At first, I just see black. But it’s just that it’s dark inside, and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. I get the impression of a large, cavernous room.

  “I swear, Brenda, if you’re just back to—oh. It’s you.” There’s a rush of air out of a mouth. “I wondered when we’d see you again.”

  I have a zillion questions all at once, but before I can voice any of them, there’s a whoosh of fire being lit and a dozen tiki-style torches light up the space.

  “Someone has fire powers,” Ryder whispers.

  “Indeed,” I whisper back.

  It looks more like a theatre in here than a church chapel. As I had thought, it’s a large and cavernous space with a raised platform on the far end like a stage. Walls made of some sort of beige stone flank the stage, the left side decorated by a large cross. Soundproofing panels line the back walls in even, curated spacing. A grid of spotlights hang down from the peaked ceiling.

  I think of all the chairs we saw in the pile in the lobby; some still remain int he room, bolted to the floor. Grey, upholstered things. But even more have been ripped up and used to create little pockets of… well, homes. Cozy nooks in the corners, openings nestled in among the seats, fabric draped as privacy curtains and, in one area, a legitimate tent erected.

  It’s the most depressing campsite I’ve ever seen.

  The man who spoke is standing on the stage and, I realize, is someone I recognize. He was the defect leader of the group that came to us at the Tim Horton’s—the one that had the gun. I idly wonder if he’s still using it, and if so, is it on his person right now.

  Look, I’ve learned to live with the uncertainty of a monster attack at any time. I still will never condone gun violence.

  The man’s still staring at me. I can hear some murmured voices and rustling, but otherwise there’s a silent tension in the room. I lift my hands, palms out—a classic I surrender pose. “We’re not looking for any trouble,” I finally say. It seems the better option than we come in peace.

  “What are you looking for, then?” the man replies.

  “Wait,” another voice says. A female voice. The echoing nature of the chapel means I can’t quite find her in the space. “I remember these guys. Dad, you’ve been wanting—”

  “Madison,” the man hisses, cutting the girl off.

  Dad, she said. Right, he had a teenage daughter. The one who was supposed to be babysitting.

  It’s so hard to remember everything that happened that day. The only thing that I can remember clearly is the notification from the Game. You’ve discovered a human body. Do you want to harvest the core? I shudder just to think of it.

  But then what the girl—Madison—actually said sinks in. “Been wanting what?” I ask.

  The man sighs. I catch movement in my periphery and a willowy teenage girl stands up from one of the crop circles of unbolted chairs. “He’s been wanting to find you guys.”

  “Madison!” the man scolds again, this time less restrained.

  “This place has been a nightmare since Elisa died,” Madison spits back, yelling at her father. Right, Elisa—the name of the girl who died.

  “And I’ll remind you, that was their fault!” her dad yells back, thrusting a finger in our direction.

  Madison scoffs. “They’re the reason we weren’t ALL monster chow.”

  Dad scoffs right back. “Right, which means Elisa’s death is your fault. You were the one watching the kids!”

  These poor, sad people. It’s been more than a week since our first encounter with them, and it looks like they’ve made no progression since then.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “It’s no one’s fault!” Ryder shouts, surprising both Madison and her dad—and me. I turn to face him. He’s frowning, his eyes super scrunched. “And if you keep trying to blame each other instead of figuring out how to move forward, then you’re all going to end up dead!”

  There’s a ringing silence in the chapel.

  “Thank you, brother in fiery arms,” another voice pipes up. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them.”

  This time I can pinpoint the speaker. It’s the other teenager, the one who had been staring at Ryder’s fireball. Is he the fire wielder? How did he gain a new type of magic after the initial surge?

  I throw my hands up, out, around—I don’t even know. Just a vague gesture in the air to try to collect my thoughts and expel my nervous energy. “It sounds like you guys haven’t had it easy. And I feel for you, I do. Look, we’re not here to cause drama or start anything. We’re just…” I drop my hands back down, and the clap of them against my thighs echo through the room. “We’re offering you a better way.”

