The moment I wake up, things feel off.

It’s pitch black outside; I don’t know what time it is. The bed is empty. My head aches.

What happened?

Then it all comes flooding back to me. Shame, thick and oppressive with its heavy weight, immediately hits me and the back of my throat burns with self-loathing.

The spot next to me is cold, long-vacated. Taehyung must have left hours ago.

I told myself I would never do drugs.

My phone and laptop are still downstairs from when I was researching. The clock atop the fireplace reads, 10:16 PM.

. I hate how my mind feels so disoriented. I lost an entire day- holy , getting high . The fact that I woke up alone makes me feel even worse. My fingers rapidly tap across my phone screen. Jin, Tom, and Dev aren’t responding to any of my texts. Even Sofia’s offline.

where are you?, I text Taehyung.

He doesn't respond. The aching in my chest grows more painful, twists into something resembling shame and frustration.

The silence in the house is unbearable.

I need to clear my head.

Before I can fully process the safety of my actions, I pull on my tennis shoes, grab my parang, and walk out the door.

The summer air is sticky, bright with the sheen of the full moon above. I remember the last time I walked into this forest- a chilly October night during my junior year of high school, when Taehyung had thrown a giant party and humiliated me in front of his friends. His cruel sneer when he commanded me to get into the hot tub will be forever branded in my memory.

How fitting that he is the reason I am venturing out through this treacherous underbrush once again.

A faint howl resonates through the night. The werewolves must be out for the full moon hunt. Dev spent weeks working on a Python project that tracked their paths, using a database of police reports, wolf track sightings, and dead prey. I trust the veracity of his algorithm. The wolves should be near Lake Rye.

“You’re such a ,” I whisper to myself, notching my parang into the thick trunk of a redwood. “He’s been back for a week and you’re already pining after him.”

It took me so long to forget him- and even then, I didn’t even really forget. I just shoved him under the million other emotions I felt; the guilt of losing Lucy and the fury I felt towards the Kado and the constant, ever-present fear of getting myself or my best friends killed. The less I saw him, the easier it was to let everything numb out.

Now I have to deal with him and Jimin. Two people who caused me the most strife.

A faint rattling noise sounds to my left. I fling my parang through the air; a strangled squeak sounds. I’ve speared a squirrel right through its torso.

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“Is that my pajama set?”

I whip around- and gasp. Lucy is leaning up against a tree behind me. Except she looks nothing like how she did a few days ago. Her unearthly glow and stifling power are gone. Now I can see exactly how frail she’s gotten. Lucy’s cheeks are hollow, her eyes exhausted. A stray wind could cause her to topple over. The only trace of her previous self lies in the mischievous smirk playing at her lips.

She scoffs at my horrified expression. “Yeah, I know I look like . You don’t have to say anything. Also, you got dirt all over my silk PJs, .”

“Luce,” I breathe. “Who’s giving you uppers?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not going to last. I’ve been reading about magical stimulants- addicts last a few months, tops, and then their bodies give out-,”

“If I can take out the rest of the council members, I don’t care,” she shrugs.

“Lucy.” I stride over until I’m right in front of her. When my hands grasp her shoulders, they feel like they’re going to snap beneath my grip. “I care. We care. Seeing you like this- it’s awful. I don’t want you to die.”

My voice cracks on the last word of my sentence, and remorse flashes across Lucy’s gaze. “I know, Joo,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. Seriously. I do love you, Tom, Jin, Dev, and Sofia. But I loved Meena, too. I loved my parents and my Kado friends and my old life. And all of it was taken from me.”

“I saw your memories- I thought you wanted a normal life-,”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to forget my parents or my friends. What Jimin did... was nothing but cruel.”

I swallow. “Okay, I hate to defend Jimin, but- I think he was just doing the only thing he could-,”

“Stop.”

“He didn’t have any other choice! It was either wipe everyone’s memories or kill you-,”

“Joo. Stop.”

“Lucy, he- I think he really cares about you-,”

“Shut up.” Despite how weak her voice is, there’s something in her tone that shuts me up.

Both of us are silent for a few moments. The only noise in the air is the faint humming of the crickets and the distant barking of wolves.

“I’m worried about you, too,” Lucy quietly tells me. “Did you really try to kill yourself?”

I stiffen. My hands draw away from her body.

“It was an accident,” I say tonelessly.

“You got the fourth-highest grade in AP Bio last year. There’s no way you didn’t know where you were cutting.”

