Lexie caught up to Tate in the parking lot outside the gym, which was empty except for a black motorcycle with so much edge Lexie instantly knew it belonged to Shadow.

She didn't know where Tate was going but he was walking fast. That was until she yelled, "Tate Reynolds!"

He froze in step, body stiffening in alarm.

Then he turned around slowly, his shoulder slumped. Resignation was drawn all over his face as he turned. When he finally faced Lexie, he attempted a crooked, somewhat, uncomfortable-looking smile.

"Heyyy…you."

Lexie couldn't believe it. There was a small part of her that thought maybe she was wrong and he wasn't really Tate, only someone who looked like him. This just proved that she was right all along and he was Tate Reynolds.

That was all he could say to her? Hey you? That was what you said to the person who got shot in front of you and then got transmigrated into a video game that you also somehow are in? Unbelievable.

"You knew I was here, didn't you?" she asked. "You don't look surprised at all to see me."

He shrugged weakly. The discomfort didn't leave his expression but he didn't answer.

Lexie shook her head.

"How did you...I mean what are you even doing here? Are you dead?" That was probably a tactless thing to ask someone who had died but Lexie didn't have the patience for tact right now. She needed to know a lot of things and she needed Tate to tell her the truth now.

"No," he frowned. "I'm in…limbo. Same as you."

She frowned. "Limbo? Like in a coma?"

He didn't answer but it was his turn to look confused. "Not a coma. It's more like…dead, but not really dead."

That doesn't make any sense.

"You can think of it as a coma if it makes it easier," he said. "But you're as good as dead on Earth 2."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I saw you," Tate said. "The ambulance arrived and took you to the hospital and I stayed long enough for the doctors to tell me that you were…gone."

That meant that he didn't die at the same time she did. And she was dead but not dead…which meant what exactly?

Her mind was ringing so loud that it drowned out everything else, even the ache in her chest. Somehow, she'd still been holding out some level of hope that this was an elaborate dream or she was in a video game and she would get out of it soon.

But no. This was her new reality.

Tate also appeared pained and kept glancing around himself surreptitiously as though expecting someone to intervene.

"How did you end up dead then?" Lexie asked quietly. "And how do you even know you're in limbo anyway?"

"Because my guide told me."

"Guide?"

"Yeah." He cocked his head. "You're asking a lot of strange questions. Did your guide not tell you any of these things?"

"You mean the manual."

"Not the manual, the system guide. It's a thing that's supposed to speak to you when you get here."

Lexie shook her head slowly. "I didn't get anything like that."

Surprise flared in Tate's eyes, and rustled his eyebrows. His hazel eyes gleamed with genuine confusion which he tried to wipe away.

"That's….odd," he said finally.

"What was the system guide supposed to tell me?"

"A whole bunch of things. Including what you're doing here."

"What am I doing here?"

"I don't know. It's different for everyone."

"Every…wait there's more people like us?"

"I assume," he shrugged. "Not a whole lot, probably less than half a dozen. I haven't met any yet so I don't know for sure."

"Oh God." Lexie's head was spinning. So there were more people from Earth 2 here. Or maybe even possibly from the other Earth dimensions. That was probably what a Chosen was. Someone, possibly the ISTS or possibly an Eldritch Lord, was bringing souls like Lexie's from other Earth dimensions to Earth 9. Why? And why did all of them know what they were here for except her?

"What did your guide tell you?" she asked, taking a step forward, urgency throttling her.

Tate shook his head. "I can't tell you that. I can't tell you a lot of things which you would know if you had the guide. And even if I told you, it wouldn't help you figure out your purpose because it'sindividual to all of us."'

Lexie scoffed. Even better. She had an individual thing that she had to do, that was very specific to her but she didn't know what it was. Great.

"Okay." She blew some of her breath out. Frustration wouldn't help her right now. "Seeing as I wasn't lucky enough to get this guide thing and thus, I'm oblivious, how do I find out what I'm supposed to do?"

Tate thought about that for a few minutes, glancing around like someone might be listening. He levied a shrug.

"I really don't know. But if it makes you feel any better, the guide said it would be difficult to avoid our purpose here. Something about, 'if you don't find it, it will find you'."

"And if we fulfill this purpose, do we get to go home?"

Tate pursed his lips, chewing on that for a second.

"You get to go wherever you want," he said and that gave Lexie a mix of feelings. On one hand, she should be happy that she now had a clear path home.

