"I don't get how somebody could do that," Kuki said, eyes full of tears.

The Treehouse was eerily silent that day. Even though the rest of Sector V didn't really know Jeremy, they knew that he was in the Kids Next Door. But they weren't old enough or mature enough to understand the concept of suicide.

Wally kept his mouth clamped shut. He didn't know what would come out of his mouth.

"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense at all," Hoagie replied.

Nigel sighed. "I don't understand it either. Numbuh 362 wants to come over. We're the closest sector to him, and I guess she wants to make sure we're handling it."

"We barely even knew the kid," Abby said, shaking her head. "I'm not even sure what he did."

"Numbuh 362 says he was a janitor at the Moonbase."

"That's miserable. Who would choose to do that?" Abby shook her head again. "This kid must've had some problems."

Wally's mind was turning quickly. Why would the happiest member of their sector do that? Why would the person who got over it the best do it? Four of them were on that final mission. Two were now dead. The other two were messed up beyond belief. What was stopping them from doing it too?

Not to mention that now there was only him and Janet in the Kids Next Door, and Janet was turning 13 very soon. She would join the other, less fucked-up former members of Sector XX. The ones that were lucky enough to be doing backend work on that day. And then he would really be alone. Even though they weren't technically allowed to talk to each other, it was kind of nice to know he wasn't the only one in the KND that had been through something so shitty.

He suddenly stood up. "I've gotta do homework," he mumbled before shuffling to his room.

"Numbuh 4? Doing homework?" Hoagie sounded incredulous. "Since when does that happen?"

Abby sighed loudly, clearly unaware that Wally was still within hearing range. "Something's really up with him."

Wally lay on the floor until he heard a soft knock. "Hey, Wally. I heard you were in here."

"Go away."

Rachel slowly closed the door behind her. "I just wanted to see if you were okay."

"What, you think I'm gonna do it too?" he snapped.

"That's not what I was saying-"

"The Kids Next Door already has too much blood on its hands, and you want to make sure there's not more?"

Rachel sighed. "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry."

"Fuck." He sprawled back out on the floor.

"Have you talked to Janet yet?"

"I talked to her this morning but we hadn't heard yet. Wait a second!" He sat up. "Tell Numbuh 74.239 and his weird friend to stop watching me. It's creeping me the fuck out."

"Uh, what?"

"Or they're watching Numbuh 1. I can't tell, but I asked him about it and he said they weren't, but I swear, they're watching me-"

"Wally, I don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't either," he finished lamely, crashing back on the floor.

"I think you-"

"I'm losing my damn mind."

"Maybe you should take some time off."

"Yeah."

"And maybe-"

"A therapist. Yeah, yeah, I know."

Rachel nodded. "I'm not sure how exactly to tell them you're off duty this time."

"I don't know either and I'm too messed up to think."

"Abby mentioned that you've been a little weird lately. Maybe I could leave it vague, like last time?"

"They're never going to buy that. They didn't buy it the first time."

"Um… family issues?"

"Are you kidding? They'd tell their parents, who'd talk to my parents, who'd be pissed at me. It'd be a total disaster." Wally sighed loudly. "I don't know what to tell them. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I just want to go home and leave this shitty place behind."

"Fine. I'll keep it secret again." Rachel sighed as well.

Wally stood up. "I'm going home. Or maybe I'll see Janet. Or somebody. Maybe Chad?"

"Why Chad?"

"Why not? He knows about this too, right?"

"He betrayed the Kids Next Door."

"Do I care?" Wally's voice was full of exhaustion, rather than the venom it usually had when he was like this. Rachel followed him out of his room and out to the rest of the Treehouse. Wally slipped away without anybody noticing, just as he had wanted.

He took a different route home. He paused outside Chad's house, before deciding against it. He also paused in front of Janet's house. And then he took the slow walk home.

"I don't want to go to school," Wally muttered as he pulled the covers above his head. His mother was standing over him, glaring.

"You have to. Get up." She pulled the covers down.

