The League of Deception

[3RD PERSON—BAXTONVILLE HIGH]

It's the next day and arguably everyone's least favorite day of the week — Monday. All of them wake up around different times, some of them later than others, but all before 5:30 AM. They all get out of bed and get dressed, put their school uniforms on, then go through their usual morning routines. Just as all of them have different morning routines, they have different means of transportation to school. Chris, Trevor, Talia, and Donatello ride the bus to school, and all 4 of them occupy the two seats at the back of the bus. Donatello sits next to Chris, and Talia and Trevor sit next to each other. The yells and laughter of the other kids on the bus can be heard throughout the bus, the sounds much louder due to its emptiness. Donatello wears his wired earbuds to escape to his own reality.

"Donatello," Chris says and Donatello ignores him for a while, so Chris continues. "Donatellooooo. Answer me, I know you can hear me."

Eventually, Donatello pulls out his earbud. "What?"

"Do you know why Wes and Penny aren't here?" Chris asks.

"I thought you were mad at Wes for the letter thing?" Donatello points out.

"That doesn't mean I can't be concerned about him. And I'm still concerned about Penny too." Chris replies, his eyes looking to the side.

"Well I'm not sure where he is, but my parents probably wouldn't want me to take the public bus if someone was targeting me." Donatello tells him.

Chris nods in agreement, "Yeah, that's a fair point."

Wes' mom won't let Wes or his brother Steven use public transportation, due to obvious reasons, so she drives them to school. Melanie gets driven there by her mom, accompanied by her older brother Easton. Melanie and her brother get out of their mom's car and enter the school together, chattering from the other wandering students all across the hallways. Melanie begins straying away from her brother and toward the bench, the one that Trevor painted upon the Art teacher's request.

"I'm gonna wait here for my friends." Melanie says, removing her sunglasses since they're indoors.

"You sure? I don't think you have any friends, sis." Easton jokes with a chuckle.

"Ha-ha, very funny. I'll be fine with Donatello by my side." She says while looking down at her phone.

"Oh? And what's so special about this Donatello?" He asks curiously, raising a brow.

"Well…" She smiles and looks away, putting her phone back in her pocket. "He's really nice to me, he protects me, and he's always there for me when Jack is being rude to us. He especially makes me feel better when mom decides to say things about me."

"Well, I'm glad he's treating you right." Easton says.

"The catch is that he's nothing more than my best friend." She sighs with a downward smile.

"Damn. That always sucks, unless he's just trying to—y'know." He says.

Melanie chuckles, "Well that's not happening ever. I get nothing more than a hug or handshake."

"I know you like him, but I'm wary of this guy." Easton tells her.

"You're wary of every guy." She says, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, and for a good reason." He replies.

She lets out a small laugh, "See you later, E." She replies as they wave and then part ways.

Everyone from the bus gets to school a little later, weaving their way through the crowd and approaching Melanie. After they all say their greetings, they gather around Chris' locker since it's still early in the school day and they've got some time before Homeroom. Trevor's gulping down his iced coffee and Talia's attempting to fix her hair, Chris helping her to do so. Chris has no clue how to do hair because he's never done it before, so he's just struggling and looking like a chaotic mess. ‌Trevor watches all of it amusedly as Melanie takes pictures with him and Donatello. Donatello puts up a peace sign for the photos with Melanie, but she can't help but record her two friends Talia and Chris, all of them unable to contain their laughter. After a while, she stops recording and chuckles to herself while she saves it to her phone.

"I wonder why Natalie hasn't gotten here yet." Trevor yawns, taking a big sip from his coffee.

"She needs to do my hair because I can't see the back. It always looks wrong and Chris was like zero help." Talia sighs, and Chris looks extremely offended. "No offense, Chris. You're very talented in many many other fields!"

Chris smiles, "Awh, thanks Tals. That makes me feel better about that."

