“Wow,” Zoe said as they walked by Nara’s car parked in the driveway of Je-won’s family home. The windshield was busted out and there was a large divot in the hood. “Was it already like that before this attack?”

“Yes,” Je-won answered. “The first construct we faced did it.”

He’d called on the way home, so already knew everyone was still safe, but that knowledge didn’t make him sound any less anxious to get inside and see for himself.

They hadn’t talked much on the ride here. Dexter had asked again what made Zoe choose healer as a class, but in response she only shook her head and seemed uncharacteristically sullen.

He would have pressed, but he was exhausted and just wanted to wash up and go to bed.

She did share with him what system ability she had been given. It allowed her to sense lifeforms around her, even if she couldn’t see them.

Dexter thought it was a rather lame ability, but didn’t say this.

Je-won had had Zoe loot one of the monsters and Dexter the other. Even though she hadn’t fought, she was able to loot the shadow grapnel, the one that had been sent after her.

Dexter received a parasitic aspirator imprint from the eponymous construct, but as Je-won had mentioned, saw no way to use or even access it. The only reason he knew he had it at all was the message when he’d looted it, which was still in his message log.

(Parasitic aspirator) Imprint received

Zoe had gotten a shadow grapnel imprint, but also couldn’t see how to use it.

There still hadn’t been a message from the system about the second attack, and Dexter wondered when it would come, if one would at all. Maybe there were still constructs from the second wave alive out there? If a Copper-level monster was sent after him and Je-won, what would be sent after bigger groups, and just how strong would it be?

Dexter stared at Nara’s damaged car as he passed it, following the other two into the house. It was a grim reminder that while he needed sleep, he also just as urgently needed to get stronger.

Inside, Je-won’s family welcomed Zoe and Dexter with enthusiasm. Perhaps a bit too much, given how exhausted the both of them were.

Nara promised to regale them in the morning—over a hearty breakfast—with the story of how she’d defended the house from this latest attack. By all appearances, she’d had an easy time of it, and hadn’t even been injured.

Je-won’s aunt and her son Jason had gone home, which left the guest bedroom free for Zoe.

Dexter got the couch.

He didn’t mind.

He took one of the quickest showers of his life then collapsed onto the couch, which Nara had put sheets and a blanket on. He immediately began drifting off to sleep, his mind replaying the day in reverse. When it got to his kiss with Leah, the memory jolted him awake.

He was supposed to call her. He’d completely forgotten.

He sat up, looking for his phone. He eventually found it on the low, americana-style coffee table next to the couch, though he didn’t remember putting it there.

“Hey.” She sounded so glad to hear him, it broke his heart.

“Hey Ley.”

“You have a nickname for me already. How cute.”

“Yeah, well…”

“How are you?”

“Okay. Just fought a monster. What about you?”

She didn’t laugh like he expected her to. “No fighting, but it was crazy here.”

He suddenly realized that the attacks were everywhere there was someone in the system. He’d known this, but until this moment hadn’t thought of what it meant. Getting attacked while in the hospital was a terrible way to end the day. “Is everyone there okay?”

“There were only a few monsters. Not many people here were in the system.”

An image of the loaded bus pulling out of the hospital parking lot flashed in Dexter’s mind.

There weren’t many people because they’d all been taken by the FBI. Or some organization using their name as cover.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“I feel great.”

“Morphine?”

“Maybe a little. It’s nice to talk to someone. It’s been so crazy here, even before the attack came.”

“Your parents make it yet?”

“Yeah. They were here for the attack. Luckily none of us joined, so we were safe.” She laughed without humor. “Well, that’s relative. Afterward they took Emma home.” Emma was Leah’s five-year-old little sister.

“Do you know when they’ll release you?”

“Not a clue. I saw the cut on my chest when the nurse was changing the bandage. I’m thinking it might be a while.”

“I may be able to help with that,” he told her, thinking of Zoe’s new healing ability, how well it had worked on him. “I’ll come visit you in the morning.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll let you go then,” she said, dejected.

