Jackie left her cozy house for school before anyone else in the house had woken up. She had finished her homework at 2 am and had only gotten 4 hours of sleep. As she normally got ~8 hours of sleep, she was quite tired and not in the best of moods. However, underneath the groggy grumpiness of an early morning, she was triumphant.

I did all of my homework, she cheered herself, I just need to turn it in and then it is the weekend and I can sleep.

She drove to school with that thought keeping her eyes sharp on the road, keeping her aware of her surroundings. She got to school early and made her way through the day with minimal problems.

“You look tired.” Various people would say, including teachers, classmates, and friends.

Jackie would smile and bashfully respond, “Yeah, there were lots of things going on yesterday so I got started on my homework late. Oh well.”

“What things?” Jackie’s friends asked.

“Just weird things,” she answered, “like it wasn’t one big thing it was just a bunch of things in a row, ya know?”

“Yeah,” they agreed with her, “Did you finish your English paper?”

“Yes!” Jackie cried, “it took me forever!”

After that no one questioned Jackie further. While Jackie felt bad about evading the truth, as honesty was one of her largest morals, she did not even know how to explain to others what was going on. And, as she often reasoned out, this whole alien thing won’t affect anyone else, so they don’t need to know.

She got back home and had nearly forgotten about the Twelve in her subsequent exhaustion from a long day at school. She opened the door and jokingly called out, “Honey I’m home!” as she typically did with her parents.

When she walked further into the family room she saw several pairs of eyes staring at her.

“Oh,” was all Jackie said when she remembered that the Twelve were crashing in her house.

Kris simply smirked and rose one eyebrow at her.

“Shut up,” she said, a force of habit from hanging out with her brother.

This caused both of his eyebrows to come up and his amused expression to simply get larger.

Jackie realized that that might not have been the most tactful response and simply made a face at him and continued her path to the kitchen.

“How was your day?” Lay asked, watching as she set her backpack on the counter.

“Huh? Oh it was alright. I mean, nothing major happened. I’m just tired,” Jackie said trying not to snap.

“Oh,” Lay said hearing in her voice how tired she was.

“Sorry,” she apologized. None of the Twelve knew quite what she was apologizing for. “How was yours?” she continued.

“It was quite enjoyable. It has been awhile since we have been able to do what we want.”

She looked at him questioningly, “and what did you do?”

“Personally?” Lay clarified, reminding her that the rest of the Twelve had filtered into the kitchen/family room.

“Sure,” Jackie said.

“I slept for a long time. And then I came out here and watched TV with the others,” Lay explained gesturing to the couch where they had been sitting when she walked in.

Jackie noticed that the TV was on.

“You guys were watching Spongebob?”

“Yes,” Xiumin answered excitedly, entering the conversation, “I am not sure I understand it.”

Jackie laughed slightly, “Yeah that’s all of us on our first Spongebob episode. Then it gets pretty funny. Personally, I love it. Well, all of the old episodes anyway.”

“Why do you prefer the old episodes?” Xiumin asked.

“I just think they are funnier. The newer ones I have seen are more disgusting. Like, they make more jokes that are just nasty instead of just having funny things happen,” Jackie explained.

“Do you know when my parents are coming home?” Jackie asked in the lull of the conversation that followed her explanation.

“I believe that they said that they would be late coming home,” Chen said.

“Huh. Ok thanks,” she said absently. Her mind was already buzzing with questions of why her parents would be coming home late. They normally tried to come home early on Fridays. She turned away from the Twelve and began walking down the hall towards her room.

The Twelve sat there watching her leave, they knew that her mind was not thinking about them at all, so they were not overly offended by her rudeness.

She spun on her heel causing her hair to fly out behind her.

“Oh my god. I am so sorry. I just spaced,” Jackie apologized

“Pardon?” Lay asked.

“That was extremely rude of me. I shouldn’t have walked away. I was just thinking about things,” She explained, hands helping to demonstrate her words.

“We know, it’s fine,” Xiumin said.

“Huh?” She asked before saying, “Oh right the whole reading minds thing, I forgot. Right! Wait, that makes sense!” She exclaimed.

“What does?” Kai asked.

“Why you guys alternate when speaking!” she said.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Suho said.

“Case in point right there. I mean, typically when people have a conversation, even in large groups, there are typically a couple people talking while the rest listen and chime in whenever they have something to say. The people in the back can take the place of the people who were doing the majority of the talking but typically it is like a more generic conversation. With you guys, it feels like just a normal conversation with two participants but there are Twelve of you. And that makes sense because if you guys share all of your thoughts and stuff then you know when the others are going to speak and what they are going to ask and it comes from the collective rather than from the individual,” Jackie explained with bright eyes at being correct.

The Twelve just looked at her, not entirely sure how to respond. The majority of what she said was true, which is why she is the key Chen thought, but none of them had ever thought of it in that way.

