~Lukas's POV~

The sun blasts me in the eyes, forcing me awake. I shake Magnus and Ruby until they wake as well. We're going to find Jesse today, I know it. Or at least the prison she's trapped in.

We've been searching for almost a week now, in all sorts of places. Ruby's mostly sure the Hunters won't set up base in the Nether or the End, which I'm glad for. The Nether means ghasts, which I hate, and we (read: Jesse) flooded the End a while back.

"You seem cheerful," Magnus remarks, watching me bounce from foot to foot.

"We're going to figure out where she is today, I can feel it!" I exclaim. "We're going to find the fortress!"

The last thought Jesse sent us is still reverberating through my head, the shout to get away. If it means something's happened to her, I'll kill whoever did it, I swear by Notch's beard.

"Are we heading into the dark oaks?" Ruby asks, yawning.

"Yeah," I answer. She snaps her mouth shut and turns to look at the shadowy trees.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, being in there?"

"What do you want to do, walk on top of them?"

"We can, actually," she replies, examining a tree. "The trees are actually close enough together and the canopy's dense enough." She punches down one of the four main columns of the tree and pillars back up, removing any trace she was there. Soon, the sound of leaves breaking, and a shout of "Hurry up, slowpokes!" tells us it's safe.

We mirror her actions and are up on top of the trees in no time. Magnus focuses and pulls our horses up with us, and we begin riding away from the plains.

After a few hours, Magnus says, "Do you guys feel that? The air's getting warmer."

"I don't feel anything," I say after a few moments.

"Neither do I," Ruby agrees. "This might be another ability. I'm not sure if the gradients signify multiple abilities or not."

"So, you don't have a gradient marking?" Magnus asks.

She pulls up her sleeve and bares her wrist, revealing the two light purple dots, then pulls it back down. Magnus's eyes widen, and he nods.

"Seriously, it is getting hotter, though."

"Didn't you say yellow meant heightened abilities or something?" I ask, looking at Ruby.

She closes her eyes and nods. "I believe so."

"So maybe you're better at sensing changes in temperature or something," I say to Magnus.

"Hmm," is his only response.

For several minutes, we ride on in silence, until Ruby stops. "There! You see it?"

I look up, and instantly regret it.

The heat hits me like a wave, making me feel extremely nauseous. Its source is a huge moat of lava, surrounding a giant obsidian... thing. Suddenly I recognize it. It's the head of the strange beast from my dream! It even has the giant fangs and the glowing eyes.

"You okay?" Ruby asks, riding up to me. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I spill the dream to them, and after a moment, Magnus looks at the head and says, "Well, whatever that thing is, it's definitely associated with the Hunters. So let's go save Jesse, before it gets there."

<Jesse's POV>

I don't believe it. Another Jesse? That shouldn't be possible, unless he's from another world. But that wouldn't explain why we look like twins.

Clearly, he's thinking the same thing. "Why do we look so similar?" He wonders out loud. "Do you know who your parents are? Anyone else in a family?

I close my eyes. My earliest memory is with Axel and Olivia, and none of my other memories have any traces of parents or a family by blood. "No. I never met them. My earliest memory is with two friends of mine. But I guess they could be family, too. I've known them long enough. No, wait. Not blood family. Then they wouldn't have gotten married."

He blinks. "I'm not going to ask."

"Good. You'll be less confused. And now I sound like Ruby," I say to myself. "What about you?"

"My parents raised me. Steve and Alex. I never had any siblings, or any other family I knew." His voice catches on the word siblings, and I know he's hiding something.

"You're not telling me everything," I say.

He sits down next to me. "My parents told me a story once, about two young twins who went down to a river near their house. Only one of them came back. The other one just vanished."

"And you think that's you?" I ask. "You and some mystery sibling?"

"It's possible," he answers, shrugging. Then, as if driven by some inner instinct, he touches me on the shoulder. "It could be us."

"Hey! No one but the Chief is allowed to touch her!" A guard shouted, and the other Jesse pulls his hand away.

"Just call me Jess, by the way," he says. "It'll be weird calling each other Jesse all the time."

"You think?"

He snorts a laugh, and then quiets. "You're the one who tried to help Kai, right?"

"Yeah," I say. "I can't do much, but I did my best."

"You did enough. He probably would have died already if you hadn't."

I look down and away from Jess. "Unlike everyone else. Reuben, and Magnus, and nearly Petra..."

I'm struck by a sense of deep longing. I miss the others. Axel, Olivia, their kids, Petra, Ivor... and Lukas. "He'll find us. He has to."

"Who will?"

"Lukas. He'll get us out of here."

"Whoever Lukas is, if he lets someone like you get away from him, he doesn't know what's good for him."

He touches my shoulder again, and the guard yells, "That's it! Separate cells for the two of you! No touching the Chief's girl!"

"Chief's girl?" Jess asks, but it's too late for anything more than a wild-eyed shrug.

He calls another guard over, and they drag me out of the cell and down a corridor, into my old cell, and throw a potion at me.

Alone again. And blind again. Isn't my life great?

Lukas will find us. He has to.

