Not fire and heat, but a violent release of pressure. Layered lemon-slices of plexiglass overlapping one another, each one curved and nestled into others to form a ball shape. On impact with the floor ten feet from me, the pieces had sprung apart. I could see where the damage had already been done, pieces sliced through, some pieces missing.

“Sorry,” I heard her voice.

“No,” I said. I leaned against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “No need for any apologies. I get it.”

“Can you give me some space? I want to mourn.”

Mourn.

Byron was helping Ashley, and I knew they heard. Both looked at me.

“The body,” I said.

“I really liked it,” she said.

“So did I,” I said. I could have said there would be another one, if anyone in her immediate circle could help it. Even that Rain had the details on the internals that he’d been replicating as something writ large. Didn’t matter. There was something sentimental about this body, and it was no longer usable.

“I could have killed him. Them. I had a split second to decide, and I worried that if I instinctively grabbed at the whip, then the tendrils would be cut loose. They could hurt a lot of people if they weren’t attached to me.”

“You made the right call.”

“I think so,” she said. “But it’s not easy knowing I might’ve stopped some of this from happening.”

“We have options,” I said. “Trust me? Can you just… give me some faith, that I can figure something out?”

A long pause. Wrestling with herself, in more than one way.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just… some space? Until I trust myself?”

“I’ll be back to check on you soon,” I said. I knocked on the wall as I left.

I had to walk around bookcases to reach the table where Ashley and Byron sat. The table had been moved so that Ashley could watch Kenzie’s group.

About ten feet away, Flor was handcuffed to a desk—a professor’s desk, fit for the front of the classroom, with the internal shelves and drawers. Her legs were stacked against the wall, and she hunched forward, hair hanging down as she tried to tear open the wrapper from a treat from the vending machine with her teeth. She’d been supplied with a lot of things, and for now that seemed to be keeping her content, much as Juliette’s phone was allowing her to tune out.

Treats and battery life were finite, though.

“Status?” I asked Byron.

“The rest of team blue is arriving soon. We got a status update from Vista, we were debating calling emergency services, or which teams were even available,” Byron said.