Jackson had always thought Holt talked too much.
That opinion had only gotten stronger over the years.
Soemtimes, if Jackson was trying to sleep, Holt was humming music.
If Jackson was trying to focus, Holt was making jokes.
If Jackson was trying to be serious, Holt was being DJ Hyde.
Loud.
Confident.
Impossible to ignore.
Right now?
Jackson would've given anything to hear that version of Holt again.
Instead—
They were both exhausted.
Both scared.
And both trapped.
The jail cell wasn't very big.
Just concrete walls.
Metal bars.
A narrow bench.
A toilet shoved awkwardly into the corner.
A flickering fluorescent light overhead that buzzed constantly.
Bzzzzzzzz.
Bzzzzzzzz.
Bzzzzzzzz.
Jackson hated it.
Holt hated it.
Neither of them had slept.
Not even for a minute.
Every time they started drifting off—
A door slammed.
An officer yelled.
A phone rang somewhere.
The light buzzed.
Or one of them remembered where they were.
And then sleep vanished all over again.
The worst part wasn't even the jail.
It was the waiting.
Nobody had told them anything.
Not really.
No explanation.
No timeline.
No plan.
Just endless waiting.
The kind of waiting that let fear grow bigger and bigger.
And once the jokes ran out—
Once the shouting stopped being funny—
Both of them inevitably started thinking about the same thing.
Mom.
The thought arrived quietly.
Unwelcome.
Impossible to ignore.
Jackson stared at the floor.
What do you think she's doing right now?
For once, Holt didn't answer immediately.
The silence itself was an answer.
Eventually he spoke.
Probably looking for us.
Jackson swallowed.
Yeah.
Their mother had no idea where they were.
No idea why they hadn't come home.
No idea why they hadn't called.
No idea why her son had seemingly vanished overnight.
Jackson imagined her checking the clock.
Looking out the window.
Calling friends.
Trying not to panic.
The image made his chest hurt.
She must be freaking out.
Holt didn't disagree.
Because she absolutely was.
And somehow that felt worse than the jail.
So naturally—
Holt decided to annoy the guards.
"YOU GOT THE WRONG DUDE, DUDES!"
His voice echoed through the cellblock.
A few distant groans answered him.
Somebody further down the hall shouted:
"SHUT UP!"
Holt ignored them.
"I WAS FRAMED, YO!"
Jackson groaned internally.
Holt.
What?
You're not helping.
I know.
Then why are you doing it?
Because if I stop talking I'm gonna start thinking.
Jackson fell silent.
Because unfortunately—
He understood exactly what Holt meant.
The silence that followed felt heavy.
Then Holt sat up straighter on the bench.
"COME ON, LET ME OUTTA HERE!"
Nothing.
"YOU WILL NEVER KEEP ME IN HERE, CHUMPS!"
Still nothing.
A distant door slammed somewhere.
CLANG.
Holt pointed dramatically at the bars.
"NO JAIL CAN HOLD HOLT HYDE!"
Jackson buried his face in his hands.
The gesture was entirely mental.
But it felt necessary.
You're embarrassing us.
We're alone in a jail cell.
Who am I embarrassing?
Fair point.
Holt stood.
Walked to the bars.
Gripped them dramatically.
"LET ME HEAR YOU SAY—"
Jackson immediately knew where this was going.
Don't.
"HOLT!"
Silence.
Then—
A tired voice from another cell muttered:
"Holt."
Holt blinked.
"Oh."
Another voice answered.
"Holt."
Then another.
"Holt."
Jackson stared.
Wait.
What?
A gruff older voice somewhere down the corridor yelled:
"IF WE SAY IT WILL YOU SHUT UP?"
Holt grinned.
"No promises!"
Several groans followed.
Then Holt pointed down the hall dramatically.
"I SAY HOLT HOLT!"
A few exhausted voices answered.
"Holt Holt."
"I SAY HOLT—"
"HOLT."
"HOLT."
"HOLT."
For a brief moment—
Actually just a brief moment—
The tension eased.
A little.
Not much.
But enough.
Enough that Jackson almost laughed.
Enough that Holt smiled.
Enough that several tired prisoners sounded vaguely amused instead of miserable.
Then—
"HEY! HEY! HEY!"
