Sydney must have explained to Mom and Dad that I’d had a long day, because no one came in to wake me up the next morning. To make things more confusing, when I woke up, it was dark outside, so I immediately assumed I’d slept right through the whole day. But no, when I got downstairs, Sydney was sitting at the table, eating a bagel and drinking a cup of coffee.

  “Why’s it so dark out?”I rubbed both of my fists into my eye sockets.

  “It’s supposed to rain all day. That’s what we get for having such a nice day yesterday.” Sydney looked up at me. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yeah, I was just really tired. It was a long day. I think I could sleep that again.” I yawned and wandered around the kitchen, trying to decide what I was hungry for.

  “There’s another bagel, and some cream cheese in the fridge, if you like.” Sydney knocked back the last of her coffee and stood up. “Your backpack, you left it downstairs last night. It’s over by the door.”

  “Mmmhmm.” I popped the bagel in the toaster and looked over by the door. My poor backpack was slumped over, nothing inside it to hold it up. I missed my book. Last night, I had vaguely thought about writing notes down from the day in my book, but I’d fallen asleep. And today, I remembered as well that I was missing my book. I’d have to hunt around for another journal. Or maybe just some loose paper.

  “Syd!” She stopped halfway up the stairs.

  “What?”

  “Do you have an empty journal, or something blank from school?”

  She thumped back down the steps. “What for?”

  “I want to write about what happened yesterday. Not that you need to know.”

  “Don’t you think it’ll just get taken away again?”

  “The first one wouldn’t have,” I glared at her, “if someone hadn’t interfered.”

  She jerked her head up. “Hey, I didn’t know that was going to happen. I didn’t think they were going to take it. You didn’t even have to bring the book, I didn’t make you. I thought I was just keeping you safe, Ty.”

  “Well what did you think was going to happen down there? Did you even think about that?”

  We both jumped as the toaster popped up. “Great. Black.”

  Sydney swept over to the toaster and grabbed the bagel halves, tossing them into the trash can. “Look, I’m sorry. Stenway made it sound so straightforward.”

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  “Syd, he doesn’t know me like you do, you should have known better!” I slapped the cream cheese back on its shelf and slammed the fridge door. “Why don’t you have a brain around that guy?” I grabbed my backpack and started up the stairs.

  “Tyler, you need to eat something. You can’t skip breakfast.”

  I turned around to glare at her. “Oh wow, look at you, trying to take care of me, wish you would’ve started yesterday.” I stormed up stairs into my room and dumped my backpack out onto my bed, putting things away. I half expected Sydney to follow me, and I kind of wished she would. I was less mad at her for taking me there, and more mad about how she let Stenway use her to get me to do things. Coward.

  Any other scenario and I would have been thrilled to be in a room with a bunch of Supers. If they had just TOLD me.

  I’d gotten most of my things from the backpack put away when, sure enough, Sydney came into my room, slapping a few pieces of paper onto my nightstand. “Here. I didn’t want to give you a whole book in case you brought it somewhere and let somebody take it away again.”

  “Oh, good one. Maybe I’ll stop going around with you, that’ll keep me safe.”

  She glared at me. “What do you want me to do, apologize more? I’m sorry, T.J. I really am. And when you said they were thinking about keeping you there, I really did think about punching Stenway. I was so scared. He didn’t say that was a possibility. I didn't realize they were going to take you. I didn't realize that you'd be taken away from me.” Outside, thunder began to rumble. I looked up at Sydney; we both tensed as lightning flashed. “Here it comes.” Sydney glanced out the window, then back at me. “I’m really sorry.”

  “What’s this?” I held up the last item from my bag. A grey-ish hat. Not mine. “Where’d this come from?"

  “Stenway.” Sydney replied automatically, then stared at the rain smacking the window. She turned back to me and held out her hand. “I’ll give it back to him.”

  “When? You aren’t going out in this.” I held the hat close to my chest, suspicion growing on me. Sydney wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I have to go over there for the cats this afternoon. Are you seeing him before then?”

  “Well, he wants to come over today, we didn’t really get to spend any time yesterday, and there's a lot that we have to discuss…”

  I exploded. “Are you serious? He almost got your sister kidnapped yesterday, do you remember that? He basically kidnapped her himself, which is me in case you forgot, so why would you ask him back over here?”

  “They’re really worried, T.J.” Sydney sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands. “I was really confused and, they’re worried, and he said you would really help, and all I had to do was get you to come to town with us and get a hair. And you know, it seemed like such a little thing to do, he was stressed, and the men at his house were freaking out, and I just wanted to help.”

  “Syd, you could have just asked me! Why didn’t you? I…” I stomped around the room. Below us, we heard a knock on the door. I looked up at Sydney. She’d gone pale.

  “That’s Stenway.”

  “I’m not going to stay in the house with him.” I grabbed my raincoat off the hook and threw it on, stuffing my hands down into the pockets. “I’m going out.” I edged towards the door, and Sydney jumped off the bed.

  “Tyler, you are not. Not in this weather.” We were running down the stairs, each trying to keep ahead of the other. I gave Sydney a sharp nudge in the ribs with my elbow, sitting her down on the stairs. I jumped down the last three steps and flew to the door, yanked it open and almost collided with Stenway. Throwing him the angriest look I could, I flipped my hood up over my head and ran down the street.

  Thankfully the thunder and lightning had stopped, you could still catch a rumble or two off in the distance, but the rain was coming down in sheets.