“Right?” Jackie asked, interrupting their silent conversation.

“I guess,” Chanyeol said, “We have never thought of it that way though.”

“Really?” Jackie asked in surprise, “You didn’t notice that you were doing it?”

“Well yeah,” Tao said, “to us it’s just communicating. There’s nothing special or weird about it.”

“Ok,” Jackie said, “Well that’s cool. I’m so happy I was right.” Her smug pride at being correct filled her entire being, and although she was careful not to physically show it, since they could read her emotions they all knew how much she enjoyed being correct.

“That reminds me, you guys never did tell me how you can read minds,” Jackie said as she plopped herself down on the couches, making a spot for herself. She again ended up next to Baekhyun and was squeezed between him and Chen.

“Well,” Lay started from his position on the left couch. He looked up and thought for a moment, trying to come up with a good way to explain the difference of outer thoughts and inner thoughts to someone who had no concept of their existence.

“Ok,” he said, getting up and grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil.

“So, there are two… places… where people think, or exist. Humans, well the majority of them, can’t tell the difference between the two.” Lay drew a stick figure. Then he drew a large circle around the stick figure.

“So this circle is where the thoughts of a person are. We call this, in English, the outer thoughts. In here,” Lay gestured to the head of the stick figure, “these are the inner thoughts. To us, these inner thoughts are like your inherent personality. This bit is who you are, it’s personal and no one can get into it or mess with it.”

He labeled the inner thoughts with a small “inner”.

“With the outer stuff,” Lay continued, “people can, or just us can, see them and feel them. A lot of emotions and beliefs and opinions and other stuff, like physical feeling, are typically kept in the outer thoughts. Are you with me?”

“Uhhhh,” Jackie said as she stared at the piece of paper in front of her. “Maybe,” she said slowly allowing the thoughts to churn in her head, “and the reason you can read my mind is because human can’t tell the difference between outside thoughts and inside thoughts?”

“Yes.”

“But how can you read the outer thoughts?” Jackie asked.

“Oh, oops,” Lay said, “Sorry, the outer thoughts aren’t even in a bubble, they are everywhere, and since they are everywhere anyone can see them and understand them whenever they want. With outer thoughts there is no privacy, everyone is constantly connected to everyone else. Now, these thoughts and feelings are always there but it is the connection to whomever they belong that allows easy access to the thoughts. Like, if I have no idea nor any interest in the thoughts that surround me nor who they belong to, then I do not pay attention to them. But as soon as I see someone or think about someone I know about even if I haven’t directly met them then I can see their outer thoughts.”

“For example, if Kris were on the other side of the galaxy, I could still sense his outer thoughts, but the reason that I am not being overwhelmed by the thoughts of all the other beings out there is that I do not know who they are nor do I have any interest to.”

“The inner thoughts are not like the outer thoughts, they remain in the body, or, if there is no body, they stay in one very compact area.”

“What? You can just not have a body?” Jackie exclaimed.

Lay began backtracking, “Well, we can, why do you think that we look human? But you probably can’t. For us the body is just a vessel and since we understand the elements and the very creation of matter, we can change the body. But that doesn’t matter right now.”

“I’m sorry, are you talking about a soul or something?” Jackie asked. At Lay’s response of trying to explain the subtleties of alien voodoo Jackie said, “You know what, I’m gonna call it a soul and I’m not going to try and understand it any better than that today. I have learned quite enough today. There is inner and outer and since humans they can’t tell the difference between them and so they broadcast anything and everything they think or feel to anyone who knows who they are. Am I right?”

“Yes,” Lay said.

“Then fantastic, I’m good. Now does anyone else want to watch some brain-numbing mindless television with me?” Jackie said with an air of finality.

“Yes,” Chen answered for the rest of the group and handed her the remote. He hid a smile at Lay’s frustration at his inability to explain to her the difference of the inner and outer thoughts.

Oh well, Chen thought to Lay, as he began to watch Modern Family.

An episode later, Jackie stood up and went to wander in the kitchen, looking for food.

Her family called it foraging. An expanded metaphor of the phrase “grazing”. Whenever a family member meandered through the kitchen eyes scanning and not finding any good food to eat. This process could take as long as five minutes, with long looks spent on each available food item. Eventually, the family member would select one piece of food and would plop back to whatever they were doing until the need to forage returned.

As Jackie foraged, listlessly looking at all of the food in the pantry, she realized that it was nearing dinner time. Her mom, Becky, and dad, James, wouldn’t be home for quite a while if they were staying late at work and so she would have to make her own dinner. This normally wouldn’t be an issue. She could just grab herself a bowl of cereal or make a grilled cheese sandwich. However, there were twelve other people she had to make dinner for plus her parents if they decided to show up. After another minute of foraging her mind considered what she could make.

She eventually settled down on ordering pizza.

