"I can't believe you." Milo growls.

"What?"

"You sit there and baby her constantly. She's not going to be able to get away with it when we aren't around anymore. Did you take a look at her? She's getting softer."

“Can you wait until you know the whole story until you make a judgment call like that!” I don’t mind yelling. No guards can understand us right now. Even Clara can’t. “You don’t know the whole story!”

“That’s because you wouldn’t force her to stay!”

“I wasn’t willing to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m afraid that this is something that might not be for Clara’s ears. Maybe not for Ty or Evita’s either. I’m not sure about those two yet.”

“I want you to be blunt, not vague.” I glance at Clara. She nods understandingly and leaves us be. Like she said, she has things to do. She won't listen to a conversation she doesn't understand.

“When they were at the beach, they saw Vuskai.” He crosses his arms.

“It’s a free country,” He scowls. “They can come and go as they please.”

“That wasn’t it. She listened into their conversation. When she came in, I was ready to tear into her. The look she gave me... it was the face of someone who believes their life is in danger. It might have just been her anxiety, but it’s bothering me too.” He leans against a wall and crosses his arms, waiting for me to say more. When I don’t, he starts to question me.

“Did she tell you what happened? If you didn’t yell at her, I expect she gave you information.”

“The Vuskai aren’t just here. They’re worming their way into the facility. The president changed sides for some reason. I just don’t know why. The person she listened to sounded like they were talking about having all the humans killed.” He doesn’t give any kind of reaction.

“They’re here?”

“Yes. Yve wouldn’t lie about something like that to get out of trouble.”

“Yeah,” He sighs. “I know.”

“Milo, look,” I start. “You can’t be hard on her for being scared of something like that. She knew exactly who she should and shouldn’t tell.” There’s a long silence between us.

“What do we do?” He finally asks. “It’s not safe for any of them here. We’re being left in the dark if we didn’t know he switched sides. I want to get them all out if they’re in danger. Not just our kids.”

“I have no idea. The first step is to get more information about this. We don’t know if it’s true, really. The woman could have said that just to make her upset. There’s got to be some way for us to get the information without getting in trouble.”

“If Yve was just listening in that couldn’t be the case. There’s no way to bypass the computers or TVs.” I lie down on the couch and cover my eyes.

“We don’t have anything to do today until classes are over. Let’s spend that time figuring out what exactly is going on. We can’t let anyone else know for now.” Another stretch of silence.

“Sailor didn’t tell me.”

“Yve doesn’t think he took it seriously.”

“Why would he? Sailor thinks this place was supposed to be a sanctuary. The Vuskai slaughtered the royal family, and we left.” I cringe at the word. We came here for separate reasons. I moved to protect who the empress wanted me to. He was told to leave and made training his job here.

After I failed to protect them, I made the choice to come to Milo and take care of the kids. Here I am again, helpless against the enemy. This time I can see them coming, though. I have time to stop them.

I just hope that I can do it in time.