Then finally, Natalie arrives at the school with Penny, their hands threaded together tightly. She and Penny stroll up to Chris' locker, a relieved sigh coming from her when she sees practically everyone is already there. The only person left is Wes. Trevor looks around, his surroundings slowing down for a few seconds as Natalie and Talia walk into the bathroom. He looks at the two of them, and Natalie has started doing Talia's hair. It feels like a gong has struck inside his heart, or the final tick on the has clock come.

He stands up straight and everything around him goes silent. He suddenly drops his iced coffee, but he can't hear the sound of the plastic cup and ice hitting the ground. Warmness washes over his entire body and his eyes burst, letting out a strong optical beam that hits the wall, a pained yell coming out along with it. The impact from the blast causes everyone to fall back from Trevor, and he falls to the ground as well. They all get back up when the blast is over and help him out right away. Wes and Amity enter the school, hand-in-hand, fingers intertwined. Chris is the first to notice them holding hands, and he lets out a loud scream inside. The moment Wes sees that Chris saw him and Amity, he pulls his hand away from hers, but it was too late.

The team gets up immediately and watches as Natalie's eyes start glowing bright blue, and she thinks about a single word, a french word. Silencieux. It makes every single person in the school pause, her blue magic traveling all around the premise. Donatello puts his hands up slightly, raising them gradually to start moving the pieces in the stone wall back to where they're supposed to be. ‌A small amount of blood drips from Natalie's nose as she holds everyone, her breath and hands trembling. She's never taken on anything like this before, and she can almost feel herself drowning again.

"Hold on, Natalie!" Donatello shouts, rushing to get everything back in place.

Once he does, Natalie finally releases her control, letting everyone continue with their day. Donatello walks over to her and helps her up

Penny walks up to Natalie and gently puts her hand on Natalie's back, "You okay?" She asks.

"Yeah, I'm alright, thank you." Natalie replies, panting slightly as she anchors her mind. Natalie holds Penny's hand, threading their fingers together.

"What's happening there?" Melanie asks, pointing to Wes and Amity.

"Well, since you've already seen us… we're together! We went official after our first date yesterday!" Amity exclaims.

"What?" Chris says, processing this information.

"Excuse me, what the fuck?" Melanie looks at them, blatant disappointment on her face.

"Yeah… I mean, we're doing good so far." Wes says, unsure what else to do.

Chris hears those words and he feels like his entire world has ended. His face immediately drops as he makes direct eye contact with Wes. Tears start welling up in his eyes and despite all of his successful attempts at trying not to cry, this time he can't hold back this fountain of tears. He lets out a shaky breath and everything becomes clear to him. He likes Wes as more than just a friend, and he always has. He ran away on the day they kissed because he was scared of his feelings. He was scared of what everyone would think, so much so that he forgot to worry about what he thought. But the fact of the matter is that what he thinks is that Wes is his soulmate, the one he wants to hold, the one he wants to be with, and the one he wants to kiss over and over again. Chris has never known what love felt like, so he didn't know what he was feeling when he started falling in love with Wes. He never saw his parents love each other when he was growing up, so he doesn't know what it looks like. All of these words are trapped in his throat, and he can't even say them to Wes, because he feels like it's useless.

It's clear to him that Wes has made up his mind about what he wants, and it doesn't seem like Wes cares about what Chris wants. Chris realizes how stupid he's been, and how he should've just been upfront about how he was feeling instead of hiding away from his feelings like always. It'd be selfish of him to just confess his feelings right when he gets into a presumably happy relationship. He breaks eye contact, his eyes holding more truth than his words ever could. Wes feels like he's been punched in his gut, and he didn't realize how hard it would be to see Chris break down in tears. Nor did he realize how reciprocated the feelings have been this whole time. He should've accounted for the fact that you can't just suppress your feelings for someone, and that they'll always be there.

As much as he just wants to grab Chris and hug him tightly, it might compromise his entire plan. But he thinks about what Penny told him. Wes looked close to tears, his throat closing up a little bit as he felt a tear roll down his cheek. Once he felt it, he wiped it away from his cheek immediately. He couldn't think of what to do or say, and he couldn't help but stop and think about what it was like with him and Chris before everything. They were happy at one point, but they were only best friends. He wants to be happy with him, as well as be more than just a friend.

