The remainder of the evening and the next day was a mixture of mostly failures with one positive thing happening. For starters for all the time they spent out on the Quad they didn’t find a single person with a dungeon mark on them. Even though they stayed out until well after the dance ended nothing came out of their efforts and the three of them went back to their dorms frustrated but determined to conquer the second floor of the dungeon the next day.

Like Ethan predicted he neither met nor saw Alex for the rest of that night or the next morning. Alex was probably at the hospital in Carmel with his brother and hopefully James was recovering alright. For all the issues Ethan had with Alex her certainly didn’t wish i’ll on his brother for it, besides the one time he’d seen James before the attack the guy had been telling Alex off for how he was behaving.

For lunch he met both Bella and Quin in the cafeteria and for once he didn’t even mind that the latter was there. They’d need to put all three of their minds together if they were to finally clear the dungeon after lunch.

Upon reaching the dungeon they asked it about The Black, a name that was unfortunately sticking despite the fact that Ethan was uncomfortable with it. In typical fashion for the dungeon it game them a vague answer about how their have been many different chosen over the years and that it could not tell them any specific information about others.

Already feeling annoyed Ethan led the other two to the elevator and took it down to the now wearily familiar second floor. They spent hours working methodically through the maze of tunnels and bunkers and still ended up back at the elevator. With animosity starting to rise between the three of them they once again started over though this time with much less patience.

It wasn’t to be. Even with the extra hours put in and careful attention to detail being paid to everything they were still missing something. By the time they stumbled upon the elevator for a second time Ethan had already snapped at both girls multiple times and come seriously close to punching Quin. He’d restrained himself, but the stupid girl was so freaking stubborn and just didn’t listen anyone else. If she thought that she should do something she was going to do it regardless if everyone else on the planet objected. It was infuriating.

With nerves raw and tensions running high they called it a day and silently seething took the elevator back up to the basement of Hinan Hall where Ethan yelled an insult at the dungeon before the exited. As if mocking him the dungeon didn’t respond.

When they finally got out to the Quad it was dark and well past dinner which soured his mood even further. For the second day in a row he’d managed to miss dinner and they’d made no progress on anything today.

Quickly he muttered goodbye to the other two before sulking off back towards Salamander House and his dorm. God he hoped Alex was still gone because if the kid made one snarky comment about how poor Ethan was he was going to lose it.

Just like everything so far that day though, what Ethan wanted, and what reality gave him were two completely different things because when he reached his dorm he heard the familiar sound of aliens screaming as they were blasted by automatic gunfire coming from Alex’s TV which assuredly meant the other boy was back.

Taking a deep breath and steadying himself he opened the door hoping Alex would simply ignore him and act like Ethan didn’t exist. That at least would allow Ethan to block him out and relax a little.

Alex didn’t ignore him and instead surprisingly paused his game when he heard Ethan enter the room and close the door behind him.

“Hey Ethan, do you have a minute?” Alex asked actually standing up and turning around to face him.

“Sure,” Ethan said feeling his hand curling up into a fist and bracing himself for the fight that was about to happen.

“I uh,” Alex started looking uncomfortable and struggling to maintain eye contact with him. “I uh wanted to thank you for saving James. He told me what you did for him and that if you hadn’t come along he might have, well…”

He trailed off still looking uncomfortable and clearly didn’t want to finish that statement. It took Ethan almost a full minute to not only register his words but for the meaning to sink in. Was Alex actually thanking him? The other boy hadn’t shown a hint of kindness towards Ethan since they’d first met and now he was thanking Ethan. Was Ethan actually unconscious down in that dungeon still in reality and this was just a weird dream he was having?

“He would have done the same for me,” Ethan finally managed to say. “I don’t think anyone would have left someone out there to just bleed out.”

Sighing and scratching his cheek Alex said, “Don’t be so modest. You did help him, and no not everyone would have done that. Hell you even pulled off your own shirt and gave it to him to staunch the bleeding so thank you for saving my brother’s life.”

