Within minutes of finding out that Brett was missing, I already had shoes on, my keys in hand, and was ready to do whatever necessary to find him.

"So what's the plan?" I asked Liam.

"I'm going with Scott, Lori, and Malia to look in the woods. But I don't think you guys should come. It's too dangerous." He said.

"Fine. I'm calling Lydia for help." I said, grabbing my phone and dialing her number.

When she picked up, I didn't both exchanging pleasantries. "Brett's missing. We need your help. Can you meet us at the high school in ten minutes?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there." She said.

We hung up a second later.

"Okay, Mason. We're going to find Corey, tell him what's going on, Lydia's going to meet us. Maybe she can help figure something out. And Liam, obviously you're going with Scott." I said.

We all walked out of the house.

As Liam closed the front door behind him, I turned to hug him tightly. "Be careful tonight, please. I don't want anything happening to you."

He nodded and hugged me back. "I'm always careful. Let me know if you come up with any ideas, okay?"

I nodded back. "Of course. I love you."

"Love you too." He said as Mason and I got into my car.

I pulled out of the driveway and headed towards the high school, my speed at least five miles over the limit at all times.

Lydia's car was already in the lot when we pulled up.

"Find Corey." I told Mason. "We'll meet up with you in a minute."

I walked up to Lydia and she reached out, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. "Lauren, take a deep breath."

"What? Why?" I asked.

She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Because you're freaking out and you need to calm down. If you get upset or angry, that's not going to help."

I followed her instructions and took a few deep breaths, feeling my heart rate slow down. "Okay, better."

"Let's go find the boys, then we're going to try to initiate a premonition." She said.

"Do you think it will work?" I asked as she pulled me towards the school, still holding on my hand.

She shrugged. "I don't know. But we have to try something."

We found Mason and Corey a minute later and Lydia guided us towards one of the science labs. We took a seat at one of the lab tables and watched as Lydia set up one of the Bunsen burners and lit it.

She stared into the blue flame, a pen in her hand a blank paper in front of her.

Mason and Corey were talking beside me but I wasn't really hearing the words that they were saying. My mind was reeling, running through various scenarios or ideas of where Brett could be.

I heard Lydia tell them to stop talking and snapped back into the present.

Corey reached out towards the set of Newton balls sitting on the desk and lifted one, letting it clank back together with the rest of them. Mason stopped them from making anymore noise and I gently smacked Corey's hand away. "Stop that."

I looked back to Lydia, seeing her eyes narrow and suddenly she was scribbling things on the paper.

She filled almost the entire paper before snapping out of it.

However, nothing on the paper really made much sense.

"Does anyone speak Chinese?" Corey asked.

"My phone does!" Mason said, pulling his phone out and a snapping a picture of the writing.

"What's that Roman numeral?" I asked Lydia.

"68." She responded.

A second later, Mason spoke up. "68, that's what the Chinese says too."

"E, R." Lydia muttered.

"ER what? Emergency room?" I asked.

"Erbium. The atomic number for Erbium is 68." She said, turning to look at the large Period Table posted on the wall.

I leaned forward on the table. "Does this whole thing just say 68? 68 what?"

"I have no idea."

"Okay. So what do we try next?" Mason asked.

"I'm going back to where my last premonition was. And I'm going alone."

Mason and Corey looked down.

"Okay, great. You can do that. We'll go the library, see if we find anything there." I said.

Lydia went off on her own while Mason and Corey followed me to the library.

"What do you think we're going to find in the library?" Mason asked.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. It's just a hunch."

"A hunch?" He questioned.

I spun around quickly, feeling my heart beat faster. "Yes, Mason, a hunch. I don't know. All I know is we have to figure out what it means, and we have to find Brett. I'm not stopping until we find him."

His eyes went wide at the anger in my voice.

"Sorry." I mumbled. "I'm sorry. I'm just scared."

We walked into the library and found an empty table. There were still a lot of students studying so that's what we pretended to do as we talked quietly amongst ourselves.

"What's significant about the number 68? What does it mean? Is there something from history? Mythology? Anything?" I whispered.

