Her face against his collarbone, she withdrew the knife and stabbed again and again, then dropped to her knees, just to get the knife handle to a place where he couldn’t grip it and pull it from her arm. His fingertips touched the handle, but didn’t come close to gripping it.

He struck her across the face, instead. This time, she was rendered entirely blind, her head full of noise and pain.

The Operator slumped to the ground, and she felt everything, felt the blood welling out, sticky between fabric and skin. She knew he felt the pain and noise in the head that she experienced, and she felt it was fair. Fair that he had to experience the kind of thing he’d done to others.

She wished she had a good quip. The others were better at it.

“I’m Heartbreaker’s kid,” she said. “I’m not as powerful, but I’m better, because he was horrible. You shouldn’t have fought me. That was stupid.”

He wore a mask, and she could feel him gasping and gawping, a fish on dry land, his hands at the portion of his stomach where he had multiple stab wounds.

She reached for his mask, to pull it off. He shook his head, refusing.

She stabbed him a few more times, trying to hurry him along his way. It didn’t really work.

She turned away, instead.

The others—she pushed out with her power, trying to get it through the wall.

Sidepiece. Sitting with her back to a wall. She banished the power as soon as she realized who it was. Another direction.

Aiden.

She felt Aiden’s alarm and agitation as he realized she was hurt. He touched his arm.

She cut off the connection and looked down at the knife at the spot he’d indicated.

Darlene had spent enough time around Roman to know the particulars about stabbing people. Pulling things from stab wounds made it worse, not better. Though she wasn’t sure it really was better, here. There wasn’t much there at her upper arm, with it being as skinny as it was, and the knife kind of bobbed and dangled where she moved wrong.

“Darlene’s hurt!” Aiden called out.

She pushed out. She found Capricorn, crawling across the floor.

Everyone was separated from everyone else.

“I’m sending birds! I’m going to try to reach you!” Aiden called out.

She looked, groping for openings. The floor had turned up at a right angle and nearly met the ceiling now. She set to climbing up, as best as she could with two feet and one arm. A bench had turned up at a right angle too. Her starting point.

She reached over the top, where there was a foot of gap, and a bird touched her fingers.