Dexter chuckled. “I didn’t mean I wanted to stop talking. I like talking to you.”

“I like talking to you too.”

He could hear her smile.

They talked until they were both drifting in and out of consciousness.

It was only Leah’s phone dying that made them give in to the need to sleep.

“You have a charger?” Dexter asked, only half-awake.

“Um… I don’t know.”

He yawned and nodded his head. “Okay. I’ll bring one tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. I’ll look forward to it. And another kiss.” These last words were slurred, as though she’d drifted off already.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Night Leah.”

“Night… Dexter.”

Dexter bolted upright out of the nightmare in which severed arms crawled like worms and slithered like snakes, chasing him and keeping up no matter how fast he ran away from them.

He was covered in sweat, his head swimming, not sure where he was.

He looked around expecting to find the school auditorium, but only found an unfamiliar living room.

It took several seconds for the nightmare to fade and for him to remember he was at Je-won’s.

He got up and went to the bathroom, then checked the wound on his side where he’d been stabbed by the parasitic aspirator. It was fully healed now, just a faint mark where once—only a few hours ago—had been a hole that pierced all the way to his vital organs.

The system did some terrible things, but it also gave some amazing powers. He wondered what else Zoe’s healing could be used for. Could it cure diseases? Cancer? Genetic conditions?

He tried going back to bed—it was almost four AM, so he’d only gotten about five hours of sleep—but his mind was racing with possibility and memory. He eventually gave up and checked the news on his phone.

He watched a video from the BBC called A Look at the First Day of the End of the World that brought together clips of the attacks, interviews with people who joined the system, and clips of government officials from around the world giving rousing speeches that were as hollow as ever.

As he watched, he had a hard time believing it had only been a single day. Not even twenty-four hours since the first system message broke him out of his daydreams in Mr Kendall’s history class.

The narrator of the video kept calling the system Seven, and Dexter wondered if that was what people everywhere were calling it, or just a UK thing.

One thing that stood out was the fact that apparently no children had been attacked, and they couldn’t join either, though they had gotten the initial system message. The program had a clip of an interview with some expert speculating that Seven used reproductive development to determine whether a person was capable of joining the system and fighting.

The video also included a few scattered clips of people using powers, which made Dexter think of his own, and his earlier thoughts about growing stronger.

There was only so much to gain from the experience of others.

So, when the video ended, instead of wasting time searching out more, he decided to explore for himself.

First he brought up the leaderboard.

1 Vin ﴾The First Cultivator﴿ Copper 100,010 2 Anatoly Novikov Copper 90,510 3 Goro Sakurai ﴾The Sniper﴿ None 42,490 4 bal67 None 1,012 5 Valkyrie None 200

He recognized the person in first place, and he was pretty sure the sniper had been there before as well, but he wasn’t sure about any of the others.

He scrolled through the list for a bit, looking for any names he recognized, but didn’t find any.

Scrolling to the bottom revealed there were now 31,789,762 people in the system.

He wondered how many more had joined only to die in that second attack.

Pushing the dark thought away, he brought up the store again.

But there would be no retail therapy for him this night. He still was not even close to affording most anything listed for sale.

He wanted to test out the duration of his dauntless ability, but he still couldn’t use it again. It had a long cooldown, apparently. At least several hours.

He wondered if he had accidentally triggered it in his sleep. He felt like that would wake him up, but maybe he should move his abilities off the hotrings before sleeping.

Dauntless not available, he tried his only other ability, endure, and again felt that twisting, dizzying sensation. He started a timer on his phone. This ability really was more draining than dauntless. That must be what using Intention felt like. Dauntless only used Unity, but according to the description, endure used a high amount of both Unity and Intention.

While waiting for it to expire, he explored some more. It was a little like trying to read a book and walk at the same time. Completely doable, but still a bit distracting.

He brought up the alteration menu, which he hadn’t yet had a chance to explore.

Head Arms Torso Legs Internal

He selected Head.