"Uhm, I'll be right back, Amity." Wes says, and then he walks away from her.

[TREVOR AND TALIA—BAXTONVILLE HIGH]

Talia helps Trevor up off the ground, and the entire group disperses. Chris rushes away to save himself the embarrassment and Wes attempts to go after him. But after Chris goes to hide in the bathroom, Wes ends up losing him. He balls his hand up into a fist, his breath quickening and without thinking, he punches the locker next to him. His knuckles sting and begin to bleed slightly, but he could care less because the pain is nowhere near how mad he is. He's completely pissed at himself, and he runs a hand through his hair to calm himself down. His first chance to not fuck up, he does, and he feels like shit for it. He pulls out his phone and pauses for a moment, looking at his already bruised knuckles. He looks back up and notices the locker is slightly dented. He shakes his head and looks back down at his phone, opening his messages and going to his and Chris' text conversation. He texts Chris another apology, asking him to just talk to him. He doesn't get a reply back, but he takes a deep breath and calms down because he's willing to wait.

Meanwhile, Talia and Trevor sneak into the nurse's office and grab stuff—technically stealing—to deal with Trevor's burning eyes. Talia is the one who gets sent in since she's the innocent twin and if she gets caught, then she can play innocent. You know, since she is in actuality. She sees that the nurse is in the medical room, attending to another student. Talia sneaks over to the small mini freezer that contains the ice packs, and she grabs a few of them as well as some gauze, and she decides to sneakily grab some eye drops as well. To do that, she needs to slip behind the desk. That's something very nerve-wracking to her which causes her powers to come out, her nose starts glowing brightly. The light coming from her nose is rainbow, and she lets out a quiet, worried whimper like a mouse just discovered by a human. She leans over the desk and tries to open the drawer, only to find out it's locked.

"Crap, no, no, no." She whispers to herself frantically.

Suddenly, the light from her nose travels down to her hand and it comes out in a hard blast of light that breaks the lock. She claps her hands gently and quickly to make as little noise as possible, then she opens the drawer, grabbing some eye drops from it. Just when she thinks she's in the clear and she's halfway out of the door, a stern and loud voice emerges from behind her.

"What are you doing young lady?" The nurse asks, causing Talia to stop in her tracks.

As much as she wants to look at her, Talia knows she'll be recognizable down to her unique style of dressing. She flees out of the door and Trevor starts picking up his feet, running right behind her the moment he watches her fly out of the nurse's office while yelling for him to run. Even though Nurse Nicole won't run after the two of them, there are security guards in the school that she could very well call at any given moment. The two of them sprint carefully up the case of stairs, going all the way to the top floor and then into an empty classroom. The classroom they decided to go into used to be the computer lab, but now it's just an empty room with a few old computers, some boxes, wired mouses, and keyboards all over the floor, accompanied by some dust. They decide to keep the lights off so they can keep a low profile and Trevor sits down on the ground. Talia feels a pain in her arm, but there's no cut on her or anything.

"I scraped my arm when I was running. I couldn't see practically anything." He says, letting out a pained groan.

Talia shuts the door and locks it before turning to look at Trevor, a surprised look on her face, "Oh my, that's a very big 'scrape' you got there." She exclaims, using air quotes to emphasize.

"Well, unfortunately I can't see, so I'm just going off of pain right now." He replies.

"Well, unfortunately, you're dripping with blood right now." She remarks.

Talia goes over to him and presses an ice pack on both of his eyes, Trevor holding it there for her. She takes his sleeve off the arm with the cut, then she sighs, removing her white cardigan. She knows blood will be hard to get out of white, but anything to help her brother. She didn't get anything to clean his unexpected wound with, so she wipes the blood away with her white cardigan, watching as it turned a crimson color in some parts. She finishes bandaging it up, making sure it's secure, then she gives him some eye drops and he's all good.

