Gwen walked away from the castle, away from her home, away from the light of the Four Moons. Soaked in her family’s blood, she sterilized the wounds with alcohol and followed her Star into the east, in search of what came next, in search of the person the Star was meant to lead her to, the person she was meant to train. Beneath her feet, glass shattered, and the song of reality gave a cacophonic screech. No more kingdoms would rise in the ice or the glass; everything would die. Entropy was Destiny. That was the way of the world. She would die to ensure that remained true.

***

Sunset sprawled across the flatlands of Illinois, casting farmland in red and gold and purple. Peoria rose in the distance, reaching up like a hand clawing out of the ground. They penetrated city limits, and Lacy drank in the sight, and wondered if this was the biggest city she’d ever been to. 

She said that out loud, and Danny laughed. 

Danny sat behind the wheel of his truck, while Lacy rode shotgun with her head resting against the window. Sleek, streamlined buildings emerged from the ground like a forest of stone and metal, while the disparate urban sounds coiled the settlement. “It’s not that big of a city.” 

“It’s not?”

“Yeah, Lace. Even Grand Rapids is bigger than this,” Danny said. 

“There’s no way that’s possible. Grand Rapids is barely a city.”

“No, seriously, this place has fewer people.”

A series of waterspouts geysered next to lights burrowed into the pavement. The water refracted the light, and the sound shattered on the ground and mixed into the coil. People weren’t out on the streets much- maybe because it was late at night. The clock in Danny’s car said it was around one in the morning. Lacy lowered the window, and the wind brushed through her lengthening hair. The black dye had begun to yield to her brown roots. The downtown district petered out as they drove further away from the center. They were third in their traveling party as they plunged forward. “Okay then what’s a big city?” Lacy asked as she breathed it all in. This was a small city. Grand Rapids, which when she stopped and thought about she’d never really seen that much of, was a small city. 

Danny said, “Um… I’ve been to Detroit once or twice. That’s pretty big- all four sports teams and what not. Bigger than this place or Grand Rapids, anyhow.”

“Isn’t Detroit a dump though?”

“I mean a bit, yeah. Could be worse. Could be Dresden.”

“Ha. Got me there.”

“I went to Boston once when I was a little kid. Family business has some contacts there. And I was born in Chicago, I just don’t remember it at all. Mostly just get postcards from Mom’s family.”

“What about your dad? He ever send you anything?” Lacy said absentmindedly.

“No. He travels a lot for work. I see him maybe once every year or three.”

“Do you know much about him?”

“No,” he said gruffly. “Can we change the subject?”

“Er- yeah, sure. I’m sorry I-”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I just… It messes me up sometimes, never really having a father. You know?” Danny said.

“From where I’m sitting, you’re not missing much.”

“... Right. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. It is what it is. It’s not like I still have one.”

“Well I’m sorry about that then,” Danny said. 

“Thanks. It’s just weird, you know- I hated my parents. I’ve spent my whole adult life, which is admittedly not very long so far, avoiding them, and now they’re gone and I… I miss them. What the hell is that about? I shouldn’t miss them, they were awful. And now I’m here and I’m what, avenging their deaths? It’s not like they’re anything worth avenging. They were shitbag white trash alcoholics. The world isn’t exactly mourning their loss.”

“But you are,” Danny said. 

“Yeah,” Lacy said. “Fourth Commandment I guess?”

“Pfft yeah I hear you. It always struck me as one of the more important ones.”

“But what about you though?”

They stopped at a red light. “What about me?”

“I mean… You didn’t exactly sign up for any of this,” Lacy said.

“Mm no I guess not.”

“And you’re okay with that? Your whole life got uprooted and it’s basically all my fault.”

“Booooooo,” Danny said, drawing out the single syllable. 

“The fuck- why ‘boo’?”

“Not everything’s about you, Lace.”

“I know that-”

“Do you? No offense, but given everything that’s happened the past few months, it wouldn’t be completely insane for you to draw such a conclusion.”

“But I haven’t.”

“So why are you assuming this was all your fault? Lace, whatever’s happening with these ghouls and this Alistair Albrecht asshole, that’s bigger than you. That’s bigger than either of us- it’s end of the world shit. And yeah, part of me really wants to be all ‘to hell with the world,’ but I live here, so that wouldn’t make a ton of sense. You’re my friend and I care about you, but I’m doing this just as much for me as for you.”

The light turned green, and they drove forward. 

“What about your mom, though? Aren’t you concerned about her?” Lacy asked. 

