By the time Dad got home that night, Keisha had been in a trance all day, staring blankly at a wall as she concentrated on listening to the bug in Zelena’s shoe as the rest of us decided to try and fight each other to try and train before we actually had to fight against someone.

Dad walked into the house and saw me trying to break out of Braylen’s grasp as he held me in the air. Electricity shot from one of the sockets in the kitchen as Braylen broke his concentration off of me. I fell to the ground and pinned Braylen to the ground, resting a knee on his back. Dad’s eyes widened. "What is going on here!"

"Just a little bit of training, sir." Braylen said as I got off of him, messing with some parts of my bangs that had fallen out of the bobby pins I clipped them back with.

"How long have you kids been training?"

"Noonish." Braylen said, shrugging.

"Did school get cancelled or something?"

"Not exactly." I said bitterly, crossing my arms as I glared at Dad.

"What do you mean?"

"You have anything you’d like to tell me, Father?" I said, walking towards the stairs. "Anything about the divorce, specifically."

Dad froze for a second. "I don’t think so. Why?"

"Really? What happened to no more secrets, Dad?" I asked, crossing my arms as I paused on a step, leaning against the wall as the stair railing dug into my side.

"I… Don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Oh you don’t know what I’m talking about, Dad? You really don’t know what I’m talking about?" I asked angrily, the microwave going crazy in the corner. "You are trying to tell me that you don’t know!"

"Anneliese, I really don’t know-"

"Dad. Attic. Now." I said, looking over at Braylen. "Edward, check on Keisha since she’s been in that trance for an hour."

"O-Okay." Braylen said nervously as I marched upstairs, pulling down the ladder as I climbed up, angrily glaring at the ladder as Dad climbed up, giving me a confused look.

"Anna, what’s going on?"

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me the real reason that you and Mom are getting a divorce."

"I thought you would have-"

"What? You thought I would have had a premonition of Mom and Jodee walking down the aisle in matching wedding dresses!" I asked angrily. "How could I have when I haven’t even seen Mom in weeks!"

"I didn’t know how to tell you that the woman who raised you was living a lie and that, in all technicalities, you shouldn’t even exist because she shouldn’t have even married me in the first place." Dad said quickly. "Anna, I’m sorry. I was struggling to come to grasp with it myself. Your mother and I should have sat you down and told you."

"Yeah. You should have." I said, glaring at Dad again.

"Anna, I know that you’re angry at me-"

"I’m not angry at you."

"You aren’t?"

"No."

"Good, I was scared that you were pissed-"

"Oh, I am pissed."

Dad hesitated. "You are?"

"Yeah. I am. I’m pissed that I had to find out about this from my school’s rumors page on Instagram instead of from my parents." I said, my fists shaking. "Do you realize how fucked up that is, Dad? That I had to find out the truth from an Instagram page because my parents were too chickenshit to tell me?"

"What do you mean that you found out from an Instagram page?" Dad asked hesitantly.

I explained everything that had happened this morning to Dad angrily, leaning against the window as I avoided his gaze. By the time I was done, Dad was shaking his head. "Cheese and crackers, is that why you kids have been here all day?"

"Just about."

Dad sat down on one of the cardboard boxes on the ground, looking up at me. "So? What’s the game plan?"

"Huh?"

"The game plan?"

"Yeah."

"Obviously, you kids have some scheme up your sleeves. There’s more to it than training for when you kids debut at the end of the month. So, what is the game plan?"

"I don’t think I should tell you."

"Why?"

"Because you’ll just turn around and tell Beth our plan. She won’t approve of what we’re doing, so we’re going around the adults."

"Anneliese, are you sure-"

"Dad, they targeted us. They targeted my friends. They targeted my family. I am going to take them down, brick by brick if it means I can protect you and Mom and everyone else I care about."

"Yes, but look at what happened the last time you went against these people, Anneliese. You got shot and ended up in the hospital."

"Don’t you think I know that, Dad? I see that scar every day in the mirror, every day I wake up."

"I’m just telling you that you need to be careful. You almost died."

"And I don’t regret it."

"You don’t?"

