For some reason, I expected the house to be empty when I returned. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that Wes and Daniel would be long gone by the time I returned. Maybe that was why I made sure that I was back at the house after three-quarters of an hour instead of the full time I'd allotted to being away. Either way, by the time I returned, the two boys were standing at the kitchen table, two heavy duffle bags between them.

They looked up as I entered. Wes glanced away hastily, eyes narrowing towards the table. He was angry with me and he had every right to be. It wasn't like it mattered anyways, I told myself. I was going to England and he and Daniel would be headed north to Canada. It didn't matter if he was pissed at me. I'd probably never see him again.

Daniel, on the other hand, didn't look as mad as I expected. There was still a glint of hardness to his sea-green eyes but there was also relief and some other un-nameable emotion that I couldn't depict. There was even a soft quirk to his lips as he said, "Hey."

I nodded once, sharp, brisk movement. "Hi. You guys packed and ready to go?"

"Yes. Did you get everything you needed?" Daniel's voice was oddly polite and not the least bit argumentative so, naturally, I was wary.

"Mm hmm."

"What time are you leaving?"

"Later tonight." That was when the majority of the flights to Europe left. "You boys should be heading out soon."

"About that," Daniel began. "Wes doesn't have a passport. They won't let us across the border."

"I know."

He raised an eyebrow at me. Wes looked up, finished glaring at the table for the moment. I swung my pack off my back and let it thud to the ground in front of me. It was filled to the brim with a few spare changes of clothes, cash and credit cards, a laptop, several fake ID's, some basic weaponry disguised and designed so well that even airport security wouldn't pick up on it, and a few different house keys which unlocked the doors to several of the Grimes' safe houses. Lia and her parents wouldn't mind if I crashed in one.

In one of the side compartments of the bag, though, was my brother's new passport and driver's license. I walked over to them and slid the identification documents across the table towards him. Wes raised an eyebrow at me sardonically before taking them from my hands.

"Timothy McGee?" he said. His voice was wry. "Seriously?"

"What?" I asked innocently. I hadn't been able to help myself when creating the ID for him. "Did you think I wouldn't remember the name of your imaginary friend from when you were seven years old?"

He shook his head but the hard edge in his eyes softened slightly. "Hoped, actually," he mumbled darkly but when he glanced away from me and back to the ID, I saw the edges of his mouth upturned in a half-smile. He inspected the license closely. "These are pretty good. My hair is a little too dark though. Where'd you get the supplies to make these? You were only gone forty-five minutes, give or take."

I sat down in one of the chairs across from them. "When I came here, I brought a travel ID maker. My friend made one as an extra-credit assignment in our second year and I thought it wasn't a bad idea to have one myself. You never know when life is going to throw shit your way. The picture I got by hacking into Wes's Instagram account. I darkened the hair colour in the photo because you," I rummaged through my bag and came up with a box which I slid across the table to him, "are going to dye your hair brown. Your face is all over the news. I'm taking as many precautions as I can so you don't get recognized. It didn't take long to throw all of this together. Oh, by the way, I changed your basic information, birthday, social security number, address, so make sure you memorize it all on your way to the border."

Wes nodded absently, not really paying attention to what I was saying, as his eyes glossed over the documents. The subtle warmth he'd shown me a moment ago had vanished. He could brush me off if he wanted to but not if it meant jeopardizing his life. That I would simply not allow to happen under any circumstance.

"I mean it. You memorize that information like your life depends on it because, honestly, it just might."

Now, he looked at me. His eyes met mine searchingly and, after a tense moment, he nodded. Wes may have been pissed but he wasn't an idiot. "Okay."

"Good. Now, go dye your hair. When you're done, the two of you are heading out for Canada."

Wes ambled off up the stairs without argument, carrying the box of brown hair dye with him. As he disappeared, Daniel collapsed into the chair across from me. "This is insane."

"What is?"

He waved his hand around abstractly. "All of this. It's absolutely crazy that in the past ten hours or so, this has become my life. You're not actually dead, my parents apparently work for the CIA, according to you, and I'm about to go on the run with your brother to Canada...I don't know." He shook his head. "Yesterday I was playing baseball and joking around with my friends. I thought I was normal."

I snorted derisively. "Believe me, Daniel, I've always known that you were the farthest thing from normal."

The mocking edge of smile crossed the corner of his mouth. It wasn't much, but he looked slightly less tense. "Me? Have you looked in a mirror? I'm more normal than you!"

"Not a chance. You were always the bad influence on me."

He scoffed. "I was the bad influence? Now you're just being delusional."

"Please. The worst thing I ever did was turn homework in late. You, on the other hand, convinced me to climb and fall out of trees—"

"Climb, maybe. I never tried to convince you to fall out of trees."

