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Me and Mike sit in bed the next morning, unsure of what to do next. Personally, I'm just happy the Canler didn't break out and kill us during the night. He seemed to quick to confess and nobody knows why. If others know that he's here, then that's not a good thing.

Our room's ok. It's a couple doors down from my dads'. It's got a big enough bed for me and Mike in the corner, beige wallpaper and a dresser. There's no TV, but YouTube pretty much makes up for that. "So," Mike breaks the silence, "what do we do now?" I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"I have no idea," I say. "To be honest, kidnapping the Canler was all I came up with."

"Well, I think it was a good idea." Mike scoots a little closer to me. I look down and see he has his phone out and has his music library pulled up. There's a couple songs I recognize. But one stands out more than the others.

"Beethoven's fifth?" I ask.

"It's beautiful music," Mike smiles at me. He scrolls down his list and hits play to another song. When it starts, it's slow guitar music. Kind of like the type you'd play in a romantic setting. As the lyrics flow and tug my heart strings, Mike laces his fringes around mine and gently squeezes.

"Can I tell you something?" I ask.

"Of course."

"I'm still a little sad that Jo's gone."

"I know, my poor fox," Mike says, putting an arm around me. I look into his eyes and see a few things: genuine upsetness, desire, and passion. I don't know what it is that makes me lean forward, the fact that my friend's gone and I'm all alone in a world ravaged by aliens or that someone that has been my friend forever and truly cares about me, but either way, I wrap my arms around Mike and slowly pull him forward. He seems a bit surprised but relaxes his muscles when our lips are only a short hair away from each other.

"I'm afraid," I whisper. Of the possibility that Jo will never be back. That if we kiss, nothing will ever be the same even after we stop the Influence.

"It's ok," Mike says. Our noses touch right before our muzzles do. But the second they do, I feel like I'm on cloud nine, all of my worries being temporarily lifted. The kiss lasted only a few seconds, even though I didn't want it to end so quickly. When it ends, we look at each other, blushing like crazy. Then we end up hugging each other tight. I hear Mike sniffling a little and wonder if he's crying. What do I do then?

"I love you, Riley," Mike says. "Do you love me?" Do I? Whenever Mike flirts with me, I've always known they were 100% real. Whenever he cuddles with me, I know he wants to be with me. Even after our discussion, he still wants to be with me. Maybe I've always thought the same way and I was afraid to admit it. Do I think Mike is a good friend? Yes. Do I enjoy cuddling with him? Yes. Did I like the kiss we just had?

Yes.

He releases me and puts his paws on my shoulders, tears twinkling in his eyes. "Do you?" He asks again. I wrap my arms around his waist and give him my honest answer.

"Yes." His eyes widen and his tail starts wagging.

"Does that mean...?"

"Yes. I will be your boyfriend, Mike," I say. A smile grows on his face and he hugs me again. I lie down with him getting on top of me. We look at each other again and I notice him starting to tear up again. I wipe them away with my thumbs.

"I've been dreaming about that for a long time," he says. He kisses me briefly. His tail wagging like crazy. "I'm gonna make you the happiest fox ever."

"And I'm going to make you the happiest skunk ever," I say. We kiss again. The chaos that happens next happens fast. We hear a crash of glass, a few gunshots that don't like gunshots, more like darts being shot out of a gun, and a few thumps. Me and Mike immediately get up and our hearts start racing in a bad way.

"What do we do?" Mike asks.

"I don't know." We hear someone thumping up the stairs and we immediately lace fingers together. I'm ready to die. Not without a fight. I go up to the door and look through the keyhole, a grey figure blocks my view and I rapidly get out of the way before someone kicks the door off the hinges and onto the floor. When the dust settles, I a see Jo with red glowing eyes, foam coming out of her muzzle and a gun pointed straight at me.

"Jo?" I ask.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it," she says, her body twitching a little. "I knew you were trying to hide from us, only caring about that fucking skunk! He's a fucking waste of a body! A danger to the Influence."

"Jo, what the hell is wrong with you?" I ask. She looks like she has some form of mutated rabies.

"What's wrong is that you two are still alive. I got a message on my phone from the Canler, telling me to free him after I've killed you two." Jo cock the handgun she has and positions her finger on the trigger.

"What the fuck do we do?" Mike whimpers.

"I don't know," I say. Jo slowly enters the room, making us back up. I bump into the desk and my tail accidentally slides over Mike's phone. The music changes to silence and then classical music. "You left your phone out."

"Is this the end?" Mike asks. As the music hits the eighth note, we hear an unearthly scream and we turn to Jo, who has dropped the gun and fallen onto her knees. Her paws cover her ears and he eyes glow bloody red right before they change to green and she collapses unconscious. After a fearful minute, I turn off Beethoven's fifth and walk up to Jo's limp body. I reach around her neck and press two fingers in the side. A pulse is still alive. She's still alive.

"Dad," I whisper. I quickly run down the hall and down the stairs and see the mess before me. An entire window shattered, a red gun lies on the floor. The sight of my dads and Evan on the floor makes me want to quiver and cry. All three of them have a dart in the side of their neck but I can still see their chests rising and falling. The door's unlocked and open with a handgun right next to it. On the street is a white van with a white fox and a grey wolf in the front seats. Kara and Canler.

Something snaps within me. I grab the gun off the floor and march outside. I raise it, pointing straight at Kara's head. When I fire, I miss and hit the mirror. She jerks awake and fires up the engine. As she drives down, I'm firing a few rounds at them but I don't really do any damage. Mike runs outside and snaps me out of it.