"No, I don’t." I said, staring daggers at Dad as I kept talking. "If I had just sat down and let her get shot in the head, knowing that I could have done something to prevent that, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself."

"But you put yourself in danger-"

"Heroes do that all the time. Why am I so different?"

"Because you’re still a kid."

"Everyone was a kid at some point, Dad." I said, sighing heavily. "Ever since I was little, you’ve taught me to always fight back against what I think is wrong. To protect those who I care about. To learn from doing instead of from reading. I am trying to find my way, Dad, but I can’t do that if you’re going to keep me away from the danger."

"But you could get yourself killed."

"I could get myself killed doing just about anything." I looked over at Dad. "You just have to give it a chance."

Dad sighed exhaustedly. "God, I hate it when you turn my own words against me."

"And guess who taught me how to do that?"

"Yeah yeah." Dad rolled his eyes. "I want to talk over the plan with you kids though. I know you kids want to do this on your own, but it might help to have some insight from a person who’s actually done this kind of thing before."

"Dad, you’re a security guard."

"And before that, I was a Senior Chief Petty Officer in the Navy."

"You were? You never told me that."

"It was before your time and I didn’t want to relive some of what I’ve been through. Most of my medals are hidden in some box up here." Dad said, sighing exhaustedly. "Let me help."

I nodded. "Fine. Let’s just gather everyone downstairs."

"Thank you." Dad said as he climbed down the ladder.

When I got downstairs, Braylen and Keisha were sitting on the couch. Keisha was drinking water slowly, her glasses off of her head and on the coffee table as she drank the water. I smiled sadly. I felt bad that she’s been listening to that bug for hours. "How you doing, Keisha?"

"Could be worse. Everything just feels kinda dry right now." Keisha admitted. "That tends to happen if I use my powers for too long. Especially since we’ve been so focused on listening to whatever Zelena is doing."

"Why are you kids focused on Zelena?" Dad asked.

I pointed to the couch. "You, sit down. Edward, you go get Callum, Erika, and Koda from outside, I’ll go get Becky, Damian, and Trayvon from downstairs."

"They’re outside!"

"They needed space to train." Braylen said, shrugging as he walked to the door to the backyard.

I walked downstairs, seeing Damian struggle to grab Trayvon and Becky since Trayvon was using different metal pieces as a shield and Becky was making clones of herself appear and reappear all around the room. I cleared my throat. "Hey guys..."

Damian held up a time out sign, looking over at me. "Hey Anna. What’s up?"

"We’re having an emergency meeting."

"Why?" Becky asked, crossing her arms.

"My dad wants to talk over the plan with us."

Trayvon rolled his eyes. "I thought that we agreed on no talking to the adult figures."

"He’s forcing it out of me. I think we’re calling it a truce, but I’m not entirely sure."

"A truce?" Damian asked, tilting his head. "A truce for what?"

"Long story. Just come up here." I said, sighing heavily as I turned around and walked up the stairs.

P

The three cautiously followed me upstairs where we all gathered around the couch. Dad sat down in a chair, his feet resting on the coffee table. "Okay kids, what’s the plan?"

"Strike F.E.R.R.E.T. before they can strike us." Callum said simply.

Dad pursed his lips, looking at Callum with a confused smile. "I get that, buddy, but do you kids have an actual plan on how to do that, or are you guys just doing this by the seat of your pants?"

"We have a plan." Becky said hotly, lightly pushing my shoulder. "Tell him, Anna."

"Why do I have to tell him?"

"Because this whole idea was you and Braylen’s idea in the first place!"

"Braylen, you told them?" Damian asked angrily.

"Well, I really didn’t have a choice when someone let loose that I was the reason my parents got killed, Damian." Braylen said, shooting daggers at Damian.

"Wait..." Dad said hesitantly. "Your name isn’t Edward?"

"Oh for heaven’s sake." I said, rolling my eyes. "Dad, meet Braylen Winchester, who you know as Edward Potter. He’s the Crown Prince of England. Braylen, meet my dad."

"Anna, aren’t you forgetting something?" Trayvon teased.

Braylen sighed exhaustedly. "I’m also your daughter’s boyfriend. Are we good now? We caught up?"

"You two are dating!" Damian shrieked.

