“Thanks Tats,” I said.

“What’s she saying?” Tattletale asked.

“Thank you,” Kenzie said.

“For shooting the thing.”

“For—”

“I heard that one. What were you doing charging in like that? You reckless idiot.”

“Had to distract it. Stick to the game plan.”

“Brute mentality, no brute powers. See where it gets you?” Tattletale asked. “You—”

She stopped as more hands plunged down. Four, at my best guess. All aimed for the other group.

I had a sinking feeling, watching. The onslaught was increasing in intensity as the thing drew nearer to them.

“Any insights?” I asked.

“No power,” Tattletale said. She sounded bored, detached.

“Still,” I said. “You don’t cape for… years without figuring some shit out.”

“Are you trying to be nice, Antares?” Tattletale asked. “You saw where I come from, you feel bad?”

“Let’s not fight,” Kenzie said.

“You feel sorry for me?” Tattletale asked.

More crashes. It had to be ten arms, though I couldn’t see the entirety of it. Some speared down, some raked their individual paths. One after another.

It was so hard to breathe, and the pain when impacts shook me interrupted the process. My heart was still aflutter and it was probably contributing to my thoughts being a little… lightweight. Shallow thinking, like the twilight before sleep, that I could steer only with constant attention.

“You don’t know anything about me, okay?” Tattletale asked. “You don’t get any points if you end our relationship with some well-intentioned questions. You triggered because mommy and daddy didn’t love you because you were normal, then proceeded to show you were the last person who ever deserved powers, maiming people and using your sister to dodge the consequences when you hit them a little too hard.”

“Stop,” Kenzie said.

“Hey,” Colt said.

The silence was maybe the heaviest silence that I’d ever heard. Heavier than the times after my family had left during visiting hours. Heavier than the rooftop after Dean had died, when I’d flown up there to cry on my own because I couldn’t cry in front of his family and everyone else in the hospital. Heavier than the silence after I’d been fouled in basketball, in the before and after of my own pained cry.

Heavy because the hands had made an all-out attack on the other group. Ten hands, all together.

And then they’d stopped.

I could taste the dust and the glass particulate in the air.

Tattletale’s voice picked up, starting slow, then building in speed, “I bet you knew she liked you, you knew she was in a bad place, but it was convenient to keep using the girl instead of getting her help. Bit you in the ass, huh? I bet what gets you is that you know you deserved those years in the asylum.”

I focused on breathing.

Kenzie reached for and took my hand. She held it in two of hers, clenching harder than was necessary. “Tattletale—”

“It’s okay,” I said.