I flew down to him to check he was alive, feet planted on his wrists, finger at his pulse. My face was turned upward; I blinked dust out of my eyes and tried to spot motion. The jetpack tinker—where?

I spotted the glow of their munitions, and with the assurance the wiped-out flier was unconscious but not outright dead, I gave chase.

They saw me, and took maneuvers to rise up and fly away. They were a bomber, which meant they wanted the high ground. They… didn’t stop turning. The maneuver they’d started didn’t stop, as they hauled on one of their controls and kept hauling on it. Their arc in the air was a lazy circle, flying up, over, down, and then across the ground, face and upper body grinding against concrete and leaving a red smear as the abrasive ground sanded away flesh. I flew after, but I couldn’t reach them before they hit a piece of rubble, which saw them bank off, spiraling violently in the air with the ruins of half their jetpack spitting out smoke. They crash-landed.

I would have wondered why, but the distraction of movement in the corner of my vision interrupted the thought and answered the question in the same moment. Juliette was resuming her run, rejoining Chastity, who put a hand on her shoulder, supporting her as they ran across uneven ground.

Rachel was already moving again, darting from cover to cover while her wolf and a hound flanked her, shielding her from stray fire. If Parian and Foil were here, they hadn’t been with Rachel or gotten instructions from Contessa. I hoped they were okay.

Capricorn trailed behind her, with Love Lost running behind him, Colt floating above, wearing her breaker form.

When the shots from the tinker guns didn’t fly as fast as bullets, Colt was agile enough in the air to weave around them.

Ashley had shot the ground, carving out a furrow, and crouched in it, one hand at her side, Rain was in beside her, trying to peer through the dust. They looked up at me, waiting for the go-ahead.

Sveta was out of the box, emerging from the dense rubble of the collapsed hallway where the box had been stored. She passed between the Harbingers, who had found their own ways to survive the devastation. She stayed low, her body breaking down into tendrils that allowed her to crawl lower than a person otherwise might.

That was everyone, then. Dusty, a few scrapes.