Disclaimer: ho ho ho hee hee hee ha ha ha

Pre Author's Note: Going over past chapters I realized chapters 1 and 2 were the same chapter so a HUGE APOLOGY to everyone who's just started reading the story. You were all probably so confused.

I update past chapters regularly, but I can't remember the last time I did so who knows how long it's been that way. It's all fixed now but still, my bad and very sorry to new readers.

Now let's get to it!

Accel Synchro Summon.

I don't know what it is, other than that it was the result of heated duel between Yusei and this Antimony guy. I hope that's just a nickname. Who names their kid after an element?

I'm more interested in the microwave's chime than in the conversation, and pull the steaming ramen from the plate. I rest on the stairs, absorbing the group's words without really listening.

Even with my recent insight on dueling, whenever it comes up—and it does more often than you'd think—I feel like they're speaking in a different dialect. The language is familiar but nothing I've used before.

The twins sit on each of my sides. Ruka gives me a look over.

"Do you want some?" I offer, thinking it's the ramen she's after.

She declines. "Where did you go?"

I pause. I got separated from the gang—everyone for that matter—while I was in the bathroom. I took a taxi to Poppo Time and sure enough here they were, apparently just arriving minutes before I had.

"The bathroom."

Ruka sighs, like she's a hundred years older than she is, and relaxes. "You missed everything."

Not everything.

"All these mysterious people keep coming out of the woodworks," groans Crow, shifting in his seat.

"What happened?" I say after slurping up noodles. "Everything was trashed when I came back to the dining hall."

"A criminal named Bokuru," Akiza responds. "Apparently he isn't so happy with the way the WRGP is going, so he decided to crash the party."

"But Aki used her superpowers and kicked their butts before they could do any real damage," shouts Rua.

Akiza scratches her cheek when his eyes beam at her. She sends me a glance and must spot my astonishment. "Most psychics can apply their power to duel cards to make them tangible."

"Oh." I nod my head, but then ask, "How does that work?"

"It's easier to show you than explain," she ends with a sigh. I don't bother her with anymore questions.

Crow balances his chair back with one foot. "Where did you run off to?"

"The bathroom."

A single eyebrow arches, obviously skeptical. "And?"

"Hmm. Let me think. What does a person usually do in the bathroom?" Akiza folds her arms together and eyes him from across the table.

Crow raises his hands. "You never know! Something could've happened!"

"You're right, actually." I feel the gang's tendency to speak in unison approaching, and hurriedly say, "I saw my mark."

"Really?"

"On my forehead, just like you said," I say to Akiza.

"That's a good sign!" Rua smiles. "Now we know for sure you're something."

"But why would it come out now?" I swirl the noodles around as a thought enters my head. "No one's hurt, right?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"That's one of the reasons your marks glow. Are there any others?"

Everyone glances at everyone else. It's Yusei who speaks. "Other than alerting us of other marks like yours, they usually glow as a warning."

"A warning? As in…that you should be prepared?"

The voice in the darkness hums in my mind. I see the words scrawled across pages in the moleskine.

"What's wrong?"

I smooth out my dress, and walk to the trash can saying, "It's nothing." I watch the empty cup tumble down.

"Not with that look on your face, it isn't." Crow stands, hands planted on the table. He stares me dead in the eye. "What's wrong?"

It feels like an ambush, but maybe I'm the only one to blame since I didn't mention it sooner. You knew this would happen. You made your bed, Maria. Now you have to lie in it.

"It's true that I don't remember anything from the second time I blacked out. But the first time was different. I was talking to someone."

Akiza asks, "Who?"

"I don't know. It was just a voice. Then the sound of wind chimes, and someone telling me I…we should be prepared."

"Isn't it just a dream?" Crow frowns and I think of how unfitting it is on his face. "Dreams don't always mean things, ya know."

"I've never had ones like this before. It felt real. This voice said that it called out to me and that I answered. Does that sound meaningless to you?"

"Why are you telling us this now?" Jack steps toward me, so I step back. Yusei rests a hand on his shoulder and Jack knocks it off. "You could have told us all this before. Why didn't you?"

"Because…"

"Because why?"

"Because I didn't want to worry anyone."

"That's a bullshit reason if I've ever heard one."

"Jack!" Crow and Akiza shout in sync.

"You think I'm happy about all this? That I don't know what I am or what's happening to me? I'm just as clueless as the rest of you."

"You sounded pretty damn sure just a second ago!"