“Hey guys!” she called out to the Twelve, “What type of pizza do you like?”

They tore their eyes away from the antics on TV and replied with the strangest combinations that could go on pizza.

“Wait, pause,” they paused the TV, “you want corn on your pizza?”

“Yes,” Chanyeol said. “Please,” he added after a moment.

“No, that’s not the issue, I’m more confused on why on Earth you would want corn on your pizza?” Jackie asked.

They looked at her with blank faces.

“Oh my gosh I’m an idiot,” Jackie said under her breath before speaking up, “You all are from Korea. Well since you’ve been here,” she amended, “Korean pizza, now don’t take this the wrong way, is one of the strangest things they do. And that includes a lot of stuff.”

Their faces turned to ones of shock and Luhan even looked a bit affronted.

“Sorry it’s true, so, I’ll just get you all some standard pizza because I am sure that we will not be able to find anything you are used to,” Jackie said with an air of finality.

“How hungry are you guys? When was the last time you ate?” she asked as she began searching through her phone for the pizza place’s number.

“We last ate that food we shared yesterday when we met you,” Xiumin said.

“Don’t worry about how hungry we are, no matter how much food you put in front of us we will still be able to eat,” Kris added.

“What? Of course I’m going to order enough for you guys to eat as much as you want.” Kris realized that Jackie might have taken his comment the wrong way. He didn’t mean to insult her generosity.

“What he means,” Lay stepped in, “is that it is in our nature to keep eating when there is food available. No matter if we are already hungry. Just order enough for fifteen semi hungry people and there will be plenty.”

“Oh, ok,” Jackie said a little warily. “And I’m gonna get you all a combo, a pepperoni, and a plain. Wait, does anyone have any allergies?”

“No,” Suho answered.

“Ok great, let me call them,” Jackie said. She pulled up the contact for the nearest delivering pizzeria.

“Yes, hello,” Jackie said when the employee picked up the phone. “I’m ordering for a part of fifteen and I was wondering how many pizzas I’ll need.”

“You’ll need around six mediums,” came the slightly static-y answer.

“Ok so may I have two combos, two pepperonis, and two plain cheeses? All medium.” Jackie ordered.

“Yes and would you like delivery or pick up?” he asked.

“Delivery please. Thank you.”

“Have a nice day,” the employee said.

Once she ended the phone call she motioned for the Twelve to continue with the still paused Modern Family.

“It should be here in around 30 minutes. Can you guys wait or do you need snacks?”

They all looked around at each other, doing their silent communication again, when Tao said, “We can wait.”

“Ok,” Jackie said. She went back to sit down on the couch when she realized that D.O. had taken her spot. She didn’t want to bother him, and she had already seen the episode, so she sat at the table instead.

Jackie pulled out her phone and texted her parents in the group chat they used, “I ordered pizza. When are you guys coming home?”

While waiting for the reply Jackie pulled out ten plates. She realized that there she needed at least three more, though only absolutely needed two because she wouldn’t mind using a napkin or something instead. So, Jackie unloaded and put away the dishes from the dishwasher. She then decided to put the dirty dishes into the newly-empty dishwasher.

Even Jackie was surprised at her actions. She hated doing chores or even helping out around the house. She looked over to the boys spread out on the couches and realized that there really wasn’t much space for her to squeeze in. Jackie briefly thought about the room that they were sleeping in.

The room was a long-ish rectangle with a not-really finished bathroom across from the door. The walls were painted a dark red and the carpet was a rough brown. The skylight would shine light during the day and make the room pleasantly glow with warmth. The door was located in the middle of one of the long sides of the room. To the right of the door two long couches sat in an L shape, with a wooden low table in the middle. On the side closest to the door stood a TV, which allowed people to play games or watch movies from the couches. Behind the couches was a counter, with a snaking sink that went nearly the whole length of the counter. When the sink was being used the water would flow towards the drain like a twisting river.

On the other side of the room, lay empty space. Originally it had been meant for a pool or ping pong table but money had run short so those ideas had had to be forgone, the same way the bathroom didn’t have a sink inside and so people had to wash their hands out in the main room. Now, the empty space was cluttered with old toys meant for younger kids.

They must have pushed them aside, Jackie thought, and did they pick a couple people to sleep on the couches or did they all sleep on the floor?

Jackie thought these things and more as she generically cleaned the kitchen. She looked at the clock, about five more minutes until the pizza should arrive. She looked back at the Twelve, they were still engrossed in the show although Jackie had the sneaking suspicion that they had been paying very careful attention to her thoughts.

Yeah well if you were, screw you too, Jackie thought. She saw Chen smother a smile with his hands.

Especially you, Jackie thought at Chen. He simply winked at her then gestured with his eyes towards the doorway that led to their room.

Fine, I will, Jackie thought, allowing all of her sassiness to come through the mental message.