Danny’s grip on the wheel white-knuckled. He breathed a heavy sigh out his mouth. 

“Danny?” Lacy said.

“Not in the fuckin’ slightest,” he admitted. His heartbeat went wild- he must’ve been ashamed of himself for admitting that at all, let alone saying it aloud. 

“You hate her that much?” Lacy asked. 

“... I think so. Maybe if she died, I’d feel differently. But right now, she can go to hell.”

“Danny,” Lacy chastised him. 

“Commandment says Honor thy Father, not Mother.”

“Okay, yeah, but the principle still applies.”

“Why? She’s barely a mother at all. She was hardly around when I was a kid- she mostly left babysitters there to supervise, and even though they were getting paid it still seemed like they wanted to be around me more then my own mom did. And when she was there, nothing was ever enough for her. ‘Danny, why aren’t your grades better, what’s wrong with you you lazy brat, don’t you know how hard I work for you, how come you’re not doing better.’ God, I can still replay entire conversations with her from memory. She never thought she’d explained anything well enough, or otherwise I wouldn’t keep fucking up, so the solution was always to scream louder or to start hitting me.”

“But still, she doesn’t deserve hell.”

“And why not? You don’t think child abusers belong in the Lake of Fire?”

Red light. A group of young people crossed the road. “So you think that’s where my parents are?” Lacy asked. “In hell?”

“Honestly? Yes. I think that’s where they are. I think that’s where they deserve to be.”

Lacy shot him a look, her face warping in disgust.

Danny glared at her. “Don’t gimme that.”

“Don’t give you what- my honest reaction?” Lacy snapped. 

“Don’t judge me. I know you feel the same way- you’ve said as much.”

“I was a kid then.”

“We’re twenty-one. By most metrics, we’re still kids.”

“I don’t know how much longer we can be, though.”

“What does that mean?” Danny asked. 

Green light. “Well, as you’ve so kindly pointed out, the world is in the process of ending. If we wanna get through this, we’re gonna need to grow the hell up.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

“For what?” Lacy said, rubbing her forehead.

“Well the implication there would be that I too need to grow up. You see how that-”

“For fuck’s sake, I said I did too! And as you’ve said to me, not everything is about you.”

“You know what?” Danny said. “We don’t have to talk the rest of the drive! It’s late, we’re obviously both tired!”

“Seriously?!”

“Yes, seriously!”

“Okay then. Thanks for proving my point. Fucking Christ, dude.”

Danny didn’t dignify that with a response. 

A hairy wad of shame sprouted in Lacy’s chest, and she tried to ignore it. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Had she? Drew, do you have any thoughts on this?

Silence.

Lacy breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth as she stewed in her agitation.

They drove through the quaint town until they came upon a tall hotel, the Sanderson. They entered, and the lobby opened to reveal a small crowd gathered atop the tile floor. They sat in chairs off to the right hand side, by the inactive hearth, or on couches to the left near a wall of windows. Some were as young as Lacy, some were pushing towards the twilight of middle age, and the rest covered the whole of the space in between. Lacy gulped as all eyes were directed at their small group of six. The floor was uncovered, and Gwen’s black boots wrapped on the tiles as she marched to the front desk. The clerk, a portly older woman who did not look prepared for this large of a crowd, gulped and looked out with wide-eyed apprehension. 

It was then that Lacy realized they weren’t looking at her- they were looking at Gwen. They were all staring at her… No, no, they were all glaring at her, some downright murderously. Every person in this room was a member of the Damocles Guild, and as Gwen had pointed out-

“Albrecht!” a shrill voice cried out and sent its tendrils throughout the lobby. 

The source was a young woman leaning against the windows to the right. She was white, with straight brown hair framing a nondescript face, punctuated by gorgeous green eyes. Her age was tough to guess- probably somewhere between Isabella’s and Gwen’s. She had what Lacy initially thought were tattoos running up both arms, but a second look revealed they were sleeves of jagged scars flowing all the way from her wrists up to her shoulders. She wore a purple crop top and blue jeans and a look of pure, unadulterated disdain, the likes of which Lacy hadn’t seen outside that day at the gun range.

The young woman with the scar-sleeves marched over to Gwen. Gwen hadn’t even looked away from the desk- she was in the midst of paying for the rooms and collecting the keys as the woman approached. 

