Colette's first idea is to run and hide. The words I'm not ready intermingle with the horrified curses and screams inside her head. All of the confidence she'd gained in the past month and a half immediately slips away, replaced with the fear that she and Gigi are about to be killed.

Then the Rengling steps forward and Gigi springs into action, and suddenly there's no time to be afraid.

While Gigi yanks off her gloves and calls forth vines to wrap around the Rengling's body, Colette closes her eyes and wills herself to become invisible. Blend, blend, blend, blend. Come on, come on.

Her eyes fly open, and she looks down. She is nowhere to be seen.

Thank god.

The Rengling lets out a snarl of rage, and her gaze snaps over to Gigi to find that the pink-haired girl has trapped it within a thick rope of vines. She almost smiles as the Rengling thrashes against his natural prison, but quickly shakes off her pride for what her friend can do and shoves herself under Gigi's bed, reaching for the large duffel bag filled with kitchen appliances she and Gigi were able to use as weapons. She pries the bag open and yanks out the carving and and chef's knives.

As soon as the knives touch her hands, they, too, become invisible, and then she throws herself out from underneath the bed, silently praying that Gigi still has a handle on the beast.

She straightens up, looks up—

—and watches as the Rengling rips free of his bindings and lunges for Gigi.

"Gigi!" Colette shrieks before she can stop herself. Dammit. Now she's given away her location. What help is she going to be now?

Luckily, it doesn't seem to matter. The Rengling's concentration doesn't stray from Gigi as it gains on her, arms outstretched, mouth open wide. Gigi attempts to attack it with some more vines, but it sees them coming now, and grabs at them before they can be useful.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, Colette thinks as she creeps forward, clutching the knives tightly in her hands. She feels like her heart is about to tear itself out of her chest, and oh god, what if she messes up? What if she can't kill the Rengling like Gigi thinks she can? What if the distraction is all for not?

She sucks in a breath as quietly as she can, and holds it. Don't breathe. Don't mess up. Don't you dare. You got this. You've got this. You—

Colette just reaches the Rengling's back when suddenly the thing is lifting Gigi off the ground, its gnarled hand wrapped around her throat. Gigi paws at the hand cutting off her airway, visibly tries to summon vines to give her aid, but it's no use—she's too weak.

The Rengling sucks in a long, slow breath, and Gigi goes limp in its arms. White wisps like glowing smoke begin to arise from her body.

"No!" Colette cries.

Without thinking, without planning, without making sure her aim is precise, she jabs the chef's knife into the Rengling's back as hard as she can. She can feel the knife sinking into the creature's flesh, but she hardly pays it any mind. All she can think about is stopping this thing from killing her friend.

The Rengling lets out a pain-filled roar, dropping Gigi to the floor in a careless heap. And then the next thing Colette knows, it turns on her and whips her blindly across the face. The force is enough to send her reeling, and she trips on her own two feet before crumbling to the floor.

The pain in her cheek is excruciating, but she does her best to ignore it as her eyes shoot over to where she'd lost her grip on the carving knife. It's visible now, just like the chef's knife, which the Rengling is now yanking out of its back. If she can just get to it without it noticing...

But the Rengling's eyes are in her general direction, searching, searching, searching. If she goes for the knife now, it'll see, and then she'll be done for.

Colette holds her breath. Adds in a few more blend, blend blend thoughts for good measure. Glances over at Gigi and prays that she'll find the strength to move soon.

Please be okay, she begs the pink-haired girl. Please, please please be okay.

As though hearing her inner cry, Gigi blinks and shifts, lifting her head in what Colette can only assume is a way to get a better look at the situation. Her gaze locks briefly on the Rengling before turning searching and worried, and Colette immediately knows the questions running through her mind: Where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt?

She wishes she could respond, but that would only call attention to both of them, and then they'd both be screwed.

Slowly, but surely, Gigi gets herself to her feet. She brushes her hands against her pants, closes her eyes, and nods. Colette wonders how much strength was stolen from her—how much of her peculiarity was sucked out. Did any? Or did Colette stab the Rengling in time?

