If I thought the other fox’s battle cry was bad, it’s nothing to this one. It opens its mouth, jaw unhinging like something out of a horror movie, and it screams. Imagine a cute little fox yip, the way it laughs.

  Now imagine that sound tenfold, a deranged clown laughing manically as it rains acid out of the flower pinned to its chest.

  There’s no clown. There’s no acid. But there is a ricocheting, exploding sound in my ears. I don’t drop the bat this time, but I do have to clamp my hands over my ringing ears as I howl in pain.

  The fox races at me. Its maw is open as it runs, still unhinged and flapping loosely with each bound, and I can only stare in horror. And then the lower jaw snaps into place as the fox launches at me. This time, it doesn’t go for my face or neck. It goes for my ankles.

  I try to jump out of the way, one foot missing the memo and kicking out instead, and I end up toppled over on my back with the wind knocked out of me and the fox a few feet away, having gotten a square kick in the chest. Unlike the first, this one can get right back up to its feet and it manages to get its mouth around my foot before I can scramble away. It growls, a sound that I can feel up through my leg, and I flail my legs trying to get it to let go. It does not, fully locked on, and I can feel a tooth piercing the top of my sneaker and going right into my foot. I think I shout, maybe I curse, to be honest I’m not sure. I just know that between my scratched up hands, my ripped out hair, and now this, it finally overloads me. There’s a rumble beneath me that my mind is able to notice through the pain, one that I recognize, and I ram my fingers into the dirt and make a fist.

  The magic surge hits. I feel it race through me, into my hand, up my arm, and down my body into my foot. There’s a static shock that blasts the fox away and I can smell charred meat. But the pain doesn’t quite stop. The surge holds, and I can feel the magic roiling in me.

  “Let go!” someone yells, and though I hear it, my fuzzy brain can’t understand. “Get your fingers out of the dirt!”

  Something in me finally listens to the instructions, and I wrench my hand out of the dirt. The pulse of magic fizzles and I collapse back down, panting, my whole body aching.

  But the frenetic energy that filled the space as Ryder and I battled seems to be gone. I try to sit up but my body doesn’t listen, and my leg gives an involuntary jerk.

  “No, no, stay down,” that same voice says, and I suddenly realize it’s definitely not Ryder’s voice. “Breathe. Don’t rush it. Don’t fight it.”

  It’s a woman’s voice, and I don’t understand what she means, but I listen to what she says. I get a glimpse of pink fuzzy pom-poms in my head. I can’t tell if it’s a vision or a memory, if I’m sure that this is the woman who owns the other car, or if I’m concussed and delusional.

  Someone drops down beside me on their knees, and Ryder’s face comes into focus above me. “Jane! Are you okay? That was so awesome! You sizzled that fox and all the other monsters ran away! I really hope you’re okay, though.”

  I manage to smile, nod, and I try to speak. My throat feels raw from screaming. Was I screaming? I think I might have been screaming. “I’m okay.”

  A relieved smile breaks over his face. “Oh good.” He looks up, I assume at the owner of the third voice. “She’s okay!”

  “Sitting—?”

  The other woman comes over, her footsteps crunching on the leaves, and kneels down on my other side. “If you feel up to it, sure,” she says, laying a hand on my arm. “Help her,” she adds, an instruction to Ryder. I feel his hands next.

  Sitting up isn’t actually that hard, but I enjoy the moment of assistance. And once sitting, I can take stock of the newbie.

  She has to be about my age, give or take, but it’s hard to know sometimes. Her hair is blonde, with dark roots that match dark brows telling me that her blonde is absolutely dyed. But her eyes, a warm brown, watch me with genuine concern.

  She has freckles across her cheeks, and it’s that one item of commonality between us makes me confident that she won’t hurt me or Ryder.

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  “You sure you’re okay?” she asks. I give a nod. “Using the magic pulse as an attack on that fox was smart, but you could have seriously injured yourself. Like a lightning rod.” She rests back on her heels, her blue jeans streaked with mud but somehow her fingernails still impeccable. “Smart, but crazy.” Her hand is still resting on my arm.

  “I wasn’t trying to—”

  “Shh, shh,” the girl—the woman—says, her hand tightening for a moment. She’s right, because my attempt at speaking burns, and I grimace. Maybe the magic actually did do some damage on its way through me. I nod again, because that’s safe.

  I can interact with the Game, that would also be safe. What’s the damage done to me? I ask it. We haven’t had any sort of health bar before this, but we also were never in a proper fight. Bashing a mutant mouse on the head with a flashlight doesn’t really make a battle.