Gwen continued to pay the young woman no mind. As the young woman reached to grab Gwen’s shoulder, Gwen simply side-stepped and let the other woman trip over her own momentum and collide with the desk. Gwen began to walk back over to their group. The rest of the hunters wouldn’t stop staring. Part of Lacy wanted to worm her way out of her own skin, escape the prying eyes, but another part of her wanted to see what happened next. 

“Who the hell is this bitch?” Lacy muttered. 

“Alice Carmichael,” Isabella said under her breath, leaning in close to Lacy’s ear to whisper it. Lacy shivered. “Her mom, Arianna Carmichael, is one of the Seven Master Hunters, and the current chairperson of the Guild. The family’s been hunting since Reconstruction. If she’s here, then her mom probably isn’t- she always sends Alice to speak for her at these things.”

Gwen padded back over to her friends, folded her arms behind her back.“Hi, how may I help you?” she asked Alice as the young representative stalked over.

“You’ve got some nerve, showing up here,” Alice growled. 

“Well I was the one who requested this meeting in the first place, so it’d be a bit weird if I didn’t come.”

“You usually just send your better half to speak for you,” Alice said, nodding to Quentin. “Frankly, he’s much easier to deal with.”

“And what, pray tell, does that mean?” Quentin asked. 

“I’ll get to you later. For now-”

“Excuse me?” the young woman at the front desk said. All eyes turned to her, and she flinched. “But, um, if you’re all here for the… Gun collectors conference, I believe it was… Then can you please have your discussions in the conference room?”

Everyone froze. Gwen’s shoulders untensed, and Alice tore away her gaze. 

Finally, Alice said, “Everyone regroup in the conference room in one hour. Until then, check into your rooms and cool off. We all need it.”

 “Clearly,” Lacy said, a bit too loud and a bit too hostile. 

Alice’s enraged face melted into a state of legitimate confusion. “Who the hell are you?”

Frustration and pride bristled against each other in Lacy’s upper stomach. “You’ll find out when we regroup in the conference room in an hour. Until then, like you said, we all need to go to our rooms and cool off.”

Alice’s face was an artist’s rendition of primordial cosmic rage in human form. She closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Then she looked over Lacy’s shoulder and said, “Where do you find these assholes, Bella?”

Lacy looked at Isabella, who said nothing and whose face revealed nothing. 

Everyone stood up then and began pouring out of the lobby. Gwen walked over to them and handed them keys to their rooms, then wordlessly embarked to her lodging. The hotel was booked solid, so they were two-per-room. Gwen and Quentin. Danny and Joshua. 

Lacy and Isabella. 

A total coincidence, Lacy was sure. Gwen definitely hadn’t arranged this.

“You can shower first if you want,” Isabella said as they entered their room, a stark white affair with twin beds and a TV packed in tightly between the floor and the low ceiling. 

“Th-thanks,” Lacy said. “How are you doing, anyway?”

“Hm, I’m fine.”

“I was just wondering, uh, Alice, she-”

“We used to date,” Isabella said as she set her duffel bag down onto her bed. She unzipped it, and World-Carver and a few changes of clothes came spilling out. Isabella’s wristwatch dinged, and she dug through her luggage until she found a bottle of pills and popped one down.

“Oh,” Lacy said. “When was-”

“We broke it off a year ago,” Isabella said. “We’d been hemorrhaging up until then anyway- could barely go a day without getting into a fight. She, uh, she’d never dated a girl before me, and it dawned on me after a while that she considered dating a trans girl to be a workaround to her otherwise unblemished heterosexuality.”

“Ew,” Lacy said. 

“My thoughts exactly. But, uh, I don’t really wanna talk about it beyond that,” Isabella said. “It’s a lot, and we have bigger fish to fry right now. Go shower.”

Lacy looked at Isabella for a moment, and then realized she was receiving one of those illusive ‘social cues’ she’d heard so much about. So she went into the bathroom and hopped into the cubicle shower and rinsed the day’s sweat off herself as she wondered about the many, many intricacies of human interaction and the tangled web of relationships people inevitably got caught up in. It was overwhelming- Lacy couldn’t imagine having that many. Did she even want that many? Most of her life she’d spent avoiding them, avoiding people, avoiding having to talk to anyone. If she were honest with herself, she’d barely even spoken to Danny all that much since finishing high school- she’d been more interested in shutting herself up in her room and drowning out all the noise. Maybe she shouldn’t have been that surprised that Danny’s take on things was a bit warped- he’d had only himself to talk to for the past few years. 