"Natalie should be able to fix your jacket," Talia says optimistically.

"Hopefully she can fix my will to keep doing all this hero shit," He replies quietly, but an apology slips out of his mouth right after, "Ah, sorry." He says.

"What do you mean?" She asks curiously.

"I mean… we don't know how this happened. These powers came out of nowhere, and now one of our best friend's dad is coming after us. Just listen to what I'm saying, it doesn't even sound real when I say it out loud." He admits, letting out a heavy sigh.

"Do you want to find out?" She questions.

"Are you saying that you, Talia Martin, my shy twin sister that has never ever left the house without a good pencil for homework, would skip school?" He chuckles softly. "I don't buy it, Tals."

"No, I swear I can do it!" She says. "What you said was so weirdly spot on, none of this sounds real. I've already achieved the impossible, so why not just keep on doing more? I don't want to sit on my bum anymore and just be silent, I have the chance to do things. We have the chance to do things!" She exclaims.

"Alright, I'm buying it." He nods softly, chuckling once again.

"So… what do you say?" She asks excitedly.

"I say we do it. You only live once, you know." He replies with a smile and a shrug.

No turning back, they sneakily exit the room from the back of the school. They have no idea what this may entail, nor do they know where they need to go, but they'll travel where they need. They can't explain this to their parents, so they plan to just sneak out of the house and flee. Of course, they'll return soon, but this is something that they need. They need to figure out how this happened to them and what happened to them. Because that way, they'll know how to deal with it. Trevor wants to find out how to remove it completely, but Talia plans to change his mind on that.

"Okay the plan is to spend today doing whatever shit we want, then we'll go home around when we get home from school. Go on with our day, maybe have a family movie night, then at midnight we'll pack our bags and leave. Sounds good?" Trevor says.

"Yeah, I think that's the only choice." She tells him.

Leaving the school, they roam on foot around their small town of Braxtonville, New Jersey. ‌ Naturally, they stop by Yoo's Ice Cream and get their‌ ‌own‌ ‌delicious‌ ‌cones. ‌The two then sit in a park near a lake, admiring all the ducks gliding across the blue and clear water, illustrating‌ ‌the‌ ‌fragility‌ ‌of‌ ‌life. They could have decided to do something outrageous, but they both decided that visiting their favorite places would mean more. After the lake, they go to a beach and come across a photo booth. They take some photos in the booth together, letting their loud laughter fill up that small space. Once they take their silly photos, they get out of the booth and look at the pictures.

"I like this one where we're acting like the twins from the shining." Trevor chuckles, pointing to it. "You're the creepier one."

Talia looks closer at the photo and narrows her eyes, "Oh yeah, you're right." She says slowly.

There are times when siblings fight, don't like each other, go distant,‌ ‌and‌ ‌at‌ ‌the‌ ‌end‌ ‌of the‌ ‌day,‌ ‌they‌ ‌love‌ ‌each‌ ‌other. But Trevor and Talia have never had a single argument. For as long as they could remember, they've been as close as two cherries on a stem, and are quite literally twins. ‌Although they have polar opposite personalities, they are unable to get into arguments because there is nothing they disagree on. And after they got their powers, their bond became even stronger. So much so that they might even be able to feel each other's pain.

"Hey, you remember when you cut your arm earlier?" Talia looks at him.

"How could I forget?" Trevor questions, looking at her as well.

"Well, I felt it in my arm. I think that the thing that gave us powers, also made us connected." She says. "Because my eyes hurt sometimes too. Yet I haven't had any powers come up that have to do with my eyes."

"Oh, we're like super-twins, right?" Trevor asks.

"Actually, yes, something like that." Talia nods.

"Sick." Trevor replies.

"And, we got these powers like the day after we went to that power plant." She points out. "It might be what caused this."

"Do you think we can reverse it with whatever is there?" Trevor asks.

"...Do you want to reverse it?" Talia asks.

"I'm not sure, but maybe… I mean, are we even cut out for this? How do I know that one of us won't die? It's like, we don't know anything at all." He tells her truthfully.

