Chapter Three (This chapter is pretty boring; brace yourself.)

I hadn't slept in four days.

My solution for my sleeping problems maybe wasn't the most orthodox method, but it was working alright - just never sleep at all. No sleep, no nightmares. It was as simple as that. Danny was none the wiser about it; when he'd go to bed, I would lie there beside him and pretend to sleep until he drifted off, and then I'd get up and try and keep myself busy, downing several cups of coffee to keep me going. When it came time for him to wake up in the morning, I'd crawl back into bed and act like I'd been there the whole time.

He made a comment once about how much better I've been sleeping; I hadn't woken him up at all in those four days. That obviously means no nightmares, right? Well, he wasn't wrong. He wasn't totally right, either. I told him I was taking sleeping pills. The lie felt more like I was protecting him than deceiving him. I hated when he worried.

It was half past three in the morning. Danny had fallen asleep somewhere around eleven. I laid next to him until I was absolutely sure he was out, and then I got up. Now I was sitting on the couch with a large mug of black coffee in my hands and the TV turned on to the news, the volume muted and the subtitles on, so as not to wake my sleeping boyfriend.

I'd become obsessed with watching the news, ever since I'd had that nightmare about seeing Darren had escaped. Now I watched it constantly, waiting for the "Breaking News" headline to flash and an extremely grotesque photo of a man who once could have been considered mildly attractive to pop up. It hadn't happened yet. The rational side of my brain doubted that it ever would, but the other side, the sleep-deprived side, knew that anything was possible. Even things that shouldn't have been possible were still possible.

I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and nestled further into the couch, falling onto my side. I took a large gulp of coffee to chase away the exhaustion that was slowly starting to creep up on me. I had caffeine pills on the corner of the coffee table, waiting for me in case the coffee wasn't working well enough. Hiding them from Danny was a chore, but a magician always has a few tricks up her sleeve.

Meaning: I literally kept the little bottle hidden in a pocket in my sleeve.

The news wasn't very interesting in the early hours of the morning, which was to be expected; hardly anyone was awake. There was some small story about a couple firemen getting a kitten unstuck from where it was trapped in a wall playing on the screen when a soft knock echoed in the quiet room.

I was on my feet immediately, my heart rate pounding in my ears. Darren. It's Darren. He's come to kill Danny. That was all I could think. My brain couldn't process anything else.

Slowly, I made my way to the door. I was unarmed; we didn't really have any weapons in the apartment, unless you counted kitchen knives. A deck of cards could do a decent amount of damage, but I couldn't throw them nearly as well as Jack could. Maybe if I die, the nightmares will go away.

There was another knock, this one slightly louder than the first one. My hand hovered over the lock. "Andie," a voice whispered from the other side. "Open up. It's just me."

I unlocked the door and opened it inward. Dylan Rhodes was staring back at me, a small smile on his face. "Morning, Andie," he said politely. He inclined his head toward me. "May I come in?" I stepped away from the door. "Thanks."

"You're a magician. Couldn't you have just magicked your way in? I wouldn't have been surprised," I said, leading him toward where I'd been sitting before.

Dylan laughed. "I didn't think that would help your condition any." I raised an eyebrow at him from over my shoulder. His expression had turned grim. "Atlas said you're not sleeping well."

I shrugged. "I'm fine."

"Then why are you awake right now?"

I wasn't sure how to answer him in a way that wouldn't make it seem like I had a sleeping problem. The bags under my eyes were probably darker than his hair by this point (Was that lighter or darker than my soul? I'd have to ask Jack later...) and I knew he'd noticed them. "I heard you at the door and I woke up."

Dylan shook his head, a wan smile on his face. "Then why isn't Danny awake too?"

"He sleeps like the dead?" I knew I didn't sound convincing. We were both talking in whispers because the slightest noise would wake him up. He slept better than I did, but it was all too easy to snap him out of it. I knew it, Jack and Merritt knew it, and Dylan knew it, too.

"We both know that's not true."

I folded my arms across my chest. "I just woke up, Dylan. I don't have a problem."

He didn't saying anything for a little while; he just looked around the room. He took in the sight of the muted TV playing the news and my half-empty mug of coffee. He saw the blanket on the floor where it had fallen when I stood to answer the door. Unfortunately, he also saw the caffeine pills.

