They would be my Manton protection. With another burst of strength, using the rifle’s butt and my burned hand, I shoved at the non-cape woman in front of me so she would bowl into the people behind her, then grabbed the guy to my right and used another burst to throw him in the general direction of the two capes. He landed near the guy with the axe, and the cape hopped over him before the flying man could collide with his shin. When the cape landed, though, he didn’t have good footing that wasn’t stepping on the man that had fallen, he tried to step on snow, and he slipped to his hands and knees instead.

I kept the people around me, using strength to grab them, force them to stumble, and keep them between me and the capes. I saw the guy getting up, while the woman was retreating, crouching low to the ground, and threw the next guy toward the masked guy.

Or I tried. I extended my arm in the throw, and he jerked violently. I saw gouges appear in his cheap, duct-taped body armor, close to the heart, and then his arm broke. The break got worse, twisting—

I canceled the Wretch and let him fall.

The uneasy, unsure satisfaction that came with finding a way forward had its backlash, ten times the negative for any positive I might have found in it.

He hit the ground and fell against my leg, which added to the pressure and the lack of elbow room. I used flight to keep myself upright, but people were pressing in, and I gave them a second’s pause with my aura. It made them stop, staring, and little else.

Stop fighting me, Wretch. Whatever you want, we can get it by working together. Don’t fuck me on the fear. Don’t fucking tear people apart when I have a cape I need to stop!

The Wretch had practically torn his arm off, I could see it as I tried to handle stuff, and it distracted at a moment I needed my focus.

I’d hurt someone, fuck me. Couldn’t do this—couldn’t escape without easily exposing myself. I’d bought others a chance to breathe and I wasn’t sure it mattered.

Someone grabbed for the assault rifle I was holding in one hand, and I drew my free hand around to use the spikes that laid across the back of my hand. With my hand in a fist, the spikes stuck out, and I could rake his hand. Just enough harm to do what I needed and free myself, no more.

In the time it took me to do that, two more people had grabbed me.

I twisted, used a burst of strength to hurl them away, and flew up, aiming to put myself over the top of the car that they’d been using as shooting cover.