Adornments Hair Eyes Ears Teeth

After selecting Adornments, he was presented with another list of possibilities, including horns of all different varieties. Curious, he selected Horns, Demon, Black.

He activated his phone’s front-facing camera to examine himself.

They looked like projections, but with depth. The same as he’d seen on the boy with the banana-yellow horns, back in the auditorium, before things got serious, before the first construct attack.

He reached up, feeling for the new protrusions. To his surprise, he could feel them. They felt much like the text of the interface did, but more solid. A plum instead of a marshmallow.

Touching the selection again made them disappear.

Good. He didn’t want anything that would draw attention to himself.

Not that it was a big concern anymore. Judging by the program he’d just watched, every government organization was now strained to—and in many cases past—their limits.

None were going to care about a small town like Havenport. There had been agents in the hospital, but that was in Albany.

He explored the alterations thoroughly, but while he could change his appearance, it didn’t seem any of the changes would actually help him fight or defend himself.

That was until he opened Teeth. Mixed in with the ability to change their color or make them into decorative fangs, was an option that stood out, the text slightly more prominent. It was labeled function, an option that was missing from anything else he’d explored. Curious, he tapped it.

Imprint available. Apply parasitic aspirator Imprint to teeth?

Apply

Cancel

His pulse sped, adrenaline clearing his sleepy mind.

Another imprint. Would this be like a class? Since it specifically mentioned teeth, it didn’t seem like it.

So what would applying the imprint do?

He thought back to the monster that had burst forth from the corpse, thinking of the tubes all over its body that leaked the blood of its former host.

It didn’t make him eager to apply it to himself.

But then again, however terrible the system might be, its goal was to make them stronger. And if this came from one of its constructs, maybe that was what it would do.

Remembering something, he brought up his message log and looked for a specific message. It only took him a moment to find it.

Autogenous Imprint formation detected.

Analyzing…

Analysis complete.

Imprint capacity increased: 1 of 2 applied.

Assigning nomenclature.

His imprint capacity was at one of two. So then would this take up that slot, or was it somehow different? It seemed foolish to waste it if it was going to prevent him from choosing another class. Maybe he should do that first.

He brought up the class selection prompt.

Having slept on it, a few things now struck him as odd about the choices he’d input previously. The fact that capitalization seemed to matter, that Je-won had gotten something different from the fighter class than Dexter himself had, that different forms of the same word had different outcomes…

It made him think about what the system had called Intention, and how it might apply to more than just abilities.

To test out the theory, he formed a concept in his mind and held it, entering the word ‘this’ into the prompt.

Healer

Imprint Success Probability: 95%

Description: The control of the state of life and matter focused on the act of restoring.

Starting Ability: Restore.

He grew excited, but wanted to be sure, so fixed another idea in his mind and again entered the word ‘this’.

Paladin

Imprint Success Probability: 99%

Description: Devote all your Intention to the opposition of the eternal foes.

Starting Ability: System Call.

He tried again, growing more and more excited, each time entering only the word ‘this’.

Vanquisher

Imprint Success Probability: 16%

Description: A being devoted to the end of all things. Harvest Unity and shape it with your Intention to commit anything that stands against you to the void.

Starting Ability: Blade Dance.

Balanced Opposition

Imprint Success Probability: 81%

Description: Divide your Intention over all discrete factors of the normal realm.

Starting Ability: None.

“Yes!” he cried out, then remembered everyone else was sleeping. But he couldn’t help it. He didn’t have to try random words at all, he could simply hold in his mind what he wanted to be!

Of course, that did leave the question of just what, exactly, that was.

Obviously the most important thing was not to die. Offense was important, but even without a class, he had been able to kill one of the constructs, at least working together with Je-won. He’d even done more damage, but only with his dauntless ability active. Then again, hadn’t it dropped by the time he fought the monster sent after Zoe? He took that out with no problem. It was the same level as he was, but that pizza peel seemed like it would be enough for now. Maybe he could get Nara to enchant an axe or something.

Ideally he’d pick a class that would have both offense and defense.

