I feel a crushing guilt hit my heart so quickly that I think I might fall over. The ground looks so tempting to just fall on and cry, and I actually calculate how much it'll hurt if I let my legs give up supporting my weight.

  "Wait!" I shout to them.

  It mustn't have been part of a plan, because I have to shout twice for Orion to realize that I'm talking to him.

  I get closer to them, and sigh. "So if I'm actually going to have a prostitute, a magician, and some woman I just met come into my house, I need to know; do you have anything? At all? An alley where you keep a jacket or a change of clothes?"

  "No." Bella says instantly, but she wasn't answering my question. "I have other friends. Places I can go. Thank you for your offer, but please just worry about these two." Bella smiles at me, nods to Orion and Eli, and runs into the crowd.

  I try and continue. "So do you two have anywhere?"

  "I mean, I have a backpack that fits change and my show clothes but other than what we have right here. Bit of sad life, dear, if I'm honest." Orion glances at Eli to confirm it, and he nods.

  They both look so...strange. Eli looks gorgeous, and his brown hair rustling in the warm wind helps that. Orion looks almost normal without his magician coat or top hat on, and just a T-Shirt and hood that make him look like he should just be practicing in a barn with the bow and arrows over his shoulder.

  Unlikely.

  That's what they look.

  I'm not sure why, but they just look...unlikely.

  "I have a friend. He's very nice. And I'm sure you two can make-nice with him for a place to stay." I tell them, and gesture behind them to the pile of magician clothes, and their backpack. "Get those. We want to make a good first impression."

  Eli complies, and stuffs the clothes inside the pack. He slings it over his shoulder, keeping the guitar case over the other. "I don't know if you've noticed, but first impressions are nearly always wrong anyway."

  "Shut up, Eli." I say, and he laughs.

* * *

  In the alley, the warm breeze is colder. It whistles between the buildings, and when I jump onto the crates outside Barron's window, I hear them creak. They've never done that before. Something seems off.

  Eli hushes Orion, and I turn around to look at them. Orion is already drawing an arrow up to the anchor on his cheek.

  And then I hear what they hear.

   Raised voices are coming from Barron's house, and they're getting closer.

  I push open the shutters at the window, and we all look through to the hallway.

  "I don't know where he is! Why the hell are you asking me?!" That's Barron's voice. Coming from one of the rooms.

  Next is one of a woman, but she sounds old and mean. "You're his brother. I would have thought you cared about your siblings enough to where if they're safe."

  "Oh, no, don't you dare turn me into the bad guy here. That doesn't work anymore. It is his life, just because we look the same, doesn't mean that we have to be around each other 24/7. Maybe he's out drinking? Or with a friend? I don't know, and it's not my fault that he only left because you threw a glass at his head for making you a cold meal."

  Orion raises an eyebrow at me.

    I shrug.

   Then a door in the hallway bursts off its hinges. The entire corridor shakes when a sharp-faced woman crashes against the wall, crumbling on top of the ruins of the wooden door. Her head is bleeding above the eyebrow, and she looks more furious than hurt.

  Barron walks into the hallway.

  And the long blades that are in each of his hands are on fire.

  Neither of them seem to notice us, and even if they did, their glares at each other couldn't break for anything. Even when another door is blown from its hinges as Barron steps towards the woman, he doesn't even blink.

  "I suspect the neighbours will have felt that." Barron says, and swings the hilt of the flaming blades in his hands. "But what would you tell them when they come knocking? I'm sorry, but my godson had enough of being abused and lashed out at me. Get the police, because I am obviously the victim here."

  "You're insane." The woman says, but she doesn't deny anything.

  "I'm angry." Barron corrects her.

  And then sends both of the blades through her neck. They pierce the place above her collar bones on each side, crossing over like an X. The heat seals the wound so it doesn't bleed, but the blades have run through her heart.

   Her dead face is still set in a stone-col gross sneer.

   Then Barron stumbles backwards. As he hits the wall, it seems to crumble under his weight. As does he. He runs his hands through his hair like he can't beleive he's finally done it.

  "I like him." Eli suddenly whispers.

   I stare at him like he's gone mad.

  "You couldn't have picked a better person with which to lodge us." Eli jumps through the window, and lands in Barron's hallway.

   Barron is up faster than a gunshot, already reaching for the blades stuck into the woman.

  Eli waves his hands around to get his attention to stop. "Wait, wait! I'm here with Aaran. You know her, right?"

