An anger, seated so long it had eaten her up inside. A betrayal or great wrong done to her, that she’d never recovered from, or that she’d manufactured to keep her identity intact.

Sveta hurled him, violently enough it hurt when he landed.

He realized it late: every move she’d made, every push she’d given him, it had been to drive him toward one corner, as far from the door as possible. With the throw, she’d placed him next to the door.

A tendril opened it before his hand reached it, and he escaped to the hallway, bleeding in two places, bruised in a way that would hurt for a week, but alive.

Guards came running, now. The commotion earlier was too hard to justify ignoring.

They checked on him, and they looked in on the scene.

Crock o’ Shit roared at them.

They dragged him by the arm, and they opened the door two cells over.

Sveta, stooped over the drain with water running out of the hose, drenching herself.

“Oh,” she said, covering herself up with a towel. “Mr. Armstrong!”

She didn’t quite cover up the three wounds she’d sustained, all a funny shape, but the guards weren’t looking hard enough to notice, it seemed. They were preoccupied, more than a little scared.

It was over. The charade broken. If they’d been looking to make parahumans look unruly by using tamed Shin parahumans to force the hand of foreign Gimel ones, that was over with.

If Yosef had indeed wanted this to be discreet, it wouldn’t be. The answers would come out. Answers had a way of doing just that. Crock had triggered from just that very reason. Even now, guards were looking to make sense of the situation, investigating.

“I was getting ready to leave, thought I’d rinse off,” Sveta said, getting dressed behind the divider by the shower stall.

The shower. The drains. She had slipped through, crossing over to the cell with the most commotion.

Control like she’d never had. A light of heroism and pride in herself that shone in her eyes, that she’d been chasing for so long.

Maybe the difference between himself and Ms. Natalie Matteson was that she hadn’t had the chance to see this light yet—only the darkness.

Dressed, Sveta crossed the room, wrapping him in the tightest of hugs.

“Let’s get you all out of here,” he told her. “Everyone’s waiting.”

Dying 15.a

Crystal

Where are you, Victoria?

Crystal resisted the urge to fidget. PRTCJ Oversight was stretched so thin that they weren’t taking calls or clarifying orders, and with only a brief text telling her to go here and handle things, she had no idea if she was here in an official or personal capacity. Whichever it was, she knew fidgeting wasn’t something she was supposed to do.