A car pulled up to the corner store. It was impossible to miss, what with the heavy bass music thumping out of it and the lights mounted beneath that made the street below glow yellow. Teddy looked at the guy who stepped out of the car, then down at the photo.

The skin color was right, and the height looked right, but the bandanna was different and the beanie was green. “You think that’s Homie?” Teddy asked.

“W-we need to hide!” the Boss said.

Teddy blinked up at her, then looked around. They were behind a pair of cars, only able to see because the loud car had parked itself directly ahead of them. “We are,” Teddy said.

“Oh, oh right.”

“So we gonna go get him?” Teddy asked.

“Um,” the Boss said. She was hesitating, which wasn’t good. Predators had to be decisive and strong.

“I could get him real fast, Boss. I bet his power’s weak out in the open.”

The Boss nodded, but put a hand on Teddy’s shoulder when she started to rise. “Let me text Melaton first,” she said.

Teddy nodded and stood up slower. “Tell me when you’re done, Boss,” she said.

“It’s sent.”

Teddy grinned a big bear grin. She took in a deep breath, then roared as she ran across the street.

She didn’t see the truck until the Boss screamed and the truck’s tires squealed across the pavement.

Homie was almost done. He’d gotten the chump driving him around to the right place and was pulling the laptop out of the back seat. All he had to do was give it to the guy waiting for him in the shop and he’d be done for the night. Then it was back to the club and to the ladies.

And then, because life hated him, he heard someone screaming from across the street.

He looked over to see some kid with a cheap plastic mask running across the street, her arms above her head with her hands stretched out like claws. She was going “Raaagh!” over and over like . . . well, like a kid pretending to be a bear.

He was ready to dismiss her when a semitruck came out of nowhere and thudded into the girl with a dull, meaty thwap that sounded loud even over the squeal of its brakes.

Homie stared at the scene, taking it all in. The fallen girl, the other kid with a mask on screaming behind her, the Truck-Kun Fantasy Delivery Service logo on the side of the van.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

He was ready to tear off his mask and see if the kid was all right—he was a criminal, not an ass—when the girl turned into a bear.

“Oh, shit!” he said with a lot more emphasis.

The bear shook its great mangy head as if clearing it. It looked up to him and they locked eyes.