MARCH 3, 2022

Heaven.

Hero Shame and his brothers and sisters would go back to that place. After they took the Pure they needed to take, they would return to Heaven.

A Pure was not what Hero was. His siblings were not Pures.

They were on the hunt for a Pure.

It was why Hero and his fellows had slipped into the Freeman base. If bad fortune was not with them, they would find a Pure inside the building. The floor underneath Hero was gray. The walls surrounding him were hard and gray, and maybe hard gray walls surrounded a Pure. Hero hoped for that. The same hands that had held Sydney Shame when she was a baby would assist with the kidnapping.

If there was no Pure in the enemy base, it would bring the Exchangers no agony if they succeeded in killing all the Freemans in the building.

Freemans were in the building. They were outside the building. Hero and his family were going to kill as many Freemans as they could.

Pure Soynites might be in the building, and they should be outside the building. Whatever places Pures hid at, Hero and his family would find them.

One family member was not present.

And the number of the Highs had changed from six to five.

Boris Endman. He was dead.

Hero had killed a Freeman. That Freeman had made the Exchangers learn about Boris Endman's current status.

Dead, deceased, lifeless. Boris was all those things.

Hero and the Soynites he had escaped with could not confirm if a new generation of Highs had been born, but they assumed Theo Majestic, Don Ascend, Ray Fire, Notch Slip, and Tale Wick were still Highs.

If there was a new generation of Highs, and if any of them was a Pure, the Exchangers would take them.

The Exchangers needed to take Pures. No matter how old or young they were, Pures needed to be taken. Ten Pures. The Exchangers needed to take ten Pures. Hero did not own a pair of Soynite X-ray vision goggles, and neither did any of his brothers and sisters. The Exchangers could not see through walls and other inanimate objects. They could not see a Freeman prison wing from their position in the long hall they ran in.

The Shame children had departed from Heaven. The Freemans had made Mitch Shame depart from his own kids, children who had gone to Heaven, children who had left Heaven.

Earth was always far from Heaven. But the Exchangers had a fast spaceship in their possession. The Exchangers owned the fastest Soynite spaceship, and they had put it to good use several times. The great spaceship had transported them off Soy during the invasion, and it had brought them to Washington state. The universe's quickest Soynite spaceship had brought the nomadic Exchangers to several different places.

Heaven was where the Exchangers deserved to live. It was where their father deserved to live.

After struggling through the different horrors in the universe, Hero and the people he cared about had earned the right to live at a pleasant place, a place where no Freemans existed, a place where those pale brutes would not find Mitch Shame.

As long as at least one Freeman was alive, complete peace would not find Hero.

Hero's brothers and sisters were with him. They ran near the teenager, the oldest of Mitch Shame's children.

Hero could not complain of being a solitary person.

The sixteen-year-old boy was the oldest Exchanger. As much as he carried the desire to see Mitch Shame again, the eldest Exchanger's adoptive father was not an Exchanger. The man who had saved Hero Haysen's life at the Ascend Museum did not run with backpacks containing Vamp, at least, and it was not Mitch Shame's responsibility to kidnap ten individual Pures.

Hero Shame, unlike his father, had become an Exchanger.

As for the Shame patriarch himself, the good man only had Freemans to keep him company, Hero assumed. Freeman hospitality was far from good hospitality, so it was important for the Exchangers to do what they needed to do, and it was important for Mitch Shame to stay alive for as long as possible.

Hero needed to live long enough to reunite with the man who had adopted him all those years ago.

Years ago, the running Exchangers had been inside a different building, and that building hadn't been precious to the terrible Freemans. They had shown evidence of that by destroying the Ascend Museum.

The Exchangers ran inside a Freeman base, but saw no Freemans.

But they had seen Freemans outside the large building's gray walls. A Freeman had revealed to Hero and the other Exchangers that Soynite High Boris Endman was dead. That Freeman had informed two other Freemans that two Soynites had entered the base. Even though they hadn't desired it, those three Freemans had been killed by an aspiring kidnapper named Hero Shame.

The alarm in the base continued hurling sound into the Exchangers' ears.

The Exchangers were five teenagers and an eleven-year-old girl, but they could still complete their task. The task was important and necessary. Seeing it to completion needed to be done.

"Wade!" Hero shouted, yelling to his brother.

Hero and Wade didn't stop running next to each other, dashing as the Freemans' alarm assaulted their ears.

"What?!" Wade yelled.