As long as I can keep my distance, I'd stay unmoved. The thought of him towering over me is the only thing that could make me crack.

"I've never been more confused in my life. I want to figure it out, so let me." I face the rest of the room. "With the WRGP going on, there's already so much for you guys to think about. Carly and I can handle this."

Obviously this doesn't hold the effect I was hoping for.

Jack's glare hardens before roaring: "I'm not going to let you put Carly in danger! Especially if you're going to keep lying to us!"

I can handle cursing, Mom had a sailor-mouth herself. I can handle yelling, it's just never me who yells. What I can't handle, apparently, is being called a liar.

Back when Mom was here, I said things when I felt like it. If I didn't, I didn't. Or Mom would use her all-knowing-mom-senses to get it out of me. But it must've been that way because I've never really had anything to hide, not anything like this.

Things are completely different now, supernatural happenings aside. Staying invisible is hard when so many people are onto you.

It isn't like I was never going to tell them, though. I just want my facts straight—what I am, what these spirits are, if we're really in danger or not.

Jack's already stomped upstairs to his room, slamming the door so hard the walls rumble, and I guess I'll do the same. Someone tugs on my hand at the last second.

"I'll drive you home," Yusei states when I look at him. My lips part to object but he tells Crow over his shoulder, "Call Aki and the twins a cab. I'm taking Maria to Martha's."

We head through the opened garage door. His and two other D-Wheels sit out back. Yusei lifts the seat and hands me the extra helmet that comes out of it. I hold it in my hands, watch my distorted reflection on faded paint.

"I would walk you but it's past curfew," he says. "There's less of a chance we'll get stopped this way."

He must've been watching me and mistook my guilt for hesitation.

I simply nod and hop on. It's fine and dandy at first, until I remember exactly how two people have to ride a motorcycle. Oh my god. I have to hug him.

I slap down the visor of the helmet just in case he has eyes in the back of his head and can see my red hot face. My hands cup his shoulder pads, and I nod to myself. This will do.

"Like this." Yusei draws my hands to his waist and wraps them around. He's oblivious to my fidgeting. "I'll try not to go too fast."

He revs up and we're off down the lighted streets. The impact sends me back then forward, into the scent of motor oil. Oil and the faint aroma of coffee beans.

I push myself back in to the seat, finally used to the pace and senses full of Yusei's smell. As we run over the bridge, the lights at the top of the poles flash in the night.

I will always prefer real stars to be up in the sky but beggars can't be choosers. Knowing that they're always up there is reassuring and that way, if I ever want to, I can always go see them. These artificial stars will have to do until then.

Past the stacked buildings and into the side streets, we glide on the pavement until halting at the curb.

Yusei gets off to let me out and I pass him the helmet. "Thanks for the ride," I mumble. Please don't say anything please don't say anything.

"Wait."

My shoulders go rigid, but I face him anyway. We're about the same height, but from up on the porch step, I have a two inch advantage. I wonder if this is how Jack feels all the time, looming over Yusei and probably the entire Japanese population.

"What is it?"

"Listen, about Jack—"

"He's right. I lied." He's taken aback, not enough to show, but I can tell. "It's fine."

"No, it's not." Yusei tries catching my eyes, but I stare off into the yard as he goes on. "I'm not here to take sides. I understand why Jack's upset and also why you didn't say anything."

"Look, I said it's fine. Don't make excuses for me. If you don't trust me, it's—"

"The reason we're having this conversation is because I trust you, Maria. No matter what Jack says, I'm sure he and everyone else does, too."

If he was a different person, he'd sound angry and this would be an argument. But he sounds determined instead, and this is more of a discussion of right and wrong, though textbook definition says opinions are neither.

Nonetheless, it gets me to look at him, and I have to wonder if this was his plan even before I looked away.

"You shouldn't speak for everyone else," I mumble, "not when Jack's made it clear he doesn't believe me."

"Can you blame him?"

"Of course not."

"Exactly," he says steadily. "And I don't blame you either." I blink a few times, stunned into silence. "All I'm asking is that, when you're ready, tell us what we should know. If it can help prepare us, tell us."

My mind is still stuck in one place. I was listening but the gears are also churning, trying to make sense of everything in the past hour. Suddenly, when the gears have clicked together and my mind is caught up to this second, I feel lighter.

…I trust you…I don't blame you…

It eases me enough for all my guilt to stop tangling my stomach. I try smiling at him but it doesn't go quite as planned. Scratch that—it goes pretty horrendously.