Mason shook his head. "No, nothing that I know of."

My forehead met the tabletop with a soft thump. "What are we going to do?"

I lifted my head as Mason rattled off ideas. "68 miles, 68 degrees? Route 68?"

"Lydia will call us when she has something." Corey said.

"But how long is that going to be?" I asked.

A small pile of books landed on the table next to me and I looked over, seeing Nolan standing beside me.

"Hey, Nolan." I said. "Are you still studying for biology?"

"Trying, yeah. I thought you weren't coming." He took a seat.

I shook my head. "I wasn't planning on it. What are you working on?"

"Um, trying to understand how organism evolve and change." His eyes flicked from me, over to Mason and then to Corey. "Like, how a fish can turn into an alligator."

"Uh, alligators aren't fish, they're reptiles." Mason said.

I watched as Nolan's pen scribbled across the page of his notebook, writing down what Mason told him.

"That hatch from fertilized eggs." He continued.

"And isn't the test on DNA versus RNA?" Corey asked.

Nolan's head snapped up and I noticed how wide his eyes were. "Do you think DNA changes?"

"You mean like mutations? Damaged DNA?" I asked. "Yeah, it can. If cells are damaged and the body doesn't destroy them, they replicate and produce more damaged cells which causes cancer."

"So organism can change, organisms change." Nolan said with an almost nervous chuckle. "They can change right in front of your eyes."

"I don't think this is on the test." Corey said.

"Yeah, I wonder if organisms can change, and then change back. Like, they can be two things at once."

My eyebrows furrowed and I turned to Mason. "Some fish can, right?"

"Parrotfish are protogynous hermaphrodites, both male and female. Hawkfish change and change back. As well as earthworms, of course…"

Corey cut him off. "That's definitely not on the test, or any high school test."

"I wonder if any of us have changed." Nolan spoke.

I felt my heart hammering in my chest. This was not good.

"And if we did," he continued, "would there be any way to tell?"

"Like a DNA test?" I asked. "For what?"

"I was thinking a different type of test."

Before anyone could respond or react, Nolan reached out, driving the tip of his pen through the back of Corey's hand.

Blood spurted out, drops of crimson landing on the table as he pulled his hand to his chest.

"Nolan, what the fuck are you doing?" I shrieked.

We all stood and Nolan grabbed for Corey's hand, pulling it towards him to see that the wound had already healed.

"Look, look at him. Look!" He shouted.

I could see everyone in the library staring towards us.

Corey pulled his hand away again and Nolan turned to walk out, leaving everyone to continue staring.

"I'll be back." I said before chasing after Nolan.

I caught up to him the hallway. "Nolan! Wait!"

He stopped and spun around to face me, the bloody pen still in his hand.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked. "Why did you do that to Corey?"

He shook his head. "You know why. You all know! But you won't tell me!"

I sighed. "I don't know, Nolan. Tell me."

He shook his head again, taking off down the hallway.

I continued following him and I watched as he turned a corner, nearly bumping into Lydia.

"Sorry." Lydia muttered.

His backpack slid from his shoulder, revealing the back of his lacrosse hoodie.

She turned to face him and we both realized that his number was 68.

"Hey, 68!" She called out. "Hey. Hey!"

She grabbed his wrist and spun him around. "Do you know anything about Brett?"

"Who?" He asked.

She grabbed his other wrist. "Brett Talbot. Lacrosse player. What happened to him?"

"I don't know any Brett." He paused, examining her face. "You're one of them, aren't you?"

"One of who?" She asked.

I finally spoke up. "Just let him go Lydia. He doesn't know anything. And he's being a grade A asshole tonight."

He pulled away and took off running down the hall.

She turned back to me, looking for answers.

I explained how he'd attacked Corey in the library.

"It wasn't to hurt him." She said.

I nodded. "I know. He's trying to expose him. He's been acting suspicious for a while. I thought he was just scared but I guess not. He's starting to act out now."

"Is he the one you're friends with?"

"Yeah. Well, I thought I was. But stabbing Corey was really not cool so I'm not so sure if I'd call him my friend right now." I shook my head. "Whatever, let's just go find Corey and Mason again."

