“Count down from ten,” Rain said.

Ashley whirled on him. I left the ground, flying closer, stopping when things didn’t escalate further.

“Count down from ten,” Rain said. “That’s what Mrs. Yamada says, isn’t it? When you’re wound up.”

“It’s fine when she says it.”

“It should be fine when any of us say it,” Rain said. “Count.”

Ashley tensed. I could see it in her shoulders and the way the tendons stood out in her hands.

Everyone was silent.

I waited. Ten seconds passed. Then the fifteenth, then the twentieth.

“Feel better?” Sveta ventured.

Ashley turned, staring Sveta down. “No.”

“Count down from a hundred,” Rain said.

“I’m not going to—”

“Count,” Rain said, his voice soft. “Please. You’ve said before, when you get like this, there’s a part of you that’s saying you don’t want to act this way, and you can’t listen to it. So listen to the numbers first, then listen to that part of you.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s—”

“It’s not that easy,” she said. “And I’m going to walk away. You do your thing. Let me do mine.”

“Okay,” Rain said.

She limped away, hands in fists at her side. We were silent as we watched her go.

She walked up the hill, found a rock, and leaned against it, her back to us, and I let my feet touch ground.

“We knew it was coming sooner or later,” Chris said.

“Spooky,” Sveta said. “I expected a small outburst to start with. That was—”

“Medium-small,” Tristan said.

Kenzie stood up, gathering her things.

“Stay, Kenzie,” Sveta said.

“It’s fine.”

“She wants to be left alone.”

“This thing?” Kenzie asked. “It’s not you guys being the adults and me as the kid, listening to what adults say. We’re all equal members of this team. And this is what I’m going to do, and if I get hurt that’s fine, but this is right for me. You can tell me what to do with some other stuff but not this stuff.”

“It’s dangerous,” I said. “Leave her be.”

“No,” Kenzie said, voice firm. She put her hand on her flash gun. She looked at all of us, then said, softer, “No.”

“Okay, Kenzie,” Sveta said. “Go. Be careful.”

“You’re sure?” Tristan asked Sveta.

But Kenzie was already jogging off in Ashley’s direction.

When Kenzie was out of earshot, but before she had reached Ashley, Sveta raised one hand and said, voice quiet, “If there’s a problem, I’ll haul her back.”

“That takes a second or two,” I said. “Sparring with Ashley, I gotta say she moves faster than that.”

“And your grip isn’t a hundred percent,” Tristan said.

Sveta set her jaw, hand pointed at Kenzie.

Kenzie reached Ashley, and with Ashley’s movement, we all tensed, preparing to act.