"Let go of me!" Karissa shouted moments later. "I'm not going anywhere, we're still moving!" She continued struggling to break free of Aaron's grip on her wrist.

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't break your promise." He replied, releasing her.

"Well while I really appreciate your concern for my morals, I'm-"

"-Bleeding." Alex said, nodding at her right arm.

"I am?" She asked, not noticing before, but now seeing the gash in her right arm that was slowly dripping blood onto her clothing. "Oh, no big deal."

"That looks pretty bad..." Nick said, surprised at her lack of concern for her wound.

"Really, it's fine." Karissa insisted, flashing a quick smile in an attempt to prove her point. "Why do you care?"

"I care because you saved us from... something." Aaron stated. 'Why do I care?'

"And because you're bleeding pretty badly." Brian added.

"I'm flattered that you care, but really, it's unnecessary. I have to go, I can't stay with you guys." She told them.

"Well I'm still trying to figure out how you helped us make it out of there. That hit you took was pretty hard." Howie said.

"You don't need me here for that!" Karissa argued. "Look, you guys will only be in more trouble if I stick around, so if you could just-" she began, about to reach for the door before Aaron grabbed her wrist again.

"I'm not letting you out of this limo, what you just said makes no sense." He stated. "You just got us out of trouble, how could having you around cause any more?"

"Look." She said with a sigh as she paused to make sure she had their attention. "Has anything like that ever happened to you guys before?"

"...No..."

"Then what makes you think it will happen to you again?" Karissa asked, continuing when no one answered. "That's the
only reason I can think of for why you won't let me get out of this car."

"Speaking of, why are you running around New York City with knives and shit killing strange guys?" Nick asked.

"Its none of your business why I do what I do." Karissa stated, looking out the window at the street.

"I never said it was my business, but after what we just saw-"

"You have some questions that you'd like answered?" She finished.

"Yeah, but it can wait until you let us out of the car." Howie told her as the limo slowed down to a stop.

"I thought you'd never-" She began as she immiedately opened the limo door, stopping when she saw that they'd arrived at a hotel. "Okay," Karissa said with a laugh as she got out of the limo and stood by the door, "I don't know what impression you guys got from me, but I am not that kind of girl."

"Good," Nick replied, getting out of the limo after his brother, "'Cause you're not my type."

"Good, you're not my type either." She smiled.

"She's too young for you anyway, moron." Alex said.

"You don't know how old I am."

"Okay, how old are you?" Kevin asked, closing the limo door behind him.

"Almost 20." Karissa answered.

"Like I said, you're too young for him." Alex commented.

"Now that that's settled, can we get inside?" Brian asked, nodding to the lobby doors.

"If we must..." Karissa sighed, gesturing for the guys to lead the way, since she didn't really know where they were going. The two large crystal chandelliers hanging high above the marbled floor of the large expanse gave of a soft light, and the couches and tables scattered throughout the large lobby only indicated to Karissa that this was a very expensive and fancy hotel - nothing like anyplace she'd ever been. Yet the only thing on her mind was getting back to where she knew she needed to be...

The guys waved to the few people in the lobby who'd recognized them, and even stopped for a few minutes to take a couple of pictures with some fans who'd approached them. "It was nice meeting you." Kevin said, hugging one of the girls one last time before the girls walked towards the lobby doors, waving goodbye.

"Sure, you let them go..." Karissa commented.

"Just come on..." Alex said, nodding towards the hallway where the elevators were.

~Five Minutes Later~

Karissa surveyed her surroundings as they reached one of the higher floors of the hotel, which seemed to be a suite in and of itself. There was a living room type area as soon as they entered, which led to what Karissa could only assume was a dining room and a kitchen in one direction, and the bedrooms and bathrooms in the other. Once everyone was in the room, they all found a place to sit, except Karissa, who said she'd prefer to stand.

"Come on," Aaron pleaded, "It's not like we're gonna hurt you."

"Oh I know you're not gonna hurt me..." Karissa scoffed, "I just don't plan on staying long." A few more minutes of silence, and Karissa began scanning the room for a clock. "Look, will someone just ask me whatever it is you want to know so I can get out of here?"

"Okay, what's your hurry?" Nick asked.

"Thank you!" Karissa exclaimed. "You guys don't think you're the only people ever to be attacked by demons, do you? I have other people to help."

"Demons? That's what that was, a demon?" Brian asked. He'd thought for a moment there that that might have been what attacked them, and he apparently wasn't alone in that thought; he was also apparently right.

"Yes, a demon." Karissa sighed. "They don't all look monstrous and halloween-ish."

