out so it was a little difficult to keep track of what was going on.

Milo and Elizabeth had been talking most of the time, only stopping when a smaller blonde woman hurried into the room, she looked around for a moment before spotting Horatio and going to him, leaning down to talk to him while he was seated.

He quickly jumped up and left the building, the woman who had just come in following after him and the woman who had been with him going to Joseph, who promptly left his own seat with Marie, giving Milo a tap on the shoulder when walking past him. Milo and Elizabeth shared a look before he handed Nora to her and excused himself.

Sarah started tapping her fingers and then got up herself, following the group out. When she got out, she found Milo, Joseph, Horatio, the blonde woman, and three men she had yet to see before today.

"They stole an RV and that's probably how they got to Santa Fe." Joseph spoke with the other three men.

Horatio crossed his arms and shook his head, looking back to the men. "That couldn't be it. Santa Fe is almost eighteen hours away, for them to get there and be noticed then for you guys to come back, that's thirty-six hours and the RV has only been gone for six."

A woman with silver hair came out of the dining hall, leaning against the door next to Sarah. "What happened now?"

Sarah shrugged, turning to see the woman next to her. "Who are you?"

"Leona." She stayed in place, watching the group. "They didn't really make it a secret that something was up, they just keep it between themselves. Constantly." She scoffed, going back inside.

As soon as Leona left, Horatio dismissed himself from the group and went to Sarah. She looked down, cupping her hands in front of her. "Sorry, I was eavesdropping."

"I don't care, I was hoping you would." Sarah looked up to see a smile on his face. "Listen, you had a camera on you when you came here, did you happen to catch any pictures of the people who stole your RV?"

She nodded slowly, feeling the eyes of all the people in the separated group landing on her. "A few, yeah, why?"

"I need them."

"You're a doctor here, why do you need them?" Sarah crossed her arms, getting a strange feeling as the blonde woman separated herself from the group and approached the two of them.

"Doctor, private investigator, security guard, nomad." She had her arms held tight to her chest with a gentle smile on her face as she stopped in front of Sarah. "He's a lot of things, it just depends on what he wants for the day."

Horatio gave a nod. "Sarah, this is Chelsea. She was one of the others with Elizabeth's husband and Marie's boyfriend." He started back to the group, Chelsea going with him. They kept looking back as if they expected Sarah to follow, the group going silent when the two of them rejoined and waited for Sarah.

She made her way to the group, looking over the men she didn't know. Chelsea quickly recognized the look on Sarah's face as confusion and took to introducing them. "Marshal, Pierre, and Zachary. They're pretty much in charge here."

"It's nice to meet you all, but I have a question while the topic is still relevant." Sarah waited until the group seemed ready to hear it. "When we got picked up by the old guy, he accused us of being Voyagers but I haven't heard a thing about them for years, are they still active around here? I'd like to know so I can keep my kids safe."

Zachary looked at Horatio and sighed. "Come ti sei perso qualcosa di così grande?"

"Non volevamo spaventarli ancora di più." Horatio shrugged and crossed his arms.

Sarah looked curiously between the two. "Where did you two learn Italian from? This doesn't seem like the town that would prioritize learning languages."

Zachary looked back to Sarah and gave a smile. "Most of my family is from here, but there's a few that were in Italy and I used to visit them frequently. I learned Italian so I could communicate when I visited with them."

"As for your first question, no, the Voyagers aren't active at all anymore." Horatio flashed a smile again. "You, your husband, and your kids are as safe as can be here."

Milo pulled his arms close to him with a sigh as he looked at the ground. "I gotta get back to Nora, I'll see you guys in a bit."

"Col senno di poi, una scelta orribile di parole." Horatio's smile faded as he shook his heads.

"I have to agree with you on that one." Zachary looked a little sad himself, but he quickly straightened up.

Horatio stayed silent for a minute, still shaking his head at himself. "Anyways, the camera. Can we please have the picture you took? We know the group's that are active around here and I could probably tell you where they're from."

Sarah contemplated it for a moment before taking the key out of her pocket and nodding. "The camera is at the house, feel free to follow me." She took the six of them back to the house, still stepping in cautiously as if she was entering someone else's home. She went back to the bedroom and grabbed it from on top of the dresser, turning it on and scrolling to the first picture she took. The group waited out in the living room for her.

She gave Horatio the camera, who made room for the other five to see the pictures. He scrolled through them for a moment, his face going dark as he whispered something to Joseph. After they finished looking over them, he turned the camera off and gave it back to Sarah. She returned the camera back to the bedroom, going back outside with the group and locking the front door on her way out.

As she turned around, she saw a small, pale woman with matted brown hair standing in front of the group. Joseph quickly took Sarah by the arm and rushed back to the dining hall with her, not letting her hear what it was the woman was talking about.

