Disclaimer: *crickets chirping*

It is another drunkard. So very abundant, as if they are bred by the dozens like the very rodents scuffling along the alley grounds. The man slurs and teeters his way down the backstreets, shirt half-untucked and a silver can keeping one hand occupied. He hums a song, some common melody tangled by his liquor-addled mind.

Once, a human boy had wound himself in Master's web. He was nothing of marvel, simply young and dumb. And though the boy was out at the wee hours, he was sober. That is what made him most challenging to catch. The wisps had almost worried that the boy would get away and live to tell the tale of them. But Master got to him, fortunately.

However, she was already weakened after the incident with the girl in the forest, so another effort with her powers could not be spared again. Master learned after that. To wait longer so she could see the signs of intoxication, to delay her illusions until she was certain.

Master could probably spare using her power, especially on ones as deep in the bottle as this wanderer, but she wouldn't. She is far too stubborn, far too proud of what has been gifted upon her. And beyond that, Master just enjoys it too much. "The game would lose all its fun," they imagine her announcing.

So the pale spirits watch their ruler roll in her fog, it's thicker than they last remember. The treeline rests in bunches, branches longer and thorns sharper. Master is getting stronger, the minions agree. But she would need much, much more before she was capable of reaching her full potential.

Master leaps from a balcony and swings down a railing onto a dumpster amidst the false scenery. The drunk takes no notice of the change in favor of guzzling down the last sips of his beer. Master trails him in light, prowling steps. He wouldn't get very far, so there is no need to rush.

The man's pace stutters to a stop and he looks around, dazed. The alcohol still has a tight hold on him, but his sense is catching up. The empty can clinks when colliding with the pavement. His head swivels left and right and the man tries to rub the confusion from his eyes. The drunk reopens them, and Master stands before him.

Under the mask, they know she is grinning.

Carly's phone lights up and vibrates in an erratic fit right as the stoplight turns red. She glances at it and immediately goes wide-eyed, mouth agape.

"What's up?" I prod at my boots. The leather's peeling away and the sole is starting to come apart at the tip.

She throws the phone back in the cupholder. "Um. It's...it's just work. Not a big deal."

"Not a big deal? Carly, I may be the universe's worst liar, but I know one when I hear it. Now, lemme see. What is it?"

Carly snatches the phone and holds it above her head. "No, no! I swear, it's just my boss. He wants me to grab him coffee before I get in."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Really really?"

"Yes, really to the thousandth power—" The driver behind us honks for an obnoxious amount of time. "Okay, we're going! I'm sorry!"

I glance in the rearview mirror. "I think we just made a friend."

"Oh, yeah. He's waving."

"With one finger?" We laugh, the Buggie bouncing around a corner by the strip mall. "At least we're already going to get coffee. That makes it easier for you."

Her agreement comes in a suspiciously high octave. "We just have to take a small detour and then I promise we can go to that maid cafe."

"Okay, sure."

Uh, actually," Carly begins after a quiet bout. "Do you want me to just drop you off at the twins'?"

"They're at school. And we're going to get coffee—I need coffee. It's only a small detour, right? It's not gonna take forever?"

Carly gives an obscure, bobble-headed shake. I can't tell whether it's a yes or no or both, but try to make the best of it for the time being. New Domino downsizes through the passenger window, from the glass-paned towers and hulking enterprises to squat, local housing and businesses squeezed together.

"Where exactly is this detour?"

"It's...around."

Sector Security and ambulances have the alley closed off with both tape and vehicles. The area reminds me of a messy fingerpainting with how colorful it is, the blues and reds and greens splattered everywhere. The only space available is between two news station vans, and it's like it was reserved just for Carly's tiny car to pinch itself perfectly into.

This is the scene of a murder.

I should have gone to the twins'.

"Look, I am so sorry—"

"Don't be. It's fine—"

"No, it's not. But my boss will kill me if I don't—"

"You're doing your job, it's fine. Go, just go."

I tug at some split ends to avoid her eye contact. Carly sighs and lifts over her seat to find her camera in the back.

