I tried my best to remain invisible as I snuck into the little bookstore in the middle of the strip, hoping my sister wouldn't spot me. I hadn't told her I was coming, and I'm sure if she caught me, she'd stop and think I was here to yell at her, or plead my own case, or something. That wasn't the case. I wanted to support her, in fact, just like she had done for me for so many years of our childhood.

"We were never a real family. We were our father's creation; family in name, but not in fact."

I smiled as she read out loud. Sure, some of the things she had said shocked and hurt me for a bit, but I really couldn't blame her. Dad had forced her out of our lives for so long, she had every right to feel unimportant.

"Of course, the only real family between any of us were my sister Mina and brother Five. We were told very early on that they were blood related, and my father made sure we always knew that, especially after he disappeared. Even then, he'd discourage them from normal sibling quarrels. In the end, after our brother Ben died, there was nothing really connecting us. Understandably, Mina had distanced herself when Five disappeared, no longer expected to appear at family dinners or attend normal training sessions. We were just strangers living under the same roof, destined to be alone, starved for attention, damaged by our upbringing, locked in our own mental prisons where we blamed ourselves for everything that went wrong..." I grimaced, knowing that line was about me. "...and haunted by what might have been. We all wanted to be loved by a man incapable of giving love. Our father never missed an opportunity to remind me that I was ordinary- a hard thing for a little girl to hear. If you're raised to believe nothing about you is special, if the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you're not?"

She looked up from reading, expression shifting to shock when she spotted me leaning against the door frame. The few people sitting and listening to her read applauded, then got up and began to mill about. I watched Vanya move quickly, clearly attempting to get out before having to speak to me, but I wanted to address everything. I moved past people staring at me, recognizing me either for ballet or because of this, and came to stand next to our sister.

"Mina." She tried her best to sound surprised, as though we hadn't met eyes just a moment ago.

"Hey, Vanya." Vanya sighed, slapping her arms against her side.

"Look, if you're gonna chew me out, can you at least do it outside?" I raised my eyebrows, sticking one hand out to assure her.

"Oh, no, I'm not here because I'm mad!" She eyed me suspiciously. "I promise. I'm actually was here to congratulate you. After everything you were told, still having the balls to release that... I really think Dad underestimated you."

"Thanks..." Vanya looked down, scuffing her feet as her cheeks turned red. She almost seemed ashamed for receiving congratulations, but I wasn't finished.

"And... I wanted to thank you. You put some really good memories in there." I pointed to the book, silently asking if I could borrow it. She quickly passed it off into my hands, and I flipped to a page that, in my copy at home, had been dog eared, and the spine worn thin from constantly opening to that section. "'Things weren't always bad, despite how I've made it sound. Time off was spent having about as much fun as our father would let us. No one ever really spent time together during those hours... with the exception of Mina and Five. I could always find them playing card games in the kitchen or one of their rooms, sneaking peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches and hiding them on the off chance Dad ever came around. If I happened to walk by, they'd invite me to play. Sometimes, they'd remind me I was still part of the family.'"

I smiled, handing the book back to her and squeezing her shoulder.

"I know things were really hard for you. I can't just make things better after what we did to you, but... I just wanted to say I'm sorry." Now, she looked genuinely surprised. "Anyways, we should catch up sometime." I started to turn away and head out, when she called out to me.

"I-I'm free right now." I smiled, waiting for her to gather up her things before the two of us headed out the door.

I tried my best not to watch my brother's face as I finished stitching his wound shut. I'd already dealt with mine, biting my tongue as I cauterized and dressed it, tossing away the needle I'd used once I was finished.

I finished the last suture, then clipped the thread and started to clean the blood off the rest of his arm. Neither of us talked about what happened last night, and I figured it maybe wasn't a good idea to ask yet. I had to admit, I was still shaken up over Five's little breakdown. He'd cried for quite a while, before he'd exhausted himself into almost passing out, but I had to keep him up to make sure he wasn't losing too much blood from his wound. Dealing with mine had taken almost the whole night, and although I had protested and tried my best to fix his first, Five insisted mine was more severe.

"There you go. I'm finished," I declared as I stuck a Billy the Choo-Choo bandage on it. "Sorry about the bandage. It's the only kind I could find."