Tears drip down my cheeks instead.

Yusei's eyes widen and, stepping to my side, he puts a hand to my shoulder. "W-wait… Don't… D-did I say…"

The front door creaks open at that very second. Who else would be up this late other than…crap.

Martha peeks through, bearing a smile when she sees us. "I thought I heard voices—"

She goes back and forth between us. Me—panicky. Yusei—startled. Me—crying. Yusei—thoroughly confused.

Martha joins us in the porch lights. The glint in her eyes is deadly.

"What's going on?"

"I-I… I'm…" What are you doing?! Say something!

She turns to Yusei, already convinced she won't get an answer from me. He pulls his hand away, probably making him seem more suspicious than intended.

"Talking!" I finally let out. "Just talking."

I don't have to look at Yusei to know the concerned expression breaking his usual façade of seriousness.

"Then why are you—"

I grab Martha's hand before she finishes. "And now we're not talking! Goodnight, Yusei!"

I pull her inside and slam the door, lock the locks. She tries to ask something else and I raise a finger to my lips. My head rests against the door, waiting for movement on the other side.

Footsteps come a bit closer, but ultimately retreat. I move to the window, pulling the curtain aside to see the ruby D-Wheel dart off the street. I let out a sigh of relief and spread across the window seat.

"I think that's the first time I've ever heard you yell," Martha comments, sitting across from me on the couch.

"We were just talking, really. I can't tell you why I was crying, but the good news," I wipe under my eyes and feel the dry streaks left behind, "is that I'm not anymore."

"I believe you. Yusei's a good kid." She glances to the side, lips scrunching up. "Though he is still a boy. I got worried for a minute."

I laugh and so does she. Yusei doesn't seem the type to pull something like that.

"But he is really…nice. I was feeling bad about something that happened and he said something that made me happy."

"I'm glad to hear. Yusei's always been understanding." She says in a way that makes me think she's reminiscing on good times. Then she says, in a tone equally mocking and fretful, "I think the usual response is to smile."

"You and I both know I'm not usual, Martha." I stand, glancing down at my hands. "Not by a long shot."

I notice something about my room is out of place. I sit in the middle of the floor, staring at every wall, every piece of furniture and still can't place it. When Martha calls for breakfast I leave the room tentatively, feeling tricked. Like maybe some of the kids moved all my stuff two inches over in the middle of the night.

I ask anyone if they've been in my room lately. They all say no, or ask why. I let it go after that.

It's not until the kids come to me under the oak in the yard when I place it. Nothing in my room was out of place, but something had been missing.

"Where's Annie?" they ask.

To be honest, I never even noticed she was gone. The hub-bub of the forest incident is still very fresh in my mind, it's all I've been thinking about recently. I hate to admit it because now I sound like the worst pet owner in the world.

Usually if she's not trailing me, she's somewhere on the property but looking back on these past few days I can't recall seeing her anywhere. I check all her usual spaces and my entire room, then double check. Nowhere.

It's past lunchtime when I start pacing the kitchen, raiding cupboards and drawers just to be sure.

"Doesn't she always come back?" one of the kids asks, mouth so stuffed with tuna fish I can barely make his words out.

I poke my head inside a cabinet under the sink. "Usually, I guess."

But she's not a boomerang. What if it's different this time? What if she gets in to trouble again—the weird, ghost kind of trouble?

"Have faith in her! Believe she'll come back!"

What if she doesn't? She may possibly be a ghost cat stalking my every move, but she is still mine. And if anything, she's been more help than harm. Maybe she's a friendly ghost, like Casper.

"I guess you're right." I move some bottles to the side right when the phone rings and I ram my head in to the doorframe, resulting in a disgruntled, "Hello?" when I pick up the phone.

"Just the person I was looking for!"

Have you ever been so mad you started crying? That's mostly why Maria starts crying during her argument/discussion with Yusei. She's mad at herself, mad at the situation, and mad that Yusei won't let her blame herself for what happened.

Though, after just being in an argument with Jack the Giant who calls her out on her secrecy, hearing that someone accepts that she doesn't want to tell the group everything makes Maria happy, so that also plays a part, but a teeny one.

I just wanted to straighten that out for ya'll. Thanks a million for favs/follows/reviews! They make me so proud and happy and full of good vibes and pumped to write more! I even noticed a larger wave of people after adding the last chapter and that got me so excited, so again THANK YOU ALL YOU BEAUTIFUL LITTLE NUGGETS.

TTFN