We are in a long, dimly-lit corridor with walls of steel. A very furious-looking Jimin is storming down the hall. Even from here, I can feel how angry he is. Power radiates off his body in suffocating waves of heat. His entire body looks like it’s glowing.

Suddenly, he slams his hand into the wall. It caves in around his fist with a loud screeek!

“Jesus,” I mutter. “Why were you so pissed?”

“This was right after I found out Lucy was chosen as Junior Vice Captain.”

16-year-old Jimin turns a corner, and I quickly follow him-

And then almost bump into him as he stops abruptly.

He pauses, narrowing his eyes.

And then presses his hand on the wall.

A small space on the wall turns gold and slides up, revealing a door underneath. The sound of crying is clearly audible.

Jimin opens the door.

Sitting on the floor, curled up in the fetal position, is Lucy.

Jimin seems stunned. For a few moments, he can only stare at her as her body is racked with sobs. It’s strange enough for me, someone who’s known this version of Lucy for all of 20 minutes, to see her so defeated; I can’t even imagine how astonished Jimin must feel.

And then Jimin utters, “What are you doing?”

Lucy looks up. Horror dawns on her face as she realizes Jimin is looking down on her.

“L-Leave,” she hiccups.

“ you,” Jimin snaps. “You just got announced as Junior Vice Captain. You have no right to be crying in a wall.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Yeah, of course I don’t ing get it, because I’m not the JVC!”

“I have to kill Meena!” Lucy screams. “I only become Junior Vice Captain if I kill her!”

Jimin goes slack-jawed.

“Meena.... as in the sophomore who found out about the Kado?” he asks in a low voice.

Lucy glares at Jimin, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Meena, as in the girl that Jin is in love with. Meena, my ing friend.”

He freezes.

“What?” he croaks.

Lucy breaks into cries. “Jin has been running around trying to save her. But the adults won’t listen. It’s not ing fair- god, I hate the Kado, I hate this all!”

“You don’t actually hate the Kado,” Jimin says unsteadily. He looks utterly unsure of what to do or say.

She looks at him in disgust. “Seriously? That’s what you’re focusing on?”

“I- well-,”

“It doesn’t matter. You have no depth at all.” Lucy clenches her fists. “You’ve never questioned the Kado or anything we do. You don’t understand.”

“Then explain.”

“We’re ing monsters. Do you see our missions? We kill, destroy, steal, and fight the Hado- the people who’re actually trying to protect the world-,”

“The Hado are just as flawed as us-,” Jimin begins to argue, but Lucy cuts him off.

“At least they have the right principles behind them!” she exclaims. “They’re corrupt and inefficient, yeah, but at the end of the day, they fight to help people. I don’t want to hurt people! I’m ing sick of it! The only thing we cause is pain!”

“Don’t give me that,” Jimin snarls. “You love fighting. I see the look on your face during battles.”

“Dammit, Jimin, I-,” And suddenly, Lucy’s heated demeanor cracks, revealing utter sadness beneath. The look in her eyes causes my heart to

wrench. “Is it so bad that I just want to live a normal life?”

Jimin swallows. Hard.

“I want to go to school and have normal friends. Without thinking about magic or training or sorcery. I want to go to med school. I want to get married to someone normal!”

“Lucy...,” Jimin murmurs. His expression is impossibly soft- that is real concern, real worry, real...

I slowly turn to present-day Jimin.

“Did you like her?” I ask slowly.

“I told you,” he utters tonelessly. “I couldn’t tell if I wanted to kill her or be with her.”

“I- I wish I had never been b-born into the Kado,” Lucy whimpers. “I wish I could forget about everything and just start over.”

I gasp. “Oh my god!” I whirl around to face Jimin again. He merely gives me a grim look.

Things are starting to click into place.

Young Jimin inhales deeply. Then, he coldly states, “You’re going to be Junior Vice Captain. it up.”

Lucy looks up in total shock and disgust.

“Are you ing serious?” she says. “That’s the only thing that matters to you?”

She draws herself up, hastily rubbing her eyes. “You are the most ing shallow person I know. Do you even have a personality outside of pleasing your parents? This is why literally no one respects you. They see you for exactly what you are, Jimin: a spineless ing beta.”

She shoves past Jimin and storms down the hall. Jimin does not move. He simply stares straight ahead, his eyes affixed on the spot where Lucy was crying.

“I’m not going to show you the memory where the Kado council told me I could become JVC if I killed Lucy,” present-day Jimin utters. “I tracked her down to the forest after she failed to kill Meena. Instead of killing her, I wiped her memories. I made the case to leadership that there wasn’t really any need to eliminate her if she didn’t know who she was.”

“That must have been a lot more work, though,” I say slowly. “Killing one person versus wiping the memories of everyone in a city?”

“Would you prefer if I killed her instead?” he snaps.

I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that...,”

What am I trying to say? My mind is whirling with all the information I am processing. The sight of seeing Lucy that devastated was heartbreaking. And I’m shocked that Jimin showed her mercy after their hate-filled rivalry.

“You must really care about Lucy,” I mumble.

He throws me a withering glare. With a snap of his fingers, we are back in his bedroom. I pull the mask off my face.

“Do you see why I don’t want to give her back her memories now?” Jimin asks. “She didn’t want them. They tormented her.”

“I see where you’re coming from,” I breathe. “But... she’s just as miserable now. And I’m scared she’s actually going to take Jungkook’s-,”

“Jungkook?!” Jimin hisses. “Jungkook’s the one that said he’d give her her memories back?”

I clap my hands over my mouth. Oh, , why did I let that slip out?