He rubbed his forehead with his hand and closed his eyes. "Adderall, Andie? Really?" I was quiet. "Jesus. Don't have a problem, huh? Well, what I'm positive you don't have is ADHD. Why do you even have these?"

I folded my arms across my chest and sat on the arm of the couch, crossing one leg over the other. "I haven't taken any, if that makes you feel any better."

"I don't feel good about any of this, but at least I don't have to worry about putting you through rehab for abusing medication you don't need."

I scowled. "How do you know I don't need them?" I said defensively.

Dylan rolled his eyes. "Because you don't have ADHD," he repeated. "You don't need them. So why do you have them?"

I slid backward until I was lying on my back on the couch, arms still across my chest. I stared at the ceiling. "They're just there for backup."

"Backup?"

"In case coffee doesn't work anymore."

Dylan gently pushed my feet off the arm of the couch and sat down. "What's your sudden aversion to sleeping, Andie?"

I shrugged, still watching the ceiling. "I am sleeping."

"No, you're not. Atlas wouldn't have called me if he wasn't worried about you. He said you've stopped sleeping entirely."

I tried not to seem surprised. My plan had failed, then; Danny had noticed that I was trying everything to not fall asleep. I thought he'd been asleep every time I was awake, but apparently he wasn't. "Why didn't he say anything?" I said. My eyes never left the ceiling. I was trying to count the number of cracks I saw, but quickly lost count. Focusing was becoming harder as of late.

Dylan's tone was one of pity. "He didn't want to upset you by confronting you about it. He stays awake all night, you know." I finally looked at the man sitting beside me, a silent request for him to go on. "He said he's waiting for when you finally fall asleep and have another nightmare."

"So he can say he told me so."

"So he can help you, Andie," Dylan said, shaking his head. "Haven't you noticed how tired he's been? He could hardly talk when he called me tonight."

I instantly felt bad because, no, I hadn't noticed. I was oblivious to everything happening around me during the day due to the amount of fatigue I was feeling. I couldn't focus on anything other than my own problems, and it'd led to me not noticing when my own boyfriend was doing the same just to keep an eye on me. "I'm such a bad person," I said, covering my eyes with one hand.

Dylan sighed. "No, I don't think that's true. You're just not thinking straight right now."

"Is he awake? Should I go apologize?"

I sat up and made to get off the couch, but Dylan set a hand on my shoulder to sit me back down. "He's asleep. Or he should be, anyway." He smiled a little. "He wanted to stay up, but I told him I would keep an eye on you tonight so he could get some rest."

I narrowed my eyes. "You're not going to make me sleep, are you? Because that's not gonna fly."

Dylan set a hand on my head and ruffled my hair, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he smiled again, this time a little wider. "No, I'm not going to make you sleep." He stood up and held out his hand to me, that same kind smile on his face. "Come on. Let's go for a walk."

I raised an eyebrow. "You want to go for a walk - at four in the morning - in this sketchy-ass part of New York City? Right. That's not gonna lead to us getting mugged at all."

Now he grinned. "You seem to forget that I work for the FBI."

I stared at him for a moment longer before taking his hand with a small smile. "Okay, fine. Let's go for a walk." I glanced toward the closed bedroom door, my brows instantly furrowing. "Should I tell Danny where I'm going? Or leave a note at least?"

"We'll be back before he wakes up," Dylan said. He squeezed my hand and then dropped it. "Don't worry. He knows you're in good hands. Now come on."

He went to wait by the front door while I shut off the TV and set my now-empty coffee mug in the sink. When I returned, he opened the door and allowed me to walk through before shutting it behind us. I locked it quickly and then followed him down the hall, down the stairs, and then out onto the street.

The street lamps overhead were the only things that lit the way for us as we walked down the sidewalk, our hands shoved in our pockets and no words spoken between us. I wasn't sure where we were going; I was just following Dylan. He would look at me out of the side of his eye from time to time, like he was checking to make sure I wasn't going to fall over from exhaustion. I wasn't going to; I had enough caffeine in my system to keep me awake for at least another hour. Chances were pretty high that I'd still need to have more coffee once I got back to the apartment, though.

"Are you going to tell me what your nightmares are about?" Dylan asked, finally breaking the comfortable silence we'd been walking in.

I turned my face toward him, taking care to not trip as I walked. "Did Danny not tell you?"

"He just said it was like PTSD."