An angry voice boomed through the cellblock.
The laughter vanished instantly.
The sheriff stomped into view.
Middle-aged.
Red-faced.
Already irritated.
Which honestly seemed to be his default setting.
"Knock it off in here!"
Holt immediately leaned against the bars.
"Morning, dude."
"It is four-thirty in the morning."
"Exactly. Morning."
The sheriff looked ready to explode.
Then his eyes narrowed.
"Wait a minute."
Holt froze.
The sheriff stepped closer.
"Are those headphones?"
Oh no.
Jackson's stomach dropped.
Holt's did too.
The headphones.
The headphones.
The headphones.
The black headphones still rested around Holt's neck.
Somehow nobody had taken them during processing.
Until now.
The sheriff held out his hand.
"Gimme."
Every alarm bell in Jackson's head immediately started screaming.
No.
No no no.
Not those.
Not the headphones.
Not the one thing keeping everything together.
Holt forced a grin.
"Aw, come on, dude."
"Gimme."
"They're just headphones."
"Gimme."
"They don't even work that great."
"Gimme."
The sheriff's voice hardened.
Now.
Slowly—
Reluctantly—
Holt handed them over.
The moment they left his hands felt wrong.
Deeply wrong.
Like losing a lifeline.
The sheriff turned them over.
Examining them.
Then tucked them under one arm.
"You're in a whole lotta trouble, son."
Holt crossed his arms.
"For owning headphones?"
"This is serious business."
The sheriff pointed toward the bars.
"Vandalism."
"Destruction of property."
"Resisting officers."
"I didn't—"
"Save it."
Then he turned.
And walked away.
Not toward the nearby desk.
Not somewhere close.
Away.
Down the hall.
Past multiple cells.
Past the booking area.
Past a locked security door.
The headphones disappeared with him.
Farther.
Farther.
Farther.
Until they vanished completely.
Holt stared after them.
No.
Jackson felt sick.
No no no.
The headphones were gone.
Actually gone.
Not sitting on a desk.
Not somewhere reachable.
Gone.
The silence that followed felt horrible.
Holt.
I know.
What if—
I know.
What if we switch?
I KNOW.
The response came instantly.
Because they'd both been thinking it.
The transformation wasn't perfectly controllable.
Not when they were tired.
Not when emotions were running high.
Not when they were stressed.
And right now?
They were running on fear.
No sleep.
And pure exhaustion.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead.
Bzzzzzz.
Bzzzzzz.
Bzzzzzz.
Minutes passed.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither of them wanted to acknowledge what was happening.
Then—
Something moved.
Holt blinked.
Wait.
Jackson frowned.
What?
Something moved.
Where?
Over there.
Near the bars.
A tiny dark shape crawled slowly across the concrete.
Eight legs.
Small body.
Tiny.
Harmless.
Very much a spider.
The spider paused.
Then kept walking.
The silence lasted exactly one second.
Then—
A scream echoed from down the hallway.
"AAAH!"
Both boys jumped.
"What the—"
The same voice shouted again.
"SPIDER!"
Holt blinked.
Was that—
The sheriff?
The sheriff.
Another officer laughed somewhere nearby.
"Sheriff, it's tiny!"
"I DON'T CARE HOW BIG IT IS!"
The sheriff sounded genuinely horrified.
"GET RID OF IT!"
Jackson stared.
Holt stared.
The sheriff's voice echoed again.
"MURPHY!"
A pause.
Then—
"MURPHY!"
Another pause.
Then—
"MURPHY!"
A tired voice finally answered:
"WHAT?!"
"THERE'S A SPIDER!"
Silence.
Then:
"...It's a spider."
"I KNOW IT'S A SPIDER!"
"Then what's the problem?"
"IT'S A SPIDER!"
Even several prisoners started laughing.
One called out:
"THE SHERIFF'S LOSING A FIGHT TO A BUG!"
Another yelled:
"ARREST IT!"
For the first time all night—
Jackson and Holt actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Not really.
Just because they were exhausted.
And because seeing the sheriff terrified by something smaller than a coin was absurd.
The laughter faded quickly.
The exhaustion remained.
The fear remained.
The missing headphones remained.
And somewhere during all of it—
Without warning—
It happened.
Neither of them felt the exact moment.
Only the beginning.