We were heading towards the library when my phone rang.

Melissa's name flashed across the screen and I hit the answer button before lifting it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, Lauren, there's something you should probably know about that body you found." She said.

We were just approaching Mason and Corey so I put the phone on speaker and we all gathered around to listen.

"Okay, what's up?"

She took a deep breath. "We ran a DNA test. And – And there's nothing there."

"You didn't find anyone to match?" I asked.

"No, I didn't find any DNA. There's no DNA, no cell structure, nothing. There's literally nothing there."

My jaw dropped. "Um, that's not…Melissa, that isn't possible."

"I know." She said. "And that's not the only thing that's weird about it."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It terrified me. I've worked in that hospital and have been going into the morgue to collect samples for years. And I've never felt that kind of fear because of a body before."

I chewed on the corner of my lip, wondering if I should tell her what I felt. "Yeah, I know what you mean. While we were in the locker room with it earlier, I was freaking out and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe we should ask Argent."

"Already did. I had to call him to help get the sample. He was terrified of it too."

My eyes widened. "I didn't think he was afraid of anything."

"There's definitely not much that scares him. But this, whatever it is, did."

"Okay, um, well, thanks for letting me know. If we have any ideas, we'll let you know. Call me if you find anything else out." I sighed.

"Will do." She said. "Bye, Lauren."

"Bye." I said, hanging up.

No one spoke for a minute, everyone seemed unsure of how to react.

"That explains why Liam didn't smell it." I said quietly.

"What?" Corey asked.

"Liam couldn't smell the blood, the body. If there's no DNA or anything, there would be nothing to smell. It's almost like it doesn't even exist."

Mason shook his head, looking at the ground. "How can this even be happening?"

"It can't. This can't be described scientifically. This is something supernatural, it has to be." I explained in a hushed tone. "And Brett's still missing. And Nolan attacked Corey. This is too much for us to deal with all at once."

Without even thinking, I slid down the wall to sit on the floor. I pulled my legs close to my chest and rested my forehead on my knees. My mind was still reeling, my brain desperately searching for any minuscule idea of where Brett could be.

"Lauren?" Lydia said softly, kneeling in front of me.

I lifted my head to look at her. "Yeah?"

She looked surprised to see tears spilling down my cheeks. "Sweetie, why don't you go home for tonight? You can wait for Liam to get back."

I shook my head. "I can't. I have to help figure out where Brett is. I can't just go home and relax. I can't just sit there. I have to do something."

She took both of my hands in hers. "Lauren, please. If you think of anything, you can call us. But right now, it seems like we're at a dead end. Being here isn't helping anything."

"Fine. But there's something I have to do first." My eyes flickered up to Corey and Mason then back to Lydia. "Can one of you take Mason home? I have to take care of something."

Lydia nodded. "Of course."

"Wait, where are you going?" Mason asked as Lydia helped me to my feet.

"I'm going to figure out what the fuck is wrong with Nolan." I said, pulling my keys from my pocket. "I'll text you guys when I get home or if I hear from Liam."

I took off down the hall before saying goodbye. When I made it to the parking lot and got into my car, there were still tears dripping from my face. I wiped them away with the sleeve of my hoodie as I started the car and peeled out of the lot.

I'd only been to Nolan's house once before when he needed a ride home from school one day but I remembered where it was. And within a few minutes, I was parking next to the curb.

My feet carried me up to the porch and I rang the doorbell, folding my arms across my chest as I waited for someone to answer.

The door opened a blonde woman smiled at me. "Hi, can I help you?"

"Hi, Mrs Holloway. My name's Lauren. Could I speak with Nolan, please? I know it's kind of late and I'm sorry but it's important." I rushed.

She nodded. "Yes, of course. Would you like to come in?"

I shook my head. "No, thank you. I'll just wait here."

She called out to her son and he came to the door a moment later, his eyes widening when he saw me standing there. He stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. "What are you doing here?"

I scoffed. "You really have to ask? Nolan, what the fuck is going on with you?"