"Well, I could feel everything you do, meaning when I went to sleep, I saw that dream too," Talia told him. "And I know what you can do. You can help us, but it feels like you're a little scared to do so."

"Yeah, maybe a little scared." He said quietly, looking out at the water.

"You don't have to be scared, I would never let anything happen to you," Talia says, putting her hand on his shoulder.

A shadow grows in front of the two of them, gradually blanketing them in darkness and a gust of wind comes their way. When they look in front of them, they see the cause of the shadow and wind being a giant, terrifying wave. As they stand up in a hurry, their eyes widen, and a man emerges‌ ‌from‌ ‌the‌ ‌wave. He's wearing a black peacoat, gray slacks beneath, and a pair of black leather gloves. His eyes are dark brown with bags beneath them, his hair slightly messy, and he has a looming sense of dread over him. It wasn't until he stepped closer that they realized who he was. In a hurry, Trevor pulls Talia behind him, and the two of them step away ‌from Aleksandr.

"Aleksandr Sokolov… right?" Talia peaks her head over Trevor's shoulder.

"Looks like you know my name." Aleksandr responds, a twisted smirk on his face.

"Well it's hard not to mistake your decrepit face, dude." Trevor says.

"Quite the mouth on you, kid. Never stops running does it?" Aleksandr snaps back, obviously slightly agitated.

Trevor smirks, "Nope. It's been running for 18 years and counting."

"You have tested my patience long enough young man," He spits out through his clenched teeth. "I'm going to have to take the both of you, and I will no longer be showing you mercy." He replies, a huge wave forming behind him once again.

Trevor closes his eyes and re-opens them, yelling as he forcefully lets a heat beam from his eyes, having more control this time. He moves his left foot in front of himself and stands his ground as he blasts Wes' dad back, the impact almost making him stumble back. Aleksandr gets blown into the water and Trevor stops the beam, but this time he does stumble back a bit. When he regains his footing he grabs Talia's hand, and runs with her. They run through the beach and eventually leave the premise. Without the van, Trevor and Talia have no choice but to run on foot.

They take a turn to throw off Aleksandr if he manages to figure out their trail and they take a fateful turn into the abandoned power plant. They're faced with the fence once again and they stare at it like an old friend. Hurriedly, they climb up it, their hearts beating out of their chests as they escape from possibly the biggest threat they're facing. Suddenly a tentacle comes out of nowhere, snatching Trevor's foot, and exactly what he feared was going to happen, happens. He got a gut feeling that it would happen, maybe a little more than a gut feeling. He holds onto the fence as the tentacles coming from Aleksandr attempts to pry him off of it.

"Is that a fucking tentacle?!" Trevor yells.

Talia turns and looks at him, "It's coming from his mouth!" She yells in terror.

"Excuse me, what?!" Trevor shouts.

Talia attempts to kick the tentacle off Trevor's legs, but it's no use. And after that, another tentacle appears and grabs onto Talia's ankle. Although she cannot hold on very tightly, she pulls through and holds on tight as Trevor breathes deeply and lets go of one hand while‌ ‌holding‌ ‌on‌ ‌with‌ ‌the‌ ‌other. They're both hanging on for dear life while Trevor lets out a grunt and a beam appears from his hand, slicing the tentacles off of their legs. Aleksandr lets out a loud yell as he retracts his sawed tentacles, his face twisting into a pained grimace.

Meanwhile, Talia and Trevor manage to ‌make their way over the gate, escaping from Aleksandr. They walk into the power plant and hide away behind a control panel. There's a light in the corner of the room, and it's pink and bright. There's a weird noise coming from it too, a low whistle-like noise. Both of their heads turn in the direction of it, and see it's a pink gem situated in the corner.

"What's that?" Talia asks curiously.

"No clue, man." Trevor replies.

Alexsandr shows up behind the two of them, his tentacles quickly grabbing them. "Looks like you found my little secret." He chuckles.