The familiar pressure.
The strange pulling sensation.
The shift.
Holt sat upright immediately.
Jackie.
I know.
No no no no—
I KNOW.
They tried.
Both of them.
Desperately.
The way they always did.
Holding on.
Fighting it.
Trying to stay where they were.
Trying to keep Holt in control.
Trying to stop it.
But they were too tired.
Too stressed.
Too emotional.
And the headphones were gone.
The pressure intensified.
The pull became impossible to ignore.
Holt's thoughts blurred.
Jackie's sharpened.
The balance tipped.
Slowly.
Then all at once.
The world lurched.
The sensation ended.
Silence.
Holt was gone.
Not gone gone.
Still there.
Still present.
Still inside.
But no longer driving.
Jackson opened his eyes.
The cell looked exactly the same.
Concrete.
Bars.
Buzzing lights.
Nothing had changed.
Except everything had.
Because now—
Jackson was the one sitting on the bench.
And the headphones were gone.
Completely gone.
For a long moment neither of them spoke.
Then Holt groaned from somewhere in the back of his mind.
"...Well."
Jackson leaned back against the wall.
Exhaustion washing over him.
"Yeah."
Neither of them knew what came next.
And that was the scariest part...
---
Jackson had no idea how much time had passed.
Ten minutes.
An hour.
Three hours.
It could have been any of them.
The cell had no windows.
No clocks.
Nothing except gray walls, gray bars, and gray concrete.
Just enough monotony to make every second feel longer than the last.
The fluorescent lights still buzzed overhead.
The spider had vanished.
Holt was still grumbling about it.
I don't trust that thing.
It's gone.
That's exactly what it wants us to think.
Jackson would have rolled his eyes if he had enough energy left.
Instead he just leaned against the wall and stared at the floor.
Tired.
Hungry.
Scared.
Angry.
A little more angry than he had been earlier.
The longer he sat here, the more things replayed in his head.
The school.
The graffiti.
The chase.
The officers.
The handcuffs.
The cruiser.
The way nobody had listened.
The way nobody had asked questions.
The way they'd looked at Holt.
Like the answer had already been decided.
Like being a monster was evidence by itself.
Jackson swallowed hard.
Inside his head, Holt was unusually quiet.
Not gone.
Just listening.
Thinking.
Feeling the same things.
Then—
Footsteps.
Both boys immediately looked up.
The sheriff was coming back.
Keys jingled against his belt.
His boots echoed against the concrete floor.
Unlike the other officers, he wasn't scowling this time.
If anything, he looked confused.
Very confused.
He stopped outside the cell.
Stared.
Blinked.
Stared again.
"What are you doing in here?"
Jackson froze.
Holt froze.
The sheriff frowned.
"What happened to the blue guy?"
For half a second neither of them said anything.
Then both of them had the exact same realization simultaneously.
Oh.
OH.
The headphones.
The headphones were gone.
The sheriff had only ever seen Holt.
Not Jackson.
Not really.
To him, the loud blue-skinned fire elemental and the nervous human teenager were completely different people.
Jackson felt Holt's panic spike instantly.
Jackie.
I know.
JACKIE.
I KNOW.
Think.
Think.
Think.
The sheriff was still waiting.
Jackson forced himself to smile weakly.
"You mean that loud, rude, crude, jerky monster?"
Holt immediately sounded offended.
HEY.
"With terrible taste in music?"
HEY!
The sheriff nodded.
"That's the one."
Jackson's heart hammered.
Every instinct screamed at him to tell the truth.
Every instinct screamed at him to explain.
To tell somebody.
Anybody.
But then he remembered the cruiser.
The cuffs.
The insults.
The way they had treated Holt.
And the words died in his throat.
Instead—
He lied.
"I was..."
He hesitated.
Made himself sound nervous.
Which wasn't difficult.
"Well, I was minding my own business..."
The sheriff leaned forward slightly.
"And?"
Jackson looked down.
"...and he grabbed me and threw me in here."
Holt groaned.
Jackie.
Sorry.
That was the first time either of them had apologized since yesterday.
The sheriff's eyes widened.
"He did?"
"Yeah."
Jackson hated how easy the lie was becoming.
The sheriff frowned.
"But how did he get out of the cell?"