"We are calling it dating, right?"

"I think so..." I said nervously.

"Then yes. We’re dating."

"My daughter has her first boyfriend. And he’s a prince. Wow, your mother would be proud of you." Dad said, shaking his head.

"You were not kidding when you said that your mother was a Barbie fangirl." Erika said, rolling her eyes a bit. "Glad my parents aren’t the only ones who are obsessed with early 2000’s movies that have really bad animation compared to today."

"Those children are creepy." I agreed.

"Barbie?" Becky asked cautiously.

"We are gonna have to have a group movie night at some point, aren’t we?" I asked, sighing exhaustedly.

"My moms have all the movies."

"Kids, you can discuss plans later, but I still need to hear this plan." Dad interrupted.

Trayvon clapped his hands as he stared at my dad. "Okay, so last week, when Herbstreit grabbed Anna-"

"You got grabbed!"

"Dad, you neglected to tell me about Mom, I feel like I can neglect to tell you about a couple things until we’re even."

"Anna, I apolo-"

"Sir, can we get back on track, please?" Braylen begged.

"Continue."

"Anyway," Trayvon continued. "When Herbstreit grabbed Anna, he planted a bug on her that our brilliant technopath over here disabled right away, and after we talked everything over this morning, Anna planted the bug on Zelena since she’s the only member of F.E.R.R.E.T. we know for sure-"

"How do you know that she’s a member though?"

"Well, Dad, think about it. She was the one who invited Erika to that party. So if anyone was going to make sure that Erika could be there so that she could die-"

"It would be Zelena." Dad interrupted. "While that would make sense, you kids just inferred something. There’s no actual facts suggesting-"

"Actually," Erika said nervously. "I think there is."

"How?"

"Anna, you still don’t remember how you got your powers, do you?"

"All I remember is walking past the tree and then waking up to the tree disintegrated the next morning. Couple weeks later, my powers developed."

"Was Zelena with you when that happened?"

"Yeah."

"Well, assuming that you both got the same power-"

"They do." Becky confirmed. "Anna and I saw her summon electricity at the beginning of the school year when she cornered Anna in the bathroom."

"She didn’t corner me. I willingly went with her because I thought that she was going to talk to me about the fight that ended our friendship before she moved out here." I said quickly, thinking back to that exchange. "And besides, I don’t think she has the exact same power as me."

"What do you mean?" Braylen asked, leaning towards me a bit.

"Well, the only time I’ve seen her use her power was in the bathroom, but I think that the way my power works is through my emotions." I explained, holding out my hands. "I mean, you guys saw some evidence of that today. When I was on the phone with my mom, you guys said that the lights started flickering, not to mention that electricity literally starts jumping out of the wall sockets if I get angry enough."

"Oh, and let’s not forget that your bolts change color if you feel that emotion extremely enough." Braylen added.

"Are you saying that you almost caused the school to lose power just by talking to your mom?" Trayvon asked.

"I think so."

"Jesus..."

"And that’s… Not my only power." I said nervously.

"What do you mean?" Damian asked.

"I… Can maybe… See the future." I said, closing my eyes tightly.

"You can see the future." Erika stated.

"Yes."

"Is that how you-"

"Uh huh."

"Oh." Erika said, putting her head down.

Everyone hesitated to say anything for a minute or so until Becky took a deep breath and looked over at me. "How many of us-"

"Everyone except myself, Koda, and Damian."

Braylen gently put a hand on my knee. "But what if-"

"That wouldn’t make sense. Why would I have a vision of myself dying when I touched Herbstreit?"

"Because he was going to be the one who killed you. I mean… You did start coughing after that like you actually were being choked. Maybe if they directly involve you, they feel more real or something."

"I don’t know." I said, shaking my head exhaustedly.

"Well, the point I’m trying to make is that since, for all intensive purposes since we don’t know how Zelena’s power works, Zelena and Anna’s powers are extremely similar, that could explain the random electricity related attacks that have been going on recently."

"What random attacks?" Keisha asked.

