Anora blinked in surprise when Darsby addressed her thoughts. She was positive she hadn’t said that out loud.
	“I… didn’t say that,” she said with slow suspicion. She closed her sketchbook as Darsby continued before she could ask if he had just read her mind.
	She glanced skyward at his question. A few wisps of clouds had been joined by thicker ones, floating over the sun to momentarily dim its light.
	“Hasn’t everyone?” The corner of her lips quirked upward. [i]Is he trying to say he’s from another [u]planet?[/u][/i] she wondered. [i]Would explain a lot, in the long run, wouldn’t it?[/i] She cast him a sideways glance as he began to answer her question.
	The relief she felt at his answering turned into panic. “You can [i]smell[/i] them?” Anora hastily shifted to her knees and grabbed her backpack. “What, like you did the Blouth?”
	Adding super smelling to her mental list of his superpowers, she shoved her sketchbook and pencil pouch into the larger section. She glanced to her companion as he continued his explanation. She zipped it shut, stood, and shouldered one of its straps.
	“So they’re [i]not[/i] after me, too?” Somewhere between relieved she was not on some magic/alien clean-up crew’s hit list and irritated that he had said ‘we’ instead of just ‘I,’ she glanced to Darsby. She almost missed him draw his revolver.
	Anora cleared her throat awkwardly, realizing he meant the [i]first[/i] time he had been injured. “I’m [i]really[/i] sorry about that, you know,” she offered quietly. She shook her head, trying to keep the broken, bloody image of him from returning to the front of her mind.
	She carefully stepped beside him, watching him with curiosity as he opened the revolver’s cylinder. She tried—but failed—to not gawk when he breathed smoky bullets into existence in the gun.
	“Don’t suppose you could teach me [i]that,[/i] could you?” Despite the impressed, hopeful smile on her face with the question, she took a cautious step away. Though she was sure he wouldn’t be using it on her, she still felt a bit uneasy.
	She took a breath and turned her attention from him as he clicked the bullets into place. For a short moment, she scanned the dirt driveway leading to the house. Nothing stirred. She hadn’t noticed anyone trying to sneak up on the house, but she hadn’t exactly been paying attention since Darsby came out.
	She looked back to him when he addressed her, the tone in his voice making her brows furrow. Her expression turned to surprise when he actually [i]did[/i] apologize. As he finished, she couldn’t help it; her gaze met his. She had just enough time to register the wetness of tears in his eyes before the ghostly images of what could only be memories floated from Darsby to her.
	She had expected a flood of confusing emotions to radiate from him with her glance, but [i]that[/i] was much more than simple, intangible feelings. She inhaled and stumbled, her foot slipping on one of the shingles. Her foot slid a few inches before she caught herself, forcing her to break eye contact at the same time as Darsby.
	Anora swallowed, hard, and looked back to him, his face away from her. He had lost someone he had cared for. Maybe many someones. There was no telling when or even where it had happened, but it was apparently still fresh enough in his mind.
	Her expression softened. She ran a hand through her hair with an exhale. She gave a slight nod to herself, then raised her chin and squared her shoulders.
	“Not alone, you’re not.” She stepped toward the flat part of the roof over the window. “I might not be an expert, but I’m still good at using my powers. Whatever the people after you want, they’ll have to go through both of us.” As she passed, she bent to pick up the pencil that had rolled down the rooftop. “We’re in this together now, Darsby.” She turned her head to glance at him. “For better or worse. Think that kinda sealed itself when I dragged your sorry butt to my family’s farm.” She offered him a tentative smile. She stuck the pencil in a pocket of her jeans.
	“If whoever’s after you is as close as you think, we’d better get going.” She climbed to the window, a couple pools of the misty sparks of her powers forming around her feet in precaution.
	She tested the ledge with her shoes. Her feet sat firmly on the window sill, the window still open from when Darsby had used it. One hand grasping the overhang, she let her bag fall from her shoulder and tossed it between her legs into the attic.
	Anora draped both arms over the tiles, only her head and shoulders sticking above the roof. She looked up at him, careful to not meet his gaze. She hesitated for just a moment.
	“Look. Everything that’s happened… It’s the [i]last[/i] thing I expected today. But… the only thing I’d change is that I’ll probably be arrested the moment I show my face in town.” She scowled at the thought despite the attempt at making it sound lighthearted. “This is one heck of a leap into adventuring. But baby-steps are overrated, anyway.”
	She shrugged, trying to hide her fear and anxiety. Fear of meeting the people who dared hunt someone like [i]him.[/i] Fear of being unsure whether or not she would get to again see the friends and family Darsby had reminded her about.
	She swallowed and did her best to push the thought aside. Hoping the empath-memory-thought-sharing thing didn’t actually go both ways, she swung herself easily into the attic. Without sparing the area so much as a glance, she collected her pack, slung it back over one shoulder, and turned back to the window.
	“You coming or what, Agent K?” she called outside. Thinking she should probably rethink that nickname if he was more the alien than the MIB agent, she turned toward the hole in the floor that led to the attic's stairs.