Boris Endman.

He had been Hero's favorite High. The boy called Hero had never taken up residence inside the Soynite royal palace, but a man he had admired and respected had lived in that large and luxurious building. Boris and several other Highs had lived at the palace, and Freemans had destroyed their home.

Freemans had destroyed Hero's home, that house his dead biological parents had lived in. All three Haysens had lived there. The Freemans had broken that home. They had destroyed that home.

Hero Shame knew what it was like to lose a home. He hadn't been able to tell that to Boris Endman.

No one had reunited that High with his granddaughter. Boris, a Soynite ruler, had died. Wherever Alice Endman was, Hero intended on finding her. She needed to be reunited with whatever family she had left.

Where are you, Alice Endman?

A great hero needed to bring Boris Endman's granddaughter back to her family.

Maybe Hero would become that hero.

"They killed Boris Endman!" Hero yelled. "Don't show any mercy to the Freemans!"

"Obviously!" Wade yelled.

Hero didn't inform Wade about his deep desire to find a dead man's missing grandchild. Hero and the Exchangers were on a mission. That mission did not involve finding a teenage girl who had been kidnapped as a baby.

But it wasn't impossible to have more than one goal.

"Good job killing those Pale Monsters, Hero!" Sydney shouted.

The alarm stopped sounding.

"How are you doing, Sydney?" Hero said.

"I still want to find a Pure as soon as possible," Sydney said.

"The feeling is mutual," Hero replied.

"Hero, can you find my mother?!" a voice shouted.

Yet the voice didn't belong to Hero or the other Exchangers. And they were supposed to be the only people who ran in the long hall.

Everett glanced around.

"This just in, we have an invisible stalker," he said. "We'll be right back with Everett Shame News. Stay tuned."

"Everyone, stop running!" Hero shouted. He and the other Exchangers came to a stop, bringing their running to a halt.

Wade brought his attention to the laser pistol in his hand. Hero's brother tended to be more ready to shoot to kill than the other Exchangers, and the eldest sibling preferred for him to not shoot the invisible person who had stalked them.

Not yet, at least.

If the invisible stalker became a serious problem, Wade would have to kill them.

They would have to kill her.

The unseen stalker possessed a female's voice. It wouldn't be odd to assume it belonged to a teenage girl.

Meanwhile, one of the Hero's teenage sisters moved closer to him. With her free hand, Kat clutched his arm.

"It's all right, Kat," Hero said. "To the person stalking us, it's okay. We just want to talk. Reveal yourself, please."

A person appeared, becoming visible.

She was on one knee. A Soynite was what she was. Hero, like all Soynites, could identity other members of his kind by looking at them.

"I'm sorry," the girl said, speaking Soynite. She had spoken Soynite when she talked to Hero. An object sat on the floor near her. Its black material reflected the illumination's bright glow. The girl had dropped it. A Soynite invisibility bracelet. You couldn't touch one without turning invisible. "I'm sorry for not revealing myself sooner."

The girl straightened.

"It's okay," Sydney said.

Wade aimed his gun.

The girl, the follower, raised her hands in surrender. The light cloaked her brown hair as she trembled. Hero sneered. It had come because his taller brother had chosen to point a gun at a girl who might be innocent. It hadn't come because the possibly innocent girl had offended him.

"No," Wade said. "It's not okay. Hero, this stalker might be a Lock Tannis supporter. She followed us. And she might try to kill us."

"He's right, Hero," Macy said, crossing her arms, scowling. "Wade, kill her."

"Stop!" Hero shouted. "No one is going to kill anyone!"

Kat released his arm. She moved closer to Wade's back, siding with the Exchanger who kept his gun pointed at the follower's face.

Hero stepped into the space between Wade's pistol and the follower. Wade didn't lower the gun.

A blue laser could tear through Hero's forehead, blast through his brain, which had granted him the power to make bad choices and make good ones.

"Even if she isn't one of the evil Soynites, she can't find out why we're here," Wade said.

The mission.

Ten Pures needed to become ten kidnapping victims. Outsiders who weren't Exchangers weren't allowed to become aware of what their mission was. The girl was an outsider. And she was not an Exchanger.

Heaven's people wouldn't like that.

Regardless, Hero kept the girl behind him. No one needed to be shot and killed. That only needed to happen to the Freemans. And to the crueler Soynites, like the ones who favored double triangles and Vamp.

"You're not going to shoot me, brother," Hero said.