"My parents have been keeping it out of the media, but since their study is by my room, I hear them talk about it. There’s been this person attacking parts of downtown with electricity attacks. That person might be Zelena. Electricity based powers are extremely rare, so it might just be an undocumented person, but until we know for sure-"

"We assume that Zelena is the person doing it and is a member of F.E.R.R.E.T.. Okay." Dad said, leaning back in his chair. "I’m with you guys on that one. Continue."

Keisha took a deep breath before continuing. "Well, we took the bug that Herbstreit tried to place on Anna and Anna managed to place it on Zelena in her shoe, which, love you for the creativity, Anna, but things sound kinda fuzzy in that boot-"

"I put it in a place she wouldn’t easily find it."

"And I’ve been listening to it since noon."

"Did you find anything?" Damian asked.

"Yeah. I found out that F.E.R.R.E.T. is staging an attack at the Super Awards and that they’re going to be meeting some person at the carnival next week."

"How did you find that out? I’m assuming that she wasn’t talking about that out loud."

"Well, it may not entirely exist, but there is a thing called multitasking." Keisha said quickly. "I heard Zelena tell one of her friends her passcode to get into her phone because her friend’s phone died, and after hearing the code I got access to Zelena’s phone and a text message chain where she was talking with a bunch of people about attacking during the Super Awards and that they were meeting an informant at the carnival next week."

"Is that legal?" Dad asked gently.

"Probably not entirely, but she gave it to me, technically speaking." Keisha said, rolling her eyes. "If anything, this is their fault because they were the ones who tried to bug us to listen in on our conversations. We’re just returning the favor."

"And what is the plan using this information, exactly?"

Callum laughed nervously. "Well, this is all new information since we just found this stuff out too, so we don’t really-"

"Divide and conquer." Braylen said, twiddling with his thumbs. "Separate into teams of two, track down who they’re dealing with, grab one of their own, and force them to talk about what they’re planning for the Super Awards."

Becky raised an eyebrow. "Did you really just come up with that?"

"War games were just about everything in my family. We played Risk every Saturday. After you’ve been playing for a while, you quickly start to get strategizing skills." Braylen said, not meeting anybody’s eyes. "That’s going to be our best bet right now. Our main goal is to figure out what they have going on for the Super Awards. Only way we can do that is if we can capture one of their own. Simple logic."

"You guys are going to get the adults involved after you… God, I can’t believe that I am even going to say this, kidnap this person, right?" Dad asked cautiously, shaking his head.

"It’s not kidnapping. It’s called making a citizen’s arrest. That is a thing here in America, right?"

"Of course we’re going to get the adults involved afterwards." I said quickly. "I’m not going to run a criminal interrogation in my own house!"

"Anna-"

"Dad, we’re gonna be fine." I said, leaning over and grabbing Dad’s hand. "You just gotta trust us."

"I know, I know, you kids just gotta be careful."

"Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join you guys." Damian said, standing up. "I have a prior engagement with my family that evening."

"That’s cool, man." Trayvon said, waving his hand flippantly. "We’ll be fine."

"Since the carnival is outdoors, we could bring Koda so that we can run some recon." Erika suggested.

"Sounds like fun!" Koda said happily.

"Okay, I guess we’re bringing Koda." I said, sighing heavily.

"Yay!"

"I gotta go." Damian said, standing up. "My dad is expecting me home for dinner tonight."

"We should all probably get going. It is getting pretty late." Becky said, looking at the clock. It was already 6:15. Had we really been training for that long?

We all got up and hugged each other, everyone but Braylen and Callum hesitating when I went up to hug them, not that I blame anyone. I wouldn’t want to be hugged by the person who can look into your future and see deeply personal things that you don’t even know yourself. When I got to Damian, he smiled at me warmly. "I’m sorry to hear about your mom, Anna. Cheating on your father with her boss, that sucks."

I paused for a second as he went in for a hug. "Yeah… Me too."

Reaching up to his neck so that I could get a good grip on him, I gently touched his neck, doing my best to will some sort of premonition from him.

Feeling my vision narrow, the world went dark as Damian stood in the center of a triangle with different people behind him, Callum under his boot. Damian smiled evilly at me, his mouth opening up as someone behind him did the same. "You heroes are so-"

Damian pulled away from me in an instant, his eyes narrowing. "Were you trying to get a read on me?"

