She pointed, to make it clear which team she meant. She had three printed out pictures above and below the hero league cards, each picture in a clear plastic jacket like the cards were in hard laminate sleeves, less to protect them, and more because the cheap printer paper had gotten wavy after the ink soaked into it, and the sleeve helped keep it flat. Antares and Swansong, Swansong decked out in costume with eyes smoking, and a picture of their headquarters, which was just as messy as her room, if not more, and had a glowing sci-fi computer terminal at the far end, with lots of floating screens and stuff, which was really cool.

“Don’t bother ‘the team’,” her mom said, with the kind of emphasis that suggested she was trying to be clever or make a point. She turned off the monitor, which made Presley wince. At least she hadn’t turned off the computer, which would have definitely cost her the value of the pack. “Sleep.”

Presley nodded, sliding chair over to the window to adjust the curtains. She stopped where she was, looking out. Her voice had a less-sure note to it when she said, “Mom?”

Rather than close, the curtains were opened wider, her mother stepping up to the window.

A glowing figure on the horizon. Taller than any mountain, not glowing, but so white that it looked like a cut-out from reality, head extending up like a wedge, lower body extending down the same way, creating a very narrow hourglass shape, but with a narrow torso in the center, with arms, what looked like a lightning bolt or a spear, and what might have been a round shield.

With it, there was a horrible feeling in her middle. It was like when the Endbringers came; all her life, the years had been punctuated by these big, shadowy monsters that came and changed the tone of the day and the week after, in what she’d once heard a bad comedian call the opposite of holidays. It had always come with a bad feeling mixed with a bad relief that it had been so far away. The kind of relief that made you feel bad.

Except she didn’t feel that relief now, and she didn’t feel any less bad.

“What do we do?”

“I’m going to talk to your father. Stay here.”

Presley nodded.

“No,” her mom said, before she’d finished walking out of the room. “Not here. Not by the window. Just in case, stay away.”

Presley took a step to one side, so the window was further away. She could have stepped toward the bed, and settled in there, but hiding under the covers felt like such a kid thing to do, and she wasn’t really a kid anymore.

And being where she was, she could see the photos of the team. ‘Something big’, they’d said. This had to be what they were doing.