Kira shrugged “I don’t know. He said he had something to tell me, and then while Cassidy and Devin were messing around he just left.” She peered out the door. “Do you think I should go after him?”

Conner felt a flash of hurt. Trent had refused to tell him anything, but agreed to tell Kira? “Did he say what he was going to tell you?”

“No. Has he mentioned anything to you recently?” she said, giving him a look he couldn’t work out.

“We talked a little,” he said. And he said he would meet me at Hayley’s. Didn’t mention he was going to turn up and then completely ignore me. “He acted a little . . . weird.”

“But he didn’t say anything?”

“No.” He bit his lip, before admitting, “I think he’s been avoiding me. He runs off whenever I try to talk to him. Though he did say we could meet up here some time.”

The minute he said it, he knew he’d made a mistake. Kira’s eyes lit up with glee. “Ooh! You’re going on a date! With Trent!” She clapped her hands. “Wow.”

“Shut up!” He scowled, wishing he could glare like Dr. O. Kira wouldn’t tease him then. “I meet up with you and Ethan here all the time, and I’m not dating you. Or Ethan.”

“Yes, but this is Trent,” she said, giving him a look that told him he was being slow. “It’s a date. And no, don’t say anything!” she ordered when he opened his mouth. “I have spoken!”

“It’s not a date,” he insisted, feeling himself blush. It wasn’t, was it?

She just grinned and said, “I think I’m going to go after him. Try to talk to him.”

“Why can’t I go?”

“Well, what if one of the things he’s upset about is you? I wouldn’t blame him. I mean, the idea of liking you . . .” she pretended to gag. “He’s probably worried he’s going mad or something.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“No problem. Look, I’ll report back everything he says, alright? Unless he asks me not too.”

She’d probably make it obvious even if Trent did. “Fine. You go.”

Some of his feelings must have been obvious. “Conner, you know, Trent really—” She broke off as their communicators bleeped. “Okay, guess I’ll be talking to Trent later.”

No one was watching them. Conner raised his wrist to his mouth, glancing over at the bar and noticing that Hayley had disappeared. Had she set up something to watch for monsters in the back? “What is it?”

“Conner. The white ranger’s back.”

--

“Hey.”

Trent recognised the voice straight away, and wished he didn’t. Kira was the last person he wanted to talk to. One of the Power Rangers . . . he still couldn’t believe it. Kira?

“Hey,” he replied as she came and sat on the bench beside him.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

It took him a minute to work out what she was talking about. Their conversation in Hayley’s, before he’d had to leave. He’d been about to tell her. He’d needed to tell someone. Some secrets weren’t fun to keep. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken off like that.”

She glanced away, bunching her hands on her lap. Angry or scared? “Look, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

He didn’t know how to say it. ‘I am the white ranger’? At a loss, he opened the sketchbook on his lap and showed her the figure that had taken over his mind.

She didn’t get it. She looked confused, and a little shocked. “Trent, if you’re going to dream about being a superhero, the white ranger is not who you want to be.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. Looking at the sketchbook was so much easier. “I wish I had a choice.”

“What are you saying?”

Still, he couldn’t say it. Admitting it out loud would make it real, acknowledge that this nightmare really was happening. He rolled back his sleeve instead, exposing the silver band and the white gem. Now that he looked, he saw a similar one on her own wrist.

Her face twisted into anger. “You?” He flinched at the rage in her voice. “But you almost annihilated me!”

“But I didn’t! Look, once I knew it was you—” She got up, twisting away. He felt despair swamp him. He had hoped, prayed, that she would understand, somehow make things better. She had understood before. He grabbed her sleeve, remembering Conner doing the same.

“Let go of me!” she shrieked, batting his hands away.

“Kira, I couldn’t help it! The gem, it’s changed me. I can’t take it off or control what I’m doing.” She still looked suspicious, staring at the gem. “You’ve got to believe me.”

“Why should I?”

I trusted you before, he thought, but didn’t say it. She might have spilled his secrets, but she’d never tried to kill him. “Because I’d never intentionally hurt anyone, Kira. Especially you,” he said, trying to convey how much her friendship had meant to him.

“Okay.” She still didn’t look completely convinced, but she said, “I think I know some people who can help.” She hesitated, looking away. “I’m going to get Conner and Ethan.”

Conner? She couldn’t tell him! He’d hate Trent! He tried to control his voice as he asked, “Why them?”

