She continued, “It would be nice to not have to wonder as much.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We do this thing where we prove we have the chops because we can win fights, but the group gets a little shakier where things are already shaky. I’m not omitting myself from that, either. I want to have the chops and not be so shaky when doing it.”

“Yes. Absolutely yes,” Sveta said. She lifted her head up from my shoulder. “Speaking of shaky…”

She pointed at our destination.

We’re here.

“Yeah,” I acknowledged her.

“Hey,” she injected fake cheer into her voice. “Upside! Teeny-tiny upside.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You get to watch them eat crow.”

I sighed. I shook my head.

“No?”

I shook my head.

The office building was packed. There was a lobby, and I saw two young employees sitting on the floor, papers around them. Overall, given the hour of the attack, the issue with the portals had done far more damage to real estate than it had done to the population. As people had resumed work, they’d needed to go somewhere, and this was one such somewhere. A building that now overflowed with people.

I craned my head a bit before spotting my mom. My dad was a short distance away, and he’d at least tossed the athletic-fit sports clothes in favor of something nicer, like a thirty-year-old guy might wear out to dinner. He wasn’t thirty, but I’d take what I could get.

Someone had pointed us out, because he turned to look, my mom following, once she noticed him looking.

Neither smiled.

It had been two days since the prison breakout. One day to recuperate and lick our wounds. Medical care for me and Rain, prosthetic body fixes for Sveta. Rain, Ashley and Damsel had needed to get some baseline things squared away with their sentences.

Needed, but hadn’t gotten. It was a big, ominous question mark floating over their heads now.

One day for that. One day to catch our breath after that. Because recuperating and healing was work. The second day served to let us ground ourselves again. Kenzie had maintained contact with people online, but as part of our unofficial, unspoken ‘taking care of ourselves’ day, it made sense that she would take care of herself by reaching out.

This was our day three. Our day to consolidate. I’d been talking about that from a distant, logical perspective, new rules, approaches, or policies, but I would have to tackle the more emotional, vague perspective later.

And, in another kind of ‘consolidation’, of focusing on bonds and promises and all the things that tied us together, I’d have to deal with a team of a much different sort. The sort that virtually everyone was born into.

“You didn’t answer your emails,” my mom scolded me.

Right out of the gates.