The hate was bigger than anything else about it. Farooq-Lane could hear it like a battle cry and a sob.

But Jordan Hennessy didn’t lift a finger to shield herself. She was frozen on the ground, mask slid to the side, eyes horrified and miserable. The star sword sputtered beside her in the grass, throwing moonbeams a few inches here and there.

It was clear that whatever the Zed had intended to bring from a dream, this was not it. This thing wanted to kill Jordan Hennessy.

Farooq-Lane should have let it.

But instead, she leapt forward and seized the star sword. She only had a moment to feel the warmth of its hilt, the glory of its purpose, the strangeness of its power, and then she sliced through the nightmare with the blade.

There was a silent shudder as the nightmare splintered.

Farooq-Lane slashed again, and again. This weapon drove it back so completely that it seemed to have been made to drive it back. To decimate it. She slashed and slashed, until the final tiny scrap of the nightmare somehow managed to dart through the wall into the turkey house.

Inside, the animals screamed and screamed, and then everything was silent.

“Visionary!” howled another voice. A Moderator, Ramsay.

Farooq-Lane’s gaze found Ramsay standing beside one of the armored cars. She followed his gaze. On the porch, Rhiannon Martin crouched behind a concrete planter that danced with red laser points. If there had been a clear shot, she’d have been dead long before. Liliana stood beside her in teen form, her long elegant fingers pressed to her teeth in agony, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“Visionary!” shouted Ramsay again.

A red laser point danced across Liliana’s hands. Ramsay was pointing the gun at her.

“Ramsay!” shouted Farooq-Lane.

“You wanna live?” Ramsay shouted at Liliana. Lock was watching him. Not stopping him. “Have a vision! Now!”

Death by Visionary. Make Liliana kill the unreachable Zed. So damn clever. So damn clever.

Liliana was too far away for Farooq-Lane to hear, but she saw her shoulders heave with apocalyptic sobs. She was mouthing, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, and everything in Rhiannon Martin’s maternal body language was saying back, It’s okay, I understand.

Farooq-Lane saw the moment Rhiannon Martin steeled herself, and then the Zed stood up from behind the planter, arms by her side. She faced Ramsay without flinching.

We’re the villains, Farooq-Lane thought.

Ramsay shot Rhiannon Martin in the head.

One: the number of people Farooq-Lane didn’t hate in that entire place.

Liliana threw her arms over her eyes as her shoulders shook. She needed someone on her side. She needed Farooq-Lane.

Everything was going wrong.

Too late, Farooq-Lane realized that Jordan Hennessy was no longer paralyzed on the ground beside her. She was up, she was running.