Jackson shrugged.
"It all happened so fast."
The sheriff scratched his chin.
"You didn't see?"
"No, sir."
The word tasted strange.
Sir.
Nobody ever called this guy sir.
Not willingly.
The sheriff looked thoughtful.
"But don't monsters have powers and stuff?"
Jackson's jaw tightened slightly.
Powers and stuff.
Like they were all the same.
Like every monster shared one giant instruction manual.
"I mean..."
Jackson shrugged again.
"Maybe his power was unlocking doors?"
The sheriff's eyes widened.
"Oh, that fiendish fiend."
Holt nearly choked.
Fiendish fiend?
I KNOW.
The sheriff spun around immediately.
"MURPHY!"
A voice shouted back from somewhere.
"WHAT?"
"Our prisoner has escaped!"
Silence.
Then—
"WHAT?!"
The sheriff pointed dramatically down the hall.
"Nobody rests until we find our man!"
A pause.
Then he corrected himself.
"Uh..."
Another pause.
"...monster."
Jackson felt something ugly twist in his stomach.
Not because of the correction.
Because of how automatic it had been.
Our man.
Monster.
Our man.
Monster.
Like those were opposite categories.
Like one excluded the other.
The sheriff shook his head.
"Murphy!"
"YES, SIR?"
"Get every available officer moving."
"YES, SIR!"
The distant shouting immediately multiplied.
Doors opened.
Footsteps echoed.
Phones rang.
The jail suddenly became much louder.
The sheriff watched them go.
Then turned back toward Jackson.
And something strange happened.
His expression softened.
Not much.
Just enough to notice.
"Well."
Jackson instinctively tensed.
"I'm gonna run this nice young man back to school."
The words hit harder than they should have.
Nice young man.
Not monster.
Not night-crawler.
Not ghoulrat.
Not glowbug.
Not spark-junkie.
Just...
Young man.
Jackson felt his stomach twist.
Because part of him was relieved.
And another part—
A much uglier part—
Was furious.
The difference was so obvious.
The exact same person.
The exact same age.
The exact same kid.
The only thing that had changed was what the sheriff thought he was looking at.
Inside his head, Holt had gone silent.
Completely silent.
Not because he hadn't noticed.
Because he had.
Both of them had.
The sheriff unlocked the cell.
"I beg your pardon?" Jackson asked automatically.
The sheriff chuckled.
"That's where the blue boy grabbed you from, right?"
Blue boy.
Not monster.
Not criminal.
Not suspect.
FUCKING BLUE BOY.
Like Holt was some dangerous thing and Jackson was somebody worth helping.
The realization sat in Jackson's chest like a stone.
The sheriff continued.
"I mean..."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"You weren't cutting class, were you?"
Jackson nearly laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was absurd.
One version of him got handcuffed.
The other got asked about attendance.
"No."
The answer came out a little too quickly.
"Nope."
The sheriff raised an eyebrow.
Jackson stood up immediately.
"School."
A nervous smile.
"That's where I was."
Holt sounded hollow now.
Jackie...
I know.
"Studying."
The sheriff looked skeptical.
Jackson continued anyway.
"Big test."
"Biiiiig test."
The sheriff chuckled.
"Sure."
The cell door swung open.
For the first time since yesterday afternoon—
The bars weren't between him and freedom.
Jackson stepped out slowly.
The hallway suddenly felt enormous.
The sheriff gestured forward.
"Let's get you back where you belong."
Where you belong.
Jackson looked down at the floor.
For a moment he almost said it.
Almost told him.
Almost pointed at himself and said:
You already had me.
You already arrested me.
You already locked me up.
You just liked me better when you thought I was human.
The words reached his throat.
And stopped.
Because if he told the truth now—
Everything would fall apart.
The sheriff would ask questions.
Questions Jackson couldn't answer.
Questions Holt couldn't answer.
Questions neither of them were ready for.
So instead he nodded.
Quietly.
And followed the sheriff down the hallway.
Behind him, the empty cell sat open.
Ahead of him, the jail doors waited.
And inside his own head—
Neither Jackson nor Holt felt relieved.
Not really.
Because for the first time since moving to New Salem, both of them had seen exactly how differently the world treated them depending on which face people thought they were looking at.
And neither boy was going to forget it...