(Song and quote are up above.)

*Hecate*

There was a welcoming weight in my body. It was comforting and tight, running through me. I was warm and fuzzy inside and I felt so light.

Magic, I had my magic back.

I smiled, and then peeled my eyes open. We were still in the van, but we weren't moving. On the other side of me, Quin was staring at the ceiling.

"Morning," I said, my throat a bit dry.

He looked over to me, slowly. I sat up, watching him. He wore a frown on his face, but not the normal Mr. Grumpy Pants kind. This was the, I'm trying not to cry kind. The kind that you have on when you're friend or parents are really rude to you in public and you have to leave cause you don't want people to see you crying. That kind.

My smile vanished. "What's wrong?"

He opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. I reached my hand over to him.

"Can I?"

He nodded. I touched my fingers gently to his temple.

---

Blood, so much blood. It was everywhere. No, just on my back and Xavier's head.

My, no Quin's hand touched Xavier's forehead and found a hole there. He was shot through the head.

More memories flashed through my head.

I wasn't just any bullet, it was a bullet Quin dodged. He'd moved out of the way of the bullet, there was a shout, and then he kept shooting. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, keeping him trained on the enemy. The man went down. That was when he turned back to Xavier and me. Well, unconscious me.

More memories, different ones.

They'd buried him in the desert. Quin didn't want to carry his bleeding body back to the City. He was worried that the Blackies would find his body and take him to experiment on him.

They loaded me in the back and stopped for the night.

Quin hadn't even tried to sleep cause he knew he wouldn't.

---

His eyes were glossy.

Giving him a small, sympathetic smile, I crawled closer to him.

He gave me a curious look when I pried my fingers under his shoulders and pulled him up, into my arms. I squeezed him tightly.

"No one can hear you," I said, quietly. "The others can't even see you right now."

I was ready for it, the push and maybe a small laugh. For him to tell me I was crazy. I almost expected him to scold me for using magic. He never did.

He stopped for a second, frozen. Then he pulled himself up and wrapped his arms around my stomach. He barried his face in my shoulder. I couldn't hear him, but I could feel the tears dripping onto my shoulder. His back heaved and trembled when he took in gasps of air.

"It's okay," I cooed. I pressed one of my hands on his back, the other in his greasy tussled hair. "It's okay."

Slowly, while he quietly let everything out, I let my magic go into him. His trembling got softer and his grip loosed around me. After a few minutes, he slumped against me.

"Whelp, glad we got that out of the way," I said, setting him back on the floor. "Especially when everyone was sleeping." I put a little magic on his eyes so they weren't so puffy and his cheeks weren't so wet. "I know you won't like this, but I'm driving."

I crawled up to the front where Heather was slumped against the window. Flicking one finger softly, I used magic to lift her out of the seat. She glided through the air like there were strings tied to her. Moving my finger down, I dropped her on the other side of Quin.

I crawled into the front seat and started the car.

Hatchet snored on my right.

"You hungry?" I asked, looking at the front window. "I am. Where should we stop?"

There weren't any roads near, so I used a bit of magic to tell me where I was. Smiling, I turned the car around and we started heading for New York.

"Tacos sound good to you?" There was no reply. "I didn't hear a no. Tacos it is. I know this really good place that's on the way. Well, it's mostly on the way."

I magiced the car into an ugly beige minivan that seated seven. Little Quin, who looked almost exactly like Xavier, was slumped against the window. Little Heather was sleeping on his shoulder. I hid all the guns in compartments under our seats. Hatchet's small line of stubble vanished into a neatly shaved smooth chin. His hair was now cut short and died black.

"Alright, kiddies. I hope you all like Mexican."

---

'That'll be twenty-five dollars and thirty-eight cents at the first window,' the fuzzy voice said through the mic.

"Thanks a lot," I said, pulling up.

What? Did you actually doubt that I'd stop for food. I'm a lot of things but definitely not a liar. Most of the time at least. Sometimes I lie about my weight. I usually lie about being a magician too, but that's life ending stuff right there. I mean, I don't want everyone knowing that I'm one hundred twenty-eight pounds.

...you never heard that.

"Twenty-five, thirty-eight," a scrawny acne-faced teen said.

I handed him the money that I'd found in Hatchet's wallet. I planned on paying him back, probably. Maybe.

He took the money from the twenty-five or so year old lady that he thought he was seeing. I didn't magic my hand cause I didn't want the illusion shattering if he touched my hand.

He came back and handed me my change.

"Your foods at the next window," he mumbled, really only paying attention to the screen.

I pulled up.

I got five bags, in total, of food. Burritos, tacos, and whatever else I saw on the menu that looked good. I set those in the back, and then reached for the tray of drinks. Three waters, cause I wasn't sure what the others liked, and one lemonade cause I didn't feel like my number one, coke.

"Have a nice day," the lady said.

"You too."

I pulled out of the drive-through and then in a parking space. I reached back, pulled out a taco, then kept going.