“Well . . . cause . . .”

Suddenly, Trent remembered their weird friendship, the one Conner was so defensive about. He remembered the other boy’s clothes, always red, and Ethan’s always blue. And he remembered the burning desire that filled the white ranger’s mind.

The white ranger hated the red ranger. Kira and Ethan were annoyances. Conner . . . Trent felt a flush of fear. The white ranger wanted them all dead— but he wanted Conner broken first.

“Hard to believe, but true,” said Kira, unaware of the direction of his thoughts. “Look, I need you to wait here until I come back.”

He nodded, mind still reeling. “Okay.”

Sitting back on the bench, he could think of only one thing. Conner.

Why did it have to be Conner?

--

Conner couldn’t believe it.

From the sound of his voice, neither could Ethan. “Trent? Oh, there’s no way.”

Conner paced, rubbing his face with his hands. Trent. Trent, whom Conner had trusted, even liked. Trent, who had made Conner consider things he’d never thought about before.

Trent was the white ranger. “Nice. Pretending to be our friend one minute, and then kicking our butts the next.” He still couldn’t believe it. Trent had beaten him like that? He must have been laughing, when Conner had worried, left messages and practically begged to talk to him. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

Kira looked mad. Alright for some. Trent had never pretended to like her. “I told you, he can’t help it!” she snapped. “The gem is too powerful.”

“Stop defending him.” He was the enemy.

Ethan nodded. “I’m with Conner on this one. I mean, look at what he did to Dr. O!” He gestured at their amber-encased teacher, and Conner felt another rush of anger. Dr. O had trusted Trent too.

Kira gave up on them. “Hayley, he needs our help.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.” She didn’t sound angry, like Conner and Ethan. Just resigned. “I’ll try.”

She turned for the door, obviously planning to go see Trent. Conner caught her arm. “Hey, don’t go without us. I’ve got some stuff I’d like to say to that guy.”

“No doubt,” agreed Ethan, though Conner had the feeling what they wanted to say would probably be quite different.

Unless Trent had pretended to like Ethan too. After all, why have one power ranger running around after you when you can get two?

--

Kira broke into a run at the first sign there’d been a struggle, the rest of them following. The bench she’d told Trent to wait at had been overturned, drawings—mostly of the white ranger—scattered on the grass around it.

“He was supposed to wait right here!” she cried, picking up one Trent’s sketchbook.

“There’s a surprise,” said Ethan. “He lied to us again.” Kira felt an urge to scream at him—he hadn’t seen the distress on Trent’s face, the real pain. Looking back, she felt ashamed of her own anger.

“Kira, I’m telling you. Trent can’t be trusted.”

Conner. There was another problem. He looked angrier than Kira had ever seen him, and Kira remembered her mom telling her that people got angriest when they were hurt and scared.

She remembered Trent’s look when she’d told him Conner was a ranger. He’d looked terrified— of how Conner would react? He really liked Conner. She had no idea why, but Trent did. How would she feel if her crush decided to hate her?

“Look around,” she said. “He would never leave his sketchbook and drawings like this. Something must have happened.”

Hayley nodded, and Kira felt a moment of overwhelming gratitude that the older woman was there. She couldn’t have coped with Conner and Ethan alone. “I agree,” said Hayley. “I would guess he either couldn’t stop himself morphing into the white ranger, or Mesagog’s involved somehow.”

“He usually is,” muttered Kira, hoping for that. The white ranger appearing now wouldn’t do her trust-Trent arguments the slightest good.

“Either way,” said Hayley, “We better get back. We can try to find Trent later.”

--

“Conner?”

He glanced up from where he slumped on a sofa, looking pale and drawn. His earlier anger seemed to have faded into misery.

“I just came to tell you,” Kira said, feeling awkward. “Trent’s leaving.”

He didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow questioningly. He didn’t look like he had the energy for anything else.

“He said the gem had taken over. That he wasn’t safe to be around anymore.”

She paused, feeling helpless. She didn’t know what to say to this new Conner, how she could make things better. She didn’t know if anyone could.

Except maybe Trent. “That’s a good sign, right?” she said, wondering why she felt so nervous. Even when Conner had been calling her ‘babe’ and acting the super-jock . . . she’d been angry, never scared. “It shows he cares.”

He just shrugged, but as she gave up and turned away, she heard him mutter, “Thanks, Kira.”