"So how did you manage to fight this- demon," Kevin asked, feeling a bit odd having used the word, "And not get killed?"

"If I'd known these were the questions you were gonna ask I would have just jumped out of the limo when I had the chance..."

"Why?" Howie asked. "Is it that complicated?"

"Well kinda..." Karissa leaned against the nearest endtable, the only place where she wouldn't be sitting next to one of the guys. "I just think you're asking about more than you really wanna know."

"We wouldn't have asked if we didn't wanna know." Alex said.

"Technically, he asked," Karissa pointed at Kevin, "And trust me, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You don't know that." Aaron said, getting up and standing near the doorway.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I do."

"Well you don't know us," Aaron said, motioning to the others in the room, "And I can't speak for them, but I'm sure that I'll believe you."

"You have no idea what you're talking about here."

"Well we wanna know." Nick told her, the others chiming in agreement.

"You really wanna know?" Karissa asked.

"Yeah, we really wanna know." Aaron replied.

"I," she sighed, "am what you would call... a 'slayer.' For lack of a better term..."

"Someone needs to ease up on the Buffy re-runs." Alex commented quietly to Howie, though he didn't think Karissa had heard him.

"See? I knew you wouldn't believe me. I told you you wouldn't," she said, standing up and fixing her jacket, "So I'm just gonna leave, like I knew I should have before."

"I didn't say I didn't." Aaron pointed out.

"...Give us one good reason to believe you." Nick said, getting up from his chair and standing next to his brother.

She looked him dead in the face, reached inside her jacket, pulled out a crossbow, raised it, and pulled the trigger without looking at her target: she continued to look Nick in the eyes. The creature behind him fell to the floor, and he turned around to see what she had shot at. She put away the crossbow and walked past Nick, whose mouth was gaping, towards the creature she'd just wounded. The arrow Karissa had shot at it was near its lung. "I need to work on my aim..." she commented as she stood over the creature sprawled on the floor and pulled out the arrow.

"Wow, nice shot. Did you kill it?" Kevin said as he stood next to her.

"...Give us one good reason to believe you." Nick got up from his chair and stood next to his brother.

 Karissa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She couldn't decide what was more ridiculous: the fact that they'd dragged her here and asked her these questions only to tell her that they didn't believe her answers or the fact that she'd actually stuck around to give them the answers in the first place instead of running like she normally would have done. That urge to push past them and rush out of the hotel was still in the back of her mind, but other, stronger instincts were forcing her to stay. Karissa didn't quite know why she was making herself stay in this room with them, but, as was her usual, she figured that her reason would surface soon enough. In the meantime, though, she was left to wonder.

Looking at the faces surrounding her, it wasn't hard for Karissa to deduce that it wasn't really who she was that they were concerned with, which was yet another thing that bothered her about staying here any longer than she needed to. It wasn't her job to be a babysitter; she was supposed to fight off the attacking demons and vanish without a trace. She wasn't supposed to sit down with every person she'd saved and answer every question they had. She certainly didn't have to prove herself to any of them. The arrogance of the request itself was enough to make Karissa wonder even more why she was standing there, letting them interrogate her like she was a criminal.

Then, something caught her eye. He manifested so silently that the one he'd appeared behind hadn't even felt his presence. She knew any warning she could give would only cause more trouble than it was worth, especially since she really had no idea what any demons could possibly want from these six guys. For all she knew, this demon was after her and wanted nothing to do with them.

Karissa slowly pulled her crossbow from an inside pocket of her coat, raising it in her right hand as her finger rested on the trigger. Not wanting Nick to look back and see the demon that still remained unnoticed, she kept eye contact with him while she fired the small wooden arrow just a few inches to the right of his arm. It wasn't until she heard the "thud" sound made when the body hit the floor that she looked away from Nick, pushing past him to ready herself for the impending fight she could tell would result when the demon - whom her arrow had unfortunately only wounded instead of killed like she'd intended it to - awoke from the temporary concussion he'd sustained when he fell. An annoyed look came across her face when she felt a few of the others in the room come over and examine the scene.

"Nice shot." Kevin appeared at her right side. Karissa again resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing he wouldn't know a good shot - which this was in all actuality far from - from a bad one. "Did you kill it?"

"Not quite." Karissa answered, making her annoyance known. She spent quite a bit of time working on her aim, and knowing that she'd missed her target at such a close range was something she knew would continue to irk her. "He's still alive, just knocked out. Trust me, you'll know when he's dead." Karissa explained.

"So, what now? What do we do?" Howie stood at Karissa's other side.

