She stopped shooting Chris and turned to look.

“Stomp on the line on the ground? I’m curious!”

She ran off, leaving Chris where he was.

“Can you explain the schedule, then? The powers wax and wane?”

Rain sighed.

“Sorry, if I’m grilling you a little too much. I’m trying to get my head around this.”

“I see them in my dreams. I never get a good night’s sleep, never dream normally. Just… them. And they see me. We take turns, and when my turn comes up, I get a bit of a power up.”

“That’s how you knew Snag’s description, before you knew his name.”

Rain nodded.

Off in the distance, Kenzie stomped on the silver line in the grass. There was a bit of dust, and some grass stalks fell, but I didn’t see anything else. She looked at us and shrugged.

“Every five days, I get my turn, and I’m a little bit stronger. There are other times I’m stronger, but it’s complicated.”

“Every five? There’s four others?”

“Three others,” Rain said.

“What’s…?”

“The day in the rotation after me, it’s a blank space. My running theory is that there was a fifth member of the cluster, but they died before the powers set in. Free power-up, goes to someone random. Doesn’t always line up with our power, so on those days, I can sometimes have more tinker power, or more mover power, more emotion power. A taste of what I could be.”

“Once every twenty days, on average.”

“Never lining up with my days,” he said. He sighed. “Through the dreams I’ve seen them unmasked and they’ve seen me. They hate me and I’m not overly fond of them. They’re always there, every night, and it’s pretty obvious how much they despise me. It’s where Tristan and I have that shared experience, kind of.”

“People you can’t get away from,” I said.

“You’re talking about your cluster?” Tristan asked, joining the conversation. Sveta was behind him.

“Yeah.”

Tristan sat down on the rock beside Rain. I scooted over so Sveta could sit beside me.

“These people want you dead? How likely is it they go forward with this hit?”

“Ninety-nine point eight percent likely,” Rain said.

“What’s the point two?” Sveta asked.

“They all die or get arrested before they get around to it,” Rain said.

“You seem pretty cavalier about traveling into the city,” I said. “You caught a train today?”

“Yeah,” Rain said. “Again, it’s the dreams, I can pick up a little, and I can throw them off a little. The thing about being outnumbered in this situation is that I have a lot of opportunities to pick up details. One clue from any of them can help a lot.”

“Details like?”