Fletcher’s eyes flew across the page of the book in his hands, barely catching all the words as the story reached its climax. It didn’t matter that he’d read it five times before, he still found himself drawn into the world every time he reread it.

  “You’re absolutely no fun to travel with,” Nora said, from the front seat of the SUV they were in.

  Jeric was driving while another soldier, a fully Unhuman woman named Private F’ira, sat on the other side of Fletcher. She was one-hundred-percent [Fairy], complete with the glass-like wings and lilac colored skin. Her black hair was cut into a pixie cut, showing off the gentle points of her ears. Her wings were currently hidden though, rolled up so she could properly wear her uniform jacket. Fletcher had only seen them on a few breaks they’d taken, and he thought it looked uncomfortable to have them tucked away, but the [Fairy] didn’t seem to care.

  Fletcher tore himself from the novel in his hands to glare at his sister. “And what would you prefer I do? Sit in silence like the rest of you?”

  “You could talk with me. I mean, we are siblings, and you hardly know anything about me,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You mean you just want to tell me your life story while I listen.”

  While he wasn’t vehemently opposed to getting to know his older sister a little more, it felt a little weird to do it with an audience in the vehicle with them. So far, neither Jeric nor F’ira had said much during the trip to him. The [Fairy] would engage with Nora a little, but the private clearly wasn’t a fan of befriending someone above her rank. Jeric refused to let anyone else drive since they mainly traveled at night and his [Dark Vision] was one of his highest leveled [Skills].

  Nora grinned as she looked back at him. “Exactly. It was a beautiful autumn day in September the day I first graced this world with my presence.”

  “According to whom? Last I checked, you were born in a dirty refugee camp like the rest of us,” Fletcher said. He glanced out the window at the passing scenery. Yellow grassed hills as far as the eye could see, just as it had been for the past day and a half.

  “Hey, Fletch. It’s my story, not yours. Now let me finish.” Nora rolled her eyes.

  The daylight was fading, leaving limited time for him to continue reading, but it was pretty obvious his sister wasn’t going to let that happen so he closed the book and gave her his attention. They traveled during the evening, night, and morning, stopping for sleep only during the broad daylight. It was their third night on the road, and Fletcher got the sense everyone was going a bit stir-crazy with all the sitting in cars.

  As odd as it was, it turned out that vehicles managed to maximize security as well as speed out of all the modes of travel available to the Mixed when it came to missions. Airplanes were too conspicuous to get near Unhuman strongholds, and using a travel [Skill] proved a huge security risk.

  Part of him still couldn’t believe that Mixed used airplanes. Humans had been barred from them through regulations in the Second Treaty, giving only enough leeway for the most important government officials to be allowed that kind of transport. If he recalled correctly, it was meant to be some kind of protection against the Humans easily restarting the war, thus forcing the Humans to readopt trains as the main form of long distance travel. But the Mixed weren’t bound by the Treaty, freeing them to do as they pleased.

  Nora was going on in her dramatic tone, pretending to tell her epic autobiography while Fletcher only half-listened. She was still at the part of being raised in the refugee camp before Fletcher came along when Jeric slammed on the brakes of their vehicle, bringing them to a screeching halt.

  Fletcher’s book flew out of his hands as he grabbed the seat in front of him to brace himself. His seatbelt immediately locked up, leaving very little room for movement.

  “Jeez, Jeric. Warning next time.” Nora unbuckled and let her seatbelt recede all the way to reset it.

  “Shut up,” Jeric said sharply. The dog ears on the top of his head twitched as his eyes closely scanned the horizon before them. The sun had fully set, leaving only faint twilight. It wasn’t dark enough for Fletcher’s [Skill] to activate, but apparently Jeric’s was on with the way he carefully examined their surroundings outside the window. The other vehicles of soldiers going on the mission had noticed the change, and both those in front and those behind stopped as well.

  “Excuse you, Sergeant?” Nora said.

  “Something’s out there, Captain.” Jeric opened his door and stepped out. “Let me take a [Sniff].”

  Nora got on the radio and explained the situation to the other vehicles as Fletcher watched Jeric crouch down to the ground, his fingers digging in the dirt while his nose scrunched up. Jeric then walked farther away, and the distance combined with the incoming darkness made it impossible to see more than a basic silhouette.

  “Does this normally happen?” Fletcher asked.

  “Fletcher, listen closely. Whatever happens, you stay in the car, got it? F’ira, you stay with him. Try not to let him die.” Nora got out of the car, taking hers and Jeric’s rifles with her.

  The [Fairy] hefted up her weapon, keeping it pointed out the front window as she unbuckled. She slid into the front seat Nora abandoned and motioned Fletcher to slide into the middle seat. “Stay away from the doors.”

  He did as she wanted, his heart pounding in his chest. Shouldn’t the Unhumans have attacked already? Why the delay?