---

"Gabbie, what are you doing back here?" Zachary called out to her first, having some distance between her and himself.

"I'll be happy to tell you, thank you for asking." She took a few steps closer to the group, then froze in place when she was standing directly in front of Horatio. "Ever since I learned some interesting facts about Horatio, he's become even more confusing in my mind and since he decided it was appropriate to look into our group, I thought I would return the favor and do a little investigative work. Chelsea, you're close with him, but do you know his last name? Do any of you know his last name?"

The group stayed silent, prompting Horatio to answer himself. "Villa, my full name is Horatio Remo Villa."

Pierre's face immediately dropped, but he remained silent. Gabbie looked over to him and gave a bright smile. "Excellent, one of you already understands." She then turned back to Horatio. "You said you're from Canada, so it would make sense that you know French but you've really surprised everyone here, including myself, by speaking fluent Italian. How do you know Italian?"

"My family emigrated to Canada from Italy before I was born, my mother speaks it because she can't speak English or French."

Gabbie nodded, turning to Pierre. "Now, I now these others don't understand, but the only Villa family I know and could even find record of is-"

"Cristiano Villa, current leader of the Wanderers. He and his wife emigrated to Canada from Italy as a favor to the last leader of the Wanderers and ended up in control when he was executed. They had four sons who stopped showing up in public after they were eight years old and that led people to question if the Villa's were killing them on their eighth birthday because of some weird tradition of ritual." Pierre cleared his throat. "I'm not sure if I can believe what you're trying to say."

Gabbie snickered. "If there was a birth certificate to find, I would have done it. I did find more information on his brothers, though. Cristiano and Ines had four sons, Horatio being the oldest then there was Orsino, Camillo, and Filippo was their youngest. Horatio and Filippo left Canada, one went to work for Onyx and the other went to work against it then they both ended up against it."

Chelsea looked to Horatio, as if to ask if what Gabbie was saying was true. He gave a slow nod in response.

"And do you want to tell them what ended up of Filippo?" Gabbie inquired only to get silence in response. "Fine, I will. Filippo is still among your group going by the name Filip. And what about your former fiancee, Mona, what happened to her?"

"She fucking died, Gabbie." Horatio snapped at her, Chelsea going to his side and whispering something to him. He sighed, looking defeated. "Mona was executed by Onyx because she showed signs of being aggressive towards the organization and it was during a time when they were cracking down on the security of the organization more than anything else."

Gabbie flashed a smile. "Excellent, that's great."

"Gabriella Adkins from Sturgis, South Dakota. Your grades were pretty bad in your classes with the exception of gym, every single year. Raised in multiple foster homes with all of your foster parents dying in accidents around the house and your biological parents ending up murdered, disemboweled and all evidence pointing to you. You completely disappeared before you could be tried. You've gathered a collection of traffic violations and your final arrest was for driving on a suspended license." Horatio put his hands in his pockets. "Tell me, Gabriella. If you know me and looked extensively into my records, why was I arrested when I was fourteen?"

She took a few steps back as he moved forward. "I don't know.."

"Because you didn't look into that. It wasn't fourteen either, it was eighteen." Horatio shook his head. "Is that all you wanted, Gabriella?"

"Yep, I would say I'm satisfied." She grinned, turning on her heel and walking away.

The rest of the group looked at Horatio, waiting for him to say something. "I need a few minutes by myself."

Zachary, Marshal, and Pierre listened, going back to the dining hall. Chelsea stayed in place. "I understand why you didn't tell anyone. It's not like you were obligated to tell anyone either way."

He nodded slightly. "Thank you. Filip got in contact with our dad and he's determined to come here and stop the new resistance himself. As far as I'm aware, he's the only one coming but it's entirely possible that Orsino and Camillo show up too, they've always been real close to dad."

"And I'm guessing you were closer to your mom?"

"Filip was close to dad as well. I'm completely fluent in Italian because I spent more time with and was closer to my mom. My brothers could probably hold up a conversation with one of the Crusaders, but I would have to take it slow because I'm not as good in French."

"How long ago did you find out about your dad coming around?"

He shrugged. "About a week ago. If he wasn't here today then it's going to be tomorrow. When he gets here, you can't say anything about who your dad is or your place in Onyx; in fact, it would probably be better for you to just avoid him, same with whatever brothers may show up."

He resigned from the conversation as soon as Filip showed up, looking pretty concerned. The brothers went their own way, having a hushed conversation.

---

The next morning, Chelsea woke up alone as she typically did. She got ready and left the house, which had gone to an uncomfortable silence now that Alice was gone.

The town itself was pretty quiet, except for the children who played out in the yards. Sarah, Elizabeth, and Milo stood out watching them while talking with each other.