"I broke my arm because of you."

"Yeah, well, you didn't follow my movements to get down the tree right. That's not my fault."

This was the Daniel I remembered. The relaxed banter and the nonchalant way we could talk. It was strange how easy it was to fall back into this rhythm. Years that felt like lifetimes had passed and yet the way we were talking made it feel as if we'd never stopped.

His eyes were soft and there was a gentle smile on his lips. Too soon, though, they turned sad. "I remember sitting with you in the emergency room after you fell out of that tree. You came out with that god-awful pink cast."

"I'd wanted the green one but my mom insisted on pink."

He cocked his head to the side. "I didn't know that. I thought you chose the pink. I almost had to stop being friends with you over that poor fashion choice. Why green?"

I shrugged and looked away from his gaze. "It was your favorite colour."

For a long moment, Daniel said nothing. Then, "I was the first person to sign that cast."

"You were the only person who signed that cast. You wrote your name so big that no one else had room to write anything."

"That's right." He drummed his fingers against the hard wood of the kitchen table. Leaned back in his chair. Swallowed thickly, as if there was a large lump in his throat. I watched his Adam's apple bob. "Why did you leave, Melanie?"

"Daniel—"

He waved off my attempts with a nonchalant flick of his wrist. "I mean, I know it was because you were recruited and all that. But why did you say yes? What did I miss? What was so bad about your life here with us that you felt you had to leave us all behind?"

I couldn't meet his eyes. They were too bright, too...comforting. I'd spilled so many secrets to owner of these eyes over the years. All of them except one. The one I still safeguarded in my heart. The one I'd always kept hidden.

I'd never planned on telling him. Never, ever, thought it would come up again. And yet, in that moment, the only thing I could think of was: I'm never going to see you again. I'm leaving for another country and so are you and they are hundreds of miles away. There's no reason for me not to tell you and it's not like it even matters anymore because everything is different now. I'm different now. And this doesn't mean anything. It stopped being true the moment I stepped out of your life.

I sighed and looked at him as he brushed a hand through his dark hair. It was a lot shorter than it had been when I'd first left Redmond. Then, it had fallen over his ears, curling at the nape of his neck. Now, it was much shorter, cut close to his head but thick enough that he could run his fingers through it.

"I had a crush on you," I admitted, noting to my own ears that it even sounded stupid to say out loud. "And it was killing me to see you with your little group of fan-girls every single day. Especially with girls like Olivia Matta. Besides, it wasn't like I ever fit into this town anyways. I was always too smart and too un-athletic and never sociable enough. And so, when I was given the chance to get out, even with all the repercussions, how could I not go? How could I miss out on the opportunity to reinvent myself into someone better. Someone who could change the world."

Daniel blinked at me. "You—you had a crush on me?" There was a strain to his voice like he wasn't quite sure how to process this information. His sea-green eyes were wide and shocked, like this had never occurred to him. It'd always seemed painfully obvious to me, how much I'd adored him growing up. I'd always assumed that he knew and had just chosen to ignore it, but looking at him now, it was quite clear that he'd never had a damn clue.

I rolled me eyes and pushed my chair away from the table as I got to my feet. "Don't worry about it, Daniel. It was just a crush. It passed a long time ago."

I felt his eyes on my face but I couldn't look at him. I dug around in my bag instead and came up with two burner phones which I passed to Daniel. "Here. Make sure you and Wes use these and only these okay? I'm just going to go get some air. Let me know when Wes comes back down."

I went to the backyard, leaving Daniel seated alone at the kitchen table. It was stupid of me to say anything to him. It wouldn't change anything. I was heading back home to England and I was entrusting him to keep my brother safe while I figured out all of the other shit that had fallen into my life in the past twelve hours or so. And anyways, what I'd said to him was true. It was just a crush. It'd passed.

Outside in the cool morning air, I could still hear the lingering sounds of police cars and curious neighbors down the street at my parents' house. I stayed close to the door, in the shadows cast by the roof, just in case anyone happened to be peering into the yard. I wasn't worried about people from Redmond recognizing me. It was whoever attacked us in the forest last night that made me cautious.

I didn't stay outside long, just enough time to decompress before heading back inside. Daniel was nowhere to be seen but Wes was just thundering down the stairs, his hair now a startlingly dark shade of brown that made him near unrecognizable at first glance. He'd shaved as well, removing any trace of the light line of stubble that had been formulating on his jawline. If anyone peered at him long enough they'd surely be able to identify him, but on the surface, he looked like a different person which was exactly what we needed.

I nodded at him. "Looks good."