She strode out the doorway, past where Kai met her last night, up the stairs, down the hallway and opened the door. She discovered that they had not slept on the couches, or if they had there wasn’t a trace of it.

Instead, they had slept on the blankets kept in the room in the empty space. Although, Jackie thought, it certainly doesn’t seem empty any more.

The few blankets must have been used for padding, and they must have slept extremely closely if they were to have all slept on top of the blankets.

OK, Jackie thought to herself, things to get, lots and lots of blankets, and pillows, and maybe even some of those foam things that they can use as a mattress. She took a final look around the room, and maybe some beanbags if they are on sale, so they don’t have to be right in the kitchen all the time.

“Is everything fitting your standards?” came a voice from behind her.

Jackie spun around, causing her hair to fly out behind her. She really needed to get a haircut, it was simply getting too long.

“Huh?” Jackie asked, seeing Kai leaning smugly against the door. She hadn’t even heard him open the door. “What do you mean?” Jackie asked.

“Nothing,” Kai said with a laugh, “the pizza man is here and we don’t have any money to pay him with. So they sent me to come get you.”

“Oh! He’s here already? I didn’t hear the doorbell ring. I’m sorry, I’ll be right there,” Jackie said as she took off at a run, flying down the stairs and running to the front door.

“Yes, hello, sorry sir,” Jackie said as she pulled out the family’s credit card, “here you go.”

“Thank you,” said the delivery boy. He swiped the card, bade Jackie sign it (which she did), then turned around to leave.

“Excuse me,” Jackie spoke up, “Did you already give us the pizzas?”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered, “some super tall guy came and got it.”

“Ok, thank you! Have a nice day!” Jackie said to the delivery boy.

“If you eat it all I’ll be really mad!” Jackie yelled to the Twelve as she headed back to the kitchen.

Once she arrived she saw all twelve of them already sitting on the couches glued back to the TV with pizza on their plates. Thankfully, when she checked the pizza boxes to see if they were empty, their earlier warning of being able to eat her out of house and home clear in her mind, she saw that there was still plenty for her to eat.

Happily, Jackie grabbed two slices of cheese pizza and again sat at the table.

“Did everyone get enough?” she asked the boys.

Various pizza laden “yes’s were her only response. She did a quick head count, it was quickly becoming a habit, and only saw eleven of them.

Who’s missing, Jackie thought, although as soon as she did that she knew that they had heard her.

“Baekhyun,” Lay called out speaking around his full mouth.

“Thanks,” Jackie said even though it still weird-ed her out that they could read her mind.

Jackie started chowing down on her pizza and raised her eyes to see Baekhyun coming down the hallway, laden with blankets. The blankets he carried nearly covered his eyes and she could only see the small black tuft of his poufy hair. The rest of his body was covered with the blankets, some of them had dropped from his hold and so were dragging behind him. Jackie was vaguely impressed that he hadn’t tripped over the blankets although it certainly was funny watching him waddle down the hallway. That is until she noticed that one of the many blankets was her blanket. The soft, fuzzy, large one that kept her warm through the winter and that hung out by her bed in the sticky summer.

“What are you doing?” Jackie asked with a laugh.

“Getting blankets,” Baekhyun answered with a very serious tone. So serious, in fact, that Jackie could not believe that he actually was serious and expected him to break out into a smile at any moment.

“All of the blankets?” Jackie asked, teasing.

“Yes,” Baekhyun answered. By this point Tao, Suho, Lay, and Chen had turned their heads towards Baekhyun and Jackie’s discussion.

“Well,” Jackie said haltingly, “You can’t have all the blankets. Did you even ask?”

“Ask what?” Baekhyun asked.

“Ask if you could have all the blankets,” Jackie said exasperatedly.

“Yes,” Suho said stepping in, “We did.”

“You did? Who did you ask?” Jackie questioned, turning her attention to Suho. By now the Twelve had turned their faces to watch the exchange.

“James and Becky,” Suho answered.

“Both of them?” Jackie asked setting up her case.

“Yes,” Suho answered.

“Then you’re lying.” Jackie said, all earlier mirth fallen from her face.

“Excuse me?” Suho asked.

“You’re lying. My parents leave at different times in the morning. My dad leaves ten or so minutes after I do and my mom leaves about an hour after that. There is no way that you guys would have asked both of them. And you said that you asked both of them. That’s lie number one. Secondly, and this isn’t really a lie, if you did ask them then they never meant for you to take all of the blankets. That brown fuzzy one for example is my blanket, I use it every night. And those, yellow sheets are my parents’. I don’t care if they said you could use some blankets, obviously they didn’t mean for you to take the ones that they use. And that’s with benefit of the doubt.” Jackie said, by this point standing and facing Suho. She angled her body with the force of habit towards all of the Twelve. Her posture was perfect, her chin high, and her voice projected, allowing no miscommunication to occur. She was angry, and the more she thought about it, the more unreasonable their actions became to her.