"Lower your gun, idiot," Macy said, throwing her words at Wade.

"Wade, put the gun-" Hero started saying.

"Kill them!" a voice shouted, speaking Freeman, a language Hero would rather not hear inside a building that contained Freeman who wanted him dead.

The voice had come from behind Hero and the unknown girl. That meant Wade, Macy, Sydney, Everett, and Kat could see the Freemans, but Hero and the girl could not.

Sydney had shown the brown-haired, brown-eyed girl precious kindness, but the Freemans would not do the same. Wade and Macy shared the urge to kill the girl, but the Freemans planned on engulfing all the Soynites in death.

Even though he wore a jacket, Hero's skin erupted with goosebumps as a chill slithered through him. Something worse than a chill would slip into his body if he didn't run soon.

Hero grabbed the girl's hand, then rushed past Wade and the rest of his non-absent family.

A mother. The girl needed to find her mother.

Hero needed to find his father, the man who was Sydney Shame's only living biological parent.

The Soynite pendant Hero wore swung without control as he ran. He looked at the girl. She didn't wear a Soynite pendant.

What was happening behind the two?

Hero looked back.

A Freeman mob engaged the boy's family, opening fire, trying to kill. Sydney, on her hands and knees, crawled toward the invisibility bracelet.

Invisibility bracelets would be helpful when performing a kidnapping.

Wade aimed his gun at the girl. He didn't point it at Sydney. He pointed the laser weapon at the girl whose hand Hero held.

A blue laser beam rushed out Wade's laser pistol. It shot past the space a few inches above the girl's head.

She screamed.

A laser tore through Wade's arm. That made Wade drop the weapon.

"It's okay!" Hero said, talking to the girl who ran beside him. "My brother got shot!"

Hero and the girl rounded a corner, still holding hands. The hall they rushed in now didn't have Freemans lurking in it.

Good.

Hero had seen a laser beam tear into his brother's arm, and his siblings had been forced into a fight with huge enemies, but the boy was unharmed. And the photograph of Boris Endman and baby Alice Endman stayed in his pocket, undamaged and safe.

The boy named Hero didn't know the girl's name, but he had left his family but kept the girl with him.

"What's your name?!" Hero said.

"Zoey!" the girl replied.

They ran through several more halls. In one of them, Hero spotted a door. He released Zoey's hand, swung the door open, then stepped into the room. He aimed his gun, glanced around the space.

No enemies.

The ceiling light in the room provided illumination, light that shone against the bare floor. Painted on the floor was a red Freeman sword. A black sofa was positioned near the wall ahead Hero, and a small table was in front of it.

It seemed as if Hero and Zoey had entered a lounge room.

Zoey closed the door.

"Are you armed, Zoey?" Hero asked.

"Yes," Zoey answered.

Great.

"My mother is going to be mad at me," Zoey said. She bent over, then brought her hands to her knees. "The invisibility bracelet is hers. I left it on the floor."

"I saw my little sister trying to get it," Hero said. "She has it. Her name is Sydney, by the way."

Zoey let out a relieved sigh. She straightened, then rubbed her arms with her hands.

"I know," Zoey said. "I saw you and your family when we were still outside. You were all walking to this place. I needed help finding my own family, so I followed. I'm sixteen years old, by the way."

"What's your mother's name?" Hero said.

"Misty," Zoey said. "Misty Windsore. I'm Zoey All. All used to be my mother's last name, but she married my stepfather. His name is Boone Windsore. His daughter, my stepsister, is a High."

Boone Windsore, the man Zoey had mentioned, had a daughter who had been made into a High.

"What?" Hero said. "There's a new generation of Highs?"

Zoey nodded.

"Theo Majestic turned them into Highs," Zoey said. "That happened during the invasion. My stepfather watched it happen. He said goodbye to Lovely, his daughter, then he watched Theo turn her into a High. He met my mother that same night. While Boone was living with us in our spaceship, he fell in love with my mother. But I haven't seen him in a long time. I live with my mother and her best friend. I never met my stepsister, but I want to."

Zoey was a long-haired stepchild. Mitch Shame had never married Hero's mother. They had never even entered a romantic relationship with each other. Mitch had adopted the son of the Haysen matriarch. That was the truth. It was a truth as hard as the gray floor underneath Hero's shoes.

Hero had never known what it was like to be a stepchild.

And he had never met Boris Endman. Because of whoever killed that former High, Hero would never meet the ancient man he had supported and respected.