Finally it was clear to Ethan that Alex was being serious and he felt himself relax before saying, “It was just the right thing to do. How is James doing?”

“He’s actually doing really well,” Alex replied smiling. “They said the wound was actually more shallow than it first appeared and it didn’t do any major damage internally. He had to get stitches and have a blood transfusion to replace some of the blood he lost but he’s already back in his dorm resting.”

“Wow, that’s good,” Ethan said smiling as well. “I’m glad he’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah, me too,” Alex replied before his face because serious once again and he added, “I wanted to apologize to you. I know I’ve been a colossal jerk since you showed up and I haven’t been very nice or fair to you. It’s not your fault that you’re less fortunate than I am and you’ve done nothing to deserve the way I’ve treated you. I’ve been a poor Christian and wanted to let you know that I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted and that going forward I hope we can get along better.”

For the second time in the last few minutes Ethan was left stunned. Not only had Alex thanked him for saving his brother but now he’d actually apologized for the way he’d been treating Ethan. Was the world ending?

“Thanks for that, I really appreciate it, but you should really apologize to Bella too,” Ethan said stiffly.

“I plan on it, I know I’ve been awful to her too,” Alex said and then added with a smile, “and unlike you she’s actually a really nice person.”

“Hey,” Ethan exclaimed defensively causing Alex to laugh which in turn caused Ethan to smile and laugh and just like that they found themselves becoming friends.

“One more thing, well really two,” Alex said walking over to his bed and picking something up. “I got you this to replace the one you ruined.”

He handed a new white polo to Ethan which was easily the most expensive piece of clothing Ethan now owned as he couldn’t fail to notice the expensive brand on the tag.

“I got the size out of your wardrobe, I hope you don’t mind,” Alex said sheepishly. “When I was in there I noticed you didn’t have winter school clothes so I got you think as well as a thank you for saving my brother’s life and as an apology for the way I’ve treated you.”

He held up a navy blue sweater emblazoned with the Hinan H on the left side of the breast.

“I got it at the bookstore so if you don’t like it feel free to exchange it for something else,” Alex added blushing slightly.

“No it’s fine,” Ethan muttered feeling stunned now for the third time. “Thank you, I really appreciate that man. I like it a lot.”

That actually took care of two problems Ethan mostly was pushing out of his mind because he hadn’t wanted to saddle his mother with those expenses. The whole point of him going to this school, at least in his mind, was that it would take the burden of his living expenses off his mother and Jane.

Speaking of Jane, he hoped that she was doing well. This was her first year of middle school and he remembered kids being especially cruel during his sixth grade year. Still, when he’d talked to her on the phone last she sounded good and said she had a lot of friends which was a good sign since he was hours away and couldn’t do much to help her.

The scar on his arm tingled as he thought about this. Well it probably more in his mind than actually an itch, but he still scratched it out of habit. Hopefully Jane could avoid getting picked on by the rich kids and find herself a loyal group of friends. Friends were something that Ethan struggled with all throughout middle school and if he was being honest with himself into high school. He really only had Bella as a good friend but she was worth more than ten other people.

Jane would have to fight her battles on her own, but unlike Ethan everyone seemed to warm up to her immediately. She was funny and sweet like their mother, two qualities that seemed to have skipped over Ethan. God he hoped that didn’t take after their worthless father. No, he’d never abandon his family like that man had. Even if he had to use every bit of willpower he had he’d never be like that man.

“Is everything alright?” Alex asked drawing Ethan away from his thoughts. “You’re kind of staring off into space with this weird look on your face.”

“Oh sorry,” Ethan replied slightly embarrassed. “This whole thing just had me thinking about my little sister that’s all.”

“You have a sister?” Alex asked. “How old is she?”

“She’s eleven,” Ethan answered and for some reason proceeded to tell Alex all about her.

“She sounds like a good kid,” Alex said and then added, “Hey, do you want to play? I’ve got an extra controller.”

