A/N: sorry to say it – or do it – but I’ll be taking two weeks off. I’m a little writers blocked for Dark Lake right now, so I’m hoping the time off will clear that block right on out. Sorry guys, you know I hate to do this to you but it has to be done. I promise I’ll be trying to work on Dark Lake the whole time I’m gone.

“We can lie, can’t we?” N suggested, “Just tell them I’m a dragon or something. So long as that’s what my aura says, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“It’s not that easy,” Jihu sighed, “it’s never that easy.”

“N,” Kris sighed, “you don’t understand. If you’re on their radar, you’ll always have someone watching you. Just one little slip up, one little change of aura, and you’ll be done.”

“I can do this,” N argued, “I have to be able to do this. If I don’t, we’ll end up separated and then we won’t be ready for the fight that we all know is coming.”

“Look,” Jihu said, “wait until everyone is gathered together. Maybe the others will have an idea of what we can do.”

“Alright,” N nodded and followed the others out.

He actually wasn’t sure if he would be able to hide what he was. He was already struggling to control his aura without any pressure. If he was under pressure to control it……..

Why did everything have to be so hard?

--

It only took a few days for word to get back to the parents about the fire. Just as had been predicted, no parents wanted their children to stay at Dark Lake until the dorms were repaired. As Minji explained, it would take a month and a half for the old dorms to be taken down and new ones to be put in their place. During that time, the students would stay at home with their families and their time off school would count as their summer vacation.

“Bus 32 is here,” Chen called out. Several students got up and filed out of the cafeteria, calling out farewell wishes as they went.

“This ,” Kai growled, “I can’t believe we’re being separated.”

“We won’t be separated forever,” Hyuna assured the young werewolf, “we’ll think of something.”

“In the meantime,” Kris advised, “keep an eye on your dad and any friends from work that he brings home with him.”

“We don’t know who’s involved,” Suho nodded, “and we have to be careful with our trust.”

“Nothing we know leaves our group,” Sori agreed, “Not unless we’re one hundred percent sure we can trust someone and we’ve talked about it with everyone else.”

“Everyone got the phones Jihu gave us?” Ken spoke up, “no one’s forgotten it someplace?”

“Nope,” Hyuk said, looking around to see that everyone had held up the cell phones, “guess that’s just you, hyung.”

“Shut up,” Ken muttered, blushing a little in embarrassment.

The night before, he’d been convinced that he’d lost the special phone Jihu had given him. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to contact the others if he needed help. At least not without using a regular phone, one that could be bugged. That was why Jihu had given them the phones in the first place, so that they could contract each other and not have to worry about who might be listening into their calls.

“Bus 29 just pulled in,” Chen called from the door, “Kai, that’s us.”

“Wait,” N frowned slightly, “I thought Chen and Kai would be on our bus. I mean, they came here on the same bus as us.”

“They were at their grandmother’s place,” Sori explained, “their dad had council business to attend to around there, so that’s where they got on the bus.”

“Normally they’re on the bus with me,” Heesun added, “but since I signed up to be an agent…….”

“You don’t have to go home at all,” Jessica tried not to laugh, “smart. Wish I’d done that.”

“No you don’t,” Sori frowned slightly at her cousin, “trust me, you don’t.”

“When this is all over,” Suho gave her a small smile, “maybe you’ll be able to retire early or something.”

“Doubt that,” Sori returned his smile with one of her own, “only blessings are that Jihu is in charge of my training an assignment and that the council won’t touch me now.”

“Can’t,” Kris corrected her, “they can’t touch you.”

“Actually,” Lay frowned, “they might try. I mean, it’s Sori. They aren’t going to just….let her go just like that.”

“You’re right,” Tao spoke up, “just because she’s an agent doesn’t mean they’re going to give up. They can’t make her a council member, but they can still assign her a mate.”

The group fell silent at that. N took a mental tally of who’d joined the ISBIP in order to stay together. While N himself had stayed clear of enlistment, Sori had bitten the bullet and joined. Leo had decided to join as well, but insisted that Ken, Ravi, Hyuk, and Hongbin stayed clear. Only Ken and Ravi had listened. Luhan was still a normal supernatural, as were Tao and D.O. Sehun had decided to become an agent as had Kai. Well, Kai had tried anyway. Apparently, his father had caught wind of the idea and shot it down right away. no one knew for sure how his father found out, so they decided it was best for Kai to go home and just watch.

Xiumin couldn’t join due to the fact that he was destined to take his father’s spot on the vampire council, but he’d promised to keep a close eye on the council to see if anyone there was working with the enemy. Chen was in the same state. Lay had declined joining the ISBIP for the moment, deciding that he wanted to talk it over with his family first. Baekhyun was fine with joining, as was Chanyeol. However both were strongly against Lina joining. The three made a deal that if one joined, they all joined so none of them could be found on the list of ISBIP agents.

Taeyang and Taeyeon couldn’t without alerting their parents to what they were. Sooyoung couldn’t join without notifying her coven and getting their ok. Since she already knew that they would say no, she decided she’d just watch like Xiumin, Kai, and Chen were doing. With Kris already an agent and Sori becoming one, Hyuna had thrown her name into the mix. Neither Kris nor Sori were happy, but they kept their mouths shut. Yuri was still recovering, but had announced that she would join once she was given the ok. Jessica and Krystal hadn’t enlisted, but everyone knew that they were thinking about it.

“Hey,” Jihu said as he made his way over, “our ride is here. Everyone who’s enlisted, come with me. N, Ken, Ravi. You’re coming with us. I put you three under my care for now.”

“Alright.”

After saying goodbye to his friends who were still waiting for their rides home, N followed the others out to a big yellow bus waiting to take them to the nearest ISBIP base.

“I put you down as a necro,” Jihu explained, falling into step with N, “everyone knows you see the dead, so no one will think twice about checking your aura.”

“Because they’ll think I’m a necromancer?” N asked, “or because my gift scares them?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really.”

The ride was mostly silent until Suho could no longer stand the silence. The dragon made a point of getting conversation going, something that caused Kris a great deal of joy since he kept laughing as Suho ran about the bus making sure everyone was still talking.

“Suho,” Kris finally said after getting control of his laughter, “cut it out. If they don’t want to talk, they don’t want to talk. Stop forcing them.”

“But when no one is talking,” Suho frowned, “it feels like we’re going to a funeral or something just as dark. We aren’t going to die, so there isn’t any need to feel so sad.”

“You’re right,” N spoke up, “so we’ve hit a snag in our ‘fight the enemy and win’ plan. So what? It can’t be easy all the time.”

“Right,” Suho smiled, “we need to stay positive. If we stay all dark and gloomy, then it’s like the enemy has already won.”

“So we talk?” Sori questioned, a small smile forming on her face, “and we act like we aren’t worried and angry and a bunch of other things.”

“Yeah,” Suho nodded, “maybe if we pretend for long enough, it won’t be an act anymore. It will be real.”

“Alright then,” Kris laughed, “who’s going to the gym as soon as we get to base?”

“Seriously?” Hyuna giggled, “that’s your idea to lighten the mood?”

“What do you have?” Kris countered.

Soon the bus was full of talking and laughter.

A/N: I think this is actually a good spot to end things before my time off. Sort of like the summer finally episode of a TV series before the fall premier of the new season. Except I’m only going to be gone for a couple of weeks, not a few months.