Chelsea spotted Horatio leaving his house just as she passed it, she stopped and waited for him, only continuing on as he joined her. "Are you feeling better today?"

He shrugged. "It still feels weird. You were the only one who knew a little bit about me and now there's four people who know everything I spent years trying to hide. I didn't really care about you guys finding out Filip is my brother, I figured that was a bit obvious, but everything else I was trying to keep under wraps."

"Why were you arrested at eighteen?" Chelsea looked up to him while they walked.

"Bar fight. After that, my mom got scared because I got arrested and kept pressuring me to leave, then Mona died and it just felt like I needed to go." The two were quickly cut off by Isabel, who seemed determined for whatever reason. "Isabel, hey."

Isabel nodded to Chelsea to acknowledge her, then turned her attention to Horatio. "I've been thinking about what we know about the new resistance's inside person and I'd like to make a few guesses."

"Let's go somewhere more private and I'm happy to let you guess, but there are people here who don't even know that we're Voyagers, I doubt they know about the new resistance." He turned to Chelsea, giving her a soft smile. "I'll talk to you later."

He and Isabel continued on a walk of their own, Chelsea went back to talk with Sarah, Milo, and Elizabeth. "Sarah, how are your kids adjusting?"

She seemed more at ease today than she did the night before. "Jack's adjusting just fine, he's just been itching to play with the other kids. Gwen isn't taking to it so easily, I haven't been able to get her to leave the house. She said it's not fair that there's three kids in Jack's range but none in hers so she's been moping about that."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen."

Chelsea chuckled, shaking her head. "Well, there's two that are in her range but I'm not sure you'd be for it." Sarah looked over, seeming a bit curious. "There's two boys here that are sixteen, almost seventeen. They're both pretty rowdy boys but they have good hearts, firm believers in what they stand for."

Milo nodded. "Gregory and Devin, they live together in the house down there. They're the ones you saw yesterday covered in mud."

"They're sixteen? Could have fooled me, they look small for their age."

"So does Elizabeth but that doesn't change that she's close to forty." Milo snickered, looking at his younger sister.

She rolled her eyes with a groan. "Yeah yeah, whatever you say." Chelsea noticed now that there was a foot difference in height between Elizabeth and Sarah, which was a bit amusing to her.

"No Nora today?" Chelsea crossed her arms, looking at Milo.

"Nope, no Nora today. Alyssa wanted to spend some time with her since she feels that she's been distancing herself from the kids. She didn't want to overwhelm herself by adding Jude to the mix so I told her I'd let him play himself out and she can have him this evening and I'll take Nora."

Sarah cleared her throat, crossing her arms. "Chelsea, did Horatio ever tell you guys what he got from the pictures?"

Chelsea thought of the pictures from the night before, knowing she recognized most of the culprits that Sarah had photographed. She gave a small nod, her face falling. "Yeah, he did… He recognized them, told us from where, where we could find them now and what we could do to keep them from messing with you guys again. Now it's up to Zachary on whether we try to recover the RV since it would be a high risk situation to send anyone into." She then turned to Elizabeth and Milo. "Speaking of, has anyone seen him today?"

"Medical center."

Chelsea excused herself from the group, going straight to the medical center and running into Leona and Filip on the way there. The three of them walked together, Filip and Leona ending their conversation as Chelsea joined them.

As soon as the door opened, the room went silent. Zachary was with an older man whose hair had greyed, a woman with her bunch of curly brown hair tied behind her, and two younger men who stood taller than the woman but shorter than the man.

Filip froze in the doorway, then hurried to the woman and wrapped her in a hug. He spoke to her in Italian, which told Chelsea that the people in front of her were the Villa family.

The older man, Cristiano, stared straight at Chelsea with a stern look on his face. He then turned to Filip. "Filippo, where's your brother? Is he here?"

Filip let go of his mother and stood up straight, giving a nod. "Yes sir, he's here. I don't know where since I haven't seen him today."

Leona whispered under her breath. "Filip has a brother? And parents?"

Chelsea chuckled, heading out the door to go find Horatio.

She found him with Isabel in the dining hall, breaking up their conversation. "I guess later is now, there's some people here for you in the medical center."

She walked there with him. "Is Filip scared of your dad or something? He asked Filip a question and out of nowhere, Filip stood like he was a fence board and talking like he was meeting the head of an organization for the first time."

He shook his head. "No, that's just how they were raised."

"But not you?"

"No, I told you that I spent most of my time focusing on school and the animals, my brothers learned more from him and I learned more from my mom."

Chelsea gave a slight smile. "That makes sense."

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

"I mean you said you were always with the animals and I know that you do care for people deep down. You've got a good heart. I'm not saying that Filip doesn't, he's just not as comfortable with it."