On the other hand, she...didn't know what she wanted to do with that. She wasn't ready to leave Aiden and Hovelton behind yet. Even if she wasn't his real daughter.

Despite her attempt to remain calm, frustration was building to the brim. Why was this happening now when she was having so many doubts already when she already had too many things to deal with? Why now when her relationship with Aiden was strained?

While Tate's presence answered some of her questions, it also gave her a ton more things to think about.

"Yeah um…" he sighed. "Listen, I gotta go. Tell Conrad I'll be right back. I just need to do something quickly."

"No wait, don't go yet." Lexie's hands shot out to stop him and he flinched from her vehemence. "Um sorry. I just have so many questions about what happened, and my brother and…"

Tate seemed conflicted, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He gave a clipped nod. "Alright, I think I can tell you this part. So um… your brother…he heard the gunshot and came back."

"Oh no." Lexie covered her mouth with her hand, horror pounding through her. She didn't want that to happen at all. The one thing she'd hoped in this terrible mess was that Logan had been too far away to hear the shot, and hadn't come back. She didn't want him to have to see her like that.

Tate swallowed and Lexie could see that this was also difficult for him to discuss. A hollowness haunted his eyes.

"Robbie and his friends were already gone by that point, so when your brother came, it was just me there with you bleeding out. I was kind of frozen and didn't know what to do and he showed up and tried to fight me because he thought I shot you. I was trying to explain what happened, to tell him to call 911, but he didn't want to hear it...he was kind of out of his mind too. Then he picked up your phone and that was when he saw the stream where a couple of people were freaking out because they heard Robbie shoot you. He believed me then."

Lexie's eyes got misty, her throat tickling. She didn't want to cry but she felt it choking her and threatening behind her eyeballs. Poor Logan. Poor Tate.

"The ambulance arrived. We told them what happened. They took me, you, and Logan to the hospital while he called your parents. I stayed until your parents arrived and had to tell them the whole story too. They didn't want me there anymore, so I left."

"I'm sorry," Lexie said because he looked pretty broken up about the whole thing and she couldn't imagine her parents had made that easier. Remembering how her mother had reacted when her grandpa died, blaming everything and everyone in the vicinity, Tate probably got similar treatment and had all the blame placed on his shoulders.

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He gave a watery snort. "Did you just apologize to me for dying?"

"Yeah well," She struggled to find the words. "I think death is usually harder on the people left behind than it is on the ones who are gone." While her family was mourning her, she'd been here learning magic and selfishly having a good time.

"I wouldn't know." Tates smile held a touch of bitterness. "I didn't leave anyone behind."

"Oh." Lexie wanted to ask what he meant by that because she was pretty sure he had a dad before she died. What happened to him?

She felt like that was very much a no-go zone. Time to steer the conversation back to lighter, less depressing ground.

"How did you die?" she wondered aloud and reconsidered the question as his smile turned bemused.

He shook his head. "You can't just ask people how they died Lexie, it's kind of rude."

She shrugged. "You can ask me how I died. Oh wait, I forgot you were there."

Lexie's joke had the opposite of the intended effect. It wiped the smile from Tate's face, and even though Lexie didn't intend it to be accusing, guilt peppered his expression.

"Yeah and I'm so sorry about that," he said. "Like…extraordinarily sorry that I got you into that mess."

"Hey, it's fine. It's not your fault. It's that dumbass Robbie's fault. Speaking of which, what happened to him anyway?"

Tate smiled again, darkly this time. "He went to jail. Not juvie, real jail. I made sure he would and thanks to the video on your phone which someone saved, there was no way he could get around it."

"I thought his dad would get him out of trouble."

"He tried. Even tried to buy me off and get rid of the video. But a guy I know…he's a hacker. He made sure the dad stayed put."

Wow. Lexie didn't even have to ask what that meant. Lexie never knew Tate had powerful friends.

Then again, she hadn't known much about him at all, except for the fact that he was a bullied loner.

"Great," she said. "At least that worked out."

"Yeah." He ran his hands through his hair as an uncomfortable silence descended.

"Hey, you two." A voice called from behind them and they looked over to see Jan at the entrance grinning secretively. "Sorry to interrupt, but Lexie, Conrad wants to see you next."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you...later," Lexie said the words to Tate's back because he was already striding off, with quick confident steps, still peeking around like someone was watching him. Who? His guide?