He ran his fingers through his locks self-consciously. "It's, uh, different."

"I get it. It's a little disconcerting the first time you have to go into hiding."

That earned me a response. He raised his eyebrows. "You've gone into hiding before." It wasn't a question but I nodded anyways. "Why? What happened?"

"It was a long time ago."

"Did you hurt someone?"

I couldn't meet his eyes. Couldn't face my brother's accusatory tone.

"Did you kill someone?"

My silence was apparently answer enough.

"So, that man last night that you killed...that wasn't the first time you've taken someone's life?"

"No," I said finally. I glanced at him fleetingly. "It wasn't. I killed someone else. A woman. It was a few years back, in Spain."

My brother's voice was small when he asked, "Why?" He didn't ask what had happened. Didn't want to know the facts and details that got me to that spot. Why? The most confusing question of all.

Now, I faced him head on. I didn't waver, didn't hesitate. It was the truth. "Because I had no other choice."

Wes wouldn't understand. My brother wasn't built like that. While it was true that he'd always been the competitive one, the athletic one who would do anything to win a game, he was extremely docile in everyday life. He wasn't violent, didn't know how to survive harsh circumstances. He wouldn't see a single choice but a multitude of ways to get out of a situation. Wes didn't live in the world I lived in. His was a world of make-believe and false pretenses. Mine was a world of black and white, of right and wrong, of do or die.

And they were worlds that should never be combined.

Just then, Daniel came bounding down from the second floor. He looked at Wes and I, standing near the kitchen table, before he glanced away hastily, avoiding my eyes. The awkwardness between us was a palpable entity in the air and the tension could probably be cut with a knife.

I cleared my throat. "If you're both ready you should probably head out now. I programmed a route in the burner phone I gave you that'll take you to Vancouver. If you follow it exactly, you should be there by the end of the day. It's an eight-hour drive. Stop as little as possible and call me when you get there. This," I slid a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it, "is the number to my burner. In forty-eight hours, it'll be out of service so make sure you call me within that time and I'll give you the number to my new burner. I threw some credit cards in your bags. Use those only if you have to."

I reached into my own bag which held all of my fake ID's and credit cards, along with my boarding pass and limited weaponry. I pulled free a folded envelope and passed it to Wes. "There's a few thousand dollars in cash in here. Use only paper money until you run out. It's the easiest way to stay undetected."

Wes nodded as he absorbed all of this. He put the envelope in his duffle and then stared at me. It was a long, lingering sort of stare, the type you give someone you know you'll probably never see again. Then, my brother walked around the table and pulled me into his arms. It was a rough hug, and an unexpected one. I didn't think that either of us really knew that it was coming. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet.

"I didn't get to do that the last time," he muttered by way of explanation. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

The logical answer was no. But Wes knew about my secret double life now. He knew who I was, even if he didn't entirely understand it all. So, I told him the truth. "I don't know, Wes. I hope so."

"And Mel?"

"Yeah?"

"I still hate you for leaving. That probably won't go away any time soon."

"I know."

Wes swallowed thickly. "Just...just don't die, okay? I'll get over the fact that you walked out on us but if you get yourself killed for real this time I'll never forgive you."

"Understood."

My brother nodded in satisfaction before he left the room, sniffling slightly as he went, giving Daniel and I a moment to say our goodbyes. Once he was gone, the two of us stared at each other a moment, neither quite know what to say. There wasn't really much we could say that hadn't already been covered over the past few hours.

"So, this is it, then?"

I shrugged. "I guess so."

Daniel nodded and raked his fingers across his jaw. His green eyes latched onto mine and I was reminded of that youth-like joy he'd always seemed to have. It was gone now, replaced by something so dark and somber, and I felt a wave of guilt, knowing that I was the sole reason for this change.

"You're not going to be making me any promises to come back, are you?"

I shook my head. There was no point denying the inevitable. "Our lives are on separate tracks, Daniel. I would by lying if I said that I expected them to ever intersect. Even with your parents' CIA connections. This isn't a life for you. You deserve so much better than all of this. Live your life. And forget about me. Forget that the past twelve hours ever happened. Forget that you're still the best friend I've ever had. Just, forget about me, okay?"

"If that's what you want."

"It's what both of us need."

"Alright." He took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders. "If you say so."

"Keep my brother safe."

Daniel's eyes cut to mine. "I will."

"And call me if anything goes wrong."

"I will."

"Goodbye, Daniel."

"Bye, Melanie." He smiled a sad little smile and then he and Wes were gone, ducking out the front door and shutting it behind them, with their heads down until they got into the car. I watched them from the window as the car peeled out of the drive and onto the street. No one paid them any mind as they disappeared.

No one but me.