In the bus heading toward Camp Jericho, Ethan was at the back aisle seat with Selene beside him, her head on his shoulder, arm hooked through his.
This bus had barely anyone on it — most students had fought their way onto the first three — so the back was empty and nobody was paying attention to anything.
"So what else is going on?" Selene asked.
"As usual," Ethan said.
She tilted her head up. "So you're out here searching for trouble. As usual."
"Do I look like that kind of guy?"
Selene looked at him for a moment.
"Do you even need to ask?" she said. "Isn't that literally your thing?" She settled her head back on his shoulder. "That's how we met. You came looking for trouble."
"That's true," Ethan said. "But most of this year I was actually trying to stay out of it. This time trouble came looking for me."
And that was genuinely accurate. For once he hadn't gone searching for anything. Things had just kept landing on him anyway.
"So what's the trouble this time?"
"Well." He thought about how to order it. "There's a zombie somewhere eating brains. No clear end goal, no idea how he even brought himself back. And then there's a demon — Baphomet — who got out through a doorway that was opened by accident."
Technically accurate. It had been Pugsley who knocked the bottle of blood over and cracked the doorway open. The demon had come through on its own after that.
So that one wasn't entirely on him. Partially. Maybe forty percent.
"So in the last month," Selene said, "you've picked up a zombie problem and a demon problem."
"I didn't pick them up—"
"And you're heading to a camping trip in the woods where presumably at least one of these things is also going to be."
Ethan looked out the window.
"Probably both," he said.
Selene was quiet for a second.
"You're unbelievable," she said, and put her head back on his shoulder.
Weems stood up from her seat to check on something and turned toward the back of the bus.
She stopped.
A student and a teacher. His arm around her, her head on his shoulder, completely unbothered by the existence of the rest of the world.
Weems looked at Ethan.
Ethan smiled.
"Don't mind us, Principal Weems."
"How exactly am I supposed to do that?"
"Well," he said, "I knew her before she became a teacher. So there won't be any scandals." He tilted his head slightly.
"And didn't you tell me — before I joined Nevermore — that I should try to enjoy being young? Fall in love. Explore my youth. I believe those were your words."
Weems opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
She had said that. She remembered saying it quite clearly. She had meant it as gentle encouragement toward a normal teenage experience — perhaps a school dance, perhaps a first awkward date with someone his own age.
She had not meant this. She had specifically not meant this. And yet here he was — already somehow entangled with Wednesday, apparently close with Enid, and now sitting in the back of a school bus with a faculty member tucked under his arm like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She had told him to explore his youth and he had apparently taken it as a personal challenge.
"That's not what I—"
"You did say it though," Ethan said.
She had invited this trouble herself. She knew that. There was nothing to be done about it now.
She turned back around before she reached her seat.
"One more thing. The vice principal has been missing for two days. Nobody's seen him since Monday." She looked at Ethan directly. "Do you have any hand in that?"
She remembered, briefly, that Ethan had suggested burying him. Quite casually. Like it was a reasonable administrative solution.
"Me?" Ethan put a hand to his chest. "I'm a model student. How could I possibly have anything to do with the vice principal disappearing?"
And technically that was true. He hadn't done anything to the man. The demon had handled that entirely on its own.
Ethan had just been standing nearby, which was not the same thing as being responsible, and he felt strongly about that distinction.
Weems studied him for a moment.
"Mhm," she said, in the tone of someone who didn't believe a word of it but couldn't prove anything.
"Since you had no hand in it — fine. But I'd appreciate it if you kept a low profile in public. I really don't want to deal with this if it gets out."
"Don't worry," Ethan said. "You won't even know I'm there."
Weems looked at him. Then at Selene. Then back at him.
She walked back to her seat.
Selene tilted her head up.
"Model student," she said.
"Completely," Ethan said.
"Who's going to know I'm not a model student?" Ethan said. "If anyone finds out I'll just brainwash them. So as long as nobody finds out, I'm a model student."
Selene stared at him.
"You're so far from a model student."
"Closest thing this school has though."
***
At the same time, in Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital, Tyler Galpin was in a containment cell.
Chains around his neck, arms and legs. The kind of setup that said whoever put him here wasn't taking chances.
The lights began to pulse.
Tyler's eyes opened.
Shadows gathered in the corner of the cell, pulling inward from the walls like something was collecting them, shaping them into something that wasn't quite a figure but was close enough to be wrong.
"Ethan."
The whisper came from inside the shadow. Barely a sound at all.
Something ignited behind Tyler's eyes the moment he heard it. His jaw tightened and he lunged forward, chains snapping taut, rattling hard against the wall as he pulled against them with everything he had.
***
A/N: And on Patreon, The Boys arc started.
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