"I will wait til he comes to." Karissa put away her crossbow in an inside pocket of her jacket and pulled a dagger out of it's sheath, which was tucked into her belt. "You guys don't have to do anything except stay out of the way."

"Unbelieveable." Alex leaned against the wall next to Brian as they all closely watched the happenings across the room.

"Yeah, she is..." Aaron sighed.

"Awww," Alex said in a playful tone, "Aaron has a crush on her."

Aaron rolled his eyes before returning his attention to Karissa, who was standing over the unconcious creature, the dagger clenched tightly in her right hand. His skin had a green tinge to it, and his short black hair was messy. Like the previous attacker, this demon's clothing was dirty and raggedy. His black shirt was stained with blood where Karissa's arrow had pierced him near his shoulder. Karissa glanced back at Aaron, who then quickly looked away.

The demon took advantage of Karissa's momentary glance away by pulling himself into an upright position, knocking her to the floor when she turned back. "BITCH!"

"Aww, I missed you too," Karissa gave him a fake pout as she stood up and nodded at his shoulder. "As you can tell..." The demon only grinned as he produced a glowing black orb in his hand similar to the one the previous demon had thrown. "Shit!" she dove out of the way as the creature threw the black orb at her, throwing her dagger at the demon and they all watched as he was suddenly transformed into a billowing column of smoke that quickly disappeared. "What a bastard..." she said, getting up and brushing off her jacket. Kevin walked over to where the creature had just been standing and cautiously picked up Karissa's dagger from the floor.

"Wow..." he said. There was no trace of a creature having been there, except for what looked like a scorch mark on the wall where the black orb made impact.

"Yeah, told you you'd know if he was dead." She took her dagger from Kevin's outstretched hand, walking to the bathroom and using a white hand towel to wipe off the blood before putting it back in it's sheath.

"Uh, thanks..." Nick said, looking at the spot where the creature had fallen behind him.

"For?" Karissa raised her eyebrows as she walked back over to the group.

"Getting that thing before it got me."

"No problem, it's what I do." she sighed, looking at the alarm clock on the nightstand and just then realizing how long she'd been with them. "Well, now that that's over, I really need to go."

"You're still leaving?" Aaron asked.

"...Yeah... Why, do you have more questions for me?" Karissa asked, hoping that her tone made it clear that she wasn't answering any questions anyway.

"I can only think of one..."

A few minutes had passed since the last words of the conversation had been spoken. Karissa had been playing the possible scenarios in her mind since before then, not needing to hear the scheme to know it would be proposed.

"That wasn't really a question, you know," she finally responded, "It was actually more of a request."

"Does that mean you don't have an answer?" Nick replied.

"It's not that simple..." It's not like she'd never gotten a proposition like this before, it was just the first time she couldn't quite figure out what to say.

"Well how complicated is it?" Kevin asked. It would have seemed almost funny to Karissa how determined they all were to get her help, had she not been able to clearly see the worry and near desparation they were all letting show.

"I can't just make a snap decision like that," she again looked at the clock, "There are a lot of other things involved here."

"Okay, like what?" Aaron questioned.

"Like-" Karissa was interrupted by a loud rock tune blaring from her cellphone, which continued playing until she managed to retrieve her phone and answer the call. "Hello?"

"'Hello'?" The young guy on the other end repeated incredulously. "You hang up on me mid-sentence and disappear for a fucking half an hour and all I get is 'Hello'?"

"Are you done yet?"

"I thought you might be dead!" he continued without missing a beat. "That's the only reasonable excuse I can see you having for disappearing from the face of the fucking earth after you hung up on me half an hour ago."

"Well apparently I'm not dead."

"That still remains to be seen." He sighed. "So what the Hell is going on? Where are you?"

"Which question do you want answered first? 'What the hell is going on' or 'where am I'?" Karissa smiled; she loved annoying her twin brother just as much as he liked annoying her.

"Aha, so we're playing that, are we?" He laughed. "I knew it."

"Knew what?" Karissa tried to ignore that there were now six people right in front of her trying to listen in on her conversation.

"That you're in deep shit." He continued before she could interject, "You got yourself captured and now you're stuck in a cage somewhere and can't figure your way out."

"Carey," Karissa started, "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, which is saying something considering we're talking about you here."

"Okay, first of all, bite me. Second of all, we were actually talking about how you're too stubborn to admit that you've been caught."

"I haven't been caught. Well, not technically."

"Aha!" Carey exclaimed.

"Stop doing that! Listen, I'll meet you back where we split up in about... twenty minutes, okay?"

"You sure you can manage an escape by then?" Karissa could hear him grinning over the phone.

"Twenty minutes, Carey." Karissa repeated warningly.

