Fear was contagious, and the fear of the dark was something I’d inherited. There was something about having a mom who often slept with the lights on that made a small child insist on her night-light. When a first sleepover fell to pieces because of the night-light issue, that little girl’s parents had provided explanations. They were superheroes, their powers used light. That was why.

It would be a few years before that little girl would start to feel she’d been told a lie. Not a realization, but a feeling.

Fear paralyzed like cold water did. It shackled, limiting action, like debris stirred up by water, computer components and bits of metal hooking on clothing.

Two ways to deal. One could bend to it, succumb. It wasn’t a bad option, despite what one might think. Because the alternative was to fight, to push through, and any movement that followed from shackles and paralysis was liable to be rushed, to get other people hurt. I’d learned both of those things from my mother. I’d seen her on her patrols, heading into dark alleys with only her weapon for lighting. I’d seen her bend to the fear to the point it was an integral part of how she lived.

If I acted now, if I used the Wretch in a confined space when I didn’t know where my team was, if I flew, I could do a horrendous degree of harm. I flew in one direction, found a flat surface, and pressed myself hard against it, until I was grounded enough to have a sense of gravity. The water roared, someone was trying to shout underwater, but the sound was lost, dulled and muffled beyond recognition.

Something touched my leg, then pressed out, pushed, and I felt the strength of it. Not a human hand or anything similar. A tendril.

No sooner did I recognize it than I felt it pull away. My leg was pulled after it by the force of the water moving in its violent wake.

Blue lights began to fill the space. Motes of light appeared, leaving trails and lines behind them. The illumination was murky, everything cast in one or two shades of blue and more pitch black. Objects were unrecognizable, the side and top of a table ten feet away looked much like a folder of papers floating within my arm’s reach. Both moved violently—I hadn’t expected just how turbulent this water would be, or how much.

This time around, I had my orientation, but I didn’t have the ability to do anything with it. I exhaled slowly, letting bubbles slip through my lips, a way of measuring my time limit.

I searched through the oppressive, near-opaque gloom, a world of sluggish and violent movements, of chaos, and I saw nothing.

The movement of the water wasn’t as intense as it had been in the first few seconds, but for every small amount that it slowed and calmed, I felt waves of stress and strain, my breath pushing against the inside of my chest, wanting out and wanting more.