[CHRIS—CAFE MORTIMER & NATALIE'S HOUSE]

Everyone needs help at some point, right? Even leaders need help sometimes. Well, at least that's what I hope. Anyways, I decided to ignore my homework and do further research about Aleksandr Sokolov after school, but I've officially hit a dead end. There's one person I know of that would be willing to help me, and she's in the cafe I'm standing right in front of. I step closer to the door and grab onto the door handle, but I can't help but freeze.

All of my life, I've been taught that I can do anything without the aid of other people. But that's only because my parents want me to be independent if anything happens to them. If anything did happen to them, I'd have to help my sister Luci take care of our younger sister Maja. I mean, I would ask Luci for help, but I can't tell her about all of this. You may be thinking that they're being dramatic, but whenever I feel like that, I look at where my dad is currently at. I've always tried my absolute best to be everything I can be, but I cracked and need someone's help. Does this make me weak? Yeah, maybe a little bit. Or maybe not, because I do have a habit of getting in my head too much.

I manage to pull myself out of my thoughts and wave all of them away, then I open the door and step in, eyeing down the room for her blonde hair. She's sitting at a table near the window with her journal in front of her and a warm cup of coffee in her hand. I can only assume she's doing her daily bit of journaling. Either that, or she's making a mood board since those are the things she typically likes to do after school. A deep breath comes from me, then one foot in front of the other, I stroll over to her table and just take a seat. She raises a brow showing obvious confusion, but once she realizes it's just me and not some random guy, her face changes to an 'i know you' smile.

"Hey Chris, I didn't really expect to see you here. At all actually." Natalie chuckles softly.

I nod, "Yeah, I know. But I need your help, please."

She sighs, "You're interrupting my schedule but, what's up?" She closes her journal to fully focus her attention on me.

"I decided to help Wes out by doing some more research for him, but I hit a dead end. I just need to figure out how to track down Aleksandr's credit card information to see any kind of recent purchases, but the dead end is that he might have used a different name because I can't find him anywhere. If I do that, then maybe we can get an idea of what he's up to." I explain to her.

"You're not mad at Wes anymore?" Natalie asks.

"No. Maybe? I don't know, my feelings are complicated, okay?" I say.

"Makes two of us. Anyways, lucky for you, I have just the kid to help us out with that." She tells me, giving me a sort of mischievous smile.

"Okay… where are they?" I ask.

"At my house." She replies.

I decide not to question it and stand up out of the seat while she puts her journal in the backpack beside her. She then slides it onto her back and grabs her coffee as well as her phone. After that, we both exit the cafe, Natalie texting on her phone as she walks along the sidewalk, me following her. I peek my head over and see Natalie is texting Penny, and when my eyes trail down, I see full-blown paragraphs being exchanged between the two. Natalie's face doesn't look too happy, so one can only assume they're arguing. To avoid being intrusive, I look away from her phone.

"So… where are we going?" I ask curiously.

"Like I said before, my house." She replies as she shuts off her phone and puts it into her back pocket.

"Okay, so who is there?" I question.

"My little brother, he's a certified prodigy. He was only 1 when he started reciting the entire alphabet, at 3 he spoke fluent French, and at 5 he was able to recite all the works of Robert Frost." She says. "That's only all the stuff I remember, he's done much more."

"You're kidding..." I say in disbelief. "And he's how old now?"

"He's 10 years old and he can for sure hack into the FBI Database to check for recent name changes or anything like that." She replies.

"He sounds impressive, I'm excited to meet him. Although, it's slightly terrifying to think about the fact that he might be smarter than me."

Natalie stops and looks at me, placing her hand on my shoulder, "He probably is."

She removes her hand from my shoulder and then turns, opening the door to the right of us that I was too distracted to even notice. My eyes are glued to my shoulder for a few seconds before I follow her into the building. We go up a few stairs and then get to the 3rd floor, stopping in front of a door. She pulls a lanyard out of the side pocket of her backpack then picks out a key and unlocks the door. We enter the place and the first thing you notice is the colorful atmosphere. There's a nice painting on the wall, some flowers on the coffee table in the middle of the room, and decorations galore. I look at the apartment floor, noticing there's a bunch of toys for children scattered across it.