I’ve been a bad friend, she thought. I’ll have to make it up to him at some point.

She got out of the shower, dried and dressed herself, and walked out into the room. Isabella laid on her bed with her legs crossed, staring directly at the ceiling with her eyes wide open. “Isabella?” Lacy said. “It’s your turn to shower.”

No response. 

“Isabella? Hey, are you alright?” Lacy said.

Still nothing. 

Lacy waved her hand in front of Isabella’s face, and when that elicited a lack of response, she pinched her. 

“Ow!” Isabella yelped. “What!? What’s going on? What?”

“You were dissociating again,” Lacy said. “I didn’t have any smelling salts. Are you okay? I feel like ever since that fight at the school it’s been happening more and more.”

“I… Don’t really wanna talk about it. I’m gonna shower, and then we should get down there.” She went into the bathroom, leaving Lacy there to further ponder the nature of conversations and relationships and everything both entailed. 

When Isabella exited, her hair was tied up into a large, high bun, and she wore a gauzy yellow dress with a sunflower print that stopped just above her knees. Lacy laid on her bed, thumbing through the Bible they’d put in the night stand. She read through Genesis 11 for what felt like the millionth time- it’d always stuck with her. The Tower of Babel. 

“Aren’t you a good little Catholic girl,” Isabella said, sitting down at the vanity with a tube of lipstick, a smug smile in plain view.

“So what if I am?” Lacy said dryly. 

“You’ve actually read the Bible, you’ve got that on most Catholics.”

“That include you?” Lacy said. 

“Yup,” Isabella said. “Just never got around to it. Hell, I never even got Confirmed.”

“Seriously?” Lacy said, eyes bulging and jaw dropping. 

Lacy saw the reflection of Isabella’s grin blossom further on her red-painted lips. “You sound so horrified.”

“Well it’s just… It’s important!”

“I was busy?” Isabella said, popping her lips and then blotting her lipstick. She then took out her mascara wand and worked on her eyelashes. 

“With?”

“Extradimensional horrors mostly,” Isabella said. “Take it easy on me though, I’m not a heathen. Or a filthy Protestant.”

Lacy chuckled. “Well that’s a relief.”

“Besides, I think it’s cute,” Isabella said. 

“W-what is?” Lacy said, putting the book down. 

“I mean, I mostly Believe, but you seem to just… Have it, in a way I’ve, uh… God, if my Mom were here this would kill her again… In a way I’ve sometimes personally struggled with.”

“I mean that’s pretty normal. You act like I’ve never doubted before.”

“Have you?”

Lacy put a hand under her chin, creased her brow. “Hmmm… I mean a few times. I’ve kinda wondered… Why would God make me… Like this. Do you know what I mean?”

Isabella took out her foundation and brush and began applying it to her face. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “But, uh… I guess I’m just what God made me. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“I like that,” Lacy said. 

“And what about you?”

“I, uh, I just kept coming back to this idea that… Well, God’s supposed to love us no matter what. And if that includes people who’ve done really bad things, genuinely evil things… Well then it’d be a little ridiculous if being trans was the dealbreaker for Him. And uh, I think He must’ve made us this way for a reason. I dunno what it is, but it takes all sorts to make a world, you know? In His eyes, we’re all… Beautiful.”

In the mirror, Isabella’s silent gulp could be seen in her throat. “Do you… Do you want me to do your makeup?”

Lacy gulped as well. “Yeah. I would.”

And so Lacy sat before the mirror with Isabella as the other girl held her face in her hands and got in close. Lacy felt Isabella’s breath on her skin, and the touch of her fingers sent electric jolts through her. 

Eventually, they made their way downstairs into the conference room, a green-carpeted affair filled with white plastic tables and white plastic chairs all lined up in rows beneath corresponding rectangular fluorescent lights. Gwen and the others had already taken their seats in the exact middle of the room. Over a hundred people were packed in, the collective body heat mixing with the dry night air. A podium sat at the front of the room, and Alice stood behind it. 

The girl with the scarred arms looked at her wristwatch, one identical to Isabella’s, as it beeped. She turned off the alarm, and then slammed a gavel onto the podium. Everyone looked forward. “Alright,” Alice said. “Let’s get the obvious out of the way: we’re working with an incomplete crew right now. My mother and the rest of the Master Hunters are not here- they’re in Chicago dealing with a group of Sovereignty mages- House Koenig, we’re pretty sure. Things are going just as much to shit up there as they’ve been elsewhere, but we’re keeping it on the relative down-low. That’s the official line from the Masters: we keep this quiet. Nothing good can come of alerting the gen pop t’all this.”

