“Whatever you’re going to say, I’ve heard it before,” Sveta said.

“What the fuck’s going on with you, huh? What’s wrong with you?” he called out.

I turned my head to look at him. Sveta squeezed my arm, then shook her head a little.

“Hey, you’re weird,” he called out. “You’re freaky.”

The light changed. We crossed, Rain trailing a bit behind, still on the phone, periodically responding. He shot the guys a dark look.

“I don’t like it when people are mean to you,” Kenzie said.

“Thank you for that,” Sveta said. “And thank you, Victoria. I know you probably wanted to say something. I’m glad we didn’t make it into a thing.”

“Does it happen a lot?” I asked.

“Some. It beats people running away and screaming, and the running and screaming part beat people dying because of me,” Sveta said. “This is an improvement. Things will improve more in the future. I believe that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

“Me too,” Kenzie said.

Sveta put a hand on Kenzie’s hooded head, squeezed my arm.

“My ride’s here,” Rain said, catching up with us, waving at a distant vehicle with its headlights on. I got a better view of it as it pulled up beside us. It wasn’t a pretty vehicle—a van with rust around the right headlight. “We’ve got a good long drive back. Was good seeing you guys, good to meet you, Victoria.”

“Good to meet you, Rain,” I said.

The driver stuck her hand out, waving. We moved around to where we could see her through the passenger-side window.

Erin, Rain’s friendship he wasn’t intending to mess with, was not the kind of person I imagined driving a van like that, or spending time with someone of Rain’s somewhat grungy, not-inclined-to-smile presentation. There were women where someone’s first thought might be ‘they could be a model’ and there were women where the first thought was ‘they have to be a model, it’s not fair if they aren‘t’. She was the latter. Short black hair with a long swoop at the front, dangly jewelry, more piercings in one ear, and one of the memorial shirts, much like how the dress I was wearing served as a way for me to represent and remember Brockton Bay. She was from New York, it seemed, or she wanted to represent it.

“Erin, you’ve seen Kenzie and Sveta before.”

“Hi again,” Erin said.

“And this is Victoria. We were talking about having her be our coach.”

“Hi,” Erin said, leaning toward Rain to get a better view of me, extending her hand in another wave. Rain looked momentarily like a deer in the headlights with Erin’s face close, with Erin doing a very good job at not noticing or not looking like she’d noticed. “You look a lot like Glory Girl.”

“I am,” I said. “I was.”