“I’m going to destroy him,” Jimin growls, the air around him turning into a spiraling vortex of heat. “I will rip his limbs apart one by one-,”

“Can you calm down!” I yelp. “You’re not making this very pleasant for me!”

“Explain everything. Now.”

“Okay, okay! Jungkook wants to be JVC-,”

Suddenly, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I check the caller ID. Tom.

“What’s up?” I say.

“Lucy agreed to Jungkook’s terms.”

I gasp.

“,” I swear. “How do you know-,”

“I have trackers on Lucy, and her aura just... changed. I don’t know how to describe it-,”

I bolt up. “Tom, don’t let her- hang on, I’m coming over right now-,”

“What?” Jimin asks.

I put my phone on mute. “She’s doing it.”

Jimin’s face goes blank.

And then he grabs the mask, puts his hand on my shoulder, and snaps.

“Wha-,” I say, but everything goes utterly black for a millisecond, and then just as fast, we materialize in front of Lucy’s house.

“Wow,” I say. “Teleportation?”

In the next moment, Jimin’s blasted the door straight off its hinges.

“What the hell?” I exclaim- and realize that we can worry about house repairs later, our number one priority right now is to find Lucy.

“Hello?” Tom says over the phone? “Hello? Joo! What just happened? Where are you-,”

“We’re at Lucy’s,” I breathe as Jimin scans the house with glowing red eyes (note to self: look into what that magical trick is). “Are you here?”

“Not yet- I’m picking up Dev right now and Jin and Sofia are heading over-,”

“He’s upstairs,” Jimin snarls. In the next moment, he’s disappeared.

“,” I swear. “Dude, get over here, fast.”

“What the heck is going on?!”

“Jimin’s here!”

“What?!”

I race up the stairs two at a time, frantically attempting to locate where Jimin is. Lucy’s bedroom looks empty, the door to my room is closed... I hurry down the hall, listening intently for any noise-

And then I hear a boom! and someone scream, “Jimin!”

They’re in the study. I turn the corner and am faced with a furious Jimin holding Jungkook to the floor by the neck. Lucy looks down at them in utter horror. Behind them, multiple computer monitors are open with lines of long, complicated code running.

“You ing piece of ,” Jimin swears. “You’re the one that’s been messing with the Kado’s systems.”

“Just in time, huh?” Jungkook chokes out. There is a slimy grin on his face.

“Jimin, stop! Get off him!” Lucy exclaims, trying to pull him off Jungkook. Her eyes dart up to my face. “Why is he here?”

“Why did you agree to trade away your magic?!” I shoot back. “Jungkook is crazy! Your magic is worth more than-,”

“Than my own memories? Are you kidding me? Besides, it was my choice-,”

“Stop the computer,” Jimin growls. “I don’t know what kind of program you initiated, but-,”

“It’s too late,” Jungkook says. “I’m retrieving all the encrypted memories from the Kado database right now. And for every memory that’s collected...,” He gives Lucy a sly smile. “A little bit of Luce’s power gets drawn into me-,”

Jimin abruptly punches Jungkook in the face and knocks him clean out.

“Dude!” I squawk. “He’s the only one who knows how to code! We needed him to stop the program!”

“There’s no way he would’ve done it,” Jimin growls.

And then Dev, Jin, Sofia, and Tom suddenly materialize in the middle of the room. Dev, Sofia, and Tom look absolutely stunned.

“We just teleported-,” Sofia begins to rasp, but then begins to take in the scene in front of her. “Wait, what’s going on-,”

“Joo-,” Jin begins to say, but I grab Dev.

“You need to stop whatever’s going on there,” I say, frantically gesturing to the computer screens.

“What- what is that?” Dev says, peering at the monitors.

“Dude, please! Figure it out! The more time that passes, the more of Lucy’s power that Jungkook absorbs!”

“Wha-,”

“Go!”

Dev rushes over to the computer setup. His eyes dart from screen to screen.

“There’s a lot going on here,” he murmurs.

I whip my head back around to Jimin. He is staring at Lucy with an intense, unreadable look in his eyes.

“What. Is. Happening.” Lucy growls between gritted teeth.

Jimin slowly gets up off Jungkook. He draws the mask out of his jacket and hands it to Lucy.

“What is this?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“Lucy,” he says quietly.

“What?”

He lowers his mouth so it is right next to her ear, and whispers something inaudible to the rest of us. Whatever it is, it makes Lucy go slack-jawed. She looks up at him in bewilderment and shock.

“Wha- what are you talking about?” she stammers.

“Go into your room and put the mask on,” he says.

“I don’t understand-,”

“Lucy, go. Now.”

After a brief moment of hesitation, she darts out of the room, her fingers fumbling with the mask. A long, deep breath leaves my lips.

“It’s done,” I whisper.

A low voice says, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

All of our heads whip over to Jungkook in shock. In the next moment, however, Jimin has gone flying into the wall so hard that the plaster cracks around him.

Jungkook rises from the ground, his entire body glowing gold. When he opens his eyes, I realize with a jolt that his irises are gold, too.

The sight is terrifying.

What’s even more terrifying is hearing Tom mutter, “Oh, .”

Tom, swearing?

Yeah. We’re ing screwed.

“I haven’t even gotten a fifth of Lucy’s magic yet, and I’m already this powerful?” Jungkook rasps in a terrifyingly grating voice that sounds nothing like his own.

“Jungkook, stop!” Jin shouts. “Your body can’t contain all that energy- you’re going to evaporate!”

Jungkook snaps his fingers and Jin is flung into the wall, too.

I watch with horror as Jungkook turns to Dev, who is gaping at him in horror.