He stared at the description floating in front of him, not really reading it so much as studying the text itself, how it was just hovering there, created from nothing yet also physical. It was too bad he couldn’t simply gain the system’s powers. He’d already tried system though, and it hadn’t worked. Then again, that was very general. He had no idea what host of abilities the system had.

What about something more specific? More concrete? The text was solid. And if it could be shaped into letters, it could be shaped into other things as well. Weapons; shields; hell, steps in the air…

A new idea slammed into him, further jolting him into wakefulness and he quickly swiped away the description and entered a new word while the idea was still fresh in his mind.

Forger

Imprint Success Probability: 92%

Description: The manifestation of Intention from Unity.

Starting Ability: Forge.

He groaned. Why couldn’t the descriptions be more precise? But his experiments so far made it seem like the class given was exactly what he was thinking. And, at least on a surface level, this Forger class was exactly the kind of thing he’d had in mind. He wasn’t sure what would happen if a class imprint failed to apply, but ninety-two percent seemed like good odds to him.

Whether because he was still exhausted and less worried about the consequences, or because he knew that he needed any advantage he could seize, he accepted the class.

Applying Imprint for Forger…

He felt a jolt of euphoria that had to be from the imprint, followed by a splitting headache that thankfully only lasted mere moments.

Imprint successfully applied

Class applied: Forger

System abilities: Forge

Inherent abilities: None detected

He immediately touched forge.

Forge

Unity Drain: High

Intention: High

Description: Forge Unity with Intention to manifest any element of the normal realm.

Finding the description lacking, he dragged the ability to one of his hotrings and activated it.

It became immediately obvious that this was a bad idea. He still had endure up, and trying to use them together made him feel like vomiting, his head feeling like a flashbang had just been set off inside it. He twitched his fingers, but his mind was so fuzzy he couldn’t recall which was the correct finger to deactivate the ability.

Either he managed to hit it, or his body simply couldn’t handle the draw and had given out, because with a sense of relief he felt both abilities vanish.

It left him dizzy, the living room spinning around him, leaving him feeling like the couch was adrift in the middle of the ocean, being battered about by chaotic waves.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, but this helped only mildly.

Eventually, he felt the world cease roiling around him and the sickness left him.

Apparently two abilities with high draws weren’t good to activate together. Would it always be like that, or would he be able to adapt, get stronger?

Taking several readying breaths, he attempted activating forge again, having to bring up descriptions by holding his finger against the hotrings to remember where he’d placed it. When he found it, he activated it.

The twisting, draining sensation returned, but this time, now that endure wasn’t also active, it wasn’t overwhelming.

He held his hand out in front of him and imagined a simple item.

As he’d envisioned, a rod made out of the same marshmallowy substance as the system messages appeared, about a foot long.

He couldn’t help but smile. He’d just created something out of thin air.

Before his mind could wander to all the possibilities, he focused himself. He needed to test this out.

First he tapped it against his bare knee. He could feel it. It felt solid. More so than the horns had.

He tapped a little harder, and it definitely was solid enough to cause pain. He focused, and with a sudden draining of some kind of energy, the rod reshaped into a facsimile of a knife.

He looked around for something to use it on, and spotted a pile of magazines on the coffee table. “Hope Mrs Yun’s already read this,” he said, picking one up with his free hand and testing the blade against it.

It sliced through it with ease, and the cut-away portion fell to the table, revealing several articles had already been snipped out from within it.

He hadn’t been expecting it to be so effective.

“Good thing I didn’t test that on my leg.” He was pretty sure it would have sliced right through.

Which he wasn’t upset about. The sharper and more powerful, the better.

He let go of the feeling, and the knife vanished, a sense of relief coming over him as the ability deactivated.

Interesting, was it possible to activate an ability without using the hotring?

He tried for nearly a minute, but if it was possible, he wasn’t able to manage it. Maybe with more practice.

He turned his attention back to the interface and brought up the alteration screen again. He didn’t think applying the construct imprint would work since he had no imprint slots left, but tried anyway.