"It's fine." His voice still sounded strained.

"I'm gonna step out so you can change. But after that..." I paused for a second as I stood up and threw the blood-soaked gauze into the garbage. "...I'm sorry, but I need you to tell me as much as you can. I want to help you, but I also want to make sure you're safe... which I understand sounds kind of dumb when you're attempting to prevent the apocalypse."

"Fine," he hissed. I rolled my eyes, trying my best to just brush off his flippancy and attitude as I made my way out and shut the door.

The cold wall felt comforting against my back as I took in a shaky breath, trying to calm my spiking nerves. At first, I thought the end of the world was something I could help my brother with, but now, there were hit men after him. I thought he'd said he was the last person alive, so where the hell did those people come in? Not to mention, they came dangerously close to taking us out last night. If something happened to him, again...

I shook my head, trying to get rid of that pessimism that clawed through all too often. I'd been working on that since I came back here. For whatever reason, being back with my family was helping with everything, even if we all spent the majority of the time fighting with each other. At least we were together, there for support whenever one of us needed it. Still, they looked at me like they did when we were kids. They took on that expression- where the face softened and they spoke in a bit of a higher voice, reaching out to gently touch me as though I would completely shatter if they applied too much force.

"Five?" I rapped lightly on the door, hoping I didn't startle him. "You decent?"

My heart rate spiked when I didn't get a response.

"Five, I'm coming in."

Suddenly, all that progress I had been proud of dissolved, regressing back into the narrow mindset I lived my entire life by. My eyes darted around like bees as I scanned Five's entire room, unable to spot him anywhere. He had disappeared again without a goddamn word. He could only do that so many times before... well, this.

Gasping heavily, I sprinted into my room, finding my shoes still slung around one of the posts of my bed. I just needed to get my mind off of all this before I went looking for him, otherwise I'd start yelling- or worse, never find him.

Despite my frantic state, I managed to open and shut the door to the studio quietly. I didn't know if any of my siblings were within earshot, but they'd learned the sound of my studio door shutting at this point, and I was sure they'd come running if they heard. The lock made a strange noise, they knew it by heart now. I didn't need them worrying about this, it was nothing. I just had to move, get the panic out of me.

I started with some simple, slow movements and stretches, trying to ease myself in before I started moving quickly. But the slowness gave my mind time to roll back into its own thoughts, and as panic fought its way back into my brain, I sped up, as though the spins and harsh movements would somehow just fix whatever was happening. My movements grew more and more haphazard and breath shortened, and my awareness grew smaller and smaller. My brain didn't register the needles pricking at my fingertips, which quickly turned to a complete, tingling numbness; my knees began to turn to Jello, forcing my legs to wobble. Yet, the whole time, my brain kept screaming not to give up. I had to make sure I wouldn't be knocked down when I got back, and more importantly, I had to banish the dark corners.

Even when my legs gave out, and I tumbled to the ground, I didn't realize I had stopped moving. In fact, it wasn't until Allison found me splayed out that my mind came back to me, and I realized I had done it again.

"Mina?" Somehow, I managed to turn my head and look at her. "Oh, my God..."

She lifted me up, but the moment I tried to take a step, I collapsed again, feeling as though I were made of cement all of a sudden. My body refused to move itself, giving up right there on the floor. This wasn't the first time Allison had seen me like this, but I'm sure she had hoped when we all came back as adults this would have passed.

"Luther!" Allison called, out poking her head out of the door. "Luther, we've got an emergency!"

I don't think I'd ever seen Luther move that fast. For a man of his stature, that honestly was pretty impressive, and I probably would have demonstrated that, had I not been in a vegetative state on the ground. Allison pointed down in my direction, and immediately, his eyes went wide, and he rushed over to pick me up.

"Go get some water, and any sort of food," he ordered her. She nodded and ran out, then Luther looked down at me. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Knowing I couldn't answer at the moment probably pushed him to ask that question, since I wouldn't be able to argue with him. Still, he carried me into the drawing room and set me down on one of the couches. Allison immediately rushed over to me with the glass of water and some sandwich she'd thrown together, helping me drink so I could at least answer. Slowly, my senses came about me, and I looked up at the two of them, who wouldn't stop staring at me like I'd died.

