The sun’s light burned through my eyelids. Its heat was harsh on my parched lips. I opened my eyes but immediately closed them again as the glare sent a shooting pain in my head and spots in my vision. I turned to the side so I wouldn’t be staring directly at it once I opened my eyes again. Then the thoughts and memories came flooding back. The house, the fight, Claire, my friends. I looked around it panic, unsure of where I was, or how I got there, then the last piece fell into place. The whisper of sleep that knocked my unconscious. Further clarity seeped into my awareness. Claire was gone, but the colonel’s body was still there.

I stumbled to my feet so I could check on everyone else. I ran the short distance to where they were. Relief washed over me like a cold shower. They were all there, lying on the ground and unconscious as I had been. I could see that they were all breathing. I used my powers to check if anything else was wrong, but nothing else looked amiss. I woke Sarah up first; I figured I would get that lecture over quickly and while no one else could hear it. It went just how I expected.

“I told you,” was the first thing she said after explaining that it was now the middle of the day because we had all been unconscious from Claire’s attack. All I could do was apologize and tell her she was right.

“But, I had to try,” I added.

“Well, I hope that you learned your lesson, and you better not try again with her,” she said after a moment of contemplation.

After that, I decided to wake up Melody and her brother, so if Claire decided to come back, we could have some type of protection against her. Melody freaked out for a second as I woke her, probably from all her memories rushing back in at once. Her arms flailed wildly, and I was forced to take a step back, so I wasn’t popped in the face. Once I got her calmed down, I explained what happened.

“So that was your girlfriend?” She asked. I didn’t know what I was expecting her to say, but not that line of questioning.

“She was,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Not impressed. I think you could do better,” she said with a slight grin.

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Mhmm,” she hummed then moved to wake up Victor, letting me be alone as I blushed with embarrassment.

Just as we did earlier, we went around and woke everyone else up, but this time I wasn’t too worried about getting away. For the moment, it appeared that we had taken care of the enemy, and we could breathe a little. Unfortunately, there was no place to rest since the house had been destroyed, so we would have to go back to the hotel in town or make a shelter in the forest.

It didn’t take too long, perhaps an hour, for everyone to be ready to move. We decided to go back to the hotel and regroup there before deciding what to do next.

“What do you think we should do about the Welders?” Sarah asked.

I had completely forgotten about them in the confusion of everything. I turned on my ability and scanned the forest to get a count of how many there were. The color and shape of their aura would allow me to spot them easily in the forest, just as I had done before the battle. As I scanned the area where I knew that they should be, I didn’t see any trace of them.

“They’re gone,” I said.

Sarah’s head whipped toward me. “What do you mean, they’re gone?” She said with a tinge of panic.

“I mean, they’re not there.” I gestured toward the trees. “They must have escaped or been set free. I don’t know.”

“Damn it,” she yelled and stomped her foot.

“Why are you upset about that?” I asked. “Isn’t it just fewer people we have to worry about?”

“No, Aidren, I’ll still worry. They are just like us. Jace and Claire may have known what was going on, and there may be others that do too, but I think that most of them are just as in the dark about everything as we were. We could have helped them.”

My only response to that was a grunt of acknowledgment. It was so much like Sarah to want to help everyone, even those who had just been attacking us. But as I thought about it, I wasn’t much different, probably slightly more selfish. I had just tried to do the same thing with Claire, and she hadn’t been innocent. No, I was way worse. I didn’t even care about the other kids in the camp. The ones that attacked us were only a small number of the Welders in the camp, and I knew that there was also a handful more Sirens.

“Damn,” I said. Sarah turned to me questioningly. “The other Sirens are gone too.”

“There were other Siren’s here too?” She asked, and I nodded. “You just said that it was Claire.”

“I just mentioned her to get through the story. Do you remember running by some people lying on the ground as we left the house?”

“Yes, but I just figured they were Welders or Soldiers. So there was a whole squad of Sirens? How did you beat them?”

“Victor,” I said simply. “But we should talk about this more back at the hotel and get out of the open.”

Sarah nodded then suddenly brightened up with a smile on her face, “I have an idea.”

Her idea was to use the Humvees to transport us all back to town and the hotel. It would have saved us a lot of travel time. She had a smile on her face and a bounce to her step as she led us all around the destroyed house, but her smile and bounce immediately fell as she turned the corner. Unfortunately, the Humvees were also gone from the area. So, we all ended up walking back to the hotel, just as we had walked away from it. The walk back should have taken us a lot less time to get there since it was downhill most of the way, but with everyone tired and injured, it ended up taking longer than it took us to get to the house.

We all piled into the hotel. I waited until everyone was in before I scanned the area one last time with my ability, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so I went inside. I felt that we would have been fine for a little while; after we went over what happened and decided what to do next, I would check again, but we would have to assign some lookouts eventually. I walked onto the hotel lobby and headed to the same room I claimed the day before to decompress a little, but Sarah’s voice diverted my path.

“Hey, General Aidren,” she called. I looked over, the majority of the group was sitting in the community area. Apparently, there was no time to relax. I walked to the group, and I noticed Melody saved me a seat next to her on a couch.

“Was that a joke Madam President?” I quipped as I sat down next to Melody.

“Well, I am feeling very optimistic about our situation. We stopped the camp for taking us back, and we didn’t lose anyone. Isn’t that a good reason to relax a little?”

“Yes, it is,” I replied hesitantly. “But there’s still a lot to be worried about. Claire is gone, so are the Welders and Sirens that fought at the house. The colonel may be gone, but there is still Camp Walker. All the cadre are still there, including Sergeant Michel. There are the other kids that are there, many who are probably being lied to and brainwashed. So what do we do about all this? Do we go into hiding? Do we wait here to be attacked again? Will they even do that? Should we try to save the other kids? It’s just too much to think about all at once.”

“There’s my uncle and his liberation group,” Melody said after a moment of silence from the group as they considered everything I said. “I need to know if they’re okay after the attack. If they are, they could help us.”

I nodded. “That might be a good place to start. Saving the kids like us was their mission. Do you think they would still be in the same place?”

“Maybe not after the attack,” she said thoughtfully. “But we also had a couple other places for a camp. I could find them if I find out where we are.”

“We’ll find a map then,” I said.

After that, we went on to discuss everything that happened during the fight at the house. Towards the end of the conversation, everyone was visibly exhausted. Victor, who had been sitting on the other side of Melody, was asleep, and his sister was beginning to doze off on my shoulder. We decided to make a decision after some rest, so everyone went off to his or her room. The weight of the night and worry of the next day kept me from being tired, so I walked outside to check that the area was secure and to guard my friends.