  He moves to the side to look behind Eli. When he sees me, he smiles. "Oh. Hello there."

  "Ha, ha, nope, bye!" I try and run up the crates as fast as I can. But somebody grabs my ankle, and I fall against an edge.

  I turn back, and Barron is holding my leg. He's already crouched on a crate beneath me, and has a long blade in his other hand. The second blade is already lodged safely into his back. "I said hi."

   "Hi." I say. "Can I go now? Away from the insane neighbour?"

  Eli sighs from inside the house. He leans on the windowsill, giving me a look. "That woman was a robot. I just checked. he didn't stab her heart, he severed all her wires. If it's moral principles that's got you all worked up--she wasn't human. Okay?"

  "HE BLEW UP HIS HALLWAY!" I scream at him. "How the hell did he do that!? Magic? No, that's Orion's front. THIS IS ALL INSANE!"

  Barron lets go of my ankle. "I didn't blow up my house. That was the robot. Because everything in this city of made of metal, she made it heat up to combust on itself. I can't do that. I'm not one of the Grenade Boys, I can't do that."

  I glance at Eli. He shrugs. I glance at Orion. He looks as confused and bewildered as I am.

  "What's happening?" I demand of Barron, and snatch the blade from his hand before he can stab anybody else.

  "Robot. Mean. Took me and my brother hostage. Lost my temper. Killed her." Barron doesn't seem in the least bit guilty. "Terra is missing. I need to find him."

   He gave me a straight answer, I'll give him that.

   I saw him at school, and he was heading to me. I have the horrible thought that he was wanting my help for finding Terra then. And I ran away from him. Oh, God. I'm a horrible person.

   "Who?" Orion and Eli both ask, and their faces pull the exact same expression. They looks like twins for a brief moment, before my eyes focus and their skin tone, hair, eyes, and facial structures. 

  Maybe they caught on on each other's characteristics from being friends so long. I resist looking at them like they're cute when I remember how deadly they are. They built a robot. That's something stunning.

   Barron glances at the one closest one to him. "I heard the hot one call you Orion. Well, Star-Fire, he's my twin. And he's been missing for six hours."

   I see Eli make a pleased face out the corner of my eye. 

   Orion is just grinning. Despite the teasing name, he looks impressed.

   He leans back on the crate, looking towards Eli. "Yep. Dear, I like him, too."

   "That's good, though I didn't ask for you opinion." Barron remains them with almost dismissal, and turns back to me. He snatches his blade form my hand, and places it into his back.

   The hilts of the blades are visible behind his shoulders, and he seems uncomfortably  "This isn't like you, though. Bringing boys up to your room. Through the window."

  I hesitate. "Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I wasn't taking them up."

  Barron squints at me suspiciously.

  * * *

  "I hate you." Barron says to me, and downs the rest of his mug.

  It looks like coffee, and I wonder how on earth he got it. We live in a block of flats, not a house. We have the cheap bread from the market, not the stuff in packages from cool and lighted shops. We sleep with itchy blankets, not linen.

  I know it's stolen when the bag he goes to to make another one is marked for soy beans. I guess that was all they had when him and his brother found the coffee beans.

  Barron puts a pot on the side, grabbing a box of matches from his pocket.

  I slump into the chair he waved as an offer when we all came in. "I kind of expected that reaction."

  Orion and Eli sit there, on one side of a five-table, next to each other and looking like they know they're out of place. They look, with their gloomy faces, exactly how I'd expect them to look once I'd found out about their story.

  Barron lights the stove, and the whoomp! of blue flames is familiar to me. He places a pot over the fire.

  "Well, bitch-faced robot is dead, so..." Barron spreads his arms. "Once we find Terra, sure. Why the hell not? It's an adventure."

  Eli makes a face. He whispers to Orion quietly. "Not that much of an adventure, I hope."

  Orion laughs.

  "How old are these two?" Barron asks me suddenly, and his face is unimpressed.

  "Older than us, surprisingly." I answer. Barron makes a face like he's doubtful. "Yeah, I know."

  Orion sticks an arrow from the quiver on his back, right into the wood of the table. It doesn't move once he's placed it, and I wonder how strong he is to be able to do that.

  "I'm twenty years old. So's he. Excuse us, but we demand respect. As does she. As do you." Orion leans on the back legs of his chair to reach the space on the wall behind him, and he places his bow on his lap. "And I must say, dear; treat people how you would like to be treated. If you can't do that, then maybe, like almost always they are, our first impressions of you were wrong."