I don't see her aunt anywhere around, so I assume that she's either in her room or at work. She brings me over to a bedroom and I see her three brothers relaxing in there. They're her triplet brothers, and all of them are 10 years old. Sebastien is sitting in bed and playing games on his tablet, Charles is reading a book, and little Jaques is in the corner with his blue laptop, stickers scattered on the back. In the reflection of his glasses, you can see he's coding a program of sorts. While I'm unsure of what it is, I'm sure it's probably something interesting. Natalie approaches him and peaks her head over his laptop screen. He doesn't look up at her at first, but then Natalie clears her throat and he finally does.

"Hi, Jaques, I need a small favor." Natalie says.

He stops typing and then presses some things before closing his laptop. "Don't you remember the conditions?" He asks.

"Planes?!" Charles yells excitedly.

My facial expression shows my extreme confusion, but the boys seem to be excited about it. All three of them get up and gather near Natalie and a small chuckle leaves my mouth, but Natalie is letting out a huge sigh. She doesn't sound annoyed, but she sounds more like she's disappointed. One of her hands is placed on her waist and the other is massaging the bridge of her nose. I can tell exactly what her body language means, it's hard to not know if you know her well. They said a secret that was supposed to be kept between the 4 of them.

"If you don't mind me asking, what's happening?" I ask.

"They accidentally found out about my powers." She tells me.

"What? I don't need to explain to you why that's dangerous, right?" I question

"No, no, no, I swear it was an accident. I didn't even know my powers were

"Okay, okay. Fine." She folds, and I continue to watch in interest.

She grabs three helicopter toys and places them in front of her, all lined up in a neat row. After that, she puts her hands to the sides of her and they begin glowing. There's that same blue glow again on her hands, as well as the toy helicopters. It looks as though she's calmer using her powers this time around, and she begins to make the toy helicopters fly around the room. The three kids gather around and their eyes immediately light up, watching as though they have seen a shooting star. A small smile appears on her face when she sees how happy they are, and I can see she decided maybe it's not so bad to use her ‌"frightening" powers. The helicopters whirr around their bedroom and they fly with grace and purpose. She raises both of her hands a bit, twirling each of her fingers around in a different way. After a few minutes, she lowers them back down to the ground, and the blue glow is now all gone.

"Okay, there, please help us now?" Natalie says.

"Yes, I will help. What can I do for you?" Jaques asks, speaking very eloquently.

"I need you to hack into the FBI and look at the database, as well as the National Banks database too. Just look all over for any name changes for a man named Aleksandr Sokolov and see if he's made any purchases as well. Uhm, brown hair, looks like Wes I presume." I tell him.

"Maybe has different colored eyes, I'm not sure. Very big criminal record." She adds.

Jaques opens his laptop again and pulls up data from all the national banks, hacking and weaving through it to see if he can find anyone. Finally, he pulls up a file of bank statements from Alexander Sanderson. He uses facial identification and several records as well as DNA to figure out that Alexander Sanderson is the same man as Aleksandr Sokolov, who recently made a hefty bank purchase. Several hefty bank purchases at that.

"Can you print all of this out?" I ask and furrow my brows slightly.

He nods and clacks on some keys then he sends the pages and pages of information over to the printer that's outside of their room. Natalie shoots up and runs over, grabbing it immediately so her aunt doesn't see it. She walks over to her aunt's office and I follow her, where we both look around for

"Thank you!" We both shout.

I scurry behind her and we exit the house, standing outside her door once again. Natalie tucks her hair behind her ear as she opens the file, the both of us skimming each of the papers. He bought a property with a science lab, several parts for a machine, and thousands of the same pairs of clothes. We have no idea what he's doing, and the mystery just keeps getting crazier and crazier.

"Looks like we're gonna have to call another team meeting." Natalie says.