Suho didn’t say anything in response. He couldn’t read her outer thoughts well enough to understand what she wanted him to say in this situation.

“You know what,” Jackie said, walking towards Baekhyun, “Give me the blankets. If you want them you have to ask.” With that, Jackie grabbed the blankets from Baekhyun and carried them away to her room. She nearly tripped several times while carrying the large blankets, but she never fell.

She threw the blankets down once she got to her room. She pulled out her parents’ sheets and went downstairs to make the bed. She glanced down the hallway and saw the Twelve sitting down on the couches looking at each other. She assumed that they were having a mental conversation about her actions and sighed. Jackie hadn’t meant to cause anything bad by not giving them the blankets, but obviously they can’t have all of the blankets! If they had simply taken all of the blankets but the blankets the Ryder family uses Jackie probably would have just laughed it off even if she would have been miffed that they hadn’t asked for permission.

Jackie made her parents’ bed, struggling with the corners. When she went to head upstairs, she noticed that she hadn’t finished her pizza. She swallowed her fear and entered the kitchen.

“Hey guys,” Jackie began as she grabbed her pizza, “I’m sorry I took the blankets but you guys gotta ask first. I would have gladly given them to you if you had just asked…” she trailed off, “Well…” no response, “Have a good night!” Jackie grabbed the pizza and fled the room. She looked back at Chen, hoping that the mischievous boy might not be ignoring her like all the rest of the Twelve but he simply stared at Suho.

Jackie fought back the sharp twinge of being ignored and went back upstairs to her refuge, her room.

She pulled out her computer and mindlessly typed in the address to her favorite kpop site. She froze mid keystroke, thinking heavily.

EXO, that’s who the Twelve were. Are. To many people at least.

And they’re aliens in some insane struggle to save their planet who somehow think that I am a key.

And that’s all I am, some object in a plan that I cannot possibly foresee with no power other than taking meaningless blankets away from people, aliens, but that doesn’t matter. I am helpless, I am pretty sure that Kai can teleport, that’s the only way that he could have done any number of things that he has done over the last day.

Could it really have been just a day?

It doesn’t matter, fact is, teleportation was the power that Kai had in EXO and if Kai can actually teleport then what can the rest of them do? Lay’s probably has to do with something about the inner and outer voodoo that he tried to explain which means that he can probably control people to at least some extent. Which explains why Kai was so nonchalant about if my parents didn’t let them stay.

Which means that they can manipulate me, Lay can probably change me. He can change what I think and poison my sense of self, my very identity, most likely against my will.

Jackie ended her string of ideas and connections with the final life shattering realization:

I am not safe.

Jackie’s heart picked up and her mind began to race with ways that she could protect herself. She thought and discarded a half dozen ideas before realizing the easiest if not the most practical. Make them have no need to harm her.

Jackie thought about how useless this plan was. She couldn’t imagine any way in which she could harm their plans. Like she previously came to the conclusion of she was useless and powerless. Besides the inevitable there was no way that Jackie could make people rely on her and trust her. With a sigh of regret she threw out the plan of becoming too important to harm.

She sat in her bed, pizza forgotten, thinking heavily about what she could do. She came to another reality shattering realization.

There was nothing she could do. For all she knew being a key wasn’t actually important, and Jackie had gathered that the Twelve didn’t actually know what was being important about being a key either.

Since there was nothing that Jackie could do, she rationed, nothing that she did would seal her fate one way or the other. Either they would harm her or they would not, and nothing she did could stop them.

Because of this sense of inevitability, Jackie came to another conclusion somehow more immediate and important than the other conclusions. Jackie was just going to be Jackie, no need to freak out because they were aliens, no need to freak out because they were at one point EXO, they were just people at this point and Jackie was just Jackie. No need to stress out, everything will be whatever it will be, and Jackie will just be Jackie, no matter whether she was a key or not.

Jackie let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and her whole body relaxed into the mattress. I’ll just be me, Jackie thought to herself spelling it out in her mind, I’ll just be me and it’ll be ok, that’s all I have to do.

With that thought Jackie fell asleep, letting the events of the day and earlier night catch up to her. She fell into a deep and thoughtless sleep, her body paralyzing with the deep sleep she was in.

Across the house, on a couch surrounded by thought and emotions, a small Asian man heard her thoughts. He was not the only one, the other eleven certainly felt her outer thoughts as well, but he knew that he was the only one who cared so much. He felt the gentle oblivion followed by her resolution and found a ball of worry ledge itself deep inside his inner self.

He tried to dislodge the worry, or let it reveal itself and what caused it, but the knot stayed strong. Chen tried to push the mental worry out with sheer force, but it didn’t move. As Chen studied it, he realized that the worry was a combination of many things surrounding a center topic of worry. No matter how hard he tried to decipher it, however, Chen was unable to discern anything more of the ball of worry.