Imprint available. Apply parasitic aspirator Imprint to teeth?

Apply

Cancel

He touched Apply, and to his surprise it actually seemed to work.

His mouth briefly tasted of metal and fire, then… nothing.

He checked his teeth in his phone. They looked the same.

Frowning, he brought up his character sheet.

Dauntless

Leaderboard Rank: 14,659

Score: 13

Level: None

Class: Dauntless

Attributes

∴ Agility (Novice 5)

∴ Endurance (Novice 4)

∴ Strength (Novice 6)

∴ Durability (Novice 6)

∴ Intelligence (Novice 8)

∴ Vision (Novice 9)

∴ Hearing (Novice 9)

∴ Smell (Novice 5)

∴ Taste (Novice 5)

∴ Touch (Novice 4)

Abilities

∴ Aspirate

∴ Endure

∴ Forge

Skills

∴ Control (Novice 6)

∴ Perception (Novice 7)

Titles

∴ Dauntless

He immediately noticed two things. First, his rank had gone up a lot since he’d last looked. He didn’t remember the exact rank he’d been at before the most recent attack, but it was somewhere in the sixty-thousands. Second, he had a new ability.

He tapped on it.

Aspirate

Unity Drain: Very Low

Description: Extract from others to heal and empower yourself.

Interesting. Like dauntless, this also had no Intention requirement.

In typical system fashion, the description was far from detailed, and he wondered what exactly would be extracted. Blood? Energy?

Curious how it would manifest, he put the ability on one of his hotrings and activated it. His mouth took on that scorched metallic taste again, and this time didn’t abate.

Hesitant about what he might find, he once again checked his teeth with his phone’s camera.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, touching the tip of his tooth with his tongue. “I’m a vampire?”

“Vampire?”

Dexter startled at the voice and looked around.

Zoe was walking toward him from the hallway.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “You’re not distracting me. What do you mean you’re a vampire?”

“You just happened to be walking out as I said that?”

“No. I was by my door waiting for you to fall back asleep so I could sneak out. I heard you talking to yourself and didn’t want to… interrupt. My ability let me sense you were excited about something, but not what, and I didn’t want to find out it was some gross boy thing.”

“But me being a vampire was totally something you felt you had to investigate?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Where were you sneaking out to? You’re not exactly dressed for an expedition.” She was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, both of which must have been Nara’s, judging by how small they were on her.

“You first. Vampire is a lot more exciting than my destination.”

Dexter sighed, telling her about the imprint. Before he even finished, she was searching through her own interface. “I don’t see anything like that. Function, you said?”

“Maybe it’s different for each imprint. Yours might not be under teeth. Or it might not be there at all.”

She nodded slowly, still swiping through an interface he couldn’t see.

He wondered how it worked. How you could feel it, yet it was invisible to everyone else.

This made him think of his forge ability. It had cut through the magazine, so clearly it could affect the world, but would it be invisible? And would it work on other people?

Hesitantly, he attempted activating the new ability without dismissing aspirate.

He felt that twisting again, but keeping aspirate up at the same time didn’t seem to bother him. Whether because of its low Unity requirement, lack of Intention requirement, or both, he didn’t know.

Maybe that knowledge would come with more practice.

For now, he imagined a rod forming in his hand.

“Crap!” Zoe said, jolted out of her interface exploration by the sudden appearance of the glowing blue object in his fist. “What is that? And why is it so suspiciously shaped?”

“It’s… a rod.”

“Yeah.”

“You can see it?”

“Duh.”

“Try touching it.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously? You want me to touch it?”

“I’m being serious. I want to see if you can feel it.”

Sighing, she roughly grabbed at it.

He wasn’t expecting the force, and she ended up ripping it from his hand.

“Wow,” she said flatly. “Feels smaller than it—” Suddenly it disappeared. She looked down at her empty hand. “Touchy.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to take it. I think it disappeared because of that.” Dexter deactivated the ability, then reactivated it. No cooldown on this one, or no more than a few seconds if so. Which was good.

