He saw some bone-white skin in the folds near his eye, and used residual cover-up to get rid of it.

The world is ending. What am I doing here?

He straightened, rolling his shoulder to work out a bit of a strain from the earlier fighting.

He left the bathroom, walking down the hall where his darkness filled the space, until he was at the back room. He could see Lisa and Aisha with the kids in the main room, and two more kids in the side hallway that led to the break room and kitchen.

Lisa looked agitated, upset.

He dismissed some of the excess darkness that flooded the hallway, side rooms, and bathroom.

“There you are,” Lisa said. She looked weary, but she smiled. “Refreshed?”

“Yeah,” he said. He never felt entirely refreshed, though. “You looked worried.”

“Just had phone calls. I don’t like Breakthrough’s plan,” Lisa said. “They gave us a deadline.”

“Expand on that?” he asked.

“An hour now, and we’re past the point of no return. It lines up with the Simurgh’s flight path and speed. They’ve got some people going back to dig for more information, others are talking to the Wardens. Right now I’m trying to convey, with technology that doesn’t work half the time, that they aren’t going to have enough time when they get back.”

“What can I do?” he asked.

“For right this minute? The kid woke up,” Lisa said. “Darlene’s tapped into her, and said she’s trying to get out of her quote-unquote ‘cell’. We could stand for someone to check on her.”

He tensed a bit.

“Trying being the operative word. According to Darlene, the kid is moving her eyes like she’s programming, and I’m hoping that’s because she’s preparing to deploy something and not because she’s got a signal out and is doing something with that tech over there. It would be helpful if you could stop in, make sure it’s safe.”

Tattletale indicated the abandoned tinker workshop. There were more of the Heartbroken kids throughout the room, crowded into this space and the second of the two hallways in this office space, but despite the crowding, they kept more than two paces from the workshop.

That, at least, was smart.

Sending him, though…

Tattletale searched his face with her green eyes. “I can send Aisha, if it’s a problem.”

“Huh? What?” Imp asked, looking away from her conversation with Roman and Chastity.

“We could send you to talk to Lookout.”

“I thought my big bro was doing that. He’s so good with kids.”

“I’m what?” Brian asked. The suggestion had kicked him into fight-or-flight mode—not just the idea that he might be forced to interact with more kids, but the idea that he had been good with kids, that it might even have been a big part of his identity, and he no longer had that.