"You're right," I say. We head back inside and we go up to my parents. There's no doubt that those are tranquilizer darts in their necks. I carefully take them out as if it will immediately wake them up. They still lay slumped, unmoving. We do the same to Evan, making sure they all lie flat on the ground so their blood doesn't flow to just one part.

***

Me and Mike carried Jo downstairs and into the kitchen where she's currently at, tied to a chair. Todd and Wendell still aren't awake. How long do tranquilizer darts last? I managed to get myself lunch from Evan's fridge and got some of my strength and energy back; which is good if I want to fight the Influence. While I sit on the floor, shaking Wendell's shoulder trying to get him to wake up, I hear mumbling not far away. "Riley! Jo's awake!" I hear Mike shout. I don't know if I should be afraid or relieved; but either way, I'm prepared. I walk around the stairs and into the kitchen.

It's a small room, a sink on the left, a few cupboards here and there and a black table in the middle. And sitting in a black chair, tied down with steel wire we found is Jo, whose eyes are starting to blink and whose muzzle and starting to speak.

"Wha?... What... happened?" Her voice is so silent, I have to reeeeally listen. I keep the gun in my paw, but lowered.

"Jo?" I ask. "Is it really you?" She looks at me with those same blue eyes I've known for six years. For the last couple days, I've been afraid of them. Now I don't know what to think.

"Yes," she whispers.

"How do we know?" Mike asks. If there's one thing I know about the Influence is that it made Jo go crazy when Mike and I held paws and it made even more insane when we kissed. I tuck the gun in my pocket, spin Mike towards me, hold his paw and kiss him. He wraps his paws around me and kisses back.

"Ok lovebirds, it's great that you like each other, but untie me!" Jo says in that usual cocky and annoyed tone I know anywhere.

"It's really her," I say. I give the gun to Mike and go over to help Jo out of the chair. My fingers slip a little as I untie this wire, hoping that my instincts are right: this is Jo. Whatever has infected her brain is now gone. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing?" She asks. The wire falls to the ground and she stands up, wincing a little and looks at her arms. They seems a bit sore. I guess me and Mike tied it too tight. As she runs her sore arms she says, "the last thing I recall is me sitting in the auditorium. Next thing I know, I'm in this house on my knees with a gun and then I crashed out. Where the hell are we, anyways?"

"Evan," I say, "he's a police officer who took us in after he found my house invaded and destroyed. Apparently, the Influence now knows we're here and if we don't get moving, we could get captured." She looks a bit confused. That's when I remember that she's never heard of the Influence.

"We'll explain later," Mike says, seeming to see Jo's expression too. Mike leads her to te bathroom to freshen up while I go back to work on my parents. I've seen a trick in the movies where you'd throw a cup of water on someone's face and they immediately wake up... or something like that. I go to the kitchen, open the cupboard and reach for a glass. I fill it almost to te brim with ice cold water and bring it back to the living room. I go over to Wendell first (let's face it, his love for Todd is so strong that even his touch might bring him back). I get on my knees and slowly pour the water over his muzzle and closed eyes. They immediately squeeze even more shut and then fly open.

"Dad?" I ask.

"Yeah, I'm awake," Wendell says, rubbing his forehead. He seems a little dizzy. I help him onto his feet where he just gets even more dizzy. "What the fuck happened?" He scans the rooms and sees the broken window, the gun in my pocket and his husband and Evan unconscious on the floor.

"Jo came in and knocked you guys out and then almost killed me and Mike," I say. He looks like he's gonna say something else but before I give him a chance, I add in, "and I think somehow we changed her back."

"What do you mean you changed her back?"

"I mean, I don't think she's part of the Influence."

"How can you tell?" I can't. She could just be pretending and will capture us at the first chance she gets. That's when I remember a couple hours ago when she had us at gunpoint. Her eyes changed and she collapsed.

Her eyes.

"Her eyes changed to green," I say. "Mike said that everyone's eyes turned red before they went insane. If red means bad, maybe green means they're good again."

"That's a pretty big 'if', Riley," Wendell says. And I know he's right that we can't be certain that Jo's back to normal. I've pretty much rolled the dice, now I have to know if I'll pay the price later.

***

Wendell, Mike, and I got everything into his truck. We got Todd and Evan into the bed of the truck with no problems. I know it seems rude but this is our only vehicle and we definitely can't stay here for long if the Influence knows we're here. Wendell took Evan's handcuffs and cuffed Jo just to be on the safe side. Once we had everything, we opened the garage door and we left.

Currently, I sit on a semi-old bench in the middle of some storage house the next town over. It seemed like the safest place to be. There's a couple bunk beds set up and sleeping bags out. It's freezing in here and I don't have a jacket; imagine how that would be. Wendell managed to get Todd up and hour ago and they're still working on Evan. Sometimes I think he's asleep and he knows it and refuses to get up. Jo sits in the corner, still cuffed but free to walk around. Mike lies in one of the beds, sleeping. I'm trying to think what our next move should be.

Suddenly, Todd's phone rings and the ringtone echoes through the room. He picks it up and answers it. "Hello?" Whoever's on the other end speaks a little and Todd smiles. "That's great! I'll see you then!" He hangs up.

"Who was that, honey?" Wendell asks. He goes up to him and wraps his paws around his waist.

"Angie. Bruno's having surgery that will hopefully get rid of the cancer." I completely forgot about cousin Angie and cousin Bruno. With all this Influence stuff that's been happening, they must've slipped my mind. I kinda feel bad about it.

"I really hope things go well," Wendell says.

"They will, wolfy." Todd kisses him and they immediately hug tight and caress each other. If this was before I started my fifth grade, I would be very happy to see my dads kissing. Even though I still like that they love each other, panic still sets in the back of my mind. I can't help but think: what if the Influence finds us? How do we stop them?

How did we free Jo?