"On the road again," I hummed, even though Ed Sheeran's, 'Give Me Love' was humming through the radio.

---

It was past morning, past nine in the morning, actually, and everyone was still asleep. Through the night, I'd easily slipped us through four checkpoints, we were coming up on the last one before we were in the City's boundaries.

"Identification," the mans near robotic voice said. I handed him two I.D.'s. One for me, and one for my 'husband', Hatchet, who now had black hair and was sleeping besides me.

His eyes glanced up to me and I gave him and easy smile.

"What're you here for, Mrs. Smith?" He asked. There wasn't any suspicion in his voice, more curiosity or boredom. I'd get bored too if I had to stand around all day looking at people's pictures. A glance in the mirror told me no one was behind us.

I let my smile falter. "Coming back from my nephews funeral."

He nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Me too. I didn't see him much, what with us living in different cities and all, but he was a good child. We'll all miss him."

He handed me back my I.D.'s, but didn't leave the window. "Believe it or not, I had a son once."

"Really? You don't look older than...twenty-five."

He laughed. "Actually, I'm not. It was kind of...an accident. I moved in with his mom and helped her out. An then, when he was three, we found out he had...magic."

My heart skipped a beat. I corrected my mistake by making a half sympathetic, half disgusted face.

"Yeah, a lot of people had the same reaction. We did the right thing and turned him into the Black Hands, but..."

"I know how you feel," I said. "I had friends who... Yeah, I know how you feel."

He leaned out of the window. "Sorry for holding you up. You better be on your way."

I nodded, ready to take my foot off the brake. I was about to drive off when I had a last second though.

"You know, I don't think a lot of people would've blamed you if you didn't," I said, turning to the young men. "You wouldn't have blamed yourself either. As long as you knew he was safe."

Knowing I may have crossed a line, I pulled away. I magiced the license plate into some other numbers, just in case.

"You sound like your talking from experience," Heather's voice said, making me jump.

"Morning, Sleepy Head," I said, laughing at myself. "There're tacos and burritos and other Mexican foods in the bags. They're cold but," I snapped my fingers, "not anymore."

I heard her digging through the bag.

"How'd I get back here?" She asked after a few minutes.

I was waiting for that question.

"You won't like it."

"Magic," she bit out.

"Yep. If it helps, I didn't do any other magic. Well, minus the disguise. I even paid for the food with real money."

"Not mine, right?"

"No, I took Hatchet's."

"Good."

We sat in silence for a bit.

"So, you had friends?"

"What're you talking about? I have plenty of friends. I'm pretty popular, believe it or not."

"As much as I want to hear about how you managed to get popular, you know what I meant."

I smiled at her curiosity. "I'm a magician who's deeply involved in the magic world. I've lost plenty of witches and wizards who I was close to."

As happy as I was that she wanted to know more about me, I was happier that she didn't ask more.

"We're almost there," I said, "maybe another ten minutes."

"Ten minutes?" She asked. "The city's another three hours away. How'd we get here so fast, anyways?"

"I know quicker ways. Mostly abandoned roads and dirt. Now wake the others up, they'll wanna see this."

---

"You woke us up, stopped the van in the middle of no where, just to make us stand out here?" Hatchet asked, through a bite of burrito.

"It's not the middle of no where," I replied. "That's just a few feet to the right. And, anyways, we're here. Now, watch this cause you might need it someday."

Using my magic to find the cavern, I stood above the whole in the ground. I tapped softly three times, waited three second, then slammed my foot against the ground another three times.

"What was that?" Heather asked. "You just looked like you were throwing a fit."

I stepped back a few feet and the ground started to move. In a rectangular shape, the dirt lifted, leaving a spray of dust beneath it. There was a path there now, lightly illuminated by colored lights that hung from the ceiling.

"Alright," I said, turning back to them. Hatchet's mouth hung open with food still inside. "What're you waiting for, get back in the car."

They climbed in, eyes never leaving the automatic hatch.

I got to drive and no one argued me.

I pulled through the empty space in the ground. I heard the ground rumbling as it closed behind us.

It was a two lane tunnel, still lit up with multicolored bright lights that changed every few second.

"I'm guessing the light are your choice?" Heather asked.

"Nope," I said, popping the 'p'. "Wynnie did most of it. She likes bright stuff. You'll meet her soon enough."

"Your informant," Quin said, now sitting in shotgun, "you said her name was Niquie, right? She's a witch too, isn't she?"

"Niquie's not a witch," I said. "Wynnie is, but Niquie isn't."

"You said she was."

"Did I?" I thought for a second. "I did, didn't I? Sorry, Niquie's the bartender and owner of Black Hat. Wynnie's the witch. You'll meet both of them."

Quin nodded.

The hall ahead of us was ending to reveal a small city with no more than sixty-five buildings, in counting.

"Welcome to New York," I said, smiling, "your new temporary home."