Outside him the mental exchange raged. Thoughts of killing the key outright for daring to stop them, were briefly entertained before being won out by more moderate explanations of just torturing the key until it realized its place. Other voices calmed them down by referencing the key’s own thoughts about the incident and how it didn’t believe that the incident was a big deal and that the key was just trying to set the ground rules. Which in itself was ridiculous because who could tell the Twelve rules? Did she even know their power?

In the end, the Twelve decided not to kill the key. If they did it would go against their whole mission since they left their home all those years ago. They did intend to teach the key a lesson, however, and their minds stayed up the majority of the night, discussing the best ways to teach the lesson, while their bodies slept.

The key’s parents, James and Becky, came home, took one look at the pizza remains scattered around the kitchen area, and went to bed. They were simply too tired to fight after a long day of work.

The next day, Jackie rose late, she changed into pajamas after realizing that she had spent the night sleeping in her clothes from the day before. She entered her bathroom, and scrubbed her face, washing off all of the oil that had gathered on her face. She brushed her teeth and her hair, used the restroom, and smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

It was the weekend and everything was looking up. She leaped down the stairs to the kitchen. She made breakfast, toast, and drank her traditional apple juice. No one was around, but that didn’t bother her, it was only 10 after all.

Suho walked into the room, striding with his head up and his manner mean. He saw Jackie silently swaying back and forth to a song in her head as she ate her breakfast. Her feet swung on the high chair that she sat on, the one facing the island in the middle of the kitchen where she had sat the first time they had met her. He realized that she must think that that was her chair, and a surge of anger flew through him.

She obliviously sat there, humming happily without realizing it, and Suho heard the calming cries of the rest of the Twelve. They stayed the hand that was clenching prepared to teach her an early lesson.

Jackie realized that something was awry in the room and turned to see what was going on.

“Oh hi!” She called, her face breaking out into a smile. He felt the wave of innocent happiness that came with the simple realization that he was in the room. Didn’t know she was supposed to be scared?

“How did you sleep?” Jackie asked, concern and embarrassment slipping into her voice.

Suho’s anger returned, again marred by confusion at her attitude. Why was she so naïve? Didn’t she know how powerful they were? Jackie sat in the silence of his answer for a moment.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Jackie asked breaking the silence, gesturing to the refrigerator.

“No, I’m good,” Suho declined, too stunned to properly answer.

“Ok then,” Jackie said, “Is everyone else asleep?”

Suho thought of the rest of the Twelve, currently surrounding James and Becky in their room. James and Becky were tied up on chairs, fast asleep thanks to Lay. The plan was to bring Jackie and show her the utter power they had without outright killing her.

Perhaps that plan would be too subtle for her to understand. Best to just continue with it anyways, maybe increase the brutality.

“No,” He answered without missing a beat, “actually we have something to show you.”

“Ok,” Jackie said, “like right now or can I finish eating?”

“You can finish eating,” Suho answered. He thought of how it would make her throw up later, teach her not to mess with the Twelve. Of course she will have to clean up the mess.

Jackie sat there, taking bite after bite of toast. She did not like the tone that Suho had used, the open polite friendly words went completely against her intuition. She didn’t notice the kitchen knives missing from their wooden holders.

There is no reason for them to hurt me, Jackie thought calming herself down. She felt the sharp edge of fear creep into her stubbornly sunny disposition. She finished eating, and walked over to where Suho was waiting.

While she had been eating, Suho had been going over his plans. First he would show her the helpless situation her parents were in, then he would make her choose one of her parents, of course she wouldn’t. Once she didn’t choose either of her parents, Tao and Lay would step forward. All of the Twelve purposefully not wearing especially intimidating clothes, make the power seem casual, which it was. Then Lay would influence the parents to hurt each other, starting with small nicks. Lay would make the parent’s think that pain caused happiness, a simple alteration to their understanding of the world. The kitchen knives they had taken were laying out on the floor, ready for any use.

Throughout the entire experience, Tao would slow down her perception of time, dragging seconds into minutes. Chen, since he seemed attuned to her thoughts, would carefully be monitoring them, and would tell Tao when to speed her up or slow her down.

Only once the parents were damaged enough to leave visible scars would they stop, and depending on her level of terror and respect the parents would move onto Jackie. If Jackie was more submissive then Suho would personally inscribe the symbol she knew so well onto her flesh. The EXO logo. From then on it would serve as a reminder of their power without even tapping into their various resources and she would always fear them like she rightfully should.

This was the plan they had spent the majority of the night going over, through ideas and suggestions.

Jackie followed Suho towards their room keeping her steps light and a smile on her face. She pestered him with random questions like, “is it a secret?”, “what’s going on?” and, “why are you guys doing this?”