"Okay, alright, twenty minutes it is. See you then, sis."

"See you then, bro." Karissa closed the lid of her phone and shoved it back in her pocket.

"I take it he was the 'other thing involved here'?" Alex asked.

"One of the few, yes." She moved closer to the door. "So if you guys let me go, I'll meet up with my brother, fill him in on what's going on, and we'll both come back here." She paused for a moment before adding, "I can't do anything to help you without him, especially if it means leaving the city."

"I don't see a problem with that..." Kevin trailed off, looking around at the others, none of whom spoke up in disagreement.

"Alright, then I'll be back as soon as I can." Karissa reported as she opened the door. "You'll be safe until I get back, don't worry."

They all watched as she walked out the door. It wasn't until she was safely out of earshot down the hall that one of them spoke what was on all of their minds. "What the Hell are we getting ourselves into?"

"What the Hell am I getting myself into?" Karissa said out loud to herself as she stood on a rooftop once again, this time keeping an eye out for her brother. 

"I don't know," a male voice said behind her, "What the Hell are you getting us into?"

“Funny, I could have sworn the word I used sounded more like ‘I’ than ‘we’. You know you’re not supposed to change the words in the original question when you do that repeating thing, right?” Karissa smiled at her twin brother and gave him a one-armed hug before they began walking towards their first destination.

“No, what’s funny is how you expect me to believe that whatever you’re getting yourself into doesn’t involve me.” Carey motioned in front of himself to let Karissa walk through the doorway in front of him. “If it didn’t, I doubt you would have made me come back here to meet up with you. And you would have told me what was going on by now.”

“When in the five seconds you’ve let me talk this whole time have I had the chance to tell you anything?” Karissa stopped on the stairway and turned to face Carey. “You just walked up and started interrogating me all because you over heard something. Which, by the way, was a rhetorical question." Truthfully, Karissa was having a difficult time trying to figure out how to explain what had happened. How was she supposed to explain being dragged across town by a group of guys who got attacked twice by random demons? For no good reason? For that matter, how was she going to explain sticking around long enough to get asked to go along with them?

"Hellooooo, Karissaaaaa..." Carey waved his hand in front of Karissa's face, letting out a laugh as she blinked and realized they were standing at the door of their destination.

"Sorry, Carey, I was just-"

"-Trying to come up with a good explanation for whatever it is you signed us up for?"

"Yeah. That." Karissa sighed as she knocked on the gray door with "9F" written on it in thick, black lettering. "It's us." She called to the person on the other side. The twins both smiled at the woman who greeted them at the door and paused their conversation long enough to greet her and make their way into the apartment and down the hall.

 ~Ten Minutes Later~

Carey stood at the foot of his bed and sighed as he looked up at his sister. "How much traveling will we be doing if we go through with this?" She’d just finished telling Carey exactly what had happened after she’d lost touch with him earlier in the night. Aside from a few outbursts and eye-rolls, Karissa was surprised at how well he reacted. She had figured Carey would at least have tried to lecture her about being more careful, to which she would laugh at him and remind him who was older and who was more reckless.

"I'm not sure..." Karissa answered, leaning in the doorway of Carey's room with a balled up band T-shirt in her hands.

Carey turned around and pulled a pair of jeans out of the chest of drawers behind him. “You’re talking about these guys like you know you can trust them when you’ve known them for like, two hours. Less, actually. How do you know this isn’t a set-up?”

Karissa laughed at her brother's ridiculous question as she watched him put the pair of jeans into a suitcase on his bed. "You think they'd go to all the trouble of setting up two fake demon attacks if they wanted to kill us? Aren’t there less labor-intensive ways of doing that?"

"Why not? If the killers had us focused on someone else, we wouldn't see it coming." Carey stated, having tossed another pair of jeans into the suitcase and moved on to piling in t-shirts.

"That's paranoid, even for you." Karissa walked back across the hall, folding the t-shirt and putting it in her own suitcase. She looked up and saw Carey standing in her doorway, frowning with his arms crossed. “Look, I’ve seen fake fear and confusion before and that’s not what I saw with these guys.”

“They’re celebrities, K. They act for a living. If they couldn’t convince people they felt a certain way they wouldn’t have jobs.”

“You and I both know that the only thing rarer than a day where we don’t fight is a musician that can act. Few and far between are both of those things.”

Carey stifled a laugh. “Okay, that’s true. But how do you know that these guys won’t be fine once they’ve left the city?”

“They were attacked twice within an hour, Carey. Coincidences like that, don’t happen. Something is after them.” Karissa finished folding and packing a few more t-shirts as Carey walked back across the hallway and closed his suitcase, moving it over to make room for an empty duffel bag.