I shrugged and looked down at my shoes. "I mean, I guess." I was quiet for a little while before I spoke again. "They're about a lot of stuff. Mostly Darren. His threats and stuff..." I trailed off, clearing my throat and hugging my arms to my body.

Dylan didn't press the matter any further. We walked in silence for a while longer before he broke the silence once more. "How much do you know about me, Andie?"

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. It wasn't a question I was expecting. "Um, you work for the FBI but you're also a part of the Eye and just use your FBI job as a cover up so you can stop them from finding me and Danny and the others..." I trailed off again and shook my head. "I really don't know a lot. Sorry, I've never asked."

Dylan laughed a little. "No, it's fine." He ran a hand through his hair. "My father was a magician. That's how I got into it."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Lionel Shrike. He - "

I grabbed his arm and dragged him to a stop. "Wait, you can't just drop a bomb on me like that and then keep going." He was grinning and so was I. "Lionel Shrike. Like, the Lionel Shrike? The one that got - "

"Locked in a safe and dropped to the bottom of the river, only for the safe to warp and he drowned?" We had stopped walking down. Dylan had his hands in his pockets again and was facing me, his eyes searching my face for I don't know what. I felt like I should have been sweating; I wasn't expecting the conversation to take a turn like that. Yes, I knew what had happened to Lionel Shrike, but I hadn't expected him to speak about it so blatantly.

He was still looking at me. "I'm sorry," I finally said.

He smiled. "I've had years and years to get over it, Andie. Don't worry about it." He squeezed one of my shoulders with that same easy smile. "It doesn't hurt to talk about it anymore."

The corners of my mouth lifted a little. "Okay."

"He's the reason I know you and the others now, you know." I tilted my head a little. "Tressler Insurance denied my mother's claim after my father died and the French bank you robbed in the first show was the one that carried the note."

I nodded. "Okay, but what about Thaddeus Bradley? Was there a reason you told us to put all of the stolen money in his car?"

Dylan started to walk and I followed along after him, waiting for my answer. He didn't withhold it for very long. When he spoke, his voice was bitter. "Thaddeus Bradley was there on the day my father drowned. He was also the reason my father felt the need to make some huge comeback, to prove to Bradley and the rest of the world that his magic was real." Dylan swallowed. The sound was loud enough for me to hear. "I can still remember it, Andie. Sitting there on the dock, counting out the seconds until he would come back up on my watch. And there was Bradley, across the water with his TV crew, filming and narrating the whole thing."

I reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder; Dylan glanced at it but didn't stop walking. "Five minutes were up and he still hadn't surfaced. I was a kid; I panicked. I remember people in the crowd holding me back and the rescue team trying to recover the safe and save him." He cleared his throat. "Really, though, I remember Bradley's face. He was shocked. I didn't imagine he'd be shocked. I assumed he thought my father would fail in his comeback and he would be smug in how correct he was. But he was shocked instead."

"So you decided to become a magician and ruin the people who had ruined your family?"

Dylan nodded and looked out at the darkened streets. "It took years of planning. I was worried it wouldn't work, but it did." He then looked at me and smiled. "Thank you."

I smiled back. "Thank you for bringing us all together. I've had the time of my life being a Horseman. Much more than when I was a solo act."

He laughed a little. "You know what?" I hummed and shook my head. "The night I gave you your tarot card, I was only planning on having four Horsemen. I was on my way over to give Atlas the fourth card when I saw you."

I shook my head again. "My trick was nowhere near as good as Danny's. Why'd you choose me at all?"

He gave me a side hug for no more than a second and then dropped his arm back to his side. "Oh, don't be like that. Your trick with the flash paper was great." He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "I picked you for your attitude more than your talent - which you have plenty of, don't get me wrong. You reminded me of myself."

I snorted. "How? I'm trash."

"I am too, then," Dylan said with a laugh. "I could see the same fire that I had when I would perform magic when I saw you." He winked at me. "You were headstrong with a take-no-shit philosophy, and I thought that would come in handy when it came to dealing with Daniel Atlas."

We crossed to the other side of the street and continued walking in the same direction. "Good choice. I've put him in his place more than a few times," I said. "There's no getting out of line around me." I chuckled. "Unless I'm the one getting out of hand, anyway."

