“The shrinkage,” he said, through the walkie talkie. “They think it’s what happened before the other ones went bonkers. No passage, no signals through! Stay put or evac!”

Hopefully that would do.

I had to leave the cleanup to the others.

“Gun?” my mother asked.

“In my belt. At the back. I dropped my rifle,” the man said.

She reached around behind him, got his gun, and slid it into her belt.

“Reload,” she told me.

“Yeah. Go with the others. I’m diving in.”

She turned into a sphere. I grabbed it and hurled it toward my dad. Again, distance and air resistance ate into the forward momentum, even with the Wretch active. My dad, Byron and Chastity had paused by the constellation Byron had drawn out.

My dad caught my mom out of the air. Those days in the gym hadn’t been for nothing. When she changed back, she was in his arms, her face close to his.

Dorky, lame, embarrassing.

And I resented it, for reasons I couldn’t put my finger on. Dorky, lame, embarrassing, and I couldn’t have gotten more of this? Or it couldn’t have extended into things that weren’t shock-and-aweing a bunch of desperate assholes who were willing to work for a villain for a chance at the good life?

I couldn’t stay to watch, as much as Dr. Darnall might have asked me to think it out. I pushed the guy I was holding with my aura, ratcheting up the panic. “Who do you work for?”

“Uh-um!”

“Fast answer!”

God I hated how I sounded like my mom had sounded in that instant.

“Lord of Loss. But we’re being hired out to someone else. Love Lost.”

“You know he’s a lunatic. You know she’s violent and she works with killers under her.”

I saw him shake his head, frantic, jarred by my aura.

Then the fleeting admission.

I grabbed him, bringing him closer to the edge. Was there an angle I could throw him and a place I could put him where he wouldn’t die on impact?

And a tendril grabbed him.

Seizing him, then depositing him firmly in a snowbank.

“Good one!” I shouted. No time or breath to waste. But that had saved me the time it would have taken to deposit him down there.

I flew around in a sideways arc, diving for a side window. That put me inside the building. Once the Wretch was active again, I plunged through the floor. There were people with guns, and I flew into each of them.

I knew the general layouts of the stations. I’d visited more than a few.

Punching through obstacles and walls put me in the center area between all the terminals, past the initial gates. Staff had already cleared out. I could hear the noise outside, powers being used. Chastity’s voice.