Kai had been the only person who was no longer cool with Theo. Their breakup—or whatever it was—had been understandable from both ends, but it was Kai who’d thought they’d all left him behind, as if their collective friendships had hinged upon a single relationship that they’d all always discouraged, including Kai herself. She used to openly mock Theo for blushing whenever she was around. “Do you have something you’d like to say to me?” she’d taunt, slapping his thigh, her hand puckishly close to his crotch.

But maybe it was everyone’s fault. When they began planning their second bombing—Zed had decided they should start calling it “bombing” again, like Jerry always had—they didn’t invite Theo along. He just seemed so devastated after the first time, it would be abusive to bring him along again, especially since they were scaling up. He wasn’t about that life.

Kai had trashed Theo throughout July, especially as they planned for the second bombing, and no one had stopped her. She seemed to need it, it fueled her, but they all could have at least responded with something other than silence. Even with their reconciliation, which everybody saw coming, silence seemed to be their only answer. Sure, Sol’s sarcasm was kind of a response, but even that was a form of silence—vocalized inaction, but inaction nonetheless.

The downtown skyline erupted into view from I-75/85 South. It wasn’t impressive. It had always annoyed Zed that you could only see it best from the highway, as if the city planners knew it would lose its power if you saw it while standing still—which it did, whenever Zed found herself on a rooftop. But Zed still felt a sense of pride well up within her. This was her city. Even as a kid from the burbs, she felt an umbilical link to it, nourished by its heat, its energy, its music, its traffic.

“You should get over,” Kai suggested, her head jutting between the headrests. Zed knew how to get there, but Kai loved navigating. Zed acknowledged her with a nod and merged right, needling through the traffic streaming in from I-20. Moments later, she was on Freedom Parkway, crossing over Boulevard.

“Who’s going to say it?” Apollo queried, turning to peer into the back seat. Kai and Sol shrugged, so Zed spoke up.

“Boulevard,” she said, mimicking Theo’s nasally California properness, “What kind of street name is that? That’s like naming a street, ‘street’!” The car shook with laughter, the impression, as always, funnier than the joke. Zed hoped that Kai knew they were laughing with Theo, not at him.