“Uh sure,” Ethan replied, “but you should know I’ve only played video games a couple times before.”

“No worries, pull up your chair,” Alex said sitting back down in his chair and grabbing the second controller off of the TV stand. “This game is pretty simple, all you have to do is point and shoot the aliens.”

“Okay,” Ethan said accepting the controller from Alex and feeling a nervous excitement run through him as pulled his desk chair over in from of the TV.

Over the next couple of minutes Alex proceeded to explain the controls to Ethan and they sounded simple enough. The objective of the game seemed to be even simply with the goal basically being to murder all of the aliens before they murdered you. That was leaving out a few key details of the plot but Ethan wasn’t really bothering to read the story.

Ethan turned out to be terrible at the game but it was the most fun he’d had in a long time. Wow he really needed to get one of these things. Alex more than made up for Ethan as they fought off wave after wave demonic looking aliens. Ethan figured that with more practice he could be just as good as Alex but right now the gulf between them was rather large.

While they played, in between laughing at Ethan’s ineptitude, Ethan filled him in on everything that happened over the last couple of days, from him following the Black to their complete failure to conquer the second floor of the dungeon.

“I can’t believe the person who attacked James was wearing dungeon armor,” Alex said for the second time.

“It shocked me too, but apparently we’re not the only ones who’ve been chosen, marked, or whatever by that place,” Ethan replied once again dying to a burst of plasma fire coming from an especially grotesque looking alien on screen.

“You need to take cover when he does that,” Alex instructed showing him exactly how he was supposed to have fought the creature. “And the dungeon didn’t give you any information at all about this Black?”

“No, it was it’s usual helpful vague self,” Ethan said shrugging.

“That figures,” Alex muttered deep in thought. “I agree with you though, we’ve got to get to the bottom of this now, for my brother if nothing else and I think you all are on the right track, there’s got to be some reason the Black was going to the Point.”

“Yeah, the problem is the police made it very clear that they were cordoning off the point during my meeting with Tanaka, who by the way totally acted like I was somehow responsible for what happened,” Ethan said a bit irritated.

“Ben says he’s like that with a lot of students, so I wouldn’t take it personally,” Alex replied chucking a grenade a blowing up several smaller aliens in front of him. “Apparently he’s not very good with students for being the head of a school.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” Ethan replied feeling slightly better about it. “Still we’ve got to figure out a way to get up to the Point as soon as possible to investigate, and be done with those stupid concrete tunnels on the second floor.”

“The dungeon is just going to be trial and error over time,” Alex said shrugging. “It might take time, but we’ll figure it out, especially with all four of us working at it. If I’m being honest I wasn’t really that motivated before and was kind of just going along because Quin forced me too.”

Laughing Ethan replied, “That was exactly what Bella and I were doing too.”

“Still, we’ll get it, it’s just a matter of time,” Alex said thinking. “As for the Point, that should actually be easier. In a couple of days they’re likely to pull most of the police away from it as Misty Oaks doesn’t exactly have a large force and can’t afford to have all of their manpower stationed there. I’d guess by Tuesday, they’ll probably only have one patrol car stationed in that parking lot with a cop or two sitting inside bored out of their minds. That shouldn’t be too hard to sneak around in my opinion.”

“If they catch me up there, Tanaka might just lose his mind,” Ethan muttered though he felt himself already moving towards Alex’s side.

“So don’t get caught,” Alex said with a small laugh, “besides if you do, I’ll just say I dragged you up there to investigate because I wanted to figure out what happened to my brother. We’ll be fine. They’ll give us slaps on the wrist but ultimately forgive a kid who is just trying to understand why his brother was stabbed.”

“That’s uh, a little maniacal,” Ethan said having a newfound appreciation for the other boy’s intelligence.

“Eh, you’ve got to use the advantages you get,” Alex said smiling and then added, “besides it’s not a complete lie. I really do want to get to the bottom of this. This Black stabbed my brother. I can’t just let that go.”

