Those feelings, the doubts, the hesitations, I knew where they were coming from. Somewhere down there, near the driver’s seat, Precipice was extending his power up toward me. I had to face those feelings, use them to forge myself into someone more effective, or quash them. Were they useful to Victoria Dallon? The Scholar? The Warrior Monk? Hell, I wouldn’t even rule out the Wretch.

If they weren’t useful to any of the above, then I had to burn them out of me.

I grabbed a piece of concrete, and I leveraged my strength to hurl it. The Wretch’s extended limb clipped it, sending it off course. Too low.

As if it had sensed I had been thinking it might somehow be useful.

I felt agitated, frustrated in a way that went beyond screaming about it, pounding a punching bag, or decking a bitch.

Don’t get angry, get even. My mother’s words in my own voice, running through my head. A condemnation, even though the tone was level, instructive. And Precipice’s power was making that all the more pointed. Turning every failure into a sharp, painful lesson.

I hurled another piece of concrete. She adjusted course to avoid it, slashed at a building wildly to bring down more chunks. This set—not aimed at the armored van, but at Rachel’s dogs. There was a wild, untrained edge to the attack. A woodcutter hitting one side of the tree over and over until things came loose, instead of carving out notches… but it was a fresh swing every second, and her blades cut deeper than an axe did.

Focus. Be constructive, the Warrior Monk told me.

I’d hoped to skim the periphery of the effect, to see if I could get her to use that power, test if there was a time window before she could use it again. There wasn’t. It wasn’t like there was a better time or opportunity to test, either. She was full-bore, all-out, holding nothing back. If I waited until she wasn’t dropping chunks of building then the fight would be over before I got an opportunity to figure out a way forward.

I could draw on the practical side of the condemnation aura to process the same feelings that it woke in me. Logic, careful processing, consideration.

“Fuck youuuuuu!” a distant Bit—Rachel could be heard, the last word drawn out, lost in the huffing and growling, howling noises made by her dogs.

I’d been disoriented enough I hadn’t accounted for Rachel’s contingent. She’d sent one dog, Yips, after the breaker, while she and her henchman fended off Nailbiter, Rachel riding the largest dog, curiously symmetrical, while her henchman had been riding the ‘soft mouthed’ dog. Past-tense. Nailbiter had unseated the teenager.