Part of George knew it was wrong. Seeing the alien man torn away from his family, his yellow-eyed wife and two daughters left behind and scared for their family's safety, had made him feel sick to his stomach. They seemed so normal.

So why participate in the bar raid? Honestly, he didn't know anymore. He wanted to make his dad proud. He wanted to protect humanity from an imminent threat with so much more power than they had. He wanted to feel safe after aliens took everything away from him. And his dad had started talking about it on his video series, comparing aliens to white colonizers and humans to scared Native people whose lands were being taken without their permission. Which seemed, well, a little off. More than a little off. And also kind of racist actually. Besides, the only exposure he'd ever had to aliens in awhile was violent, and if they wanted to be treated better they needed to show proper respect.

They seemed like stupid reasons now that he was in the bar, listening to his father's colleague announce that under martial law, it was illegal for aliens to gather after curfew….and he saw a face that looked entirely too familiar, avoiding his gaze and pulling up its hoodie. He had to know. He had to be the one that caught this particular roach.

The alien girl in the blue jumpsuit and mask told said coldly that they would have to get through the reverie first, and suddenly guns were out as the humans prepared to defend themselves. George yelled out, "I'll get the kid!" And the roach bolted, obviously guilty of something - why else wouldn't it just cooperate? They were all guilty of something.

George ran after it, grabbing it by the shoulder and yanking it around before it could escape. He pushed it against the door and pinned it down...and then his heart broke when he realized why the alien's face looked so familiar. The scared face that looked up at him belonged to his best friend, but those eyes definitely weren't human.

"Charlie?" he asked incredulously.

"George," Charlie pleaded, his voice shaking slightly. "Please don't take me in."

"You're an alien?" George demanded, shocked and a little horrified. And betrayed. "Why didn't you tell me?" Was his best friend just like the rest of them, ready to screw over any human he could? Was this just some kind of twisted scheme to take advantage of George, to get to his father? Wasn't George entitled to know that Charlie, his supposed best friend, wasn't even human?

Charlie looked at him like he was an idiot. "Why do you think?" He tried to gesture to George's new Children of Liberty uniform, though his arm was still pinned by George's grasp.

George looked down, his mouth dropping open. Okay, yeah, it made sense that an alien wouldn't feel safe confiding in a member of the Children of Liberty, Ben Lockwood's own son at that. It made a lot of sense, in the same way a rat, even one carrying some deadly disease, wouldn't want to be friends with a cat. Why spill a secret that could put your life in danger?

Was he the kind of person that would have put his best friend's life in danger? Did he want to be that person, knowing what he now did about Charlie?

No. He didn't. And the way Charlie was looking at him, had struggled to escape him, had shown fear toward him, made George feel sick to his stomach with guilt. Aliens already were obviously living, breathing beings with their own lives, families, and problems. Seeing one with a friend's face had been the last straw. He couldn't do this. He could never be a Child of Liberty, not when his friend was one of the aliens he had to hunt. He was still a little wary of aliens, but this? Chasing his friend down in a makeshift refugee camp and handing him over to the government to be separated from his family, have his whole life disrupted, maybe even tortured or killed? This was just disgusting. He had to have a serious talk with his family when he got home, right after….

George loosened his grip and Charlie ran out the back door of the bar. Maybe not all aliens were good, maybe he'd never be able to make amends with the innocent ones he'd hurt, but this was one particular alien whose life and freedom George would never regret sparing.