The Wretch hit the fence first, and I canceled it in the moment I noticed the contact. My gloved hands caught the fragments out of the air. Slats of wood with broken ends.

I paused, a shattered plank of wood in each hand, taking one second to grasp the situation and make sure that nobody was crossing the field and attacking the more vulnerable members of the group.

Not nearly enough people were standing, and people were gathered around some of the people who had crumpled to the ground. Some of my guys had gotten shot. Allies. Possibly my team.

Traffic had been stopped by two vehicles that had turned sideways to block both lanes. Dark figures I couldn’t make out were behind our cars. Our van. Using the vehicles for cover while they unloaded real munitions.

More blood on this already bloodstained field.

I took flight, straight up. The Wretch absorbed one shot. If there were others, I didn’t hear or see any sign of it.

I was coming straight back down, and if I had any say in things, it’d be their blood that would be shed on this field, not more of ours.

Polarize 10.13

The gunfire continued below me, and if there were any shots that passed through the air as they took aim at me, I didn’t hear them. There was the noise of the wind rushing through and around the Wretch, faintly different from when it was brushing my skin and touching my ears. A distortion, a whistle.

A plank in each hand, I raised my arms to my face, burying almost all of it in my arms, the crook of the elbows at my nose and mouth, the planks out and in line with my body. I let the Wretch drop as I disappeared into the cloud cover and against the wind.

Cold, and worse because it was a moist cold.

I flew in a slight circle, dipping lower until I could see the general outline of things below. There were tears in my eyes from the sting of the cold, but I could make out the truck, the way the cars had stopped, and the clearing by the tree with Kenzie’s van parked by it.

I shifted my grip on the planks, and then I let them fall. Immediately, I flew horizontally, skimming the cloud line, still feeling the cold press in on me as if from every direction, grabbing at my body and reaching toward the bone. My speed, moisture, wind and cold all compounded one another, and the snow that blew around me collected and bound to the surface.

I dove. They came into view as I came down, what looked to be civilians or improvised soldiers in dark clothes, with what looked like used body armor. Two people with masks, standing off to one side. Not people I recognized.