  Barron thinks it's a joke. He has a smile from one side of his mouth, and he glances at me to confirm if it's supposed to be funny. When I shake my head slightly, his smile drops.

  "Okay, you know what? Fine." Barron lets the pot on the stove scream. "Because I think the hot one's fit, and I seem to be the only one that's looking for my brother and covering extra ground would be handy; you can stay."

  "Thanks." Orion says, but Eli shoves him and I know I've missed some sarcasm behind it.

  I stand up. The pot is still screaming, and I move it to the side. Barron gives me a look when I realize the mistake I've made. The screaming was the only thing filling the silence. Other than that, there's just the sound of sirens outside for various crimes.

  But Eli and Orion have slight smiles on their faces. They stare at Barron like they're thinking about something, and they both fold their arms.

  "I'm game." Eli says.

  "This is a good thing we've got going here." Orion agrees. "Lodging for the safe return of this Land guy."

  "It's Terra." Eli whispers to correct him.

  "Not my fault I majored in Latin." Orion mutters back. He's letting words drip out of his mouth. "I was the one that taught Sarkosy English other than Japanese."

   "Who?" Barron mouths to me as they continue to bicker.

  I hesitate. For too long, and Barron pieces together the apparent smarts of Eli and Orion.

  Barron smashes the pot onto the ground. "You built a robot!?"

  Eli and Orion both turn to him. I notice that Eli is already stopping Orion from reaching for the arrow on the table.

  "Years ago." Eli says calmly. "He was built for protection."

  "From what? What out there is deadly, apart from robots!?" Barron is losing his shit.

  It's the best way I can put it in my mind. Whatever he thought about letting them stay has flown out the window like the pigeon that scrambles when he shouts. We both hear sounds of confusion from the flat opposite's closed shutters, and he slams his own to seal some sound off.

  "You are truly naive if you think that there are no worse evils in this world than robots, Barron." Eli says.

  His voice is cold. It silences Barron and I immediately. Shivers runs down my spine, and the hairs on my arms stick up.

  Orion looks proud of his friend, and leans back. He expects the sound of Eli's chair scraping against the floorboards entirely. And he doesn't even blink when Eli takes the arrow from the table.

  He judges the weight quickly, and then uses it as a throwing knife. He tosses it towards Barron's head, and it lands just beside his ear. The sound of if sticking into the wooden cabinet it quick and sharp.

  "My grandfather was Rans Perrent. I can throw a knife at a target from meters away. I am a genius. Do not test me." Eli gets close enough to Barron so that he can grab the arrow and pull it from the wood. "To answer your question: us. We are more deadly than any robot, and you remember that."

  Eli tosses the arrow through the air, and Orion catches it. He's already standing, with his bow in his hand that stretches behind and in front of him. He pushes the string of the bow against the inside of his forearm to keep it in place as he moves around the table.

  They walk into the hallway, and they probably walk to the end of it to jump out the window, but I don't hear anything. They're so quiet I wouldn't hear them sneaking into my house at night until they were both standing above me and sticking a knife in my heart.

  After a moment of silence, I decide to crack a joke. "That went well."

  Barron glares at me. He turns away to walk to the table, and examines the hole the arrow left in it. "Terra disappeared about five hours ago. We'll go hunting for him."

  I almost applaud Orion and Eli for managing to guilt Barron in to just accepting them both. They're too smart for me, and I take it to note to never get into a fight with them. They'd just use logos to successfully manipulate their way out. Together.

  Exactly when they both devised the plan to guilt Barron into making him run after them by hinting at tragic back stories and power, I don't know. But I marvel at them anyway.

   Barron pauses in the archway to look back at me. A glint from his blades blinds me for a moment. "And bring your family. We're finding my brother, and we're using everyone we've got. We'll search even the edges of the city if we have to."

  "We're told specifically not to go there." The voice is Orion's, and he and Eli and both standing in the hallway. They're both trying to hide pleased smiles.

  I poke my head around to archway as Barron walks towards them.

  He walks into the center of them both, pushing their shoulders to get them to split. He walks through them. "So be it. Whatever they want to hide from us, it can't be more dangerous than the two guys I've just walked through."

  I laugh at that, because it's clever. Orion and Eli smile like Barron's won their approval.

  I realize just then that I want, so much, to be friends with these manipulative, cheeky, sassy bastards. And I smile.

  But I drop it when Barron calls out for us to get moving.