There was nothing more dangerous than rounding a corner. As an older stickbug, Anise could feel her exoskeleton creak as she bent by even the slightest degree, she wouldn’t dare push too hard for fear of forming a crack along her delicate body.

Silver Dollar Davis sat on the tailgate of his friend’s pick-up truck, aiming binoculars at Old Man Pollard’s farmhouse. The ridge overlooking the farm was a favorite party spot for local teens, close enough to town for an occasional food run, but far enough out in the sticks to avoid nosy parents and local law enforcement.

It also provided the perfect vantage for recon.

The Adventure Suits arrived a day earlier than advertised. Bernard weighed the package in his hands—next to nothing! He tossed it happily in the air and with the catch had to fight the urge to tear it open. He should wait for Maggie.

It wasn’t easy. He thought of trying his on to greet her at the door when she got home… But, no, he could wait. He played with the package a moment longer and then set it reverently on the kitchen counter with the mail.

Single. Solitary. Solo. Some other word for alone. A bee does a 360-degree swoop around my hair before diving head-first into the lavender bush beside me, and I’m too depressed to even react. Shockingly, falling in love with the first guy to wink at me from across a cadaver wasn’t a good idea, but that didn’t stop me, did it? I blame my mother. If a woman’s lit professor who spent the last twenty years raising me couldn’t teach me that lesson, who could have?

On Monday, Jeff says that Our illustrious brand voice needs a “refresh.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asks, taking off her headphones (Beats by Dre, as is decreed). “What’s wrong with our voice?”

“It’s old. Stale. I feel like when people think of us—when they think ‘Illuminati’—they imagine old men in smoke-drenched suits who undermine humanity’s progress for their own gain. They don’t picture trendy, relatable go-getters who… just so happen to undermine humanity’s progress for their own gain.”