For the rest of the room, I explained, keeping half of an eye on Mrs. Yamada, to make sure I wasn’t overstepping. “A series of arrests in Boston saw a shift in the power balance of local gangs. That’s a pretty common thing, but the Protectorate team followed up on it hard, toppling just about every major and most minor gangs and villains in the city, leaving a void that was bigger than usual. Villains of every power level and stripe flocked to the city, villains in neighboring cities had a vested interest in having a foothold there as a place to retreat to or a place to expand, and it became an entangled nightmare of villain politics and power plays.”

“Time of my life,” Ashley said.

“Heroes, like the PRT, and like my family’s team, followed, to try and keep the peace until things settled. My family’s team was Lady Photon, Manpower, Flashbang, Brandish, Lightstar and Fleur.”

“The heroes without masks,” Ashley said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I remember them. I was one of the villains who flocked,” Ashley said.

That confirmed that she was Damsel of Distress then. B-list villain, chronic headache for the PRT of yesteryear, unpredictable, dangerous, unstable, and fortunately, she’d been more of a problem for herself than for others. She had been recruited by the Slaughterhouse Nine, to pad their numbers, and had died shortly after.

Her history was one of self-sabotage punctuated by events every two or three years where she was cause for alarm. She had thrived during the Boston Games, in a sense, enough to get her name out there to capes in Northeastern America as a just-in-case.

She’d later found a place in the Nine. She was of a particular brand or species of cape, who somehow rose up when everything else was sinking. It almost made a degree of sense, then, that in following with that pattern, she’d risen up from the grave at the same time the entire world was plunged into chaos.

Kenzie was saying something, and I was having trouble tuning in.

Slaughterhouse Nine meant Bonesaw. Crawler. That in turn led me to think about my last coherent, me moments, the blank in my memories, the aftermath. It made me think about actual monsters, and the very real possibility that Ashley was one.

“Were you there?”

It took me a second to connect with Ashley’s question.

“If you’re uncomfortable getting into it, we could change the subject,” Mrs. Yamada said.

“Could I just get some water, actually? Sorry, you meant Boston, Ashley?”

“Yes. During the Boston Games,” Ashley said, as Mrs. Yamada stood and went to get the water.