He slipped something like a marble into the slingshot, drew it back so far that one arm was outstretched, holding the slingshot itself, and the hand with the marble clasped tight in it was against his shoulder.

“Killing isn’t enough,” he said.

“Wait—”

He released the shot.

I didn’t finish my protest or clarify the point. It was done.

“Okay,” he said, turning away. “Problem solved.”

“You didn’t wait to see the result,” Moose said.

“Second one’s already in the trees. She took too long to decide.”

“And the first?” Moose asked.

“Will rethink the sequence of events that brought him to this point.”

I drew in a deep breath.

That was vague, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

Fuck them, anyway. I floated up and away from the Harbingers.

It wasn’t a short trip. We didn’t have a vehicle. Still, there was a limit to how far they could travel—we hadn’t been that far behind them, delayed primarily by the time it had taken to recoup and recover at the university building, waiting for doctors and reinforcements.

I flew to my parents.

“Hand warmer?” I asked.

“You should be more prepared,” my mother said.

My dad had a hand warmer in one of the pouches of the bandoleer he wore. He drew one out and threw it up to me. I undid my forcefield, caught it in my unbandaged hand, shook it, and felt the plastic packet begin to warm.

And Sveta—

Sveta was making her way through the trees, phantom-quiet, except for a rustling. A pale face against a dark background.

I followed, tracking her, being wary.

When she realized I was there, she didn’t startle. She didn’t grab me.

I recapped her on everything she might have missed, and I included some things I realized she hadn’t missed, and she let me.

Talking. A break from the situation. The two of us moving like ethereal figures through woods that looked like black and white snow-covered trees against a black and white background. She didn’t have much to say, so I did much of the talking.

Maybe that was still too close to home for her, reminding her of the hospital room, because there had been days where she didn’t talk then, either. The room had been filled with the mechanical voice, echoing words I typed out with the special keyboard, the voice tuned as best as we’d been able to get to my old voice. Putting aside the horrible enunciation and a more horrible monotonous tone, it hadn’t been very close at all. But some days had been like that.

But that home was better than the other home—the memories of being wild and alone, so dangerous to others that she had to exile herself.