“All for nothing,” she said.

“It was not for nothing,” I said. “I got to see and experience what you do, I respect the spatial awareness. The instinct—”

“I fell for a trap,” she said. “I knew there would be water and I thought I could avoid it if I used my power in time, I didn’t expect there to be so much.”

“We’ve never seen each other’s powers in action,” Tristan said. “Surprises are inevitable. You surprised the shit out of me, many times, and I got one good surprise off. When we do it again, we’ll know each other’s powers better. It’s part of why we’re doing the exercises in the first place.”

“I failed,” Ashley said. She stood up, and she rubbed one shoulder. “I was tested and I failed.”

“Right from the start,” Sveta said, jumping into the conversation “When we were standing around figuring out what we’d do, Victoria told me that this wasn’t a test of us as individuals. It’s a test of our coordination as a team.”

“I can find that on the recording,” Kenzie said. “It’ll be hard to find, though.”

“Hah,” Chris said. Kenzie pushed his shoulder.

“My team failed,” Ashley said, oblivious to the pair. “No. My team was set up to fail.”

“Wait, woah,” Tristan said.

Ashley clenched one hand into a fist. “You realize if I hadn’t been holding back, I could have annihilated each and every one of you?”

“Woah,” Tristan said, with emphasis. “Ashley—”

She whirled on him, pointing, and he flinched, going silent. I stood from my seat.

“Ashley,” I said, because I wanted her attention off of Tristan.

“I’m not Ashley,” she said, her voice hard. “Nobody has called me that in a long, long time. I’m only Ashley because the therapists insisted and the others needed an actual name to put on the paperwork. I’m Damsel of Distress!”

“Okay,” I said. “Can we—”

I was spoken over. “I was a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. They selected me. They had me kill and maim people. I didn’t mind doing it then, and I could do it here without blinking.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sveta said.

“I’ve died and I came back with only the vicious parts of me intact! All of the warmth, the good memories, the family, they’re just a fuzzy, indistinct dream. Those memories have no hold on me. The killing? Taking people’s arms and legs and watching them bleed out? That’s clear as anything. I could do the same to any of you.”

I wanted the younger and more vulnerable members of the team to back away, to get clear of trouble, but I worried that if I tried to indicate that, it might provoke her. Everyone was still, and nobody, myself included, was really breathing.

“This was an idiotic game, and I. Don’t. Play. Games.”