"Again, I'm sorry," she says once she's out of the car, leaning in through the window. "We can still get coffee. It'll be on me!"

I nod. "Just...go get your story before Angela does."

My eyes follow her as she scurries to the pit of commotion. Everyone is in a frenzy over the newest loop in the chain of murders. It's disgusting how they fight over who has the right to the body first. This person's a victim, not food for the wolves.

But that's just it: either way, it's good television.

"Stop being so damn pessimistic," I groan, leaning my head into my palms. "The more attention the murders get, the safer people will be. That's the point of this, to keep people safe."

I focus on breathing. There is nothing I can give to Security to help, nothing I can show the newscasters that will get me on air and spread caution. Nothing that will bring back the dead, because—let's face it—if I knew how I would have tried to months ago. So, I focus on keeping a constant flow of oxygen in my lungs. Inhale. 1,2,3,4. Exhale. 1,2,3,4. Repeat, repeat.

I lay back in the seat, glance in the rearview mirror overhead. My blood runs cold, sits as still as the exhale on my tongue. Hazy specks of white gather by the corner of a building, hollow faces staring at the mob.

I pop the lock and hop out. I want to run full sprint toward them, but common sense fights instict on it (how suspicious would that look near a crime scene?) and instead, creep down the block (is that more suspicious?). Maybe I'd be able to sneak up on them.

It doesn't work, expectedly, and I end up running anyway. The tiny ghosts lose me somewhere in the crevice of two seedy apartment complexes. Spinning in circles looking for them just makes me dizzy. I slap my hands against my thighs in frustration and sigh.

"This is just fricking—ow!" Something strikes my head, a clothespin. I look up and, sure enough, those pesky little assholes look back from along a clothesline. I hold up the pin shouting, "Lose something?"

One of the wisps unclip the other pin and down falls a polka-dotted blouse. Then a nightgown, a pair of pants, a bra, and some other stuff I don't catch as I'm trying to pick everything else. I look up again. The line's empty and the spirits are gone.

"Dammit," I say under my breath.

A sock falls from my hand and I bend over to pile it back in the messy stack. Someone at the open end of the alley clears their throat. I look through the gap in my legs and see an upside-down Ushio, I pop up completely straight.

"These aren't mine," I greet him.

He arches a brow, but doesn't look too interested overall. "So you're a thief now, too?"

I don't feel like explaining myself. Quite frankly, I am through with trying to get everyone on the same page as me. It' s not only exhausting, but it become somewhat of a courtesy these days, not a necessity. No one will understand any better than I do, and nothing concrete has manisfested itself from all these foggy premonitions.

So why bother.

"You take them back then, if you're so law abiding." I push the clothes into his arms and stomp away.

Of course, he follows. The clothes are set on the building's front steps. "Should I bother asking you what you're doing at yet another crime scene? Or screaming at laundry?"

"On the second question, I have no comment. But I have a very valid answer for the first." I pat the roof of the car as I lean against it. "Just one of the myriad perks of being friends with a reporter."

"Mm, VIP access," Ushio replies, tone dim of any humor.

"Anyway, why are you over here when the crime scene's that-a way?"

"Mostly because I saw you, running. Since I'm here, though..." Ushio pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt's breast pocket and parks one between his lips. "Mikage hates that I smoke. I don't now, most of the time. But it's stress relieving, especially when shit's hit the fan as bad as this has."

I back up from him until I'm roughly a yard away. At this distance, I realize what an utter cliche he is: a burly, male detective who lights one up at the scene of a homicide. It would be all the more fitting if the day was cast in black and white.

Ushio's beyond baffled, then it hits him, and he tries sticking the cancer-stick back in its box. "Shit, I forgot that easily—"

"No, you don't have— I get it, it helps." Sighing, I glance toward the scene, now addled by the dozens with onlookers. "I don't think I'm staying, anyhow. Can you tell Carly I'll take a rain check on the coffee, which is still on her?"

"Will do."

—

Muffled bangs sound through the walls as I awake. I don't remember falling asleep, but I obviosly had. I think at first they are just the noises of an old house, but the clatter is too constant to seem ordinary.