We’ve switched positions. This time, I’m the one getting touchy and defensive. “I don’t want to talk about this,” I say curtly.

“You know something funny?” Wayward streams of golden chi curl up from Lucy’s fingers. She absentmindedly draws spirals through the air. “I ended up tracking down my parents.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Turns out, they moved to Wisconsin a few months after my memories were wiped. Something about a new Kado research facility opening up.”

I watch her, my gaze wary.

“I didn’t know what I was expecting. Would they feel as empty as I felt? Would they be sad? Did they think something was missing from their lives- something they couldn’t remember?”

“What happened?” I softly question.

Lucy extinguishes the chi in her hand. “They were living in a three-story McMansion in the suburbs with a new kid. My dad would take him to Little League practice, and my mom would make him PB&J with the corners cut off and cinnamon sprinkled on top. He’d beg them for money to buy Fortnite skins. My mom and dad were the happiest I’d ever seen them.”

Pity rips through my chest, a dull blade that painfully tears my heart. My eyes are wide as I stare at Lucy’s blase expression.

“I’m so ing sorry,” I breathe.

“So... I get it,” she says casually. “I know what it feels like when you have nothing to live for. You don’t have to sugarcoat anything around me.”

By the time I get back, it’s midnight. I feel utterly dazed as I go through the motions of taking off my shoes, washing my hands, picking stray leaves out of my hair. My cami and shorts are streaked with mud.

“Where the hell have you been?” Taehyung demands as I climb up the stairs. There’s a furious look on his face as he glares down at me, cell phone in hand.

Resentment builds in my chest, compounding atop the sadness and worry already present from my conversation with Lucy. Oh, so he won’t text me back, but I have to report my location to him? I give him a withering stare. “Why do you care?”

“Because, again, there’s a murderer on the loose-,”

“She’s not a murderer. She’s my best friend.”

“Who killed three Kado councilmembers and various other sorcerers across the country. Are you doing this because you’re a ing idiot?”

Fury flares up inside me. “Stop being a , Taehyung.”

“No, seriously, I want to know,” he says savagely. Any affection or tenderness he possessed earlier today is gone. “Or are you doing this for attention? Bending over my lap for a blunt wasn’t enough, so you had to run around Windsong at night?”

His words send sharp jabs of fury and embarrassment and hurt pulsing through me, like he’s socked me in the gut. My face hardens as I hiss, “You’re disgusting.”

A vicious smirk spreads on his face. “If you’re really that eager for my attention, there are other things I can show you.”

Stupidly, I fling my parang at him with a mangled cry. Taehyung coolly stops my blade in mid-air without even touching it. It clatters to the ground, but I’ve already launched myself at him with my fists raised. He doesn’t even take his hands out of his pockets as he dodges my blows with ease.

“Is this the best you can do?” he taunts. “Keep your guard up. You’re not supposed to allow any openings.”

My knee jabs up, aiming for his stomach, but Taehyung simply knocks my blow aside with his knee. In the next moment, he’s hooked his leg around my ankle and brought me toppling onto the hardwood floor. Pain shoots up the leg I landed on, but the humiliation I feel is more agonizing than any physical injuries. I twist my face away so that it’s facing the floor. He cannot see the tears rapidly blurring my vision.

“That was fast,” he drawls.

I shakily pull myself up, refusing to look at him. Please keep it together, Joo, please, please, I chant inside my head- but then Taehyung yanks me back towards him.

“Don’t pull this again,” he murmurs. His thumbs gently wipe away the tears that are furiously falling down my cheeks. The muddled memory of this afternoon resurfaces in my mind- his desire as he stared at me with his dark, hooded eyes; the heady feeling that rushed through me as he tangled his fingers in my hair; my sativa-induced body high. “Do we understand each other?”

“I am waiting for the day when I never have to see you again,” I utter in a low, intense voice. My eyes are locked onto his with a stare that conveys all the fury my voice cannot. “You’re nothing but a drug-addicted trust-fund bully on a power trip. You always make me- make me wish...,”

“Wish what?” There’s a fervent look on his face, something blazing and needy that I can’t interpret. “You wish I was dead?”

“No,” I whisper. “You make me wish I was dead.”

Taehyung’s face goes utterly blank. I tear myself from his grip and sprint down the hall to my room. He is still frozen in place when I slam my door shut.

I don't drift off to sleep until the sun rises.