He responded with patience and smiles, gentlemanly opening the door to what was a horrific sight to Jackie.

Her parents were tied up, apparently asleep, in chairs from the kitchen. Chairs that she had grown up in. Behind the unconscious parents stood the eleven. They wore casual clothes and looked at her impassively.

Her eyes immediately fell on the knives laying on the ground.

“What’s going on?” Jackie asked, voice becoming shrill and angry. “What the hell are you doing?”

She turned to Suho, intuitively believing that he was behind this. Instead of going up to him and demanding answers like she longed to, she fell forward towards her parents, untying them from the ropes that kept them in an upright position.

“Stop,” Suho said, walking towards Jackie kneeling on the ground.

“You know what,” She said, head still buried in the knots that she was trying to untie, “I think I am going to untie them, bring them to their bed, and come back so we can hash out whatever it is that is going on. Alright?”

“No,” Suho said, pulling her away from the knots by the rushed ponytail she had thrown together merely thirty minutes ago.

“Ow!” Jackie said as she hit the carpeted floor, “What do mean ‘no’? This is not their issue. It’s mine yours and theirs,” she said gesturing to the eleven standing silently.”

“But you forget,” Suho said staring down at her from his standing position, “You are the key.”

“So?” Jackie interrupted as she started to stand up.

“So,” Suho said, causally stepping on the back of her kneecap which sent her sprawling towards the ground, “We don’t know what the repercussions would be if we killed you, which you deserve,” he added nonchalantly.

“For what?” Jackie asked as she laid in pain on the floor. Everywhere she looked she saw faces of stone, except her peacefully sleeping parents.

“You dare ask?” Suho’s voice rose from its earlier façade of calm, “That,” he smiled, “is the issue. You do not know your place. You do not know fear. You would try to prevent us from doing what we want. And that is the crime.”

“What the ? You think I’m not scared? I am ing terrified right now, like I have been since the moment I saw you all.” Suho scoffed but Jackie forged on forcing herself to be heard, “You are beyond my comprehension. You understand and utilize things I never even knew existed. I’m pretty sure that Kai can teleport and that Lay and control minds. MINDS. I would be idiotic if I wasn’t scared less. But I decided, last night after the whole blankets thing, which by the way better not be what this is all about, that there was nothing I could do.”

“You understand?” she asked addressing all of the Twelve as she tried to stand up before realizing that that might not be the best idea, “I am powerless. Powerless compared to you, and all the others, even without the powers that you may or may not have. So if this whole Thing,” Jackie gestured wildly around the room, “was to make me scared and to make me respect you? You missed the mark. Sure I am terrified but I already was. And respect you? I already respected your power even without knowing it, but I will not respect your actions. Ever since you came here you have acted like you own the place, and you don’t, and then you go on to do stupid things like this. I mean, come on.” Jackie fell silent, angry tears streaming down her face.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go put my parents in their bed, if you want I’ll come back and feel your wrath and learn how to properly cower, even though it is absolutely redundant and idiotic. Also, in case you have a problem with my lip, understand that you caught me completely off guard and forced all of this on yourselves. And, more importantly, no matter how scared I am I will still do all the same actions, I will still be the same person.” Jackie bent down with slightly shaking arms and grabbed one of the knives. She barely trembled by the time she grasped the knife and by the time that she began cutting the ropes off her parents she didn’t tremble at all.

With strength that she didn’t normally contain she dragged each of her parents out of the room. After they were safely out of the Twelve’s main line of sight, she reentered the room.

“Why are you here?” Chen asked, speaking for the group.

“So that you can do whatever you want to teach me the meaning of fear, although I feel I understand it completely. Maybe I can show you my fear, I don’t know the difference between inner and outer whatever so I don’t know if you can feel it but I promise you it is there.” She walked up and grabbed Lay’s arm, initiating physical contact. “Does this help?” she asked speaking directly to Lay, “do you understand now?”

The Twelve looked to Lay. Lay stood there for a moment, considering his options, reading her inner thoughts, and calmly delivered his response.

“She is scared,” Lay finally said, “Terrified might be an actually better word for it,” Jackie felt relief flow through her, “But that’s not the most important emotion to her, it’s there, but she reasons too much.” Panic gripped Jackie again, what does that mean? “and she has decided that she will not change her ways, she is stubborn, but not stupid.” Lay let go of her and she moved towards the center of the semicircle again, by the closed door. Closed in a weak attempt to protect her parents who were lying haphazardly outside the door.

“Lay, she doesn’t understand what this means to her,” Chen voiced. The silent conversation of the Twelve had taken barely a second and they all understood the consequences of Lay’s finding.

“It means that no matter how much we prove our power you will act in the same manner that you have always done, because you are a stubborn stupid ,” Suho said, ringing through the air.

“Do you mean that as an insult or as a noun?” Jackie asked, another brief flash of anger coursing through her even while the more rational side of her was telling her to calm down.