“I’m still not sure about this.” Carey stated as Karissa walked over and tossed a few items into the duffel bag while Carey gathered a few more things to put in it. “We do have a choice, you know.” He called after her as she walked back into her room.

Karissa leaned back from her bookshelf to look across the hallway at her brother standing at the foot of his bed again. "But can we live with making the wrong one?"

“Okay, well let’s see what our options are: we can do something and make things better, do something and make things worse, or do nothing and make things worse.”

“Wait, aren’t you leaving out doing nothing and making things better?”

“Doing nothing never makes anything better. That’s why it’s called ‘doing nothing’.”

Karissa nodded. “So you agree that if we do nothing, we’ll be making things worse.”

Carey sighed as he finished packing the duffel bag and moved it into the hallway with his suitcase. “Yeah, I suppose this is worth looking into. But if we end up starting something instead of-“

“Then we’ll know how to stop it.” Karissa stopped piling supplies into her bag and looked up at her brother. “You know I can’t do this alone, Carey, so if you’re gonna decide to bail, decide now.”

“Do I really seem like the kind of asshole who would bail on his sister at the last second and let her run off and get killed?”

“No, you seem like the kind of asshole who likes being reminded of how much he’s needed before he officially decides whether or not to help his sister do their job.”

“Well in that case, I’ll do it anyway. My shit’s already packed, and I don’t want you to start getting that look on your face like you’ve spotted a lost puppy and want to bring it home.”

Karissa rolled her eyes and took one last look around to make sure she had everything she needed. “Stop acting like you’re doing me a favor. Do you have everything?”

“I packed everything I was supposed too, but…” Carey said, preparing to pick up his bags in the hallway, “We still need to pick up a few supplies. And you know what that means.”

She sighed. “Yeah, yeah… We’ll have to bring them all with us, though.”

“Why the hell do we need to do that?!”

“Because we don’t know how long we’ll be there, and if another demon attacks them then all of this shit we’re doing will be useless anyway.”

“Fine.” Carey grabbed his jacket from the corner of his door and put it on. “But you do all the explaining, then, because if I get shit for this, I’ll-“

“-Do what you always do and curse under your breath when you think no one’s paying attention.”

“Whatever.” Carey picked up his bags and stopped at her doorway. “Do you need help with those bags, or will that wound on your arm that you thought I didn’t notice be alright?”

Carey smirked as his sister rolled her eyes and put on her own jacket. “Just shut up and get moving.” She laughed as she picked up her own bags and followed her brother down the hall.

"What the Hell are we getting ourselves into?" Kevin asked once the room had fallen silent just after Karissa’s departure.

“I don’t know.” Howie answered. He had a feeling that wouldn’t be the last time he said those words, especially not that night.

“Then why are we going through with it?” AJ asked. “Wait… Are we going through with it?” Nick, Aaron, and Howie shrugged, Kevin looked out the window, and Brian looked at his watch. Again the room had fallen silent.

~Twenty-five Minutes Later~

“I don’t think she’s coming back.” Brian said, checking his watch once again. Since Karissa left and promised to return with her brother, the guys had tried changing the topic of discussion at least three times. But the air of suspense, the knowledge that something major had happened to them tonight, and the lingering questions they all had about their future and their fate prevented any and all other thoughts from steering the conversation for very long.

Kevin was beginning to grow impatient. It was bad enough that it seemed as though there was no option other than to bring these complete strangers along with them on their travels, but they really had no idea why they even felt that way. “We don’t know that. She could live on the other side of the city.” He sighed. ”Only proves that we really don’t know what we’re doing here, huh?”

Every time someone had mentioned Karissa, Kevin said almost the same exact thing, which prompted the change of subject by someone who had no answer for him. Now it seemed to be AJ’s turn to answer, but since he too wondered about their current situation, he decided to go with it. “I guess.”

“How do we know this isn’t like, a set-up or something?”

Nick couldn’t help but laugh. Of all the things that had ever happened to them, he had to admit that this was certainly the strangest. Even so, he hardly thought it seemed fake, especially after he found himself nearly getting killed by one of the demons they’d encountered. “You really think they’d go to all the trouble of choreographing something like that just to kill us?” Kevin nodded in reply. “Why? She had us alone; wouldn’t she have just killed us then and there in the alley?”

“Not if she needed backup.” AJ spoke up before Kevin could come up with a decent response. “Six of us, one of her.”

“Oh please.” Aaron scoffed. “She took on a dude who was twice her size and he didn’t last five minutes. This is paranoid, even for you. And especially for you, Kev.”