He formed the rod again, then handed it to her this time.

She looked down at it, but made no move to take it.

He motioned with it. “Go on.”

She took it, and they both watched, waiting for it to disappear.

“Is this some vampire thing? You have to be invited? Or, I guess in this case invite someone else to take it?”

“That’s from my class, not the imprint.”

She handed the rod back to him, but instead of taking it he deactivated the ability and it disappeared.

She looked down at where it had been in her hand. “Rude. What class did you choose?”

He told her. As soon as he started to explain his thought process on how he decided it, she began going through her own interface again.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes. Multitasking. I want another ability. Hmm, nothing under legs… Where would it be?” She chewed her lip, pushing his legs out of the way and taking a seat on the couch with him. “You got your imprint’s parasitic ability on your teeth, so what would a shadow grapnel give?”

He sighed, giving up his explanation. “It’s not parasitic.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Extract blood from others to heal yourself?”

“It didn’t say blood,” Dexter objected.

She leaned in, grabbing his mouth.

“Whoa,” he said, leaning back.

Zoe laughed. “My god, calm down. I’m not trying to kiss you.” She took his chin in her hand and pushed up his upper lip, leaning in and examining his teeth like a dentist might.

After a few moments of study, she let go and nodded, holding out her arm to him. “Go ahead.”

“Go ahead what?”

“Bite me.”

He looked from her forearm to her face. “What?”

“Come on. Let’s see how it works.”

“What if it kills you?”

She shrugged. “I can heal myself.”

“Not if you’re dead.”

“Well then don’t kill me.”

Dexter protested, but eventually gave in. It was easier than arguing all night, which Zoe seemed quite ready to do.

When his newly enlarged teeth—fangs—penetrated her arm, Zoe let out a scream, clamping her free hand over her mouth, eyes squinted and watering against the pain, but didn’t pull away.

Dexter meant to stop, but couldn’t, feeling power enter him. He was draining her. He could feel it. He needed to stop.

He didn’t stop.

Zoe wavered, hand dropping from her mouth as her eyelids drooped.

With an effort of will, seeing his friend about to pass out, Dexter forced his mouth open, feeling like another force was trying to keep it clamped shut, withdrew his new fangs from her, and pulled back.

He stared at her forearm. There were two puncture wounds, though no blood leaked from them.

He hadn’t tasted any blood. He hadn’t tasted anything at all. Then again, his mouth still had that fiery metallic taste, so he wasn’t sure he would be able to taste anything over it.

Zoe fell back against the couch, slouching, lethargically lifted one hand, finger twitching upward, then let out a sigh of relief as her healing ability washed over her. “Wow,” she croaked. “That was… weird.”

“Sorry.”

She shook her head. “I was the one who made you do it.” She let her head roll to face him, weakly pointed a finger at him. “Just don’t do it again.”

He nodded in agreement.

But he wanted to do it again. He wanted to sink his teeth into her again, drink the power or energy or whatever it had been. It made him feel powerful. More than that, hungry.

He gave his head a quick shake, averted his gaze from Zoe’s arm, which he realized he was staring at.

Maybe he shouldn’t use that ability.

Would he have to bite constructs to use it? Strangely, though the idea of sinking his teeth into those monsters should have horrified him, it only served to increase his hunger.

He heard footsteps rushing down the stairs and a moment later Je-won appeared, summoned sword at the ready.

Je-won looked between Zoe and Dexter, the worried look on his face morphing to surprised amusement.

Dexter was momentarily confused, then realized what it must look like, what with him shirtless and only in a pair of boxers, Zoe in Nara’s too-small shorts and t-shirt, the latter of which stopped at Zoe’s ribcage, and the blanket, which he must have kicked off during his nightmare, wadded up and cast off on the floor between them.

“Sorry,” Je-won said, “I heard someone scream and thought—”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Zoe said. “I had him bite me.”

“Uh… I’ll just leave you two alone then.”

Zoe laughed. “He has a new ability.”