"No." He knew he was being difficult. But how was he supposed to go to school, knowing that Jeremy was dead? It was probably his fault, after all. Jeremy did not take well to being outside of Sector XX for a long time, and he was still considered an outcast of society. And whose fault was Sector XX's ending? Wally's.

"Wallace Beetles, get your butt out of that bed," his father said from outside the door.

"No. My friend's dead," he blurted.

"Who? That Jeremy kid? You've never played with him. I'd never heard his name before yesterday, when the school told everyone what happened."

"Well, I knew him," Wally snapped.

His father shook his head. "I can't believe you would use a random kid's death to try to get out of school."

"I'm not! I knew him!" This was the most frustrated he'd been in a while.

"You're going to school and that's final. You can either be dragged there in your pajamas, or you can get up on your own."

Wally sighed obnoxiously and got out of bed.

Fortunately for him, he'd woken up so late that his mother had to drive him to school, scolding him all the way. He had barely made it in time, but he walked into the school. It was overwhelming.

Why would it be overwhelming? It wasn't like he talked to Jeremy often at school, anyways.

He went to his locker, and Janet was standing at it. "I didn't think you'd make it," she said, monotonously.

"My parents didn't believe me," he muttered, turning the dial on the lock. He was shaking; why was he shaking? He could barely open the damn thing.

"I didn't even try to convince my parents," she said, pushing him aside and breaking into his locker for him. "Rachel came over and said that you're off duty now."

"Of course I am."

"And she's giving me time off as well." She stepped aside to let him into his unlocked locker.

"Thanks." The warning bell rang.

"The funeral's on Saturday," Janet continued. "Do you think we should go?"

He frowned. They hadn't gone to Lyla's funeral. "I don't know."

"Maybe we should." They were quickly becoming the last two people in the hallway. The late bell would ring at any moment. Neither of them cared. "We can say we just knew him from school or something. It's not like anyone would notice."

"You think?"

"Nobody's observant enough," Janet said. "He didn't really have other friends. Nobody would notice."

"I'll try to notice things today and see if I can figure out what people are saying." The late bell rang. "Damn," he swore under his breath.

"I had first period with him," Janet mentioned. "I'm not doing that. Wanna skip?"

"Are you out of your mind?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"They're gonna call our parents or something."

"Not if we do it in the counselor's office. They've set up some sort of mourning station."

"Absolutely not. I'm not talking to some counselor."

"You don't have to. They have, like, colouring pages and stuff." She rolled her eyes. "Like we're children."

"That sounds stupid."

"Would you rather be in some boring class?"

He frowned. "Fine."

They were marked as late for the day in the office, but they didn't care. It was empty. The counselor jumped at the prospect of having students to counsel. She nearly threw the colouring sheets at them as they sat down in her small office.

"Were you two friends with Jeremy?" she asked. The kids absentmindedly picked up a couple of markers and started colouring.

"A long time ago, we were," Janet answered. "Not too much now."

"A lot of the teachers have said he was a bit of a loner."

"Yeah, we didn't really talk to him much." Janet's voice had an edge on it.

"Any reason?"

Wally took over. "Just grew apart, I guess." He frowned. He'd had to have meetings with the counselor before whenever teachers were wondering why he was failing everything. How was he supposed to reconcile these two personalities?

"Hm. When did you start growing apart?"

"Couple years ago. We were more friends in elementary school." He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. They'd only been in elementary school when Sector XX was active. They were so young.

"How are you two handling the news so far?"

Both of them stopped their mindless scribbling and looked at each other. They saw the same disheveled appearance in each other and the same dark circles under their eyes.

"Bad," Janet admitted. Wally nodded his agreement.

"It's always a shock, especially considering how it happened," the counselor said soothingly. "Do you wish you had talked to him more?"

Janet slowly started nodding. Wally followed along.

"That's very common. Blaming yourselves will do nothing."

Wally bit his tongue. It was his fault, wasn't it? He picked up a marker again and started colouring more aggressively. He suddenly regretted coming.

Janet just stared at the counselor with a blank look.

"I get the feeling you two don't want to talk about this right now."

"You think?" Janet muttered.

"You two can sit here as long as you'd like."