Anxiety rushes through me faster than I'm able to get off the couch.

I glance in the kitchen, then go to Nayla's room. Half the pictures on the dresser are knocked over, the drawers spilling out clothes. The sheets on her bed are overturned and empty. I turn the corner—another part of the house I've never been in before—and go to the room with the open door.

Nayla stands in front of a bookcase, at least a third of its contents piling around her feet as she tugs out more and more.

"Where is it? Where did it go?"

"Nayla?" I pass the desk to get to her, and as gently as possible hold Nayla by her wrists. "Nayla, what are you looking for? I can help."

"I don't know where she put it. She cleaned everything and now I don't where it is." Nayla's hazel eyes haven't looked this dynamic in weeks. I would have never thought I'd wish for them to go back to their usual vacant state. "I need to find it."

"We will. I promise, we will. But first I need to know what you're looking for."

She doesn't remember. I can tell by the flustered look on her face, the jitter in her movements. So I wait for her to come up with anything of use.

"A-a...uh... it's-it's a game!"

"A game? Like a board game?" She shakes her head. "A video game?"

Nayla toddles from the room mumbling repeated no's, her nightgown flapping after her just like I do. She goes to the kitchen next, bangs through cabinets and ransacks kitchenware. I don't know what to do other than call her name, but she never answers.

I end up dialing Zora's number. "She's tearing up the entire house looking for something. I don't know what, a game or...or— I don't know but she won't answer me. Can you please get here as soon as you can Zora?"

The line's dead by the time I'm finished. I turn from the phone and see Nayla's nowhere in the kitchen. I bolt into the hall and hear her in the living room.

"Zora should be here soon, Nayla. Maybe she can help—"

"This! This is what I'm looking for!" She shoves a card into my hands. It's Horseytail. I had summoned it before I fell asleep and must have left it on the coffee table. "This isn't it, but..."

"A card game," I say to myself. "You're looking for cards, for a deck?"

Nayla nods. "But this isn't his."

"Okay, I'll help you look for it. Do you know where he may have left it?"

She surprises me with a full reply, "It's always in the office, that's where he keeps it. But I didn't find it."

"I'll check again for you, I will. But Zora's on her way, so just wait for her. Please, Nayla."

I take her compliance as a sign of calming down. When Zora bursts through the front door, it's just the two of us waiting in fidgety silence. Nayla doesn't greet her and dives right into it all over again. I start reassembling the house as Zora tries to talk her down. Whatever they're talking about is something I'm not in the know about.

Although, acknowledging that doesn't stop me from eavesdropping by the kitchen doorway.

"I can't find it. It should be in his office—"

"Nayla, what are you talking about? What are you looking for?" The snawkdog's voice is the softest I've ever heard it. I didn't think it was possible.

"Youta's deck, Zora! You must've put it somewhere when you cleaned. Where is it?"

Zora pauses for too long. "It's with him. We buried it with him, remember?"

—

I guess it was pretty naive—and perhaps even self-involved—to think the only bad thing that would happen in the last twenty-four hours would pertain to the spirits and me. If homicide alone doesn't feed the day's appetite, homicide, breaking-and-entering, and theft should fill it well.

"Jaeger stole it?" the twins and Aki yell. The oldest of the three then probes, "Why did he need it?"

I look to Crow for clarification and he whispers, "He's a circus clown in charge of Sector Security."

With the uncharacteristic glower adorning his face, I assume that there's no joke in his phrasing.

"He gave it to someone, whoever he met at the factory," replies Jack.

The question trickles from Rua's mouth unsteadily, "You don't think he gave it to...?"

We all know who he means: our own personal version of Voldemort.

"Jaeger said, 'It's an opponent we can't deal with,'" Yusei comments. "If it isn't Yliaster, then who could it be?"

"Is it only me or does this not add up?" I mention. The group faces me with looks of perplexed confusion. Duh, it's got to be Yliaster, I'm sure they're thinking. "Yeah, it's just me. Nevermind."

"Too late," announces Jack, an expression of royal annoyance on his face, "spit it out."