“You sure about that?” a voice came from two rows up and three seats to Lacy’s left. The source was a graying man of middling height and weight with massive hands. Lacy could only see the back of his head, where his steely hairline began and ended. “Why are we trying to keep this secret anymore? There’s footage of ghouls on the internet.”

“It’s the internet- people will assume it’s fake,” Alice said. 

“For now they might. But the problem is getting worse. What happens when the footage winds up on the national news?”

“It won’t. We’re looking for the person who uploaded it- we’re gonna get it pulled and dismissed as a fake.”

“How?” a new voice, high and full as a redwood, came from three rows behind Lacy and four seats to her right. She looked back to find a tall individual with a shaved head and broad shoulders. “That’s not how the internet works. Once it’s up there it’s not going away, ever. And even if most people do assume it’s fake, once more evidence gets found and circulated, then suddenly that original piece is vindicated.”

“We will deal with that if that becomes an issue,” Alice said.

“I think you mean ‘when,’” they said in response.

“Fffff,” Gwen sighed. 

Lacy grunted. 

“This was less of an issue ten years ago,” Gwen whispered. “I can only barely remember that time myself.”

“Something to add, Princess?” Alice spat out each syllable like bugs in her mouth. 

“Just that while I hear Peter and River’s concerns, I’m more wondering what the plan is for us in this room,” Gwen said. 

That recentered the atmosphere around the more pressing topic. “Thank you. I was getting to that. What we’re most concerned about are the major population centers- New York, Los Angeles, the aforementioned Chicago, and Washington DC. If those go, then a decent chunk of the country is lost, both on a practical level and a morale level. The plan is to dispatch teams to each city and have them conduct extensive hunts, try to root out the ghouls. We’ve confirmed that our… Friend, Ms. Albrecht’s father, has become the King of the Ghouls, which means he’s commanding the masses. The most plausible game plan for them would be to dispatch platoons to different population centers in order to destabilize the major cities as much as possible. However, we’re not entirely sure- there’s not really a default strategy for world domination.”

Lacy opened her mouth to ask what she felt was an obvious question, but someone, a feminine voice one row behind her and all the way on the far right side, beat her to it: “why haven’t we told the government yet?”

The source was a dark-haired, dark-skinned girl who spoke with a slow, accented intonation. Her raven locks were worn in braids that coiled around her head like a tiara, and her eyes were mismatched: one blue and one green. 

“Ffff oh boy,” Gwen said. 

“Who’s that?”

“That’s Maya Marquez. She and her crew are based in South America, mostly Argentina- where House Jimenez is based out of.”

“So they’re like, personal nemeses of that House?”

“Exactly. They’ve had a rather hot conflict in this cold war.”

“Ooooohhhh.”

“I would think,” Alice said, “That you of all people would recognize the lack of common sense in informing the government of our presence.”

“House Jimenez lines the pockets of the Argentine government,” Gwen whispered. “Have since the end of the second world war.”

Lacy whispered back, “Wizard Nazis?”

“Some of ‘em, yeah.”

“Wizard Nazis,” Lacy nodded. 

“I’m not really sure how that maps,” Maya continued. “The US isn’t nearly as corrupt.”

“You say that as someone who’s clearly not from here.”

A moment’s pause gripped the room in a steel gauntlet. “Wow,” Maya said. 

“Maya, we don’t have time for this.”

“It’s Ms. Marquez.”

“We’re the same age and I outrank you.”

Lacy looked around to see the rest of the hunters doing one of two things: watching the skirmish with the eagerness of pro wrestling fans, or staring off into space absentmindedly wondering when this clit-measuring contest would be over. This place… These people… did NOT have it together. Not in the slightest. And these assholes were in charge of saving the world from the Sovereignty and their army of ghouls. “Fuck,” Lacy said. Aloud. A bit too loud. 

Every pair of eyes shifted over to Lacy in a singularity. 

Lacy said nothing. She tried to sit so absolutely still that everyone would think she’d died of a spontaneous heart attack. 

“Something to add, young lady?” Alice said, rolling her eyes. 

“No,” Lacy said. 

“Oh go on,” Alice said, a predatory smile awakening on her face as she leaned forward against the podium. Lacy really, really, really hoped her eyes weren’t darting any lower than Alice’s face. “This is a safe space, we can all talk openly here. Say what you need to say, man.”