Who killed Boris Endman?

Who took Alice Endman? Did the same person who took Alice double as the same person who killed her father's father?

"You will," Hero said. "I never met Boris Endman, and I never will. But I'm going to find his granddaughter. And I'm going to help you find your mother. I promise. I'm looking for my father. He's my adoptive father. His only biological child is Sydney. I'm not related to any of my siblings."

Hero was going to find former High Boris Endman's missing granddaughter, who had been kidnapped.

Before that happened, or after that happened, Hero would participate in a kidnapping.

Hero would rather punch Alice's kidnapper than help them, but he intended to kidnap a Soynite in the future.

The irony shot into Hero like that laser had shot into his brother.

"Zoey, what does your stepfather look like?" Hero said.

"He has orange hair," Zoey said. "Green eyes. His daughter has orange hair and green eyes, too. Don't forget. Her name is Lovely. But she probably changed it. She went to Earth."

Earth.

Hero's own home planet, Soy, was far from him. It was far from Lovely, who was what he was. They were Soynites.

The Exchangers did not plan on staying on Earth forever. Just because Lovely had gone to Earth, it didn't mean she was on it like her stepsister.

One of the six High children was orange-haired and green-eyed.

Was she a Pure?

How would Zoey react if Hero and his siblings kidnapped her stepsister?

Hero watched Zoey walk toward the sofa in the room. She walked. They didn't have to run. Hero didn't doubt the other Exchangers would prevent the Freeman mob from slaughtering them in the hall their eldest brother and Zoey had left them in.

The Exchanger had chosen to leave with a stranger and part with his family. Mitch Shame had been forced to leave with Freemans, his captors. But his son refused to let his siblings kill an innocent Soynite.

Hero would help Zoey reunite with her mother, then they would depart.

Ten kidnappings would happen. No matter what happened to Zoey, Hero would help Wade and the others take ten Pures.

Zoey accompanied Hero, but the teenager didn't know how long that would last. Considering the bitter truth he had spent more than enough time dealing with horrible Soynites who weren't part of his family, it wasn't unpleasant to know Zoey.

"You're going to see Lovely," Hero said.

Zoey sat on the sofa.

"We're also going to find your mother," Hero said. "I just wish we had a Bloodhound on our side. A Bloodhound would be a lot of help."

Zoey nodded. She gestured to Hero with her hand.

"You saved my life," she said. "You're a good person. Your brother was going to kill me, but you grabbed my hand and ran with me."

Hero shrugged.

"You shouldn't call me a good person," he said. If Zoey knew what Hero planned on doing, she might not call him a good person. "Anyway, I'm not going to let my siblings kill you. I'm a busy person. I have a job to do. But I have time to reunite a girl with her mother."

Hero looked at the gun in his hand. Wade had tried to use his own gun to kill Zoey, but his murder attempt hadn't been successful. After glancing at the door, Hero moved closer to the small table, placed his laser pistol on it. He pulled the photograph from his pocket. It displayed a smiling Boris Endman as he held his son's daughter, who wore a Soynite pendant in the picture.

"Here," Hero said, handing the picture to Zoey. "Look at that. It's Boris Endman and his granddaughter, Alice Endman. Family is important. I lost my first family, but I gained a new one. Alice was taken away from her loved ones, but I'm going to get her back to them."

While Zoey stared at the photograph, Hero lifted his weapon off the table's hard surface. He headed closer to the door, then pressed his ear against it.

Laser beam fire sounded in the distance. The Exchangers had brought laser pistols. The Freemans Hero had seen had been armed with laser guns. Freemans tried killing Hero's family, and the boy himself stayed safe in a room that Zoey All sat in.

"My siblings are going to live," Hero said. He put the gun on the floor, then took off his backpack, a backpack containing syringes filled with purple Vamp, liquid that would help during the future kidnapping. But Zoey did not need to know that. Hero lowered the backpack to the floor, exposing his jacket's back. On it was Soynite text and an image of a building that had been destroyed long ago. "When we see them again, I'm going to make sure they don't try to murder you."

"You were at the Ascend Museum?" Zoey asked.

Yes.

Hero had been at the Ascend Museum. That building had morphed into the building his biological parents had been murdered inside. The museum's owner had been friends with Theo Majestic's wife, a woman named Lilly. Before the invasion, she had spent multiple periods of time away from the Soynite public. Hero didn't know why.