I sigh, stare at a crack in the cement floor. "The things they've been involved with so far—Ghost, Yusei's kidnapping, Lucciano—were only meant to hurt us, or make themselves known. I dunno. And the WRGP is a front for...world domination or other bad-guy stuff. Bottom line, they need us to enter the WRGP, so why steal something that could potentially prevent us from entering the very tournament they're using as their knockout punch?"

"She's got a point," Bruno agrees. "I'm sure you guys aren't the only ones having trouble enhancing your D-Wheels. Maybe Jaeger gave it to another team?"

"Another team that wants our engine so bad they're willing to commit arson and murder?" Crow gives a dry laugh.

"It doesn't matter who it is at this point." Jack stands from his chair and meets all of our eyes with one scan. "Whoever it is is gonna get their ass handed to them twice over when we find 'em."

"Amen."

When the speculation session comes to an end, we split. The guys stay at the apartment and try to begin anew with another engine. The twins head to the Tops and with a promise to meet them there, Aki drives me home.

That's where things get a little tricky. It wasn't hard to make a mad dash at breakfast, Carly had provided me with a full proof way of avoiding Martha that I had silently been hoping for. I didn't want to be around her, not then and not now. But she is sure to see me, and I know full well there is no way I can run fast or quietly enough to get in and out unnoticed.

Although, for a moment, the plan doesn't seem so outrageous. Martha's rounding up the kids for supper as I walk in. But as I come back down, tote full of spare clothes and my moleskine, I'm strung in by the round up myself as I descend the stairs.

"Now, go get washed up," Martha tells the kids with a pointed-finger. She turns and smiles at me, "Hi, hon. Would you mind setting the table?"

"I'm not staying, actually."

"Maria, you haven't been home all day. Come eat with your family."

"I'm not hungry, Martha."

I try to hurry past her, but she catches me by shoulder. "Look me in the eye," she says, low.

"I can't."

"Why?"

"I think the better question is why you didn't tell me about Nayla's Alzheimer's."

Martha lets go, heaves a sigh that makes her age a decade. "I didn't know how to bring it up—"

"I get that, Martha, but why didn't you tell me?" My voice grows shrill in seconds. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel the urge to remain an unopened book. But yelling feels damn good. "She had this fit earlier today—she was screaming and throwing things and I was so scared for her but I just stood there like some buffoon because I had no clue what to do! I'm supposed to take care of her, how could you not tell me?"

"It's never... It's never been this bad before. We thought she wouldn't reach this point for another year, we thought there was so much time." Martha glances over her shoulder at the stairs, where the kids wait speechless. "Go wait in the dining room. Now."

"It's a difficult situation, I get it it."

"Maria, we can talk about this all night, but let's just get through dinner. Please, c'mon."

I shake my head. "I get it. I understand why you couldn't, but I'm still mad that you didn't. And talking about this won't solve anything because...because I know you're still hiding stuff from me—stuff about Mom, right?"

The downcast eyes, tightened lip give it away. Right.

"I'm gonna be at the twins' for a while. I don't know for how long, but rest assured this isn't a goodbye or anything—"

"Maria—"

"Please, I just need time. I want to be able to look at you and not see red. I hope that when that happens, you'll be able to tell me everything."

The door shuts behind me.

So this chapter has a lot more drama than originally planned, but I'm really glad it turned out this way. I think that if I had to title this chapter it would be "The Chapter Where Maria Officially Stops Taking Shit". She's been teetering between her old "no questions asked" self and her new "tell me what the hell's going on" self for the past few chapters and she's finally settled on the latter.

Also, now you guys know who was the cause of the attack in the forest and the murders! "Whaaaaat, they're the same person?" No one is saying bc I bet you all probably knew this since around Chapter 34.

So yeah, that's it for now. Leave a review and/or fav & follow, it would mean a lot to me! I really love reading what you guys have to say—the good the bad and the ugly! Do you have any predictions about what's going to happen? Do you like the direction things are headed? Do you think my writing's rushed (I do but I think that's bc I'm used to taking 10,000 years to get around to things)? Tell me everything and anything!

Or don't. I'm just happy to share this story with you cuties :) Thanks for reading! TTFN