Page 41

The gas station is at a busy intersection in the heart of Hollywood.

The dry heat is overwhelming, and it feels like my shoes are going to melt into the asphalt.

People are in testy moods, and heat shimmers in the air.

A car is parked precariously in the driveway, half on the road and blocking traffic, much to the chagrin of all the drivers behind it, but there’s nowhere for him to go with how many cars are waiting their turn.

The nervous man is wearing an ill-fitting suit and wiping the sweat from his face with his tie, waving awkwardly at the drivers behind him.

Erica waves her arms and shouts at another man almost about to back into her, and then she deftly swings the minivan around and parks in the one empty spot by the convenience store.

There’s no news crew, no caution tape, nothing to ever show that something dangerous was here.

We step into the convenience store, walking past the sad hot dogs rolling in their box and the machine slowly grinding electric-blue slush into a dizzying whirl.

Adib pulls out his phone, taking pictures excitedly as he observes the scene. “I’ll do a quick recon,” he whispers, waggling his eyebrows. “You go see if there were any witnesses.”

Jenn starts giggling and I elbow her.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll go talk to the guy at the counter,” I say.

Erica points to a corner. “That’s the angle from where one of the videos was taken.” She and Adib get to work, chattering quietly with Ryan, his arms already laden with potato chips.

I walk up to the counter, pretending to examine the array of gum, with Jenn following close behind me, a quiet pillar of support.

At the counter, a man with a wilting mustache is scrolling on his phone, a weary set of exhaustion about him. There’s a blue slushy stain on his polo shirt with a crooked name tag reading JONAH . He sees we don’t have anything to purchase and sighs. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen anything weird happen here today?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Weird stuff happens every day. A lady didn’t know how to pump her own gas.”

“So, uh—Jonah,” I say with a friendly smile.

Jenn elbows me again, shaking her head. Oh, right, too big, too much—she’s talked to me about this before, how people find my overall intensity a bit intimidating.

I glance at his phone; there’s a paused video from a still I immediately recognize. “Oh, are you watching the post–season two interviews? That’s my favorite Halfway Hollow season!”

Jonah brightens. “Yeah, the dark Ricardo arc was the best. They totally wasted so much potential.”

“I know, right? I always thought he deserved so much more, and Michael Cruz did such a great job playing a villain. Like, why introduce this whole possible dark side and not explore it?”

Jenn nods. “I love that interview. You should watch the one where Cruz talks about his inspiration, you can see he totally thought way more about it than the writers did.”

“Yeah?” Jonah leans in closer and pushes his phone at Jenn, who taps for a few moments before bringing up said interview.

“You know one thing they totally messed up on was the big bad of the season,” I say.

Jonah throws his hands up in the air. “They should have just never shown us the monster if it was going to be a cheap animation!”

“Maybe,” Jenn says. “But you know, the funny thing is, now that special effects and stuff are so good, sometimes things go so far and it’s really obvious that it’s trying too hard, you know…”

“I love the old-school practical puppets,” Erica says as she joins us.

“Oh yeah, puppet Yoda forever over CGI Yoda,” Jonah says, and I reach out to fist-bump him, which he does with aplomb.

He looks much more relaxed, his shoulders slinking back, a slight smile on his face.

“Speaking of puppets…” I lean in a little closer. “My friend posted this TikTok of a creature thing at this gas station, and I thought it might be a sort of cool new PR gig for some new monster movie. Did you see anything like that?”

Jonah laughs a little. “Here? Nah, I don’t think so. People usually do promo stuff like that in Westwood or, like, outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre or something.”

Erica pulls up her phone. “I got a screenshot of one of the vids—did you see this?”

It’s a grainy still, but the wyvern is clearly depicted, albeit a bit blurry— a dog-sized creature with wings and sharp fangs.

“Huh.” Jonah peers closer. “That does look like our gas station—hey, that’s my car. Weird. This was today?”

Jenn nods. “Did you see it? I think it would have been, like, around ten this morning.”

Jonah strokes his chin, deeply puzzled. “You know, I can’t remember.

It’s all this big blur. My shift started at eight.

I usually put out the pizza at ten, and…

” He double-checks the machine. Sure enough, there are glistening slices of pepperoni pizza sitting in the warming box.

“I don’t remember doing that, but I must have. ” He shrugs. “Days are like that.”

I sigh. “Yeah, we get it. Thanks for the help.”

Ryan pays for his snacks, and it feels anticlimactic as we get back in the minivan.

“Anything?” Jenn asks.

Adib shakes his head. “I think in one of the videos the wyvern crashed into that sign, and the sign is scratched up a bit, but that could be from anything.”

Something occurs to me. “Kat told me that after she got back to her world the last time she was here, a guy tried to wipe her memory.”

Ryan’s mouth falls open. “Holy shit, so—”

“Likely the same people who deleted all the videos,” Jenn says. “But that means these people are very connected.”

“It means that Order is also here. In our world.” I glance at my friends. “If they can get to TikTok that fast…”

“They could be real dangerous,” Adib says.

Jenn and Erica look at me.

It sounds like these Order folks are more connected and powerful than Kat thought.

I take a deep breath. I don’t know what it’ll take, but I want to see Kat again.

“It sounds like they took care of the wyvern, so at least the magical side—they have rules, right? They don’t want anyone to get hurt.

Keeping their secrets is part of their thing. ”

“I think Kat is great,” Erica says. “And I’m excited for your Saturday date. But we’ll need to be careful.”

Jenn nods in agreement. “Is there anything in that book about wyverns?”

“Do you think they’re like D&D wyverns?” Adib asks. “What about other creatures? What are their strengths? Their weaknesses?”

I don’t know the answer. For the first time in my life, there’s a whole universe of unknowns that I have no plan for, with no idea of how to prepare.

But I’m grateful to have my friends by my side, and excited that we’re all ready to research and look into this. Although for the first time in my life, we might just be out of our depth here.