Enough was enough.

“They really on you?” Wally asked. The sofa gave a little groan as he shifted his weight.

“That place,” she said, pointing at the TV. “They want me to go there. To Talas. Help with some mission, as usual.”

Joey looked at the TV. “Looks like some weird shit is going down,” she said. And Michelle was surprised that she wore a concerned expression on her face. Normally, big world events didn’t interest Joey much. “Whatever it is, some asshole is behind it. Might even be some wild card thing.” Her mouth twisted into an angry line.

“I hope not,” Wally said. He looked at the TV, and Michelle could see he was getting more upset. They’d all three been in the PPA together—and it had ended especially badly for Wally. Joey had almost died—as had Michelle. But it was losing Jerusha that had marked him. After Gardener’s death Wally was never the same.

And then Michelle flashed on the moment that Mummy—a child ace whose power allowed her to suck the water from her victim’s body—had latched on to her arm. Michelle had felt herself desiccating with every moment. First, her mouth had gone dry. Then her arms had withered. Then her skin had tightened on her body. She had warned Mummy to stop. Warned her that only one of them would be walking away. And still the girl had kept her hand clamped around Michelle’s wrist.

Then Michelle had killed Mummy.

Killed a child whose only crime was being injected with the wild card virus. But as Michelle had looked into Mummy’s eyes and told her to stop, she’d seen nothing there. Nothing human anymore. Either the wild card virus had done it, or the training from the PPA had. It didn’t matter now, though, because Michelle had to live with the fact she’d killed a child.

We make terrible choices, Michelle thought. Terrible choices when we use our powers.

“You okay, Michelle?” Wally asked, pulling her back to the present.

Michelle blinked and gave a little start. “Yeah,” she said, rubbing her arm absentmindedly. “Yeah, just fine.”

The first portal pair Mollie ever created was just about the size of a baseball. Which in retrospect wasn’t all that surprising, given that her card turned on a late spring evening like so many others at the Steunenberg farm: with the boys doing some batting practice behind the barn and deliberately aiming for her head. After that it took a while before she felt confident enough to make a portal large enough to step through. So much of her early practice had involved going into town the old-fashioned way, in Mom’s minivan, and trying to shoplift or swipe cash from open registers. Sometimes one or two of the boys came along to serve as distractions. But back in those very early days Mollie lacked the nerve to be quick and decisive while the boys lacked subtlety (which they still did, and always would). So Mollie Steunenberg’s ace became a notorious source of aggravation (and no small amount of amusement) for Coeur d’Alene’s finest.