“I could stall him,” Colt said.

“Not without looking,” I said, again. “Mama Mathers.”

I wanted to move to flank, to grab stuff and lob concrete at them until they were no longer an issue, but they had hostages. I couldn’t risk the collateral damage. Not when it was innocent capes with brainwashing.

I could try to locate them, guess at distance, but that put me at risk, and it meant Valefor could catch me with eye contact.

I did move to flank, leaving Rain behind, but I didn’t do it with the intent of mounting a direct attack. I circled around, and I came within ten feet of a cape surrounded by what looked like a personal sandstorm of black sand. A big cape.

Brute, was my thought, as he reached out, arm forming a rough hand shape as the sandstorm expanded and extended out. He tore into cover and hauled it away, and his sand stripped away at the material of my costume, scraping up my armor, and taking off flecks of my chin.

I took evasive action, ducking around one piece of cover, then around to another.

I looked back. He’d kicked up a lot of dust, in addition to the ambient particles of his power.

Could I confront him more directly, while Valefor and Mama Mathers were in the cloud?

Work with me, I thought. Grab it, then freeze.

The long shaft of metal had been a beam holding something up, and now lay amid the rubble. The Wretch gripped it, and with the noise and the dust that created, it gave away my position.

Which meant more black sand, meant I had a cape slipping into the floor near me, racing along as fast as my eye could track, then popping up, throwing out a lasso of what looked like wire. A device, not a power thing.

I ducked away from both, circled around.

I was mid-air when the black sand cape swept his arm to one side. The dust cloud that ensconced Mama Mathers and Valefor was cast away in an eyeblink.

Valefor seemed to think he wasn’t in earshot, because he didn’t waste his breath. I didn’t meet his eyes.

I flew up and back, then brought my feet up, using them to help hold up the beam, my abs and thighs tight. My hands gripped the end.

I was the crossbow that launched it, Wretch strength kicking in, my legs providing the support at the front end while keeping it more or less stable.

As big and accurate a strike as I could manage, that didn’t have collateral damage. It didn’t strike home, but it got close enough to graze him. He grunted, even coughed as more dust was kicked up by the metal beam spearing into the rubble he was perched on.

Love Lost heard the cough. She stepped around cover, and she screamed.