"Yes," Hero said, keeping his back turned. "I was. My birth parents got killed there. It was a massacre. Me and my family managed to escape in the fastest Soynite spaceship in the universe, though. We were fortunate. The owner, Land Preachman, died there, by the way. He was killed by the same race of people who tried to kill us in that hall. Land was friends with Lilly Majestic, Theo Majestic's wife. I was thinking about how she would disappear from the Soynite public. Before the invasion, of course."

Hero turned to Zoey, who held the photograph the Exchanger boy had handed to her.

"I think Lilly was pregnant," Zoey said, tapping a finger against the sofa's blackness. Hero nodded, as if he had known Lilly had gotten pregnant before. Zoey's theory made sense. "Multiple times, I think. She went away from the public several times, but her husband never did the same for too long. Only his wife did that. Soynites can lie. Theo lied to us. He does have children."

"He had to lie," Hero said. "If your theory is true, it makes sense that Theo would keep his children from the Soynite public. The Freemans would've found out about it. Theo didn't want them to harm his kids. That's understandable."

While she stayed seated on the dark sofa, Zoey leaned forward. She placed the photograph on the table.

"And Boris Endman would've known about Theo's children," Zoey said. "He lived with him and Lilly."

"You're pretty smart, Zoey," Hero said. He grinned. He respected Zoey. He had respected Boris. "You're with us now. You're with me and my brothers and sisters. We need smart Soynites on our side."

Zoey stood.

"Can I hug you?" she said.

Hero smiled, then nodded his head, grateful he and Zoey no longer ran. The Freeman mob had tried killing them in a hall they had run out of. The pale enemies had failed. Pale Monsters was what Sydney called them, and Hero would hug his youngest sibling in the future, the uncertain future, the same future that was covered in hope.

Zoey went near Hero, then she put her slim arms around him. Hero hugged her back and shut his blue eyes. The Exchanger was not tangled in a vicious battle, but his heart hammered in his chest, as if it were a drum. Due to Zoey's warm body being so close to him, Hero's body temperature was higher than usual.

Hero had seen an eccentric cult leader, fierce Freemans, and other undesirable people, but the person he hugged was not Lock Tannis, Alice Endman's kidnapper, or the Freeman who had revealed Boris Endman's fate to the Exchangers.

Zoey All was Zoey All.

"Thank you," Zoey said. "Hero."

"You're welcome," Hero replied. "I really do hope you find your mother."

Sound erupted. Vicious red tore through the door. The red laser beam missed the heads of Hero and Zoey. The hug died. As Zoey stumbled back while she hoped to prevent her own death, Hero turned.

The door swung open.

Hero's gun lay discarded on the floor, a few feet away but too far.

The enemy's gun stayed in enemy hands.

The Exchanger youth was tall, but the armed Freeman stood taller. He took aim.

Sound erupted. Again.

Still holding the laser rifle, the Freeman blinked. He collapsed, a gaping hole in his head as a blue laser beam blasted through the gray wall across the room.

"I told you I was armed," Zoey said.

She wielded a weapon. It was a gun, blue and Soy-borne. It had fired the laser that was the reason why a nearby Freeman bled from his head.

"You saved my life, Zoey," Hero said. "Thank you."

Zoey took aim, fired. The Freeman released his hold on his weapon, twitched, then stopped breathing. His flesh turned into smoke. Hero would rather not die from smoke inhalation. He assumed Zoey shared the same desire.

They moved.

The two Soynites put distance between themselves and the dead Freeman's remains. Killing Freemans brought smoke, and the kill Zoey had made was no different.

Soynite people were situated in the Freeman base, but so were Freemans themselves. Hero's universe was limited to the enemies' building. For now.

Hero's ally Zoey had killed a Freeman, but it had needed to be done. It had been necessary. Just like how killing the three Freemans outside the building had been necessary. With each Freeman Hero had killed, the universe had become a better place.

Laughter rushed into Hero's ears, familiar laughter.

"That's Wade!" Hero said. He picked up his backpack, put it on. He looked at his laser gun, lifted it off the floor. The Exchanger rushed closer to the small table, grabbed the photograph displaying two people who weren't related to him, then he moved it into his pocket. "Come on!"

Hero needed to find his bigger younger brother.

After leaving the room, Hero and Zoey followed a trail of discarded Freeman belongings, then they found Wade in a nearby hall. Freemans were with him.

Many Freemans.

