The hatchback had been painted a bold red, but aside from some rust on the passenger side door, there wasn’t much mess that I could see. Her car was cleaner than just about anyone I knew, and even the back was mostly vacant, with a second spare tire within. She had to unlock all four doors manually with her key. It was one of the post-Gold Morning cars. Early-era by the look of it. In a world where everything went perfectly, humanity got over its current crisis and we found our equilibrium, I could imagine it being a collector’s item.

Everyone climbed in. I took the back seat, Kenzie on one side of me, keyboard not-cube on the floor by my feet. Sveta took the next spot in the back seat, followed by Rain. Tristan in front. Sveta loosened up her body, looked for a space to occupy, and then went over the back seat into the trunk area, looking over the top.

“You drive, huh?” I asked.

“Yep,” Etna said.

“I can, but I couldn’t convince myself to get a car when I fly most of the time.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” she said.

I wondered if I’d given her any brain damage after all.

The car was in the process of pulling out when something struck the windshield, which made Etna hit the brakes, hard. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact.

Some of us climbed out, to look for the source of the attack. I was one of them, floating up to get a better perspective.

There were maybe ten people close enough to have thrown—it looked like a car part. Ten people close enough, twenty people in total all standing along a street with mostly one-story businesses.

They stared. Their attention was wholly on us. The classroom dynamic of every kid looking at the class clown that had just disrupted things wasn’t in effect.

“Let’s go,” Etna said.

“You’ve had this happen before?”

“No,” she said. “But I’ve heard about incidents with capes and angry people. Let’s just go.”

“Are you sure?” Sveta asked.

“I can fix windshield damage. I don’t know what I can do if other parts of the Etnamobile get damaged.”

There was none of the eager awkwardness from before in her voice.

“Ballsy,” Rain said.

Tristan was looking around. “It’d be more ballsy if they stepped up and admitted who did it.”

“I know who did it,” Kenzie said.

Of course.

“Let’s leave it alone,” I told her. “If we make an issue of it, we make ourselves look worse, not better.”

“I joined villains because it seemed fun and easy,” Etna said. “Everything else seemed so much harder. There’s money in being a villain. The costumes are better.”

“Ehh,” I said. I remembered Etna’s skimpy fire sorceress outfit from Hollow Point, before the weather had cooled.

“They really are,” Kenzie said.