"Are you sure you're okay?" DJ asked for the second time. While I was touched by her concern, I wasn't sure how to respond. Amy had already healed the injuries to my nerves, but I still felt like I'd been run over by a Preakness racehorse. Her healing could bind up a wound or mend a bruise, sure, but it couldn't do much for fatigue.

We were in the Hangar's lounge – and by we, I suppose I mean myself, Vinny Lee, and Kori, along with Amos, DJ and Tails. And Amy, obviously. I had only one memory of getting here – Kori turning into a dragon, and the sway and feeling of being in the air.

The lounge was set in the cafeteria, as was the meal table. We'd cleared out all the tables in favor of furniture that more resembled a proper clubhouse. The lounge was on the north side of the room, with recliners around it, and a Roku TV hooked up to a variety of devices – not something I was pleased to see after my encounter with the cysnake. I was lying down on the couch, where Amy was treating me.

"Fine," I growled. "Except for a bruised ego. And the shock, obviously."

"Shock?" Amos frowned. "From what, exactly?"

"Cysnake," Kori said. "A cysnake in disguise."

Tails turned to me. "Could you explain what happened?"

I was only happy to. I explained about my run-in with Samirah, and what she'd said to me about her family cutting off from the library over the DSH (my little abbreviation for our present headache) –

"They canceled their cards over a story hour?" Amos asked. "Seems a little extreme. Yet so understandable, in this clime."

I then explained about the librarian, who turned out to be a cysnake –

"Can't we just call it a shock lizard?" Amos interrupted again. "Cysnake makes it sound like an evil emperor rattlesnake."

Next, I told them about the incident with the snake monster, and her implications that a) Creamer, the drag queen, was actually a fellow snake monster and her brother and b) she'd sicced him on Achmed to deliver my brother to her so she could eat him.

Tails whistled. "Sounds like this just got personal."

All my anger got to me. "We have to stop Creamer."

"Imira," Amy said, with clear-cut concern in her voice, "I hate to say this, but you're in no shape to fight. And if Creamer finds us, or your family…"

She didn't need to finish that sentence. Monsters were much more suited to destroying life than preserving it. In fact, they actually enjoyed the former way too much. I wasn't about to let my family get into that sort of trouble.

On the other hand, Amy was right about my current state. I'd be about as much use as a plastic bag in a breeze. And now my family would be put in danger and not even know what they were dealing with. And it was all my fault.

Guilt and shame – way heavier than the fatigue – came down on me.

"Hold on." Tails frowned as if reading my mind. "You didn't tell your parents, did you?"

"Why should I?" I demanded. "Mom made a slave outta me and Dad didn't do anything about it. The cops told her that she couldn't do that, and now…"

Maybe I would have raged on. But I was too conflicted. I didn't like helping the mom who'd abused me, but she deserved better than to get devoured by a cysnake. Instead of feeling mad about it, as I would in better circumstances, I just felt like I was going to explode from sheer confusion.

"I mean, what am I supposed to do?" I yelled. "I can't let her get eaten, but do I want to help her?"

Amos sighed. "How do we tell the fam? I'm not sure I'm up to it now."

"Amos –" DJ began, but Amos interrupted her.

"Imira's losing it. How long are we going to last if she loses it?"

"Shut up, Amos," I growled, "I'm not in the mood for your jokes."

"Hardly a joke," DJ responded. "And not to upset you further, Imira, but they're here now."

"Imira!" Pop raced over and then registered the whole scene – me resting on the couch, DJ, Vinny Lee and Amos watching me with concern.

"What is going on here?" he asked. "Is she hurt?"

"Oh, now you show concern?" Amos said dryly. "Thought I heard Imira say you didn't do anything when her mom was giving her grief."

Was Amos sticking up for me all of a sudden? Then again, they'd all heard me.

Mom, Achmed, Fatima and Knuckles approached, out of the doorway with Sonic behind them. Knuckles bolted over when he saw me.

"You okay?" he asked. "What happened?"

"What happened with you?" I asked. "Why'd you drag the fam out here?"

"I got Achmed home without incident," Knuckles said. "But then I caught sight of Kori flying off and sending me a message, and I had to come!"

A little thing I'd learned about avatars – they could always telepathically alert their brethren to something going wrong. Quite handy when they needed backup, but rather annoying when the danger had passed.

I gave Knuckles the one-minute version – the encounter with Samirah, the librarian turning into a cysnake, the threat to eat my family.

Knuckles winced, his hands spontaneously combusting. "And you only told Achmed? Don't you realize introducing me to your family exposed them to my world?"

"What are you talking about?" Pop said.

"Imira," Mom said, her voice hard, "what is going on?"

She could have meant that in more than one way – Why are your friend's hands lighting up? What does he mean by "his world?" Or more likely, what are you not telling me?

I didn't want to explain, but I was starting to realize I didn't have much choice. I had dragged them into this, after all. I told Mom and Pop about my adventures with the VLADJIs – adding in about the Vortex's calling.

Fatima gaped in awe. "A messenger of Allah called you?"

"Yeah," I said, "let's go with that."

"So, you've been acting on heavenly orders?" Mom said. "To fraternize with outsiders, to hang with a stranger –"

"Peace, Amina," Pop said. "Allah works in mysterious ways."

"But this?" Mom glanced at Amos, then back at me. "How could he ask for you to –"

"I don't know, but I don't think he asked for me to have a mom like you," I commented.

Her expression reminded me of the looks the bully I'd punched out on the playground gave me every time he passed me after that incident – resentful, but fearful at the same time. I glanced around at my friends, their expressions hard. They knew about the family drama – she could tell. But I didn't figure she'd expected me to care more about them than my own family. In her eyes, I'd become someone she didn't know.

And I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

I staggered up from the couch – and nearly collapsed.

I said nearly. I would have if someone hadn't caught me.

That someone was not human, I could tell. No human being would have talons for hands.

I looked up and saw a human face – a face that seemed to shift between a lot of different beauties – Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale. Below was a white silk dress and swan-like wings, giving her the comparison to an angel – an effect quite ruined by the bird talons she had for hands.

I knew this girl, even if I didn't see her often. The most beautiful singer in the universe, human or otherwise, who just happened to be the Vortex's right-hand maiden and herald.

"Patience, Imira," the Siren's voice rang in my ear. "You'll need your strength later."

"What is this?" Mom asked.

"Amina Fadjir." The new voice was another I recognized – deep and sharply intoning, like I used to imagine Allah sounded when he spoke. A rainbow swirl materialized around us – as it did when a certain godlike being decided to pay us a visit.

Pop looked around. "I never liked the '60s."

"Neither did I," said the voice as the speaker took corporeal form – that of a young man in white, with pale skin, unruly dark hair, and eyes that were constantly shifting between colors. I knew at once that this was our commissioner from heaven – who, by the way, also created the avatars.

"Ali Fadjir," the Vortex said in a dangerously neutral voice, "while I inhabit the rainbow, I do not endorse pride's. And pride's rainbow has put your family in great danger. You are only thankful that I have been making efforts to convince your wife of the truth of what I have called your daughter to do."