“I thought about what I want to do, and I want them to hurt. I want them to feel and recognize what they’ve done here. I want them to feel a thousand times the pain they’ve inflicted on others, and I don’t know if that’s possible, but maybe your power gets them there.”

“They might be asleep.”

“Emotion effects accrue, I think. There’s a physiological and mental component. We just… let that accumulate. A little trickle for a long time.”

“About that,” Rain said.

“What?”

“I’m maxed out. I didn’t get my power, or any tokens, pretty sure… I’m—”

The silver blade he created was just that—a blade, a foot and a half long. He made a throwing motion, and it dissipated.

“That’s maxed out?” Cassie asked.

“My emotion power. It’s turned up.”

“Nothing else?” Byron asked.

“Zero on the tinker power. Zero on the mover.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I have no fucking idea. But if you want to boil them inside whatever room they’re holed up in, I think I can do that.”

⊙

Rain was on his feet again, a bottle of water in hand, talking to Moose, as Moose outlined some of the faces inside the building. Foil had slipped in between the patrols and used spikes to scale the wall, and she’d taken photos while at the window. At the factory-like building, the windows were up near the tall ceiling and the roof.

I heard the names Moose rattled off—mostly new ones for me—and I heard Moose talking about which ones were more compassionate, which were assholes. The ones who had killed.

Chastity had roused, looking a bit worse for wear but, at the very least, not unconscious. She was with Rachel, but most of her focus was on the Harbingers.

“Incorrigible.”

I turned to look. It was Cassie.

“You called my friend incorrigible.”

“I’m sorry. I was trying to play along. Byron hadn’t mentioned the ex he was talking about was the same girl that’s chopped up in that factory, I kind of wanted to distract her.”

“Oh… oh no.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t as deft as I could’ve been. Tired.”

“It’s okay. It’s true that she’s incorrigible, but… it’s hard, you know? I want her to be happy. But she doesn’t want to be someone who goes out with someone and lies from the start. I think something bad happened once, while she still lived with her dad, when she went to school under an alias and had a boy who liked her. I think he ended up meeting her dad.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. I wondered if I heard a name, if I could dig in files and find a case report.