Finale dropped as she took a shot.

“I’m okay!” she shouted, as she got back to her feet. She swung her arm like she was throwing a fastball, then threw a sphere of distorted air.

I hit the other guys a little harder, my intent on getting to and into the house before they could unpack one of those boxes and get her away.

I hit a door, knocking it off its hinges, and strode inside. The walls were the same as the exterior, in that they were prefabricated, too neat and tidy. The woman who lived here had painted them crimson.

In the large room I entered, I saw the woman who had to be the lady-friend of the head of the prison’s medical. She was sweeping prescription pill bottles and bags of orange-yellow powder into a black trash bag. Multiple thralls jumped up from their seats to face my direction.

Drugs and some kind of ploy. Prescription medications and… something foreign.

I took it in, trying to commit details to memory, who had been where. I did that at the same time I advanced on the woman.

She was their prize, their target, that they were willing to lose ten to twenty thralls for. Injuries or separation would cost Teacher. My mother had always told me to take away their prizes. If we couldn’t take them out and arrest them, we would leave them with no wins of their own.

The woman ran from me, and I flew after her, hands gripping corners to help me navigate the narrow spaces while airborne. She reached the front door—facing off to the side of our impromptu battlefield, and found the statue-form Caryatid standing on the other side.

Purple flames erupted in the woman’s hands. She hurled them at the elegant statue-cape, and the statue burned. Caryatid’s voice rose in alarm, then a prolonged cry of pain.

“No!” I shouted.

Cornered, unable to get past Caryatid in the moment, the woman wheeled on me, one hand gripping a black trash bag of loot, the other bearing purple flame that could burn the invulnerable.

“I know your clairaudients can hear, Teacher. I want my reinforcements now.”

She’d had thirty, fifty people dropped in. Some had been capable—minor thinker powers, shooting accurately in the gloom. Others had been equipped.

People with powers. They had the communication advantage, and they were about to up the ante.

Gleaming 9.5

Instinct: throw up my defenses to protect myself against this purple fire. Charge in, and remove the threat. Wrong move, putting myself in harm’s way. If Caryatid could be hurt, then so could I, theoretically. I had to hold myself back.