The knife’s point penetrated skin, stabbing her in the sternum, just below the collarbone. It might have been the particular spot, but the contact of metal on bone was surprisingly painful.

“Move,” he said.

How could she feel so weirdly calm like this, and panic to the point of crying over an exam for a class she was doing well in? She could be held at knifepoint with zero idea of what to do and be almost okay, and yet when her sex buddy said he wanted to fuck her, she didn’t know how to deal.

As a kid, she’d imagined getting powers and facing down impossible situations and weirdness like this made her think maybe it was what she was meant for. She could trigger, especially if it was only during the bad events, and—

And people who thought they might trigger didn’t. Wasn’t that the rule?

She was finally here and she might die or be maimed for it.

No, that wasn’t even the worst possibility.

She was here, finally, and Kenzie or Tony might die, with her left intact, agonizing over how she’d had no heroism in the end.

For that, she couldn’t move.

She watched the man’s expression twist. A twist of the knife followed, point still against bone, edge still in flesh. As she reacted in pain, her hands moving involuntarily, he flicked the knife out again, slashing at the hand as if it might reach. She backed away, hands dropping.

The pain followed a second later. Blood. He’d cut her as part of that slash. She started to react, and saw him brandishing the knife.

“No!” Kenzie said. “Please. Okay? I surrender for real, ignore her.”

“Don’t you dare,” Natalie said.

“Just—here,” Kenzie said. She pulled the silk scarf from her head. “Press this down on the cut. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Please.”

Natalie took the scarf.

Kenzie turned to the guy, hands out and to the sides. “Please?”

The guy didn’t wait. He bent down, reaching for Kenzie, seizing her by the shoulder. She ducked out of his grip, and pushed at his arm, knocking it away.

He brought the knife around—and for just a second, there was a distortion, three or four Kenzie heads and shoulders, a body at an angle.

As the distortion passed, Kenzie was gripping the man’s wrist with two of her hands over her head.

Natalie got to her feet again, stepping forward to help, to follow through before Colt could step in. Not that there was a real point. Kenzie held the wrist with one hand and moved the other, the hairpin held within, point raking along the length of the guy’s arm, wrist to elbow.