“Yeah,” Rain said. “It’s still selfish. It’s messy and I’m not sure I can pull my own weight with all of this. I do want to help people though. I’ve been selfish for a long time. I’m trying to be better. I know I’m contradicting myself in what I’m doing here, but it makes sense to me, and so few things do.”

“You said—” Kenzie started. “Oh, are you done, Rain?”

“I’m done. Pretty much where I’m at. I’ll buy you a coffee or whatever you drink, Victoria, if you’ll tell me about Snag.”

“Sure.”

“You said you had info about hero teams, Victoria,” Kenzie said. “And I’m interested in that because I do want to try to be a hero first.”

“First?” I asked.

“I’m saying I’ll try, maybe a few times, and if it doesn’t work out I’ll try other things but if it doesn’t work out then I might try being a mercenary, or a villain.”

“You would be terrifying as shit if you were a villain,” Chris said.

“Would I? Is that a compliment?” Kenzie asked.

“Yes,” Ashley said.

“No,” Chris said. “It’s a neutral fact, and I don’t use the word terrifying lightly.”

“Be fair, Chris,” Mrs. Yamada said.

“I’m being fair. This is an objective fact,” Chris said.

“And be gentle, too. If you must levy a criticism—”

“Fact.”

“—there are nicer ways to say it.”

“Got it,” Chris said.

Kenzie stuck out her tongue at him.

“Terrifying is good,” Ashley said. “Terrifying slows the other guy down. It makes them make mistakes.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “I’ve used that to my advantage—”

“And it’s fun,” Ashley said.

“Ah… I used to think that,” I said. “I’ve come to reconsider that sentiment. I regret how I employed it, a little, and I regret enjoying it a lot.”

Ashley sighed a little.

“We’ve talked about this at some length,” Mrs. Yamada said. “Here in the group. The approaches that work. Fear comes at a cost.”

“It does,” I said. “Not necessarily in the ways you’d expect, pushing people away or any of that. It makes a mess. It makes people unpredictable. I have an awe-fear aura so I’ve seen this at work.”

“I almost envy you,” Ashley said. “To have something you can so casually employ.”

“It’s not casual,” I said. “Because like I said, it’s complicated in terms of the mess it makes of things. I’ve been trying to be more deliberate about how I use it.”

“See, this excites me,” Kenzie said. “I want to learn from Ashley because I saw the camcorder footage from the Boston Games—I showed you that one right, Ashley?”

“You did,” Ashley said.