The Freemans surrounded Wade, who no longer bled from the arm that had been shot. The pale enemies wielded swords.

Laughing, Wade buried a red dagger into a Freeman's chest, then he turned, ducked under a sharp sword, and slit open the Freeman's abdomen. Intestines spilled out.

Hero stomped the urge to press a hand against his own abdomen.

Wade finished off the disemboweled Freeman.

More Freemans entered the area through a neighboring hall. They blocked the path to Wade.

Hero's brother continued laughing.

He laughed as if dozens of Freemans were not attempting to take his life. If only Hero could laugh like that when facing a Freeman horde.

Murderous intent coursed through the Freeman mob, but it also spread through Wade Shame.

"Wade is tough!" Hero said. He slapped Zoey's arm with his free hand, then dashed toward the hall the Freeman warriors had emerged from. "Follow me!"

The Freemans hadn't noticed Hero or Zoey. Lock Tannis's pale warriors were drawn to the laughing Soynite called Wade Shame.

If Wade was not tough enough to handle a Freeman mob, Hero would regret it later. But the blond-haired Exchanger had made a promise to Zoey, and getting her out of the building alive was almost as important as the kidnapping mission.

Wade had tried murdering Zoey.

And Zoey hadn't deserved the horror that had visited her when Wade aimed his weapon at her. Because good fortune had embraced her, Zoey hadn't been shot in the head by Wade.

Zoey lived.

Wade lived.

A dead Wade would mean the warrior boy wouldn't be able to make another attempt to kill Zoey, but Wade's death would shove uninvited agony into Hero.

A distraught Hero was not what the Exchangers needed. It was not what Mitch Shame needed.

That father's capture had caused a series of events. Because of those events, Hero ran inside a Freeman base, away from his brothers and sisters. Wade was nearby, laughing as he battled an enemy mob by himself.

Not destroying the Freemans had cost the Soynites their planet.

Not reuniting Zoey with her mother would cost Hero the love he had for himself.

Love.

It was the main reason why Hero, Wade, Macy, Everett, Kat, and Sydney had agreed to become future kidnappers.

Mitch Shame's absence was real and true, Hero knew. The man with the dark blond hair and blue eyes deserved to be with Hero, deserved to be with his family. Like how Zoey deserved to be with her mother.

Hero needed to find Alice Endman. He needed to find Zoey All's mother.

He needed to find his own father, not his first father, whose life had drained from his body inside the Ascend Museum. Sydney's biological father, Hero's adoptive father, possessed the unfortunate status of being a missing man.

Hero needed to find ten Pures. He had slipped into a huge building the Freemans owned, ready to find a Pure Soynite inside it. He had found Zoey, who had followed Hero and his loved ones. Zoey had left an invisibility bracelet in a hall within the building, but Hero assumed the youngest Exchanger had equipped herself with it.

The sixteen-year-old Exchanger loved that girl. He did. She was one of the several Soynites who carried the right to escape the Freeman base alive.

Hero.

Wade.

Macy.

Sydney.

Everett.

Kat.

Zoey.

Those seven people did not deserve to die in enemy territory.

The Freemans in the base were in their own territory. They were not in enemy territory. They were not inside a Soynite base. But Hero and the Exchangers who had come with him were ready to kill those Freemans who were in their own territory. The building belonged to Lock Tannis's warriors. It was where they needed to die. It was where they needed to get killed.

Hero and his family would kill Freemans. Even Kat would kill her first Freeman. Her brother Hero hadn't been born as a Freeman killer, but it was what he had changed into. The same transformation would happen to Kat.

Kat was sixteen years old, but she could become a warrior.

Zoey was a warrior. She was a warrior and a pleasant girl. It would be good if more Soynites were like her.

If Zoey's theory was true, several of Theo Majestic's children had been born. As he ran, Hero couldn't confirm if his former High had produced children with his wife. But he hoped for it. He hoped multiple people who had been born from Theo Majestic and Lilly Majestic shared the same universe as he did.

If Theo and Lilly had brought children into the universe, Hero planned on finding them, meeting them.

If one of those children was a Pure, Hero would kidnap them.

Pures needed to be taken. The Exchangers needed to take them. If Hero met a person who was a Pure and a child of Theo and Lilly, the Exchanger would make that person become one of the ten Pures he had been tasked with kidnapping.

Unbeknownst to Hero, the Exchangers' tenth victim would be Theo Majestic's third child, Hailey Majestic.