He didn't speak. His mouth opened but nothing came out.

"Honestly, I should slap you for what you did to Corey."

"You're asking what's going on with me but what about him?" Nolan said, voice shaking. "I've seen…"

I peered up at him. "What? You've seen what?"

He shook his head angrily. "You know what. You know why I did that. You know everything but you're trying to pretend like you don't."

My hands curled into fists and I stepped closer to him, getting in his face. "If you think you know so much, then why don't you say it? Tell me what I know."

His blue eyes refused to meet mine and he took a step away from me. "I don't have to say it."

My phone began ringing in my pocket and I groaned. But when I saw Liam's face on the screen, I stepped away from Nolan and answered it. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Where are you?"

I could hear the sadness in his voice immediately. "I'm taking care of something. Tell me what's going on? Are you okay?"

"Brett's dead. Lori, too."

I barely processed what had been said before fresh tears began pouring from my eyes. "No. No, that can't be."

"They killed them. Hunters killed them."

I forced myself to square my shoulders and try to stop crying. "I'll be home soon."

"Hurry." He said quietly before the line went dead.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket before facing Nolan.

"Are you okay?" He asked, seeing tears in my eyes.

I shook my head. "No. No, Nolan, I'm not. Because I just found out that two of my friends are dead. I really do not have the time or patience to deal with your bullshit too. And you want to know something? You need to stop projecting your fears onto other people because you aren't the only one who's scared of things around here."

Tears sprung up in his eyes and I watched as he blinked them away.

"Oh, I'm sorry? Did I upset you?" I rolled my eyes. "Get over it. I'm not going to walk on eggshells around you just because of something scared you last year. You said it yourself, I was there too. I saw the same thing you did. And I don't run around stabbing people just because I'm scared of something."

His shoulders slumped but he still managed to keep eye contact with me.

"I know you have your problems and I'm sorry about that. Truly, I am. But we're all going through shit, Nolan. Every single person. So just do what the rest of us do and suffer in silence instead of taking your shit out on people who have done nothing to you." I said, my tone softer than before, but still laced with a certain harshness.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

"Sorry doesn't help anything." I said, walking back to my car.

Nolan watched as I took off down the road, tires squealing.

I'd upset him. I was harsh. But I was hurt.

Brett was dead. Lori was dead. Not just dead, murdered. Someone had killed them, a new hunter.

My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles were white and my fingers aching. I was so distracted that I nearly drove past my own house but I slammed onto the brakes before turning into the driveway.

I cut the engine and sprinted into the house. Liam wasn't in the living room or the kitchen so I ran up to his room, shoving the door open to see him crying in his bed.

When I sat down next to him, I was already crying again.

He was laying on his stomach, his face buried in a pillow as his body shook with sobs.

My hand landed on his back, rubbing the spot between his shoulder blades. "Li?"

He lifted his head to look at me. "We couldn't save them, Ren. We tried. It – It was so close. We had them out of there and then…"

I nodded, shushing him gently when I heard him struggle to catch his breath between sobs. "I know, I know. Just breathe, Liam."

"I can't." He groaned, rolling onto his back. "I can't breathe."

"Yes, you can." I said, using all of my strength to pull him into a sitting position. I used one of my hands to grab his face, forcing him to look at me. "Liam, you can do anything. We've made it through so much already. We will make it through this too."

"How?" He asked. "I shifted in front of people. A lot of people."

"Okay. That's not great news but we can deal with it." I said.

He rolled his eyes. "They think I'm a monster. What if someone comes after me next?"

"I will ruin anyone who tries." I assured him.

My brother sighed and wiped tears from his face. "Lauren, you can't just…"

I cut him off. "You know damn well that I can. "

"And if someone has a gun pointed at you?" He challenged.

I laughed for a second. "Liam, I'm not afraid of getting shot. I'm not afraid of dying."

He opened his mouth to speak but I held up one finger to stop him.

"No. I'm not scared of death. I'm scared of what could happen to you if I do nothing. I'm scared of you suffering the same fate as Brett. If keeping you alive means a bullet in my chest, then I welcome it."