We both laughed for a little while before going silent and just taking in the night air. The sky was clear of clouds, allowing us to fully see the blanket of stars shining within the darkness. There was a slight breeze blowing through the city. This part of NYC was quiet, and there was hardly another soul in sight. Every now and again I would spot someone hurrying along the sidewalk across the street, presumably running home before they had the chance to be mugged. I had been worried about it at the start, but I was with Dylan. Nothing bad would happen while Dylan was around.

"Thank you for changing your mind and taking on a fifth Horseman," I said after a while, giving Dylan a soft smile. "Hope you haven't regretted it."

He mirrored my expression and set a hand on my shoulder. "Never for a moment have I regretted it, Andie."

Suddenly bashful, I looked down at my shoes. The toes were scuffed and the soles were starting to wear away from wearing them too often. They'd been in my possession since I lived in Nebraska. Toward the end of my time there, anyway.

I hadn't thought about Nebraska in a long time. Obviously it came to mind for a while after my interrogation with the FBI, but I'd forgotten about my family and former home again without much effort on my part. My dead sister was really the only thing that came to mind, but even that was starting to become rare.

"Why didn't you mention my sister when you were going through my family history?" I asked suddenly. Dylan raised an eyebrow. "I mean, she was really the reason I'm a magician now, and the reason I'm in New York and not Nebraska."

The FBI agent dropped his hand from my shoulder and shrugged a little. "I knew all of that. Most of it was just inferences I made from reading your file, anyway. I figured Scarlett was a sensitive subject and not something that I should bring up in an interrogation, especially when you already hated me."

I smiled a bit. "Well, I don't hate you now."

Dylan returned the gesture. "Hey, thanks. I appreciate that."

"And I appreciate you not bringing her up." He inclined his head toward me; I went on. "But I don't think I would have killed you or anything. I can talk about Scarlett just fine now. It's been a long time since she died, and she died happy, so there's not much I can be upset about."

"Have you ever thought to call your family?"

I nearly choked on my saliva. "Excuse me? Hell no. I'm not going back to them. I'm my own person when I'm in New York."

Dylan shrugged. "Yes, but I'm sure they'd like to know that their daughter is alive and well. For all they know, you may be dead."

"Or a fugitive, which would be even worse." I rolled my eyes. "Why did you bring me out here, Dylan? To talk about reconnecting me with my family?"

He shook his head quickly. "No, no. That was a thought that came to me just now." The corners of his lips twitched like he wanted to smile, but he never fully did. "I brought you out here so Danny could get some sleep and you could have someone to talk to while you're refusing to sleep."

"I've been doing okay by myself."

Dylan stopped walking and looked down at me, a slight frown on his face. "Everyone needs a friend sometimes. And since you're turning down help from the other three, I figured I should step in." His eyes were stern. "You can stop yourself from sleeping for as long as you want, but I can make sure you're not stressing yourself out from watching the news all night and waiting for the apocalypse to happen."

I looked away and glared at the building we were standing in front of. It was a shop of some description, closed down for the night. The windows were dark, so I couldn't see inside and figure out what kind of store it actually was. "I'm not waiting for the apocalypse," I said, staring at my reflection in the glass. "I'm waiting for Darren."

"Darren's been locked away. I saw to it."

"I know, but I still think about it." I cleared my throat and looked down at my worn out shoes again. "I can't get it out of my head. All of the threats - "

"Were just empty threats," Dylan said, cutting me off. "He would never have been able to kill Danny. I had eyes on you five at all times so someone could be there at a moment's notice to step in if any of you were put into harm's way. He never would have been able to kill Danny - or any of you - before I put a stop to it. And he's not going to get you now."

Dylan came up behind me and set a hand on my shoulder again. We were both quiet again, staring at our reflections standing side-by-side. It was comforting, having Dylan nearby. Maybe it was because he was a trained and dangerous FBI agent and magician; he could protect me from pretty much anything that would come my way. But I likened it more to being in the presence of a friend, someone who would look out for me when I didn't think I needed it.

"You guys are my responsibility; you have been from the moment you received your tarot cards. As long as I'm around, you're not going to have anything to worry about." He squeezed my shoulder. "Not the FBI, not Interpol, and especially not Darren."

I couldn't put into words how I was feeling after hearing that. All I could do was look up and smile, my first genuine smile in four days. "Thank you."

He smiled back and slung his arm around me, giving me another short side hug. I laughed a little and so did he. "Of course. You don't have to worry anymore. I promise."