  They sat in silence for several minutes, waiting for any kind of report back from Nora or Jeric. The quiet was broken by shots ringing out from the left of the vehicle, the direction Nora and Jeric had gone.

  F’ira moved over a seat to have a better view out the driver’s window. She reached back with one hand and shoved Fletcher’s head down.

  “Stay low. Don’t sit up until I say so,” she said. Her voice had a nature quality to it, almost like plunks of rain hitting a puddle or wind rustling the trees.

  Fletcher once again followed her orders, peeking his head up enough to get glimpses of movement outside as more guns went off. People shouted, and F’ira’s fingers danced nervously on her rifle barrel, her eyes still glued to the scene outside—a scene she could see a whole lot better than Fletcher.

  With the interior lights of the vehicle off, and the sunlight almost completely gone, Fletcher’s [Skill] finally turned.

  [Dark Vision: Active]

  The bits of the outside world he could see became clearer, if only in gray-scaled outline form. He tried to lean up a little so he could see more, but F’ira noticed immediately and pushed him away, forcing him to look in the opposite direction of the action.

  Fletcher was not a fan of not being able to see what was going on, especially if something was going to attack their vehicle, but he also recognized that constantly distracting the one person who could defend him was a bad idea, so he dealt with staring out the right side of the vehicle where nothing was going on.

  Until he caught sight of movement. Just a shadow passing up on the hill. It was so brief he might have imagined it, until a second came after it.

  “F’ira,” he muttered.

  “Shut up.”

  “F’ira. There’s something out there,” he said.

  “I don’t need your help. If you open your mouth again, I’m going to do everyone a favor and cut your tongue off,” the [Fairy] threatened.

  Fletcher held back the slew of curse words he had for her, and instead he returned to watching out the right side, still convinced that something was coming for them, even if his guard didn’t believe him.

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  The shooting grew closer, and the shouting became more intense, all of it focused on the left side of their vehicle.

  F’ira muttered something in her Unhuman tongue and then grabbed Fletcher’s hair, forcing him to look up at her. “Stay in the vehicle, no matter what.” She pulled a knife out and stuck it in his hands. “Do not leave under any circumstance.”

  “Got it. But where are you going?”

  “To help. If you get yourself killed, so help me, Anders…”

  He held his hands up. “I’d prefer to live too, believe me.”

  F’ira quietly slipped out the door, and then Fletcher was all alone in the vehicle, a knife his only defense. He had a feeling this wasn’t quite the experience his mother had in mind when she forced him out on this mission, but he couldn’t say for sure given he hadn’t seen her again since his citizen swearing in ten days prior.

  Fletcher shifted so he was still mostly crouched down, but he now had a much better view of all sides of the vehicle and any danger that might pop up on him. The shooting grew distant again, and best he could tell, everyone else was off chasing the bad guys away.

  But there was that shadow again. No, shadows. Five of them popped up on the hillside, far closer than before, and then they disappeared again. Fletcher sat up all the way, leaning close to the window, but he couldn’t tell where they went.

  He double checked that there was no one nearby to tattle on him and then popped the door open as silently as he could. Stepping out in the cold night, Fletcher kept his knife up and crouched down in what he thought was probably a good stealth position. Softly, he crept towards the hillside while keeping his eyes peeled for any hint of the shadows again.

  Fletcher approached the grassy slope and tensed as one of the shadows appeared right before him. Some form of [Invisibility] perhaps? Or maybe just an adjacent [Skill]...

  Either way it was clear that this thing was not part of the Mixed.

  Having proven to himself that there was indeed something out there, he decided his best course of action was to tell someone who could actually do something about it. He’d killed once with a knife, and that wasn’t something he was ever looking to repeat. He just needed to find someone who wasn’t engaged in the shootout—a shootout that was probably at least a mile away by now.

  He carefully backed away, keeping his eyes on the unmoving shadow-thing when his footing slipped, and he fell backwards. Instead of dirt or grass, he landed on something cold and squishy.

  “What the—” he murmured as he tried to get away from the gloop.

  Crawling away, he discovered black sludge clinging to his clothes and hands. No amount of swiping or shaking got the stuff off, and unless he was going crazy, it looked like the slime was actively climbing his skin and spreading around.

  “Get off.” Fletcher violently flung his hands around in a vain attempt to clear away the goop, but it was stuck like glue to his body.

  He danced and hopped around, no longer worried about being stealthy. The little shadow lumps kept appearing beneath his feet, tripping him and adding more of the black slime to his body.

  Eventually there was enough of the sticky stuff that it glued his legs together and toppled him over. Fletcher squirmed amongst his sludge cocoon, silently wondering if this would be how he died.

  It wasn’t until a lantern and his sister’s disapproving face appeared over him that he even realized the shooting had stopped.

  “Fletcher. This doesn’t look like the inside of the car,” Nora said.

  “Probably because it’s not.” He wasn’t in the mood for her teasing after all this.