Lexie was thinking about that in Conrad's office, which was the most frat-boy looking office she'd ever been in: AFC posters on the wall, mismatched furniture, a disorganized desk littered with energy drinks, a random pool table shoved in the corner, and of course, different types of scales and gym doohickeys. There was also a Conrad bobble head on his desk.

Conrad made her stand on each of the scales and the recordings were sent to his system interface automatically, with Lexie's approval of course. Lexie couldn't see the scores herself but from his expression, they weren't great.

"So," he said after she sat down. "You have essentially minimal musculature and no physical strength."

"Yeah. I'm not a physical type."

"You can still be athletic without being a physical type, you just can't advance as quickly. Meanwhile, you have no athleticism at all."

"Oh." She met his eyes and he seemed to be waiting for a stronger reaction from her, but she couldn't muster one up as distracted as she was.

"That sucks," she finished lamely.

He grinned. "Yeah, we'll have to work that up to at least a baseline, to where I'm sure you won't shatter from a good punch." He laced his hands together. "On the other hand, you're pretty smart so you might know this better than me. Do you want to give me a rundown of what you view your setbacks to be?"

"Speed," Lexie responded. "Drawing cards is a slow process. Takes at least a few seconds to activate one. So they're hard to use at the last minute, and it's also hard to use them against an opponent whose battle style I don't know that well."

"Good." He looked impressed. "That was almost entirely what I was going to say. Tomorrow I'll have you guys pair up to spar with who I feel will be best suited to exploiting your weaknesses, so you learn how to fix them and advance. You'll find that my training methods are pretty hands-off and are more about you guys pushing yourselves to your max. I will pitch in where I feel I need to, and I will push you, probably beyond where you want to go. But whatever your reasons for being here are, I need you to put in the work, to really go for it. Got it?"

Lexie nodded. "Got it."

He smiled. "Good. I'm glad you're here, Lexie Sparrowfoot."

After the meeting with Conrad, Lexie was free to go home.

As she walked to the train station, Lexie paused for a second and stared at the sun. So much had happened today. She needed to digest it in the comfort of her room, at her desk. That was her comfort zone, the place where her mind could easily compartmentalize things until they made sense to her.

Where to even start?

Tate was in Arcadia. Had he been her this whole time? Had he seen her around before?

Did he know she was here for sure or had he simply assumed that she'd been brought here by whatever it was that brought him here? And what was that thing anyway? He didn't explain that part very well. Why were they here? He seemed to know but she had no clue. And how many of them were there?

Lexie sighed and shook her head. Those questions wouldn't be getting answered today so she needed to focus on something else, the fact that she was dead but not really dead. In limbo, Tate called it.

So that meant Lexie Sparrowfoot was probably not in her body back on Earth. Which meant that…Lexie might be dead.

Poor Aiden.

Her mind instantly grabbed onto a somewhat disturbingly selfish thought.

Was there any point in telling Aiden she wasn't his real daughter then?

As sick as it was, maybe it would be more charitable for him not to know and for her to keep living as Lexie Sparrowfoot. Was that the best thing to do here? Or was she simply trying to make an immoral decision more moral?

Which would be better for Aiden? Telling the truth or lying? She could keep lying. All she had to do was live with the guilt.

She tried to think about which option would be more humane: to tell him or not to tell him that his daughter was gone. She considered it throughout dinner, while Aiden made conversation telling her about his day and something funny a student had done. She tried to put herself in his shoes…if she lost a child, and another one took their place…would she want to know?

She decided that she wouldn't. There was nothing to be gained by knowing and everything to be lost.

Once he knew there would be no going back. He wouldn't be able to 'unknow' it and the grief would be unimaginable. He would feel guilty as well because he wouldn't be able to treat this Lexie the same as his daughter, even though he would be tempted to. It would feel like a betrayal of both Lexie's and it would destroy him.

Perhaps that was why the Naem hadn't told him yet about Lexie's true identity. It had been more than a few days, and Aiden was still none the wiser about the soul exchange. Maybe the Eldritch Lord was concerned that if Aiden found out, he would be devastated and broken beyond repair. Maybe that was why he hadn't said anything.

But did the Eldritch Lord care about Aiden? Could Eldritch creatures care?

The guide would have probably told her all these things if she'd had one. And it was pissing her off that she didn't. How fair was it that she was placed here and she didn't have any clue why? They just expected her purpose to find her? What bullshit.