This Black? Ethan thought, God that sounds so bad. I’m never going to be comfortable with that term to describe this guy. Unfortunately for him, Alex, like Quin, seemed to have no issues calling James’ attacker that. For Alex it was just probably logical.

“Okay so Tuesday night we’re sneaking around that patrol car?” Ethan asked feeling a surge of adrenaline shoot through him.

“Yup, so I guess we should let Bella and Quin know,” Alex said pausing the game and pulling out his cell phone to text Quin. “You and Bella should really get phones, that would make communication so much easier.”

In response Ethan gave him a look that asked, “seriously?”

“Alright, relax, I know you can’t,” Alex said trying to placate Ethan. “It’s all good, we’ll just tell Bella in person. I know you see your girlfriend everyday so it’s not a problem.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Ethan replied automatically.

“Whatever you say dude,” Alex said laughing. “I’ve never heard of a guy spending as much time alone with a girl as you do with her if they’re not together, unless you’re gay or something.”

“I’m not gay,” Ethan replied a little too forcefully, “and she’s not my girlfriend. We’re just friends. We’re not interested in each other like that.”

Alex raised a questioning eyebrow which caused Ethan to push his shoulder gently and mutter, “shut up and lets shoot some aliens.”

“Don’t you mean I’m going to shoot some aliens and you’re going to get shot by said aliens?” Alex asked unpausing the game and laughing.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re the worst?” Ethan asked laughing and unfortunately dying on screen just like Alex predicted.

Over the next two days Ethan and Alex filled the girls in on their plan of sneaking up to the point past the police car on Tuesday. Alex also apologized to Bella as well which Ethan was glad to see. As always she was super gracious about the whole thing and seemed to be genuinely touched.

After dinner Tuesday the four of them gathered together by the on the pathway between the soccer field and the tennis courts. The plan was to head north from the baseball field into the forest that came down the mountains on the north side of town and then walk west until they were forced to out towards the Point where the forest continued around the path the city made there. This way they’d have the cover of trees and would hopefully be much harder to spot by the police that were stationed there.

Reach the forested slopes north of the baseball field was rather simple especially since at this time of year they didn’t have to worry about the field being used. Traversing the slopes and navigating through the trees toward the Point was another story, however, as both Alex and Bella really struggled with their balance.

All of the training Quin and Ethan were putting in on their legs seemed to be paying off and the two of them had a much easier time maintaining their balancing and walking sideways across the awkward angle of the slope.

“How do legs that skinny even support your body?” Quin asked catching Alex by the wrist as he once again started to stumble. “You literally have almost no muscle on them at all.”

“Yes, well some of us spend more time training our brains than our bodies,” Alex muttered defensively.

“You alright Bella?” Ethan asked watching his friend take tentative steps along the slope.

“Yeah I’m fine,” Bella replied. “It’s just taking awhile to get used to walking like this.”

“Take your time, we’re not in a rush, and it would be silly for you to get hurt out here,” he said.

“At least I have A’s in all of my classes,” Alex snapped drawing Ethan’s attention back to where Quin was still helping Alex and apparently lecturing him in the process. “You know, because academics are our primary goal at school. Not that you were smart enough to figure that out on your own.”

Good to see that I’m not the only one who’s skin she gets under Ethan thought smiling. Quin was just rude, always saying things in a way that you weren’t quite sure if she was just stating something or making fun of you. It was hard to tell.

She just frowned slightly at Alex holding him in position until he was able to steady himself without her help. She showed a remarkable bit of restraint in not yelling at Alex, but then Ethan never had seen her get angry.

The rest of the walk until the area narrowed and they closed in on the Point was a struggle but with Ethan and Quin steadying the other two the whole group managed to make it in one piece and without alerting more than a couple birds.

He could see the cops now. There were two of them sitting in a single car and looking about as bored as people could be. Alex nailed that one, Ethan thought, but then the other boy was the smartest kid he knew.