  “That’s funny. Because I distinctly remember telling you to stay in there.”

  “I’m sorry. I saw something moving outside, and I… got concerned. I just wanted to check it out,” Fletcher explained. “F’ira wasn’t listening to me and—”

  “Private?” Nora looked at the [Fairy] who had joined them in standing above his sludged-form.

  “He mentioned seeing something outside. I knew that it was either his imagination or something non-threatening like nocturne slime, so I ignored him. Before I left, I repeated your orders to stay in the vehicle. Twice,” she explained.

  “Sounds like you did everything right, Private. Fletcher, on the other hand…” Nora raised her eyebrows.

  “I was only trying to help. It’s not like she explained that whole thought process to me,” he defended himself, mildly embarrassed he’d been caught in such an absurd situation.

  “It’s not our job to explain our thought-processes to you. Especially not during a crisis situation. Our job is to keep you safe, which often comes in the form of orders you’re meant to obey. I think we had a conversation about how your one job on this whole mission is to do what I say. Remember that by chance?” Nora asked.

  Fletcher sighed. “I’m sorry, okay? Still new at this whole military thing. Now can you get me out of this crap?”

  Jeric joined the other two in staring down at him.

  “Nocturne slime? Seriously, Fletcher? This is the Unhuman equivalent of being taken down by a family of bunnies,” he said.

  Nora chuckled. “You’re giving the slime waaaay too much credit there, Jeric. Babies, actual babies are able to avoid this stuff.” She bent down and patted Fletcher’s head. “But my little brother is just so special and talented, he can outdo them all.”

  Hearing the name again brought back Fletcher’s memory on learning about the subject in school. Nocturne slime, one of the creatures native to Mythia. They were responsible for spreading seeds around since they traveled in packs, sucking up fallen fruit and flowers, eating the good stuff, and then excreting the seeds as they went. They were the bottom of the food chain as far as animals were concerned, so the fact that he somehow fell victim to them was traumatically embarrassing.

  “This stuff isn’t going to digest me, right?” Fletcher asked, suddenly concerned that the tingling he’d attributed to his hands going numb might actually be the creature’s stomach acid working on eating him alive.

  “Maybe if we left you like that for two months,” Jeric said.

  “F’ira, can you get him cleaned off while we finish settling things with the rest of the caravan?” Nora asked.

  The [Fairy] groaned and nodded, and then all three dispersed, once again leaving the cocooned Fletcher alone. A couple of minutes later, F’ira returned with a hose leading to the back of a different vehicle and started spraying him off.

  The water was freezing as was the air, making Fletcher a popsicle by the time she finished cleaning all the sludge off. He was pretty sure she sprayed him longer than necessary, drenching every part of him before she smiled and declared he was slime free.

  “You have to air dry before getting back in the car. Captain Anders is a real stickler about keeping the vehicle clean,” the private informed him as she walked away, wrapping up the hose as she went.

  Shivering, Fletcher held his arms close and studied the scene before him. Soldiers mingled among the vehicles, many holding their weapons casually, signalling that the threat was over. Whatever it had been.

  Nora came up to him with a grin. “Good. All cleaned off. Slime can be such a mess.”

  “Any chance of a towel or something?” he asked.

  She snorted. “No.”

  “What was out there? I heard a lot of shooting.” Fletcher internally sighed, once again wishing for days long passed when he was an only child.

  “Just a pack of cycats. Normally we don’t disturb the wildlife, but this pack was picking up our scent, and we can’t afford to give the Unhumans notice that we’re coming,” Nora said.

  He was surprised she gave him a genuine answer. Also surprised that they took on cycats, a huge, single-eyed mountain lion. Only one was said to be a match for at least ten Humans.

  “I gotta say, Fletcher, your arrogance is simply astounding.” Nora looked off in the distance at the faint outlines of the hills surrounding them.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, to believe that you saw some kind of threat that six dozen professional soldiers missed… I can’t imagine having that kind of opinion of myself, especially when you have no talent to back it up.” She smiled and shook her head. “I think this was good for you. Hopefully it gave you a little humility and taught you a lesson.”

  “Yeah. I get it, Nora. I’ll stay in the car next time,” he huffed.

  “Just follow my orders, and you might make it out of this alive, okay? You dying would be horrible for my career, so I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  “I’d also prefer it if I didn’t,” Fletcher said.

  “It’s going to be another half an hour or so until we’re on the road again. That’s plenty of time for you to dry off. Make sure not to track mud in the car,” Nora said.

  “Fine.” He clutched his arms closer. “Sorry again about everything.”

  “It’s alright, Fletch. This was a much safer way to learn your lesson compared to an actual battle.” She ruffled his wet hair. “We’ll knock some sense into that head one way or another.”

  Fletcher watched her walk away, wondering if it was too late to go back to solitary confinement after all and give up on this whole Mixed citizen thing.