Horatio rolled his eyes. "Chelsea, you are one of two people here who know almost everything there is to know about me, I wouldn't say I'm nearly as comfortable being open as you're making me out to be."

Ines had gone outside since Chelsea left and was looking around, her face immediately lighting up as she saw Horatio and hurried to him, pulling him down so she could hug him and kiss his cheek. She spoke faster than Chelsea could attempt to translate, a wide smile on her face with tears building up in her eyes. She motioned to Chelsea and asked a question, getting a yes in response, then she asked him about the scar that she could see on his wrist.

Chelsea took a moment to recognize what Ines was wearing, black slacks with a multicolored shirt tucked into them and black boots on.

While she was still talking with Horatio, the two younger men and Filip came out of the medical center and approached the three of them. Horatio greeted them and continued on with his conversation with Ines.

"Chels, these are our brothers." Filip stood next to her, the two other men standing straight in front of her. "Orsino and Camillo." Chelsea immediately noticed that the only one who stood taller than Orsino was Horatio himself, but that Orsino had far less hair that while still brown, was straight as Cristiano's was. Camillo was the shortest of the brothers and the only one of them to have a beard.

Zachary and Cristiano left the medical center and stood at the steps of the building, Cristiano giving a sharp whistle that stopped all conversation. "Boys, come here." He then said something to Ines, who stood in place as her sons left her side.

As Zachary and Cristiano started talking with the brothers, Chelsea turned to Ines.

Ines took her hands and put them to her chest. "Ines Villa." She then put her hands out towards Chelsea. "You?"

"Chelsea." Chelsea flashed a smile towards Ines.

Ines simply nodded. "Chelsea, okay." She then went to join her husband at the steps of the medical center. Chelsea went with her but stood next to Zachary, not catching a word that was being shared as they were all speaking in Italian. It was after Horatio said something that Ines snapped at him. "Stupido, moriresti!"

Chelsea could tell by the look on Ines' face that she wasn't happy with whatever the topic was.

Zachary leaned down, whispering to Chelsea after he saw she looked lost. "Horatio asked about going to get the RV back, said he knew the area and Orsino asked why he knew the area. He told them about what you two had to go through and Ines doesn't want him going back, she called him stupid and said he would die. Orsino and Filip are all for it because there's four of them and Horatio knows the area, it's a solid plan in their book. Cristiano and Camillo aren't sure about it. It doesn't really matter who is for or against it though, that includes Ines, because in their household Cristiano makes the decisions and that's not going to change just because their location has changed. He's already gone off on Horatio three different times."

"Why? The conversation has only been going on for like five minutes, how could he have said three different things that Cristiano doesn't agree with in five minutes?"

"It's not the things he's saying, it's the things he's doing and how he's talking to Cristiano." Zachary crossed his arms, a slight look of discomfort on his face. "We should probably let them have some space. I'm also only saying that because I can't stand hearing him talk to them like that."

They promptly left, leaving the family to make their own decision.

---

It was dinner when Chelsea saw Horatio again, he seemed tired up until Isabel started talking to him and he left the dining hall without saying a word in return to her.

Chelsea went after him, only catching up to him when he made it back to his house and stopped to get his key. He went to unlock the door, Chelsea stopping him by grabbing hold of the hand he held the key in. "What was that about?"

"I just didn't want to deal with her questions right now." Horatio tried to pull his hand back from her, prompting Chelsea to hold on tighter. "What do you want?"

"You're being weird and I'm almost certain that it has something to do with what your dad was saying earlier. What's going on?" Chelsea let go of his hand, letting him unlock the door.

He went inside, leaving the door open for her to follow inside before he shut it and took a seat on the couch. "He did what Cristiano Villa always does; took control of a situation that he should be the last person to have control over and made some horribly offensive remarks while he did so."

Chelsea sat next to him, noticing that this was the most update she'd seen him. "What did he say that upset you this bad?"

He seemed to be deliberating on telling her before put his head in his hands, tapping his feet for a minute but he sighed and raised his head again with a smile on his face. "It's nothing, I'll be fine. Amanda mentioned that Naomi's parents are hosting this big formal gathering and that the Richardson's are almost certain the new resistance will be there. Zachary and my dad agreed that my brothers and I are going to go with Milo, Cyrus, Marshal, Gus, Carlos, and Marie to keep an eye on things. My dad suggested you go as well since you're pretty well adjusted to high profile events and the threats surrounding them. He thinks you would be a good influence on the attending people if something does happen and you remain calm and help others calm down."

"What did Zachary say about that?"

"He said it was up to you. We're leaving as soon as the sun comes up so we have to sneak into the building and come up with a plan before people start arriving."

Chelsea looked at the clock, giving a shrug. "You're not giving me much time to choose. Good thing I don't need much time, huh? I'm in."