~Lukas's POV~

We watch from the treetops for a while. A patrol of Hunters wearing green armor comes out from the woods, and each of them steps onto a pressure plate, one of several. The beast's mouth opens, allowing the Hunters inside. It shuts a moment after they come inside.

Another Hunter, this one alone and wearing dark gray, steps on another plate, and the mouth opens again. He walks inside, and the mouth shuts.

Another patrol of green Hunters come and step on the pressure plate the first patrol did, and go inside.

Now a blue-wearing Hunter comes and steps on another pressure plate and goes inside.

"The pressure plate to step on must be connected to the armor they're wearing," Magnus whispers.

"So we need to take out some Hunters, and take their armor," Ruby murmurs. "Probably of the same color, too. To make sure."

"So, a patrol of greens," I say. "We shouldn't have to wait long."

Ruby punches some holes in the canopy and looks down through them. "Actually, we will. There's a whole bunch coming right now."

"Of greens, or..." I begin, punching my own hole and looking through. "Oh, crap."

A giant mass of Hunters of every color is coming toward us. Gray and green and blue make up the majority, but there are some purple and black, and one yellow. They're too far back for me to see any details.

"We'll wait till the end, then take some armor," Ruby decides. "Hopefully, no one will make a sound."

"Hopefully's never gonna happen," Magnus replies.

So we wait.

<Jesse's POV>

I run forward and ram into the iron bars shoulder-first. They clang, but don't budge as I fall back and stand to charge again.

"Isn't the little beast fiesty?" Aiden asks, coming up to my cell.

"Shove off, Aiden," I snarl.

"I think not. Perhaps you want-"

"I said shove off like the foul monster you are."

The sound of the door opening, and I turn in its direction.

"I will not shove off. You will love me," Aiden says, and I charge.

:Aiden's POV:

The sight of Jesse running at me, head lowered, is enough to make me take a step back. She dares try to attack me?

I get rammed in the stomach, and my lunch flies up in my throat. But I don't have time to recover; she draws her sword and lunges toward me. I barely pull mine out in time to parry her blows. She strikes at me with unbelievable speed and strength for her condition.

"You...will...not... get away with this!" She shouts between blows. "No matter what!"

"Jesse, please calm down," I say, breathing heavily, and the effort distracts me long enough for her to slash my sword arm. I shout and drop my sword.

"Chief! Are you all right?" A Guard asks, rushing to my side.

"She...has a...sword," I gasp. "Be... careful."

He pulls me out and shuts the door on Jesse, and the last thing I hear is an enraged howl.

(Jess's POV)

I hear the shouting down the corridor, but I ignore it, feeling Kai for a pulse instead. He's deathly cold, but his pulse is there. Barely.

"Please, Notch. Let him stay alive. Please," I whisper. I feel myself heating up, like I'm embarrassed, but I ignore that, too.

Is it just me, or is Kai's pulse getting stronger?

The color rushes back to his face, and his blue eyes shudder awake.

"Jesse?" He asks. "What are you doing?"

I realize my hand is still on his throat, and I pull it back. "Sorry. And by the way, just call me Jess, now."

He blinks and nods, then starts looking around. "Where are we? All I remember is the weird wolves, and then... pain. Blackness. A couple voices. I'm not sure. There was... a girl?"

"Another prisoner here. She tried to help. Bandaged you up."

He looks down at himself, then back at me. "Where is she now?"

"They took her to a different cell. Called her the 'Chief's girl' or something, and said no one could touch her."

"That's weird," he says. Straight to the point.

"Yeah. It is."

"I hope she'll be okay."

Me too.

~Lukas's POV~

We're all wearing green armor, now. We managed to slip in at the very back of the army, and after they all split underground, we chuck the armor into our inventories and I put on my normal set.

"Where do we go now?" Magnus asks.

"In the last one, it was the passage three from the right," Ruby says, pointing. "We'll try that one again."

We travel down the hallway. I can tell it's sloping downward. "We're going to reach bedrock soon," I say, not really talking to anyone.

"We'll reach the portal first," Ruby replies. "Then we'll head through the Nether. The prison should be one of the paths through there."

"What if this is the prison?" Magnus asks. "What then?"

"It isn't," she says. "The prison looks different."

"How do you know they're going to be the same?"

"Because," Ruby replies, pointing to the portal we nearly walked into.

"Let's go in, then," I say, stepping in first. The others follow, and for a moment, I'm struck. Was this how Jesse felt whenever she led us through the portals? Not knowing what to expect, worried about her companions?

I hope she's all right.

Magnus stops at my shoulder. "You're worried about Jesse. She'll be fine. She's tough."

Was that how I was to her?

"I hope so."

<Jesse's POV>

I pull myself into a sitting position, rubbing my shoulders. Everything hurts. Especially my head. It feels like someone let an angry wolf loose in my skull, and it's running around howling at the top of its lungs and clawing at my brain.

My thoughts are all jumbled and foggy, but one comes through loud and clear. I hope Jess and Kai are okay.

Something is pounding. I think it's my heart, but I realize it's footsteps. Coming closer to me. I raise my head, ready to meet this threat. But they pass quickly, and I lower it again.