“But how do we know that we can trust these two? We've known this girl for less than two hours.” Kevin asked.  Yes, he was the one who told Karissa that there was no problem with her and her brother both coming along with them. But the more time he had to think about it, the more Kevin realized that the whole idea was pretty insane. "We could be fine once we leave the city."

“Okay,” Nick started, sitting up straight in the armchair he’d been lounging in, “so what do you two propose we do? What are our options?”

"We could not bring them along-“

“And something bad could happen,” Aaron interrupted. Kevin glared at him.

“Yes, or nothing could happen.”

“And if we do bring them along?” AJ asked.

“Well, then they’ll be around to do whatever it is they do when something like what happened before happens again. Or, nothing else will happen and then we’ll have two strangers touring with us for no reason.”

“You’d really take the risk of something happening without some sort of protection nearby?” Brian asked his cousin, finally contributing to the conversation he’d hoped they wouldn’t need to have. “I mean, Baylee and Leigh are coming out with us soon and if we get attacked again without anyone around to-“

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Kevin replied without letting his cousin finish. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Exactly.” Aaron again chimed in. “I don’t think that almost getting jumped twice in one hour is something that goes down a lot for no reason.”

“I think the only thing we do know is that we don’t know anything about this. Karissa does.” Howie finally stated. Kevin looked as though he wanted to respond, but was unable to think of anything to say. None of them were actually able to think of anything else to say. The one thing they all could agree on, though, was that the whole situation was still a mystery, and they didn’t have the tools to solve it themselves.

~Fifteen Minutes Later~

“Last chance to turn around and run like Hell,” Carey offered as the elevator chimed to indicate that they’d reached the twelfth floor.  Karissa had barely managed to convince the hotel manager that he’d seen her walking through his lobby earlier in the night, but only after he insisted for about three minutes that he’d never seen her in his life until she and Carey walked in with their bags. Now, they were finally on their way up to a particular hotel room, thankful that they hadn’t caused a stir downstairs.

“We can’t go back now, Carey.” Karissa insisted as they walked off the elevator and she turned right once they got to the end of the short hallway. “You think that manager didn’t call up to their room and warn them we were coming, just to see if we were bullshitting him?”

Carey frowned while Karissa checked the room numbers on every door they passed. “Good point. But wouldn’t he have called them up before he let us come up here for that very reason?”

Karissa laughed. “Is it me, or did you just doubt your own skills in the art of bullshitting?”

"Hey, you questioned yours when you started this whole discussion.”

Karissa finally stopped outside the room she was looking for. “Okay, this is it.” She knocked on the door. “And for the record, you started the discussion.”

A few seconds went by and Karissa’s knock went unanswered. “See? They’re not answering. This is bullshit, I’m-“ Carey was interrupted as the door opened and Kevin was standing beside it while the others remained where they were before.

“Hey.” Karissa said simply, not sure how to break the sudden tension that filled the air. Although her sixth sense was quite developed, she couldn’t determine whether the animosity was coming from inside the room or outside the room – more specifically, right next to her.

“We were starting to wonder if you were gonna show up.” Kevin said, also not sure what else to say but what was on his mind. He stepped aside and motioned for Karissa and Carey to come inside the room. Carey gave everyone in the room the once-over, just as they did the same to him. Karissa, knowing everyone in the room as well as she felt necessary – at least for the moment – just stood back and cautiously eyed her brother and read his thoughts.

“You assumed my sister was a liar, even after she saved your lives? Twice?” Carey asked, hoping Kevin chose his next words wisely.

“No, I don’t even know her. Or you, for that matter.” Kevin clarified.

“Well, at least we agree on something.” Carey grinned, although his comment was dripping with sarcasm. Karissa shoved him in the arm and smiled at the others in the room.

“Well, we’re here now, so I guess that doesn’t matter. At least, the ‘wondering if we were going to show up’ part.” Karissa said, then cleared her throat. She knew there were bound to be problems with her and her brother traveling with these guys, but she was hoping to avoid any arguments at least for the rest of the night. “As for getting to know us, here’s a good start: guys, this is my brother, Carey. Who, as you can tell, needs no further introduction.” Carey glared at his sister and then looked over at the guys, who had finally spoken up to greet him. He nodded back at them before surveying the room.

“So, where should we put our bags?” Karissa asked.

“Or should we just drop them here until we get back?” Carey quickly followed before anyone could answer Karissa. She glared at him, but he merely shrugged back, as he foresaw no better opportunity to tell them about their little field trip. Karissa, however, was in fact hoping to ease the subject in rather than throw it out into the open so abruptly.