"Thanks." Janet picked up her marker and continued colouring as well. They sat in silence through the first period. They startled as the bell rang.

"Do you two think you can go to your next class?" the counselor asked. "It's alright if you can't."

Wally frowned for a moment. He didn't have class with any of the other members of Sector V until lunch. But could he handle it? "I don't know," he admitted.

Janet shrugged. "I had first period with him. So I think I could probably handle it."

"I'll try," Wally mumbled.

They made their way across the school. They were pushed into the lines of kids making their way through the hallways.

"I'm going to go back during lunch," Wally said.

"I'll probably do that too." Janet sighed. "I don't think it helped any, but it was a hell of a lot better than being in class."

"Yeah. I can't imagine what Abby would say if she saw me today. Rachel took me off active duty and didn't even give them a reason."

"They're going to be really annoying," Janet said.

She was right.

Even though he tried to avoid them, Sector V had managed to find him before lunch.

"Why weren't you in first period?" Abby demanded.

"Why not?" he retorted.

"Why are you off active duty?" Nigel demanded.

"Why not?" he repeated.

"Numbuh 4, as your sector leader I-"

"I don't care!" Wally exploded. "I don't care what you have to say! I don't care at all! Just leave me alone!" He turned around and speed-walked down the hallways. They were hopefully busy enough that they wouldn't be able to follow him.

He walked into the counselor's office as Janet left. He'd forgotten about their differing schedules.

"If I see your friends, will they be pissed off? Your face is bright red."

"Probably." He let out a shaky breath.

"I'll let you know how mad they are if I see them," she muttered as she walked away.

Wally slowly walked in.

"Welcome back," the counselor said, giving a soft smile.

"Um, thanks." Wally sat down.

"Janet said that lunch time was hard because it brought back too many memories. Is that true for you?"

Wally shrugged. "I mostly don't want to deal with my friends."

"Why not?"

He frowned. "They just… they don't understand. They don't know that I knew him. And, I don't know, I just don't want to see them right now."

"That's okay," she reassured. "It's hard for people to know what to say. You can talk to them when you're ready."

His stomach dropped as he realized how the rest of his day would likely go. "If I see them they'll annoy me about it," he started. He picked up a new colouring sheet and a marker. Anything to distract himself. "And I have the next two classes with some of them, and we all have the same bus."

"Did you try telling them you need some space?"

"Not really. I kind of just blew up in their faces just now." He cringed at himself. He was losing all self-control.

"About them trying to talk to you?"

"Yeah."

"They sound like they care about you."

"And I need them to stop caring," he muttered before thinking.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"I mean, I need them to leave me alone," he corrected. But he could tell that something had shifted in the room.

"Wally, look at me." He obliged. "I need to ask you a question."

"What?"

"Are you thinking of harming yourself?"

"No," he responded immediately. It felt like a lie. Why did it feel like a lie? Sure, he'd thought about it, but he wasn't going to do it. Probably.

The counselor sighed. "Alright."

He pretended to be extremely interested in his colouring sheet. It was a complicated mandala outline. It would probably take the rest of the period to get done. But he knew he had to bite the bullet and go to his next couple of classes.

"Have you talked to your parents at all about this?"

"I tried. They thought I was using it as an excuse to get out of school today. They don't really know or remember that I was friends with him."

"That sounds frustrating. How did that make you feel?"

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. How cliche could she get? "Bad."

"Are you going to try to talk to them again tonight?"

"I don't know. It's not that big of a deal."

"I think it is. It's really bothering you, isn't it?"

He narrowed his eyes. For some reason, he felt a prickling of tears in the back of his eyes. "No? I mean, I don't know." He blinked a couple of times.

"Wally, it's okay to cry," she said softly.

He wiped his eyes. "I'm not. I'm fine." More tears replaced the ones he'd wiped away. "I don't know why I care so much," he admitted.

"Grief affects everyone differently."

"I've barely even talked to him recently!" he exclaimed, as she handed him a tissue. "I've talked to him, like, once this entire school year!"

"When was that?"

