This is not what Jones expected his Saturday to look like.

On his list of things he would do in his lifetime, breaking into his high school to find telling documents about the power dampening cuffs, would be pretty low on it.

“So what’s the plan again?” He asked for about the third time.

He can’t help it. His nervous energy creating knots in his stomach. Even though he doesn’t feel sick anymore, he feels like he could throw up.

“Stop being such a worried walrus,” Lou orders, not even looking at him, staring at the laid out steps of their break in.

“If I wanted to be one, I could. Literally,” he tries to joke though he knows his voice has a tremble to it.

Shapeshifting into an animal would be great. When he’s anything but human, his thoughts become muffled. He still his human brain. Things just become quieter.

But he happens to need his thumbs and a clear, loud mind.

“Would you stop worrying then?” Lou asks, giving him a side eye.

“No. I would be worried and a walrus,” he deadpans.

When she hides a chuckle, he takes it as a win. He should give her a break. He knows she is concerned for him. This all began because of her worry for him.

Lou is a good friend.

The bestest friend he could ever have.

“Plan Sly Fox. Liam can get us inside without having to unlock the doors. He can open his pocket dimensions and we can exit them inside the school. There could be alarms on the doors or else Cross would use his telekinesis to open it,” she recites, like she’s gone over this a million times. Which she kinda has.

Jones gets a bit anxious when things out of his control happens. There is so much that could go wrong.

“He and Jeremiah will stay outside to keep watch.”

“And the cameras?” He repeats, knowing this is the question that comes next.

To her credit, Lou doesn’t look exasperated. She just calmly answers him. “Bell is going to set the fog.”

“Fog inside?”

“She’s going to cool and then heat the temperature to fog up the lens. It could happen naturally. Cross will turn the cameras away if that doesn’t work,” she expands. Good to have a back up plan for your plan.

“Ria and Amelie will guard the office door. She will be our ace. In case we get caught. She’ll take the memory of us being there away.”

“Then you, Zac, and me will search the office. If we find anything, Zac touches it. His tracking evasion makes it so he can’t be tracked.”

Jones feels a bit more settled having heard the plan again. Even though his powers don’t really lend an advantage here, he’s glad to know that others’ abilities do.

Lou’s phone pings, her bird tweet text tone going off. Jones likes her integration of animals in her entire life. She glances at the screen and groans. “What is it?” Jones questions.

“It’s Liam. He says that there’s an issue,” she states, staring intently at her phone, typing away.

He winces. “A bad one?”

There really was no point in asking since no issues are good.

Just what they needed for their first (and hopefully last) break in. An issue.

As she types, she explains. “He apparently found the perfect time to find his mate and now doesn’t have his powers.” Not what Jones expected. It’s been a while since someone in their friend group found their soulmate.

It’s probably been since Jeremiah and Roman. Though Jones wasn’t here when that happened. Amelie and Ria are pretty much soulmates even if they were predestined by the universe. Now if only they would admit it.

Liam is a good guy. Jones wasn’t there for his and Zac’s arrival but has since hung out with them a couple of times. He deserves a soulmate. Jones does wonder how Zac took that fact. He seems like the protective type. Jones is an only child so he hasn’t had the brother experience.

“Really? Who?”

Lou sets down her phone and returns to the papers covering the coffee table. She takes a pen with a panda topper on the tip and crosses off whatever was written next to Liam’s name.

She gives him an unimpressed look. He surrenders instantly, “Right, not important right now.”

“I guess we have to hope there is no alarm and have Cross unlock the doors,” she continues, circling Cross’ name and drew a double sided arrow from his to Liam.

“Does he know who his soulmate is? Maybe we can do this tomorrow and get his powers back today,” Jones offers, attempting to brainstorm anything. His brain hurts a bit.

He highly considers shifting into dog and run off the nervous energy.

But Lou is taking this seriously. And so he needs to as well. She is doing this for him and for everyone else at the school. The least he could do is stay human and try to help.

“We can’t make him kiss his soulmate even if he does know,” she points out.

Sheepishly (but as a sheep), he rubs the back of his neck that is feeling quite hot at the moment. “Yeah, I didn’t think of that.”

Clicking her pen so the nub retracts back into the pen, she reorganizes the papers until he appears satisfied. “Ok, change of plans. Good plans aren’t flawless out the gecko.”

He doesn’t correct her phrase to “get go” since he knows she truly meant to say “gecko.” Just one of her quirks that he loved.

Animals are her life. As they are his.

That’s why they get along so well.

“We’ll have to chance the alarms and have Cross open them,” she decides, more assuredly than before. It is their only option, but the confidence is a nice touch.

“Does Zac know about Liam finding his soulmate?” He questions so he knows how to talk about the topic or not talk about it when they see the brothers.

She takes a second, thinking. He knows not to rush her. She’s usually right. So he waits.

Eventually, Lou answers, “Yes. But I don’t think Liam told him he knows who.”

“He knows?” The surprise is evident in his voice. Many people don’t know who their soulmate is because you come into contact with an abundance of potential matches that it can be difficult to narrow down.

For Liam with him recently in a soccer game, Jones figures that it was someone there but how can he know from all those people?

“If I know Liam, something this big doesn’t get past him. I think he is a knowing owl.”

He supposes that’s true. Liam takes in details that Jones could only wish he could recall.

So Liam doesn’t have his powers until further notice. Jones wonders if that bothers Liam. It most definitely bothers Zac. He doesn’t even need to be in the same room with them to know that.

After typing the new plan to the others in their group chat, she sets down her phone and looks to him with determined eyes.

“You ready?”

No. But he says the opposite anyway.

If only he could just be a cat and curl on next to a crackling fireplace without a care in the world.

But he’s got to stay human and break into his high school.

———

(I tried to integrate Meet Crash into this in a way that made sense. I honestly wasn’t thinking about the break in and how that would fit when I wrote that. So Liam meeting Tharen happened before this post. I’ll write more about him after the break in. Speaking of break in….I thought it would occur in this one but it went on a bit too long. 😅)