"Mina, how long were you... training?" She always hesitated to call it training because she knew what it really was.

"Doesn't matter," I scoffed. "It's never been long enough before."

Allison and Luther exchanged a glance.

"He's back now. You don't have to keep doing this." I suddenly felt myself getting angry, and I sat up a little straighter.

"You really think it's still about Five? He was just an afterthought." My hands began to tremble as I dared to look up, causing her to flinch a bit as we connected eyes. "Dad always taught me we had to improve—that we had to be better than we were. There's always room for improvement in everything I do, but what I do has to be perfect. If I can't be perfect, they're going to take away what I have. No matter what I do, I'm never good enough, but I can't just stop trying. And when I'm not good enough, when I step out of line or go back to something, I have to punish myself. The only way I know how to do that is dancing and spinning until my legs give out and I feel like hell."

Allison waved Luther out of the room, and once he was gone, took a seat next to me. I could tell she was trying to make the tensions dissolve, but I just straightened up a little more, scooting away a bit.

"Mina, all you're doing is hurting yourself. I had to learn this the hard way, and now, I'm hoping you will before it's too late: you will never be perfect."

"Wow, thanks," I deadpanned.

"Hear me out. You actually can dance, and you're not half bad. But it's impossible for anyone to be 'perfect'."

"But I could be better," I growled, my mind floating to the other dancers I'd been forced to compete with. If prompted, I could list off everything they did that I wished I could.

"At least your success is legitimate," Allison scoffed, leaning back a little. I met eyes with her, my curious expression urging her to continue. "You earned what you have because you worked hard and have talent. I..." She looked down again, ashamed. "I cut corners, asked for what I wanted and got it without having to try." This was news to me.

"Allison, I... wh-" I couldn't surmise a response.

"You don't have to say anything. I deal with the thought of it enough for the both of us..." Allison cleared her throat before offering me a smile. "What I'm trying to say is, even if you're not at the top anymore, at least you still have the talent to match the position. You earned your place. So no more training for a while, okay?"

At least that was the only thing she called me out on.

"Okay."

She reached over and hugged me tight, something we hadn't done in years. I had to admit, I missed her a lot. She was always on the other side of the country, filming something and unable to talk, but now, we were able to connect again. That was the nice thing about coming home.

"Now, there's some business we need your help with." She leaned her head around, looking out the door. "Luther?" Cautiously, he entered the room.

"I know this might not be what you need to hear right now, but... we think Mom might have had something to do with Dad's death." My eyes widened. "We saw some footage from the security tapes. He started dying and Mom... Mom had touched him just a moment before. And when we talked to her... she seemed like she wasn't quite with it."

"What? That's crazy. It's Mom. She's programmed to be a caregiver," I pointed out.

"I don't like this any more than you do, but she's hiding something." I sighed. Luther didn't sound genuine.

"Hiding? To me, she just sounded confused," Allison countered.

"Well, uh... you saw the tape. Grace knew what she was doing."

"Grace?" I scoffed. "Last time I talked to you, she was Mom."

"She's a machine, Mina."

"Who read to us and cleaned up after us and put us to bed."

"And then we left her here, alone, in this house for 13 years," Allison added. "I mean, no wonder she lost her mind. To be away from her kids?"

I hesitated, suddenly realizing what this was really about. I didn't want to say anything, at the risk of making the situation worse, but Luther didn't really get that.

"Hey, what happened with... Claire? With Patrick? You never told me."

"Luther," I hissed. I know he had been on the moon, but still, that was insensitive. I looked between the two of them, then stood up, trying to get myself out of this awkward situation.

"Um... if we're gonna continue this discussion about Mom, I think the whole family should be here. So I'm gonna go track down Five and Klaus. Okay? Okay."

Quickly as I could, I ran from the room and replaced my pointe shoes with regular ones, then headed down the stairs and toward my car. I found Klaus outside, standing in a dumpster and digging around for something.

"Klaus?"

He jumped up, snapping around and smiling at me.

"Mina! Hey, your twin went rushing off somewhere with a bag in a van."

I sighed. I knew exactly where he had gone.

"Let's go, you're coming with me. We've got family business to attend to."