I checked the direction and I checked my phone, before flying down to Precipice and Rachel.

“University. I’ll meet you there,” I told them.

“What if you get ambushed?” Precipice asked.

“I’ll manage,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I’ll have to manage.”

“That’s not good enough,” Foil told me.

“It’s good enough,” Rachel said.

Good enough. I flew.

Better that I forge ahead. I could move faster than the dogs, especially when intervening buildings were taken into consideration.

Fifteen minutes of flying.

Then the University. Closed for the weekend, but with students still milling about. No lights of emergency vehicles.

The lights in the building that the disc led me to were off.

Snow and cold had a way of obscuring the nose and eating smells and sounds. It said a lot, then, that the smell of blood was as strong as it was.

Disturbances in the snow in a relatively abandoned area were my second clue, helping me to verify that I had the right building. I tried the door, found it locked, and broke it.

If I’d had any doubts, the smell of blood and bodily fluids erased them.

I heard the wailing. It hadn’t stopped since I’d entered. Someone was shushing them.

Tristan, bisected, lay on the ground, panting for breath.

“Ant—Vic,” he managed, between huffs. “Are they gone?”

“They left, I think,” I told him.

He let off a string of Spanish expletives before burring. Becoming Byron.

“I’ve been trying to give medical care, get people sorted,” he said. “But we couldn’t afford to let them know we—fuck!”

“It’s okay,” I said.

I saw the look on his face, eyebrows drawn together.

It’s not okay.

“Show me,” I told him.

Bags were the first thing I saw. Bloody gym bags, with blood leaking out the bottom. Then… body parts.

Kenzie’s friend Darlene was the source of the wailing. Her arm was in her lap, and it wasn’t attached to her shoulder. Chicken Little lay on his side beside her.

“Y-you’re back,” she said, to Capricorn. Then she looked at me. “Can you fix this?”

“We’ll get your arm attached, okay?”

“Not this. Him. They hurt Chicken Little and it’s supposed to be a rule, that you don’t hurt the Chicken!”

“Your friends did, or—”

“The bad guys did! But it’s a rule! It has to be a rule!”

“Shh,” I said. I bent down, offering a hug. She took it, seizing me in a deathgrip.

I put a hand on Chicken Little’s side, and he flinched.

“Can you sit up?” I asked.

“He can’t—” Darlene started, before stopping. “Can’t hear. Don’t make him take off his mask, either, because he needs that to hold things in place.”