"Yeah.." I reply, my voice trailing off a bit.

She looks at me, "That means take out your phone and text the group chat."

"Oh, right!" I say and pull out my phone, fishing through my contacts.

"You lovable idiot." Natalie says with a small sigh and headshake.

I shake my head and open up my messages, typing out a short explanation. Then I send it, getting some 'seens' already. Almost everyone has seen the message, and I feel my nerves washing over me since this is a huge thing. All of what we've talked about is big, but this is the biggest thing we've done yet. All of a sudden, my phone begins vibrating. Thinking it's just one of our friends responding, I pull away from Natalie and take out my phone immediately. The name on my phone screen says Trevor, and I answer the phone all hyped. But, when the other person speaks, the voice I hear is not what I was expecting. I get greeted by a gruff voice that sounds like it's been through a cheese grater, and it has a hint of some sort of European accent. Yet I can't quite place it, because it's being mixed with an American one. His words have an almost villainous tone to them, something that you can't ignore.

"Why hello, Chris. I've been waiting to meet you for quite some time now." He says.

"Excuse me, what?" I reply, then I quickly switch my phone to speaker phone to let Natalie listen too.

"I have your dear friends Trevor and Talia, and in order to get them back, I want my son. You have 24 hours to come to Morristown and make the trade." He replies.

My heart drops when I hear him speak, and I finally place the accent. It's Russian, and the voice is none other than Aleksandr Sokolov. Several thoughts race through my mind, but I mostly wonder how the hell he got to them. My next thought is whether or not he currently coming for us. Confrontation isn't my favorite thing, so it's difficult to try and find the correct words to say, causing me to stutter and trip over my words. Natalie snatches the phone away from me and sounds majorly pissed off. She on the other hand has no problem confronting people when the time is right.

"We're not giving you Wes unless you give us Trevor and Talia." She speaks angrily.

My eyes widen as my brows furrow and I look at her, hearing a chuckle come from Aleksandr. "What are you doing?" I whisper.

"Do you trust me?" She whispers back quickly.

I sigh softly, "Yes, I suppose." I reply in a whisper.

"Ah, Natalie. Are you trying to negotiate, young lady?" He asks amusedly.

"Don't patronize me. I want my friends and you want your son, don't make it complicated." She replies, taking me by surprise with her authority. Natalie is the calm one in the group, and it's different to see her like this.

"I hear you. But unfortunately, that's not how this works. You will give Wes first, or I will come and take him. Goodbye now." Aleksandr speaks, then he hangs up the phone, the dial tone ringing loudly.

"We need to get to Melanie right now. She can help us find where Amity is." Natalie says.

"Why the hell do we need Amity?" I ask.

"I saw into her mind during school and she was thinking about how she feels bad for Wes because she's working for his dad. But… she actually loves him." She tells me. "Don't worry though, it's not looking like the feelings are reciprocated.

"Mhm, sure. Well, he was feeling miserable about hurting you, and he wanted to cry, but there was something holding him back. I couldn't look further and see what was holding him back because he pushed it into the inner corner of his mind. He's keeping some sort of secret from us." She explained.

"Do you think he told Amity about any of the things happening?" I say, thinking to myself how detrimental that could be to Wes.

"If he did then we better hurry the hell up, cause she'll lead us straight to Aleksandr." Natalie tells me as she puts away the file in her backpack.

"Alright, but we have no clue where she is right now. So we need to grab Trevor's van and wrangle up our friends." I say.

Natalie looks at him, furrowing her brows, "Did you just say 'wrangle our friends'?"

"I just didn't know how else to word it." He sighs.

"Okay, whatever, let's go." Natalie says.

Then, we make our way down the street to catch the bus. While we're on the bus, I pull out my phone and look at my inbox. Wes messaged me yesterday and today too, but I haven't even opened my phone in a while. There's just been a lot happening that's more important than answering a text. I decide not to open it until I'm on my way to see him. Shutting off my phone and putting it in my lap, I stare out the window for the rest of the bus ride, thinking over all of my choices.