"I don't know, a couple weeks ago maybe?" His stomach flipped. It had been less than a month ago. It had been maybe two weeks since the anniversary of Lyla's death. Had Jeremy been planning it back then? Why didn't they notice anything?

"That's very recent."

"I don't know, I see him around a lot, usually. And this past week, I didn't see him at all, and Janet said that he hadn't shown up to class in a while. And I don't know why we didn't notice!" He didn't know why he was spilling his guts to this near-stranger. Especially not someone who was a mandated reporter. He took a deep breath. He had to get it together before he blurted out something about Lyla.

Lyla's murder case was never solved. He knew the answer. He'd gotten another, older member of Sector XX to call the police tip line to tip them off. They figured it was a kid doing a prank call and never followed up. It was almost too late to admit that he knew something.

"A lot of people never show signs, Wally. There wasn't any way you could have known."

"I know I just- I don't know." The tears were still flowing, no matter how much he wiped them away.

"Do you think maybe you should go home?" she asked.

He nodded without thinking. Why was he being so impulsive?

"Alright. I'll call your mother."

He sat in the office, torn between staring at the wall and doodling on the colouring sheet. The black marker in his hand blended the intricate lines together. He was ruining it, he realized. He didn't care.

The door opened. "Hello, Mrs. Beetles," the counselor said.

"Hello- oh, Wally, I'm so sorry I didn't believe you this morning!" She gave him a one-armed hug around his back. Joey was wiggling in her other arm. "You know, we'd never heard of him before, so we figured-"

"It sounds like they haven't been close for a while, so it's reasonable that you wouldn't know," the counselor said.

When he got home, he lay in bed with his parents' iPad, watching bad YouTube videos. Anything to drown out the chaos in his brain.

He walked into the church alone.

His parents had let him stay home from school the day prior. Janet had texted him information about the funeral, so he put on his fanciest clothes and had his mother drop him off. She offered to come in with him, but he told her no. He had to do this alone, as with most things in his life.

"Hey."

He looked up at Rachel. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. "Hey," he replied, in the same low voice.

"I was waiting for you. Janet's already here. And some other people you know. We've got a spot in the back."

He nodded and followed her into the last row of seats. Janet he wasn't surprised by. There were a couple other members of Sector XX there, some he hadn't seen in a while. In the very last seat in the row was Chad.

He tried not to think about the other Supreme Leaders who were decommissioned. Would they even recognize Jeremy's name?

Arabella was the first to speak up. "Long time no see," she said with a small smirk. "Look who it is, Benny," she continued, lightly elbowing the boy beside her.

"Still haven't grown an inch," Benny responded with a smirk.

Wally rolled his eyes. "Good one. Never heard it before in my life." Benny and Arabella had been the two lucky members of Sector XX doing backend work on the day of their final mission. They didn't understand. He knew it was wrong, but he resented them a bit. How could he not? They narrowly avoided the worst day of his life.

"Do you think any others are coming?" Chad asked suddenly.

"Do you know of any other members of our sector?" Arabella asked, shaking her head. "They probably don't care as much. They were too old."

"Not even Milton or Sarah?" Benny asked. "They're still in town and they should remember."

"Milton's a jackass. He'd never show up." She rolled her eyes. "Sarah's way too old. Was she even in the sector when Jeremy was?"

"Maybe for a month or so."

"Yeah, no way she's coming." Arabella sighed. "Such is life for us miserable losers. Speaking of which, this is the emptiest funeral I've ever been to."

She was right. Other than their row in the back, most of the church was filled with adults, probably relatives or teachers from school.

"I heard some people saying they were too distraught about this," Janet said, rolling her eyes. "They were all over social media about how sad they were. But absolutely none of them came. Assholes."

"What absolute losers." Arabella crossed her arms and sank in the chair.

A hush fell over the church and the funeral started. Wally spaced out for most of it. He couldn't handle it.

They skipped out before the burial. They felt too awkward. They said some awkward goodbyes, but they knew the rules: they weren't supposed to convene, even at a funeral.

That night, Wally dreamt the same dream of Lyla's murder, but this time, Jeremy's lifeless body was hanging from the tree beside her.