  A few other people have come out of their campsites and are inching closer, whether by the sight of strangers or the commotion or maybe my offer of a better way. I recognize only one—the old man, who had fully committed to the whole Rapture thing. There’s a small group of four other children, standing with a Black woman. There’s a middle-aged couple. There’s an elderly woman with ramrod straight posture, a tight and sleek grey bun, and a large cross around her neck, who strikes me as familiar but I can’t place why. There’s a small group of adults, probably around my age, but I can’t make out details.

  “Too little, too late,” Madison’s father says.

  Madison throws her arm in the air. “Show of hands for who wants to hear them out.”

  Every other hand in the room raises.

  The man on the stage throws a glare at his daughter, but he sighs. “Then come on up,” he says through gritted teeth. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”

  ***

  We all sit in a circle on the stage. Ryder, Nancy, and I give out spiel, the one that we’ve gotten pretty good at by now: join our community, get a house and security and safety. You will be expected to pull your weight and help out. The world isn’t going back to what it was before, and this is how we move forward. No pressure if you don’t want to.

  Madison has a huge smile on her face and is nearly bouncing in her seat, but her dad—named Roy, we learn—clomps a hand on her shoulder before she can say or do anything. “Give us the room,” he demands. “We need to discuss as a group.”

  The group, at least those present, is nineteen. Though apparently there are a few others who are out right now.

  It’ll be our biggest recruitment yet.

  So we head back into the lobby. The three of us claim chairs from the pile and arrange them in a small corner to talk amongst ourselves. “Is it bad that I don’t really want them to come?” Ryder asks us in a whisper.

  Nancy and I share a look. “No,” she answers. It’s the first time she’s spoken since our confrontation with the church’s residents, and her voice cracks.

  I make a mental note to ask her about her silence—usually we share the spiel equally, but Nancy never joined in with her usual parts, so I spoke for her.

  “Really?” Ryder asks, pulling me back into the present moment.

  “There’s bad blood,” she says with a shrug. “The girl dying, their trauma bonding over it, the animosity amongst themselves… I don’t know if I want them to join us, either.”

  “Sutherland sent us here for a reason,” I say. “He must have a good reason.”

  Nancy sighs. “Then let’s not speculate. What happens is what will happen.”

  “It’s like with that address he gave me,” I go on. “If he had given me the address to the strip plaza, or to a different house on that street, we wouldn’t have gotten there when we were meant to get there.”

  “How is that similar?” Nancy asks.

  “If he had told us to come here yesterday, it wouldn’t have produced the optimal results.”

  “You’re putting a lot of faith in Sutherland.”

  “Appropriate to talk about faith in a church,” a new voice says. We spin around to find the old lady—rigid posture, tight bun, large cross. The one who felt familiar. In the warm light of the daytime through the glass, I realize why she’s familiar: she was at the Town Hall. She was sitting up on the table as part of the makeshift council with Sutherland.

  How did she end up here?

  She doesn’t give us a chance to say anything in response. She just keeps going.

  “So Sutherland’s little plan came to fruition,” she says. “He kept telling me that things were going according to plan, but I didn’t believe him.” She smiles with one corner of her mouth, her wrinkles deepening with the motion. It doesn’t help in making her look more friendly. “I heard about Richard’s little… demonstration. I take it that he’s fine?”

  The three of us nod.

  “It was close,” Nancy offers. She’d know best, I guess. “But he’s made a full recovery.”

  “Good. And now he’s leading your little… commune.”

  “Jane’s still the leader,” Ryder says, his tone a little defiant. His hands are in fists again. I casually reach over and take the fist closer to me, weave my fingers through his. His eyes snap to mine but he deflates, a little.

  “It’s a joint effort,” I say, tripping over the words a little. “You were at the Town Hall,” I finally say, needing the fact to be said out loud.

  She nods, a sharp jut of her chin. “I was. Load of crock the whole thing was. Nothing was accomplished.”

  A thought comes to me, complete and unbidden and I’m one-thousand-percent sure I’m right. “It accomplished what it needed to,” I say.

  The woman’s steely gaze hones in on me.

  “It was Sutherland’s idea, wasn’t it?”

  She nods, another sharp movement.

  “The whole point of holding the Town Hall was for him to make contact with me."