The Rengling stomps its foot a few feet away, causing Colette to flinch. Dammit. She needs to move. But where? The Rengling is so close that she can't really move without it hearing her, and it's blocking the area around the bed. She could go underneath the bed and grab another weapon, but would she have enough time before it gets to her?

She pictures it grabbing her by her ankles, yanking her back just before she gets her hands on the duffel. She can see it lift her up by her neck, can feel it sucking out her peculiarity, her soul...

Long, thorny vines emerge from Gigi's hands, slowly at first, but swiftly gaining speed as she taps into the strength she momentarily lost. Colette almost smiles as the vines wrap themselves around the Rengling's unsuspecting torso. Thank god. Just the distraction she needs.

A loud screech erupts from the Rengling's mouth as the thorns dig into its wound. It is then that Colette dives for the carving knife. The cries continue to escalate as Gigi tightens the vines' hold. "Take that!" she screams, her voice nearly lost underneath all of the Rengling's noise. "This is for Katie, asshole!"

Colette's fingers wrap around the carving knife, and then she's throwing herself at the Rengling before it has the chance to break away from its vine prison. There's no real time to mentally prepare herself before she shoves the knife into the Rengling's neck.

The Rengling's cries turn into disturbing gurgles that she knows will haunt her dreams for a long time. Colette backs away, shaky hands finding their way to her mouth as the creature slows to a stop and gradually goes still.

They wait for one, two, three, four, five seconds.

Then: "It's dead," Gigi says. "It's dead, right? Please tell me the damn thing is dead."

Colette nods, then remembers that she's invisible. "It's dead," she whispers.

Gigi retracts the vines, and the Rengling drops unceremoniously onto the floor. Colette dismisses her peculiarity, and then they just stand there, staring at it.

"We're safe," Gigi says. She grins. "We're finally safe."

Colette smiles.

***

Colette presses herself into the kitchen wall and thinks one word: blend.

Her body's reaction is immediate, and she feels an anticipated smile find its way to her face as she glances in the living room's general direction. "Bodhi!" she calls, patting her hand against her knee. "Come here, bud!"

The sound of pattering feet against hardwood can be heard, and Colette returns her hands to her sides, resisting the urge to laugh uncontrollably when Bodhi hurries by, his head twisting from side to side.

He disappears, and she allows a small laugh to escape her lips. "Bodhi!" she calls again. "Bodhi!"

And back this way he comes. And away he goes.

"Bodhi!"

"Are you hiding from him again?" she hears her dad yell from the living room. "I didn't adopt him just to have you torture him!"

Colette grins. It's been a year and a half since the encounter with the Rengling, and almost as long since her parents finally broke down and allowed her to bring Bodhi home.

She wonders how Gigi is doing. She hasn't spoken to her in almost a year now. They tried to keep in touch, but with her living so far away, they eventually lost contact. But she still thinks about her all the time, sometimes when she's just thankful that she now has a bigger appreciation for the gift she has, or sometimes when she wakes up from a nightmare about the Rengling succeeding in what it tried to do.

She can't thank Gigi enough for helping her see that her peculiarity isn't a curse meant to doom her to a life as a freak. Her anxiety is at an ultimate low, and though it's still difficult to talk to her classmates without Tommy Dillon trying to force his way into her thoughts, she is no longer afraid of accidentally blending into her surroundings. She is in control.

And so what if she's a little peculiar? Everyone is. And that's okay. It's great, actually. Everyone needs a little peculiarity in their life, right?

"I'm not torturing him!" she retorts. "I'm playing! There's a difference."

Bodhi reappears, his head twisting from side to side.

"I'm right here," Colette says, and his head snaps in her direction. Stop blending, she thinks, and then Bodhi jogs over to her, pawing at her knees. She laughs and pets his head. "Ugh, I love you. You know that, right?"

Bodhi leans into her touch, and her smile grows.

"If I were to give you my math homework, would you eat it so I don't have to do it?" she asks.

No reply.

"I'm going to take that as a maybe."

Eventually Bodhi gets bored and heads back to the living room. Colette follows and flops next to her dad on the couch. He grins at her and loops an arm around her shoulders. "You are one special kid," he says, and though his tone is joking, she can see the truth behind his words.

She leans into his shoulder, a smile at the ready. "Thanks," she says.