“Both,” Suho said snidely, “Now leave.”

Jackie did not budge from her position by the closed door. “That’s the attitude that’s annoying, if we don’t get this set straight now, then things like this will not stop happening. You think you are above everyone else, and while that may be true,” Jackie spoke louder over Suho’s expected objections, “that does not mean that you are allowed to act that way. Not here, and not really in most places on Earth although you have been exposed to a different style of life than I have where you were probably allowed to do like that. That’s my side of the coin and I will treat you like you are my equals, even if you aren’t. What’s your point of view?”

“That you are beneath our notice and have no right to tell us what to do and this is the highest level of rudeness that we have ever encountered,” Luhan said with a deadpan voice. Jackie’s face fell at his frank words, although she knew they were true. “But,” Luhan continued, “I suppose that we will have to accept that you will not change your ways although by all means you should and leave it at that.”

Jackie stood there for a moment longer, waiting for it to actually be ok to leave. Chen subtly nodded to her, then less subtly said, “I’ll help you move your parents, Lay can you wake them up in around thirty minutes? D.O. can you help me with James? I can move Becky.”

“Sure,” D.O said, after making sure that it was ok with Suho.

“Yeah,” Lay agreed a heartbeat after D.O.

“Great,” Chen broke through the semi-circle and walked towards where Jackie was standing by the door. She left the room and nearly tripped over her parents’ prone forms.

Chen picked up Becky and D.O lifted James with ease. Jackie was too preoccupied with what almost happened to notice that the tiny D.O was picking up her 6’ father – with ease.

Jackie led them to her parents’ room, and indicated what sides her parents slept on. Becky on the left, James on the right from entering the master bedroom. After tucking in her parents’ lovingly Jackie turned to see Chen and D.O waiting for her to finish.

“What’s up?” Jackie asked, her fatigue coming through her voice.

“Can we use some blankets?” Chen asked.

Jackie smiled, “Sure, follow me.” Jackie led them upstairs to her bedroom where she had plopped the blankets in a heap the night before. She selected out a spare set of sheets for both her bed and her parents’ bed and handed the rest of the blankets to the boys.

“If you guys want to get more or anything, just ask and we can go to a thrift shop or something.”

They looked at her funny for a moment.

“What?” she asked, “we’ll wash them, and maybe clothes if you want them. Out of curiosity, how many pairs of clothes do you have?”

D.O looked at her strangely, “We only have what we brought here with us.”

“But the clothes you are wearing are different than the ones you were wearing when you came here.”

“Oh,” Chen exclaimed, understanding her confusion, “it’s part of our voodoo, I forgot you couldn’t do it, do you want me to explain it?”

“No, no, not… not right now, but later I’ll definitely ask. And by later I mean like a month,” Jackie said, a knee jerk reaction by this point to trying to understand voodoo.

Jackie paused a moment, startled by the pretend normalcy after such a tension filled occurrence. Jackie took a deep breath and looked at Chen.

“What…” She took another breath and gathered her courage, “What were you guys going to do?” Her voice is small but she meets Chen’s gaze with courage.

Chen looks back at her for a moment, D.O seizing this opportunity to make himself scarce, and realizes exactly what a toll they have imposed on her life and exactly how scared she is. She has never had to weigh life and death before, has never had to worry about anything she couldn’t handle, and now she is facing a rude awakening. If things came to a head her loss wouldn’t be too severe, as a person, as a key it would be quite devastating, the only real hint they had left as to how to save their home.

“We were going to make them hurt each other, then you if you hadn’t learned your lesson,” Chen eventually said, levelly meeting her eyes. Jackie dropped hers to the floor and asked in an even smaller voice than before.

“Can you actually do that?”

“Yes, we can. Lay can.” Jackie brought her head up and he saw tears of hopelessness inside her eyes. “He can access some parts of the inner self and influence people to do things. They will want to do whatever it is we want them to do.”

Jackie nodded, head back down towards the floor. She smiled and bravely looked back up at him.

“Thanks,” she said, smile weak and forced but there nonetheless, “I know what I’m going to do now, thanks for telling me.”

For a moment, panic flashed through Chen, was she leaving them?

Jackie must have seen the worry cross over his face and laughed it off saying, “Oh don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. Well kind of bad for me, but it won’t impact you guys at all. I just have a lot of work to do. When is Lay waking my parents up?”

Chen posed the question to Lay and he responded with willingness.

“Whenever you want,” Chen told Jackie.

“Can he do it in about an hour? Will there be any side effects?” Jackie asked Chen.

“There shouldn’t be, they are just sleeping,” Chen answered.

“OK, thanks. I’m heading up to my room, I need to think. Will you tell them that I’m sorry for anything I did wrong and I really want to do the right thing?”

Chen smiled at her, she was so innocent.

“Sure.”