“There’s plenty of space for you guys to crash in my room,” Aaron offered, ignoring the second question since he wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one to reply to it.

“Wait, get back from where? You’re leaving again?” Howie asked, wondering if he’d heard Carey correctly.

“Okay,” Carey looked at Aaron, “I hope you have one big-ass bed in your room or I guarantee we’re gonna have some problems here.” Carey turned to look at his sister, and after sharing a silent glance with her she punched him in the arm. “What? I thought we were taking turns talking. I responded to one statement, you respond to the other…”

“You’re supposed to respond to the answer to your own question…” Karissa said through gritted teeth.

“Oh well, too late now. You might as well tell them...”

Karissa sighed in defeat, knowing her brother was right but silently vowing to get him back for making her do this. “We aren’t leaving again,” she pointed back and forth between her and Carey, “we are leaving… again.” She now circled her finger in the air to indicate that everyone in the room was included in her last statement. “But only for a little while and not too far from here.” She repealed, hoping that bit of assurance would make them more willing to comply.

“How far is ‘not too far’?” AJ asked.

“Chinatown, a ten minute walk from here if we take a shortcut. A safe shortcut, in case you were wondering.” Carey replied. “No accidents in this city while I’m around.”

Karissa scoffed. “You’re a walking accident waiting to happen!”

“Wait, so what do we need to go to Chinatown for?” Nick inquired without realizing he’d just prevented an argument from starting. “Not like we have a choice of if we’re going or not, anyway.”

“We need… supplies. Herbs and stuff – without questions asked about why we need them.” Karissa answered, “We have friends who run a shop in Chinatown, and that’s their specialty.”

“And you do have a choice. It’s just that, well, your other option is more likely to get you killed than if you just come with us.” Carey explained, sure that only he would find the irony in him convincing them to tag along somewhere. He knew it wouldn’t last long, though.

“Then it’s not much of a choice, is it?” Brian finally spoke up. Carey looked over at him and chuckled.

“I guess not. I just figured it might make you feel a bit better if you didn’t quite have to see it as ‘having no choice’. I’m sure you all already think I’m an asshole but I’m really a nice guy. Mostly. Just don’t piss me off.”

"Take it from me, that’s not as easy as it sounds.” Karissa said, glancing over at her brother and smiling sweetly.

"You’re my sister, it’s in our DNA that we piss each other off.” Carey smiled back at her, then turned to face the rest of the people in the room. “So are we gonna head ‘em up and move ‘em out now, or what? The sooner we leave, the sooner we get back…” Carey said, dropping his bags while Karissa followed suit. The others exchanged a few glances before each of them grabbed their jackets and filed out the door, Kevin staying behind momentarily to close the door behind them as they left. “Atta boys.” Carey smiled as he weaved through their crowd to lead the way.

Carey and Karissa spent the first five minutes since they left the hotel arguing over which one of them was going to call their friend Lee and his grandfather Chang, who owned the store they were heading to. They found Chang to be their unofficial mentor, as he was very knowledgeable about magic since he spent several decades studying and practicing it. He was also not someone who liked to be disturbed in the middle of the night no matter how often it seemed to happen, and was certainly never fond of Carey’s “attitude” towards him at times. Still, Karissa had insisted he should be the one to inform Chang of their impending arrival; Carey countered that Chang liked her better, which meant that coming from her the news would have less of a negative impact on his mood. Carey won out in the end and Karissa called Chang, who suggested that they do a bit of research in the books in his expansive library before they headed off on their journey, though he doubted it would do them any good at this point.

They finally came to a small storefront called "Chang's Imperial Dragon Imports". Carey opened the red wooden door and walked in first. On the left was a long wooden counter with a glass front that displayed various bronze, brass, and silver objects. Behind the counter sat several tall sets of shelves fully stocked with jars of all sizes, each holding various strange substances, plants, and powders. Carey walked behind the counter and began to scan the shelves, while Karissa looked around at the items on the tables. She picked up a box and examined it closely, paying careful attention to the engravings on the top and the sides.

"Don't be scared, Chang keeps anything that could bite in the back room." She explained to them as they all apprehensively walked around and looked at the items scattered on the tables and shelves around the store, careful not to move too closely to anything.

"I don't need a lawsuit..." a short old man with a trimmed gray beard said with a heavy accent as he walked down the stairs and opened the door in the corner by the counter. "I also don't need to be robbed! What are you doing back there?!" he said, walking up to Carey.

"Relax, Chang, we need a few things. You know how this works by now." Carey said, taking a jar off of the shelf and putting some of its contents into a pouch he brought along.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean you can come back here and take them!" he said, grabbing the jar and placing it back on the shelf.