They’d need to move very carefully through the thinning trees while trying not to alert the police who if they were watching the forest carefully wouldn’t be able to miss them. It wasn’t quiet sunset yet and this would have been better if it were. Actually, no it wouldn’t have. Then they’d just be stumbling around in the dark walking right into every tree in the forest because if they turned a light on that would be a dead giveaway to anyone else that someone was there.

“I think we should do this one at a time,” Ethan whispered. “It’s less likely to draw their attention that way.”

“Agreed,” Alex said eyeing the narrow area of woods they’d have to walk through until they could get further up the hill leading to the Point.

“Quin why don’t you go first, then Bella, then Alex, and I’ll go last,” Ethan suggested.

Quin nodded her head in agreement and slowly began creeping along moving along the sloping incline that led to the point. As always she was sure footed and every step she took served a purpose. Honestly, she was the person Ethan was worried the least about and she made without the slightest problem.

Bella went next and she moved slower. She wasn’t sure footed and seemed determined not to take the wrong step and fall over. This was probably a good thing because, though it took her way too long to reach Quin, she did so without either one of the cops looking up from their cell phone screens.

One down, one to go, Ethan thought. He knew if they could get Bella and Alex up they were home free which is why he suggested they go in this order. Alex was next and already starting to creep along towards the Point. He looked nervous and every step he took caused the air to catch in the back of Ethan’s throat.

Moving slowly, almost slower than Bella had, Alex inched toward the Point. After a couple minutes Ethan breathed out realizing he’d been holding his breath. It was going to take Alex another five minutes to reach the place where Quin and Bella were but the other boy seemed to be getting more confident as he went and Ethan was now certain he was going to make it without an issue.

Of course he was wrong, for as soon as Ethan had this thought Alex’s toe clipped a rock hidden underneath leaves and he sprawled forward crashing down on the slope. Oh crap, Ethan thought as he felt his body moving on its own. He was running towards where Alex lay stupefied, praying that the police hadn’t just noticed the crash.

Hardly noticing the loose leaves or the angle of the slope he dug in with each stride pushing his powerful legs down hard against the ground to give him stability. At least all of his training was good for something.

Upon getting within a few yards of Alex he slid foot first towards the other boy as if he were going for a sliding tackle on the soccer pitch. His shoe slid past Alex and he grabbed the other boy around the midriff and began pulling him towards the nearest tree.

“Alex, I need you to help,” Ethan hissed at the other boy. “I’m not that strong and we need to get out of their line of sight now.”

“You should probably spend more time building up those arms than reading books,” Alex muttered.

Ethan swallowed his laughter desperately, knowing that if he burst out into laughter it was all over. Instead he focused all of his will of lifting and pulling the other boy towards the nearest tree.

“What are you doing?” they heard a masculine voice ask in the distance.

“I thought I saw something move over there,” another male voice responded.

Right as the voice answered the two of them slid behind the tree panting silently and praying that the police didn’t take a walk over here.

“It was probably just a squirrel,” The first voice said. “Those woods are full of them.”

“Yeah, okay,” the second voice replied, though he didn’t sound convinced.

“Look if you want to go look, by all means go out there and look,” the first voice said, “but either way shut the door, you’re letting all the AC out.”

Oh crap, Ethan thought. We’re screwed. Tanaka is going to lose it when these two drag me into his office.

“Eh, you’re probably right, it was probably just a squirrel,” The second voice said and they heard the sound of a door closing a moment later.

For a minute the two of them continued to sit frozen until Ethan was finally brave enough to peek around the side of the tree to confirm that the cop had in fact returned to the vehicle. They gave it another couple of minutes before the two of them crawled the remaining distance from the tree they were behind to where Bella and Quin waited anxiously at the top of the hill leading to the Point.

“Alright, that went pretty smoothly,” Alex said standing up and brushing himself off. “What now?”

Ethan rolled his eyes in response to the first part of this and answered the second with, “Now we look around and try to find out why the Black was heading up here in the first place.”