  You are injured. You will survive.

  I roll my eyes. Helpful as always. I wonder if there’s a healing Ability I should spend my remaining Token on, or if healing is built into our system.

  But I don’t find either of those things out. Instead, a warmth courses through me and fills me up, like that first sip of a perfect cup of coffee while sitting in the sun on the first real spring day after a Canadian winter. And just like that, I feel absolutely 100% again.

  My head whips around to the newcomer, her hand still on my arm, and I glance down at the point of contact. “You’re a healer,” I say, the pain in my throat gone. All my aches are gone. I want to leap up and turn cartwheels.

  She smiles at me, a quick lifting of her cheeks before she lets the expression falls away. “Stupid magic,” she grumbles, her tone shifting faster than I’d have expected.

  I pull away from her, twisting so that I’m a little closer to Ryder. “What?”

  She tucks her hands into her lap, twisting them together. “It’s a wonderful ability to have,” she says. “But it just… it makes my whole life feel pointless.”

  Ryder and I share a glance. “You wanna talk about it?” he asks.

  The woman shakes her head. “No. But I’m glad I can help.” She smiles again, a real one, and it stays on her face. “Should I do you next?” she goes on, lifting a hand in Ryder’s direction.

  I take the chance to look Ryder over quickly. He has a few scrapes and cuts, but nothing life-threatening. He looks to me, and I shrug. “Your call,” I say. Maybe the Game will automatically refill whatever health bar we have, but a magical healer wouldn’t hurt.

  So Ryder tentatively holds out his hand. The woman reaches out and takes his hand, gripped for a handshake, and… nothing happens.

  No, wait, something is happening. I look over all of Ryder’s little cuts and they just close up, zipped tight. The streaks of blood and dirt and gore remains, but all the little nicks that were on his arms vanish while I’m watching.

  Ryder takes his hand back and looks down at his arms. “That’s so cool.” He looks at me. “Hey, do you think we could ask the Ga—”

  I lurch forward and grab his arm. “Let’s talk about that later,” I say, my eyes flicking over to the woman. I sort of trust her, but I don’t want to tell her about the Game. Not yet.

  Ryder frowns, but I see his eyes drift off to the side and I wonder if he’s asking the Game’s advice. Or just thinking regular, human thoughts. Either way, he gives a few small, tentative nods of his head. “Okay.” He turns back to the woman. “Thanks, uh,” he falters, an obvious tell.

  The woman hesitates just one second, long enough to make me suspicious, before she says, “Nancy.”

  “Nancy!” Ryder echoes. “I’m Ryder. She’s Jane. It’s nice to meet you. And thank you for the healing.”

  Nancy lets her head bob. “Pleasure,” she says, looking between the two of us.

  “Why are you out in the woods, Nancy?” I ask, trying very hard not to sound like I’m accusing her of anything. Because I’m not, not really. It’s not that I don’t trust her, it’s just that…

  Well, I don’t trust much at all. In general.

  Still, she did help us.

  Nancy gives a little shrug. “I don’t like being in the neighbourhoods. It’s all too quiet. But at least out here the quiet is normal, so it’s harder to tell.” She looks up into the boughs of the trees. “Though these messed up animals are pretty hard to ignore.” She looks back down at us, a sad smile on her face. “Your fight was a little… loud. I came to investigate.” I can see her eyes flick over to my bat.

  “We came looking for it,” Ryder says, the picture of innocent trust. “We wanted to get experience for fighting the monsters!”

  Nancy’s brow scrunches for a half second, but she places that easy smile back on her face. “That’s smart, to learn how to protect yourself.”

  Ryder looks ready to say more, and I once again find myself wanting to censor this woman’s understanding of the world that we find ourselves in. Just until I know wholly whether or not she’s on our side.

  “Ryder, what do you say we head back to the car and grab our lunches?” I ask, slowly bringing myself up to my feet.

  The other two stand up as well. Ryder looks back and forth between me and Nancy, but he just nods. “Yeah, okay, I guess I’m a little hungry. Fighting an epic battle with monsters can build an appetite!”

  I pick up my bat and take a few steps forward, and that seems to be enough for Ryder. He heads off, happy as can be, without looking behind him. Nancy moves to follow, and I grab her wrist, holding her to me as I take slow, even steps. “No sudden movements,” I say quietly, not wanting Ryder to hear. “Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”

  Nancy looks down at my hand on her wrist, and slowly lifts her eyes to look back up at me. “Because I know about your little game. And I want in.”