“I’m a girl,” Lacy said, hands clenching. “And I don’t have anything to say- I just, uh, I remembered that I left the shower on in my room. And that’s not good. That’s, uh, that’s a-uh real waste of water. Which is bad. For the environment.”

After a moment’s soul-crushing silence, Alice said to Gwen, “Who’s this fetus and why did you bring her?”

Gwen cracked her knuckles. “She’s my apprentice. I’m teaching her magic.”

“Oh? So she’s a necromancer like you? I thought your family gobbled them all up.”

“As a matter of fact-”

“I’m a druid,” Lacy said. 

The disbelieving eyes tore over to her again. Gwen’s included. 

“So why are you learning magic from a necromancer?” Alice said.

“Just kinda shaked out that way.”

Alice turned her gaze back to Gwen. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Gwen said nothing. Lacy looked to her mentor for advice, but found her expression a faceless mask. Quentin, Joshua, Isabella, and Danny all shared Lacy’s quizzical analysis of Gwen’s steely gaze. Finally, Gwen said, “Up to you, girl.”

Lacy nodded, and then tapped her hand to her chest, and the blue-burning sphere shot above everyone’s heads and circled the room in a rapid dash. “Gwen’s dad is after this thing. It’s a strong one. Gwen has been teaching me to control it, one Starbound to another.”

“Starbound?” Alice said. “Is that what you call yourselves?”

“No actually I just came up with it on the spot. I thought it sounded cool,” Lacy snarked.

“That was a rhetorical question,” Alice said. “So. We know part of the Sovereignty’s plan then. The smartest thing to do would be to lock you up somewhere they can never find you and throw away the key.”

“I’m sorry what?” Lacy said, standing up, eyes narrowing. 

“But I can already tell nobody is gonna agree to that,” Alice continued. “So instead we’re gonna plan around it. We’ll use you as bait.”

“What?!”

“They’re after you. We’ll have you and your team sent out on a mission to draw out the Sovereignty, and then we’ll go in for a sneak attack. All in favor, show of hands!”

Two-thirds of the rooms’ occupants raised their hands. 

Alice slammed her gavel down onto the podium. “And it’s decided.”

Lacy’s spine bent like raw spaghetti as she slumped back down into her chair. 

Then it was Gwen’s turn to stand up. “Now wait just a minute!”

“It’s decided, Albrecht. The only reason you’re allowed at this meeting is because you’re an advantage. This is how we’re using that advantage. Cease to be one, and you’re gone.”

Quentin and Joshua stood up simultaneously. “Ms. Carmichael, I really must protest,” Quentin said while Joshua offered stolid support, arms folded. 

“And you, Jeong, are lucky you’re still a member of this Guild given your regular consorting with a Sovereignty Princess. Same with the rest of your team. Now sit the hell back down. It’s decided.”

They acquiesced. Two seats to her right, next to Isabella, Danny unscrewed the lid of his hip flask and took a long swig. He offered it first to Isabella, who took a hefty gulp, who then offered it to Lacy, who cleared out the remainder of its contents. 

The conference spent the next hour planning where and when their trap would be set- Las Vegas, Nevada, in one week. That would give adequate time for Lacy and the others to make their presence known there, known enough to draw out Gwen’s father. It was also a large enough population center, and an isolated enough one, that the locals would only have empty desert to run to, which made it prime ghoul attack territory. Plus, if the Sovereignty captured it, it would make for a nice, large, isolated base of operations with plenty of food for their army and tunnels to hide in. 

Lacy felt like her insides had been scooped out and replaced with sawdust, her arms and legs heavy sacks that were barely able to carry her out of the conference room and into the elevator back upstairs. She went back into her room, Isabella shortly behind, and she sat on her bed not moving or saying anything while she processed everything. Isabella looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say or how to say it, and so she sat on her own bed silently staring at the ceiling. 

A familiar knocking, attached to a familiar set of footsteps and a familiar heartbeat, manifested on the other side of their room’s door. Lacy opened it, and found Danny on the other side with a full, unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker’s red label. He held it up and smiled. 

“I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier,” he said. “It was uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry for being bitchy,” Lacy said, scratching the back of her head. 

“I’m sorry for not knowing what you two are talking about,” Isabella said dryly. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Danny said. “We’re all gonna fuckin’ die. Let’s get shit-faced.”

Lacy motioned him in, and Isabella took the two glasses from the mantle. Together, they braced themselves for everything to go to hell.