Je-won’s demeanor immediately changed. “Really? What is it?”

Dexter explained what he’d gotten and how.

Je-won at least waited till Dexter had finished to go looking through his own interface.

“So you got an ability to drain others from a parasite, and it was under teeth. If an imprint is some kind of fundamental aspect of the construct, what would define a gliding semaphore?”

“Better yet,” Zoe said, “what defines a shadow grapnel? I want a new ability.”

“You were able to apply it even though you had a class?” Je-won asked Dexter as Zoe explored her interface.

Dexter nodded. “Two classes, actually.”

“You picked one?”

“Yeah.” Dexter demonstrated his new forge ability, and also explained how he’d gotten the class, by fixing the idea of what he’d wanted in his mind.

Je-won nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense.” He frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to choose my own class. They drill into you being decisive.” He sighed. “If I can get another ability though…” He began swiping through his interface.

“I think I found it,” he said several moments later. “It’s called glide.”

“What does it do?” Dexter asked.

“Manifest apparatus to increase movement speed and agility,” he read.

“That sounds awesome,” Zoe said. “Gah, where is mine?”

Je-won looked thoughtful. “I’m tempted to try applying it. The only thing holding me back is that I might only be able to apply a single construct imprint. I wish we had another for you to test.”

“Oh sure,” Dexter said, “use me as a guineapig.”

Je-won grinned, then shook his head. “No gain without risk.” He tapped at the air.

“Well, it worked,” he said a moment later.

“What happened to not being decisive?” Dexter asked.

“Old habits. Besides, a better ability is no good if you’re too dead to use it. Glide seems like a movement ability, and that semaphore was fast. Speed is survival. Now to test it out.” He dragged something from one spot in the air to another, twitched his finger.

He suddenly grew about half an inch. “Wow. I can feel them. I can control it with—” He jerked backward abruptly and fell over.

Zoe laughed.

“Are you okay?” Dexter asked.

Je-won shook his head, sitting up and pulling one leg in to look at the bottom of his bare foot. “Yeah. It’s like what the semaphore had. I’ll need to practice.”

Dexter could see opaque spheres on the bottom of Je-won’s other foot. They looked like pearls.

“You moved pretty fast,” Zoe pointed out. “Almost as fast as the first monster you guys fought.”

Je-won twitched one of his fingers and the pearls disappeared. Then he got up from the floor and took a seat in the armchair. “Let’s find yours,” he said to Zoe. “Did you check legs already?”

Zoe nodded.

Je-won thought for a moment. “Well, just go through everything then, starting with head.”

“It will stand out,” Dexter added. “Mine did.”

Je-won nodded in agreement. “Mine as well.”

It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for, as the imprint was under head.

“Shadow shell.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Should I try it?”

“Now you’re hesitant?” Dexter asked with a chuckle.

“I don’t want to look like a turtle.” She eyed his mouth.

Dexter realized he still had the teeth summoned and deactivated the ability. He had to use the hotring this time, rather than being able to do it mentally.

“If you want to wait for something better,” Je-won put in, “that’s fine. But it sounds useful. Any protection you can get at all might be the thing that saves your life.” He tilted his head. “And you might need it soon.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your parents.”

Her expression hardened. “What about them?”

“They’re hurt. That’s why you chose healer.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Am I wrong?”

Zoe sighed. “No. They’re in the hospital. They were hurt. Badly.”

This was all news to Dexter, though it did explain why she hadn’t wanted to tell him why she’d picked the healer class. “Is that where you were sneaking off to?”

She threw up her hands. “Just tell the whole world.”

“You don’t need to sneak off,” Je-won said. “You can use my car.”

“I don’t have a license.”

“I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about anymore.”

“I can drive,” Dexter offered.

She looked at him. “You’d go with me?”

“Of course. Where are they, in the city?” Her parents were always taking trips to NYC.

She nodded. “The nurse who answered my mom’s phone said they were in Brooklyn.”

“Well then,” Je-won said, “you better apply that imprint and test out the ability it gives you.”