“Whatever. Everyone who isn’t a member of the Tenders, out,” Candy said.

“I think she wins,” Chastity said. “Out, out.”

“Taking the french fries,” Juliette remarked, picking up the bowl, and picking a few packets of hot sauce while she was at it.

“Leave some,” Candy said, turning the gun on Juliette.

“Disarm her,” Juliette said, before freezing. Candy, too, froze.

Roman stepped forward, reaching for the gun. Darlene jumped up, and put her finger through the trigger guard, alongside Candy’s.

They conceded to leave french fries behind.

They were such good kids, all of them. As bad as this situation might look from the outside, all of them had come so far in the past four years. Imp couldn’t help but feel a kind of fondness, seeing the situation end without blood drawn or powers used. Even a year ago, this situation would have been drastically different.

“The world is ending,” Imp told the group, knowing they wouldn’t register it. But Tattletale had said that there was a chance something might get through, when she talked to someone like this. Past events had suggested it might be true. “You’re all tense. It’s good that you’re not outright murdering each other. Let’s stick to that.”

The thirteen-and-older Heartbroken left the room.

All of this had started as a self-imposed obligation, and in a way it was good that it had happened that way. If she hadn’t felt obligated, it would have meant she did it out of goodwill, and she hadn’t felt goodwill when she’d had to rally the Undersiders to hunt down Chastity and the man the girl had dragged off.

She hadn’t felt goodwill when she had been woken up at six am on three consecutive nights because Roman had sneaked off and picked fights he couldn’t win.

Or when Candy had nearly started a Heartbroken riot by emptying a full box of salt onto everyone’s pizza, because unadulterated enjoyment of anything had sparked her fight-or-flight reflexes, and yet she had still been very much an eight-year-old who didn’t want to see others enjoying things she couldn’t. She’d used her power three times before running out of charge, once on Nathan, as Nathan’s third big hit from Candy, once on her big sister Chastity, and once on Valentina. It had effectively ruined pizza night as an ongoing thing, as all three would gag or puke at the smell of the food after that. Still did.

Things were better now.

“Imp,” Peep announced, raising her voice to be unnecessarily loud, not moving her head while pointing at a screen she couldn’t see. “You have a visitor!”

“Who?” Darlene asked. “What?”

Imp blinked a few times. It wasn’t Peep’s first time pulling that stunt, but it startled her every time.

“That’s Grue,” Roman said. “But—”