Lexie did not abide by poetic platitudes like that. She had no patience for them, and she didn't have faith in this so-called guide who had shirked their duty when it came to her. She needed to figure it out on her own.

Which meant one way or another, she needed to get Tate to talk, or at least hint at what he thought they were doing here.

He couldn't talk about his association with the ISTS but perhaps if he dropped hints like Lexie had tried to drop with Aiden, then she could put two and two together. Obviously, Tate might be reluctant to go for it, at least at first, but she wouldn't give him a choice. No one else here could tell her, and she was tired of being blind. She would bug him at their next meeting, so much so that he would have no choice but to tell her the truth.

Tate was more stubborn than Lexie anticipated.

She approached him the next day, with a smile and a box full of her father's cookies. Conrad wasn't there yet and everyone was kind of sitting around talking and getting ready to go on the mat. She slid onto the bench next to Tate, making Boris, Jan, and Cara croon "Oooooh".

Tate blushed and stiffened.

Lexie ignored them.

"Hi," she said and opened the box of her father's famous snickerdoodles. "Want a cookie?"

Tate gave her an uncertain look. "Are they spiked with anything?"

"No." Partially because Uncle Max refused to lend her a truth potion. "They're just regular cookies." And to prove it, she grabbed one and took a bite, chewing a couple of times before swallowing, "Yum."

Nevertheless, Tate regarded the cookies like they might be bombs.

"I'll take the cookies, Lexie," Boris called from across the mat where he was getting ready to spar.

"In a second," Lexie called out, then to Tate, she said, "Come on. Have one."

"Why?"

"Because they're good. They're snickerdoodles."

He shook his head. "No thanks."

"You don't like snickerdoodles?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I need a reason?"

"I mean if you're going to turn down delicious cookies with Chef Nancy's special recipe then yes you need a darn good reason."

"Oh, those are Chef Nancy's?" Cara said. "I'll have one."

"Sure one sec." Lexie didn't shift her gaze from Tate who was turning increasingly suspicious but also amused. "Take a cookie, Tate."

"No."

"Why?"

"I'm diabetic"

"Oh." Her eyes widened. She probably should have checked that first. "Really?"

He shrugged. "No, but if I was, you would have felt really bad for pushing those on me, wouldn't you?" He gave a tiny smile. "I'm not opposed to bribery but there are better things to bribe me with."

She feigned a look of pure innocence. "Bribery? I'm just trying to be nice."

"You're being pushy is what you are," he said, his lips threatening a smile. "And I know you're not doing it just to be nice."

"Oh cut her some slack, Tate," Boris called. "You're probably her first crush, that's why she's being so pushy ."

"I don't have a crush." She gave Boris a frosty stare. "And just for that, no cookies for you."

"Aww, don't be like that Lexie." As Boris complained and Jan and Cara laughed, Conrad finally walked in with his signature headband looking very chipper.

His eyes fell on Lexie's hand first and brightened at the cookies. Pure greed penetrated his gaze as he licked his lips.

"Oh Lexie, you brought cookies for the class?"

Well no, but she couldn't say that now. "Yeah. For everyone except Boris," she clarified, making Boris protest.

"That's discrimination. She can't do that."

"Yes, she can. Cookie discrimination is allowed in my dojo." He winked at Lexie. "You can just add Boris' cut to mine then."

"And add Tate's to mine," Cara said, and it was settled that the cookies would be shared at the end of class.

In the next few minutes, Conrad paired each person off to spar today, with Boris facing Jan, Lane facing Shadow, Urmas facing Ken and Tate facing the guy whose story she hadn't heard, Horatio. And of course, Cara was facing Lexie.

Lexie knew she would probably lose against Cara. She didn't know enough about the girl's skill to prepare a counterattack beforehand, and Cara moved much faster than Lexie could draw cards. Her tricks might have worked on Conrad when he was standing perfectly still but the other girl would be actively attacking her, which meant trouble.

Well, there was only one way to know for sure.

Cara and Lexie's fight was first. After everyone retired back to their seats, both girls stood in the middle of the mat. Cara cracked her knuckles and Lexie's stomach tightened in trepidation.

"You'll go easy on me, right?" she asked, nervous. "I mean... I gave you cookies?"

Cara simply shook her head, smiled evilly, and charged.

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