Minnie might have been flaky sometimes, and impulsive other times, and she might have taken advantage of an offer that sounded too good to be true and ended up in some kind of energy draining cult that had the villain vibes, only in a scary way instead of a goofy way. For all her faults, though, she wasn’t a procrastinator. If she decided she was going to do something, she did it.

She’d decided that she was going to talk to Sadie.

That was the first step of all of this, of figuring out how to break it to her family that she was about to have to go into the magical equivalent of witness protection. Sadie seemed like the safest bet for starting that conversation. She was the safest bet for talking about most things, honestly. Maybe Minnie hadn’t ended in this exact situation before, but she’d made some choices in the past.

Sadie had taken the teen pregnancy scare in stride, and the brush with drugs that might have gotten bad if her sibling hadn’t set her up with that therapist. Back then, Sadie had been nothing but sweet to her. She’d had tea and hugs ready, and had also been pretty good at getting Minnie the resources she needed. Minnie was pretty sure she could handle something like this.

Honestly, Minnie wouldn’t be surprised if she already knew more than she let on about what was going on. She remembered back when she’d lost her eye. When she and the rest of the family had visited her hospital room, a few people squeezing in on the couch at a time, obviously they’d asked what had happened.

Minnie still remembered the way that Sadie’s chin had jutted out when she answered. She remembered the way that her haw had set, in that stubborn way that she got sometimes. She’d said that she’d been attacked, that she didn’t remember the details.

Sadie was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a good liar.

It had hurt. Minnie didn’t hide anything from Sadie. She didn’t have a lot of secrets in general, but Sadie knew everything. When it came to her own life, though? Sadie had just gotten more steely-eyed when the bandages had come off, and the marks on her face were too big to be from any wild animal and to claw mark-y to be from a mugger or something.

Minnie might have snapped at her about how it wasn’t fair, and she was just worried. When that hadn’t worked, she might’ve said some things she regretted afterwards. Afterwards, Sadie had shut down and ran off to her apartment, and Minnie had given her some space for a while.

Then it had happened again. Then again. The second time Minnie had said something, too, but after that, she’d started knowing better than to ask when Sadie showed up with a new scar. She had her suspicions, though.

So, she invited Sadie over to her apartment. Sadie lived with a bunch of people now, which was fine, but Minnie didn’t want any of them to be listening to the stuff that she was about to be saying. Her apartment was more private, and they honestly had a pretty good dinner. They ordered in Thai food, and they watched one of those cooking competition shows, Sadie laughing quietly at the way Minnie yelled at the screen when her favorite got eliminated.

Then Minnie got out the tea, some kind of herbal stuff, lavender or something? Minnie thought it tasted like grass clippings and would’ve rather had an iced coffee, but Sadie loved the stuff, and Minnie wanted her in a good mood before she started dropping truth bombs.

Then the sun was starting to go down, and even Minnie had started sipping at her grass clipping tea, feet propped up on the coffee table, and she figured it was as good a time as any to get into deep conversations.

“Hey, Sadie?” she asked.

“Hmm?” said her sibling.

“I know there’s some stuff you don’t like bringing up, but,” she watched as Sadie’s face took on that stubborn look from years ago, and her own chest tightened for a second, but she spit it out, “Have you ever heard of the Negaverse?”

Sadie looked up at her, just for a flash, just long enough for their eyes to meet, and Minnie knew she knew something. Then the stubborn look was back, and Sadie was staring hard into her tea. “Is that one of those gangs that’s on the news sometimes?” she asked, and then, very quietly, added, “Why?”

Minnie knew the warning signs on her face, and that this was the part where Sadie wanted her to back off. That made this worse than any of the other things she’d admitted to Sadie over the years. She chewed on her cheeks for a couple of seconds, and sipped at her own disgusting tea because it was apparently supposed to calm you down. She knew if she didn’t say anything, it was going to make things even harder later on.

“I got myself in trouble again,” said Minnie, not sure what to expect.

What happened was that Sadie was by her side, just like that, holding her hand in hers. She wasn’t smiling, but her face was different. Softer.

“What did they do to you?” she asked.

“Recruited me,” said Minnie, and she could see the way Sadie’s face scrunched, like that was the wrong answer. “I know. It sucks. I’m working on getting out, but it’s, like, weirdly complicated? There’s like, a fifty percent chance that I’m gonna lose all my memories, and, there’s this witness protection thing? It’s, like, bruh.”

The calming tea wasn’t actually helping. She was putting on a brave face, but the mug was shaking in her hands.

Then, Sadie was wrapping her arms around her. “It’ll be okay,” she was murmuring, in that tone of voice that made Minnie want to believe her.

Then Sadie stood up.She was looking into the distance, thinking, but after a second, she was nodding. “I know what the Negaverse is,” she said, “And there’s other things, too, but let’s not talk here, okay?”

She was holding her hand out, a soft smile on her lips.

“Do you trust me?”