I shook my head, trying to figure out what I just saw. "No. That sometimes just happens without me trying."

"Oh." Damian said, elbowing me hard in the shoulder. "So, how do I die?"

"... What?"

"Well, I thought you specialized in seeing your loved ones die in horrible horrible ways, so I just naturally assumed-"

"I don’t always see people die. That’s just a bad assumption." I said angrily. "I can’t control what I see, only when I see it. That's why I got extra help in the beginning."

"Have you even tried to control what you see?"

"Well… No."

"So you saw me die?"

"I did not see you die."

"Then what did you-"

"Damian, enough." Braylen said, putting a protective arm around me. "She doesn’t like it when you pry into what she sees. It… Spooks her like a wild deer. Anna’s seen a lot of horrible things and she takes time to actually process what she’s seen before she’s even ready to tell people most of the time."

"Oh, so your little girlfriend can pry into my mind, but I can’t pry into what she’s seen in my mind?"

"I saw you and Callum getting married, okay?" I lied. "You two had a big gay wedding with lots of rainbows."

"Okay. Was that so hard?" Damian asked exhaustedly. "I really gotta go, so I’ll see you guys later, okay?"

"Okay mate. I’ll see you later." Braylen said happily.

"Callum, don’t get in a car. You and your aunt are staying for dinner." Dad said happily.

"Okay." Callum said, smiling up at Damian. "I’ll call you later."

"See ya."

As soon as everyone was gone, I practically ran upstairs, running my hands through my hair as I entered my bedroom, pacing the room nervously as Braylen, Koda, and Callum followed me upstairs, looks of concern on their faces. Well, as much of a look of concern as a dog could have in Koda’s case.

Braylen grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to stop my pacing. "You didn’t see a wedding when you touched Damian, did you?"

"No."

"Then what did you see?" Callum asked quickly.

"I don’t know." I admitted. "It was weird. It was Damian and some figures standing behind him, you were under his foot, and it looked like he was being controlled, but I’m not sure because he broke away before I could hear the rest of his sentence."

"And what did he say?" Koda asked, jumping up onto my bed.

"’You heroes are so’ something. He broke away after that."

"What made you try and get something out of him?" Callum asked.

"He said that he was sorry about my mom and the current situation."

"Okay, so you told him about-"

"But I didn’t tell him." I interrupted.

"You didn’t?" Braylen asked.

"I didn’t. I don’t know if Becky or Trayvon told him, but I just referred to the argument I had with Dad and that conversation as a truce. When he said that he was sorry, it made me suspicious, so I tried to get a premonition."

"Do you think that he’s working with F.E.R.R.-"

"I don’t know, Braylen." I said, breaking out of Braylen’s grasp. "I really don’t know."

"So what do you suggest we do?" Callum asked.

"Right now, I don’t think that we can completely trust him until we have more information. Rest of the group probably doesn’t trust me right now-"

"What makes you say that?" Koda asked.

"Everyone looked really nervous around me when I went to go and hug them before they left. Just face it, I am a mon-"

"You are not a monster because you can see things that others can’t." Braylen interrupted. "They’re just shocked because you’ve seen them die."

"Do you want me to talk to them about it?" Callum suggested gently.

"No. They have every right to be scared of me. I can figure it out myself." I said, taking a deep breath. "But can we keep this between us? I don’t want everyone else freaking out because of me."

"I won’t tell anyone." Braylen promised.

"Neither will I." Callum said as the three of us looked over at Koda. "You gotta promise not to tell everyone else too, Koda."

"I promise." Koda said, jumping off of my bed and standing by me protectively.

"Braylen, Edward, whoever, your uncle is here, if he even is your uncle!" Dad yelled.

Braylen nodded. "Call me if you can’t sleep, okay? I’ll stay up with you."

I nodded, gripping his hand. "I promise."

As soon as Braylen was gone, Callum looked over at me, smiling happily. "So, do you know what he’s making for dinner?"

"No clue."

"Let’s go find out!" Callum said, running downstairs and dragging me with him, the thoughts of the Damian situation filling my mind despite how much I tried to ignore the constant warnings in my head telling me not to ignore anything.