She had her little lie, and so did I.

She entertained a world where what she’d done was fixable, to this blonde girl, to me. She’d tried to convince us.

I offered a middle ground. Not forgiveness, but talks, a balance, and acceptance of what she was doing. That was my lie, because I couldn’t bring myself to.

We’d run it by the Wardens at the next opportunity. It wouldn’t be my team’s biased take on it. Other hero teams would hear the situation, listen to Kenzie’s recordings, and then decide if it was appropriate, to dispose of my ex-sister, and cast her into another world alone, with no plans to retrieve her.

Would there be pushback? Probably. A lot of this hinged on my knowledge that Amy had been lying about how certain she was.

If there was pushback, maybe a test. If she couldn’t fix this person she’d altered, she was too dangerous. If she could, I’d back down.

We’d have to give her a chance first, use every resource to get her to a stable place, for this person’s sake, and for absolute fairness.

After that, if it came down to laying down the ultimatum and what was at stake, then I couldn’t imagine a world where she rallied and performed better, fixed this girl and saved herself. She didn’t handle pressure well.

There was a knock on the door. Guards moved to either side of the doorway, parting the way.

“If you’d rejoin us?” Luis asked. “We have some things we’d like to address.”

Slowly, the room filed out. I was relatively close to the door, so I followed Tristan. My mom came with me. I glanced back, in part to check that Amy wouldn’t try to touch me while my back was turned, like she had at Breakthrough Headquarters.

Again, that fucking smile.

I stopped, pulling to one side and letting my mom walk on. The rest of the group filed out, with the middle section mingled between Ashley, Marquis, my dad, and Chris.

Amy was at the rear, escorted by Spruce. She saw me, stepped closer—and I stepped back, maintaining a safe distance.

I knew it looked bad. That we were trying to massage a peace. But I wasn’t insane.

“What?” she asked.

“Just—don’t move, or I might kill you,” I said. “Private question.”

I looked at Spruce as I said it.

He checked with her, then with Marquis, and then he backed off.

Just me and my ex-sister.

“What?” she asked. No smile on her face now, but that light of hope in her eyes.

“Her name.”

“Her—oh,” she said. “Hunter.”

A punch in the throat.

“I know Hunter,” I said. I was pretty sure, anyway. After the community center attack, before Breakthrough, I’d worked with Mrs. Yamada to get Hunter sent to the Asylum-like spot in Europe.