"Come on! You've known me for years!"

"Speaking of people we've known for years,” Karissa interrupted, knowing exactly what direction the conversation was about to go in and not wanting to be around to witness it, “Where's Lee? He might actually be able to help us."

“He’s upstairs sleeping.” Chang motioned to the stairway behind him which led to a big black door. “You all go up there; we’ll try to do some research to make sure you bring everything you’ll need with you." He turned back to Carey, “Since Carey is already here and in the mood to grab things that don’t belong to him, he can help me gather the books we need from the basement.”

Karissa laughed. "Okay, Chang, I'll wake him up. Come on, guys." She walked up the stairs, letting the sounds of Chang and Carey's arguing drown out as the others followed her. As they walked into the room, they heard snoring and saw a young man with short black hair wearing a band t-shirt and jeans sleeping on a couch, in front of a coffee table that had take-out boxes and soda cans all over it. The room was dark and the only light came from the TV that had been left on.

"Lee? Lee, its Karissa." she said as she walked over to him. He continued snoring and mumbled something in his sleep, abruptly turning over onto his other side, his back now facing the room.

"Is he alright?" Brian asked with a frown as they all watched Lee from a distance.

"If he wasn't snoring, I'd be worried. But since he is..." she trailed off, the glow of the TV showing her annoyance. She kneeled on the floor next to the couch, in front of where Lee was asleep. "Lee, wake up.” She grabbed his shoulder and pushed it down towards the couch, throwing him down on his back as she hovered over him. His eyes slowly opened and he grinned as he realized who had woken him up. “I need your help."

"Sexual frustration?" he asked wearily, still smiling.

"I'm not desperate, and we’ve been over this a thousand times already." Karissa said, standing up and walking through the wide archway that led into the kitchen/dining room and tossing her coat on the back of one of the chairs. "Take a seat, you guys." she said, motioning for Aaron, AJ, and the others to come over.

"Come on, K, we both know you want to." Lee insisted, apparently not noticing they weren’t alone in the room.

"Gee, have I been that transparent all these years?" Karissa said sarcastically, looking over at the guys and rolling her eyes to make it clear how she really felt. She walked back over to the door and looked downstairs. "Lee's awake!" she yelled.

"We'll be up in a moment!" Chang yelled. "Not that one, Carey!"

"I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I'M NOT 7!!" Carey hollered.

"DON'T TALK THAT WAY TO YOUR ELDER, BOY!" Chang screamed back.

"Hello, can you boys grow up and get up here?" Karissa yelled down.

"Yes, we'll be right up! Don't you and your brother ever listen?"

"WE LISTEN OLD MAN, YOU DON'T!" Carey screamed.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?" Chang yelled.

"YOU HEARD ME, OR DO YOU NEED TO TURN YOUR HEARING AID UP?" Carey yelled back. Karissa let out a deep sigh and slammed the door, muffling the screaming downstairs.

"I swear, it never ends..." Karissa said, shaking her head. "Will you get up off that couch? Your grandfather is right, you are lazy."

"Am not, I'm just really tired." Lee argued, his legs now hanging over the edge of the couch although he was still practically lying down, as his head and shoulders were barely upright against the back couch cushion.

“Trust me, Lee,” Karissa sighed, walking over and standing in front of the TV to obscure Lee’s view of it, “You couldn’t possibly have had a rougher night than we all had,” she motioned to the others in the room, “So I can’t say I really care that you still can’t get laid.”

"You know, if you'd lighten up, you could help me with that problem." Lee said with a sigh. “Now please move out of the way of the TV or take something off to distract from it.”

"How about you never say any of that to me again and I forget you ever even dared to, or I’ll make you wish you were never born? Or at least that you were born a girl.” Karissa warned.

“Come on, Kariss, can’t you take a joke? You know I don’t have a death wish…” Lee whined, sitting up and switching off the TV. “You used to enjoy my sense of humor. What happened?”

“She hit puberty, then you hit puberty and started hitting on her.” Carey stated, carrying five large, heavy books up the stairs. “So for the last time, man, give it up. My sister is never going to fuck y-OW! Watch it!" Carey exclaimed as Chang shoved him in the back with the stack of books he had.

"Watch your language!" Chang said.

"Oh please, I've heard you swear in Chinese!"

"That’s different! You don't know what I'm saying!"

"Okay, break it up! We have work to do and not that much time to do it in." Karissa said, taking two of the books from Carey and putting them on the table. She opened up the one on the top of the pile while Carey sat down next to her and opened one of the books in his pile.