The casualty was that she was affecting people outside. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to care at this point. Her dad’s career was already fucked, and as far as her secret identity went, she wasn’t sure what she was fighting to maintain anymore.

“There,” her father said, “How about that space heater?”

“Ren,” her mother said. The fierceness of it surprised Brianna. Her mother tended to be meek. “Let our daughter rest.”

“I’ll be happier if I know you guys are okay,” Brianna said. Then she wondered why she’d said it. Why she’d countered her mother when her mother was showing off more spine than usual.

Tired, she decided.

“Thank you, Bee. Alright,” her father said. He clapped his hands together, rubbing them, looking around.

Brianna took the opportunity to mouth an apology to her mom. All she got was an ambiguous smile in return.

“Can you help me with this stuff?” Brianna asked. “It’s buried.”

“Okay!” her father said, and it struck her that he wasn’t being bullish, driven, and high-energy for no reason. He was trying to be strong for the family.

He knelt by the box with the small appliances, picking up the radio and toaster, balancing them on the box’s edge with one hand. She did what she could to move the wires aside.

She used her power, surrounding the box, turning downward-pointing indents into peaks, and then lifted appliances by the wires.

A touch at the side of her head drew her attention. A floating toaster oven and waffle iron bumped into her dad’s arm, the wires threatening to get entangled as he reached over to her.

His hand touched her hair, then the side of her face.

“We worry,” he said.

“I’m not field leader for nothing,” she said, looking down. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I remember when you were small. The one year you were in public school, you had trouble fitting in, you intimidated the other children.”

“I was a stuck up rich bitch,” Brianna said.

“Never apologize for being better.”

“It’s not being better. It’s acting better. I was dumb, I paid for it when they gave me a hard time. That’s a lesson we all need to learn.”

He nodded, as if just now accepting that idea, ten years after the fact. “Do you remember that day I skipped work, and took you on the ferry?”

“Yes. It’s one of my cherished memories,” Brianna said.

“Do you remember how that day started?”

Brianna shook her head. Her long ponytail swept against the back of her neck and shoulders.

“It started in tears. You begged me not to make you go to school. You were so terrified you were making yourself sick, because the other girls teased you. I think it might have been your first time experiencing enemies. We talked about that.”

Brianna nodded. “Yeah.”

He reached over to push the things that had tangled around his arm away, before pulling back his hand.