I hurried to catch Bloodplay as my forcefield fell, then handed her over. My one hand was slick from fingertip to wrist with blood.

“Is that her or you?” Chastity asked. Then her eyes fixed on my neck. “You need to get that looked at. I didn’t even see, since the black hides it.”

“I know. Just… I’m managing.”

“Split up,” Sveta said. “Cryptid, Antares, Byron, floor six labs. Find a lab that works. Precipice, you’re with me. Map, Chastity, Juliette, come with us. Seventh floor, the hallway where they stuck the thinkers.”

“Be careful going there,” Chastity told Sveta. “Half these guys we caught were heading there like they were given orders. We’ve been holding them off but…”

Sveta met my eyes.

“Dinah,” I said.

“Yeah,” Sveta said. “Probably.”

“I’ll come,” I told her.

“You will fucking go get medical care, Victoria. You’re bleeding like shit,” Sveta said, with uncharacteristic harshness.

“I—”

The entire building shuddered.

The screaming, at the very least, didn’t feel that bad. Was the Simurgh further from the building? That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, as relieving as it felt right this minute. It meant she might be getting away.

In this, at least, we had to trust the Wardens to keep her pinned down. And we needed to get Dinah.

I pressed my hand to my wound, checked Byron, and then started flying up the stairs, taking point.

There was someone in costume sitting on the stairs in the dark, hands over his ears, rocking a little. I landed next to him while I waited for others, checking him over, but he barely seemed to recognize I was there. The hallways—I checked both, and both were lit. There was one dead body in the hallway, either a ‘red’ by Defiant’s system or a victim of a red, but no apparent threats.

I used my aura, reaching out for calm and relief and pushing it out there.

In a way, I was glad that I could. The process of connecting to the Fragile One and her origins, realizing she wasn’t the enemy and letting her connect to me… it had opened doors both for the shaping of my forcefield and for my emotion control. It felt right that the emotion control was letting me help and soothe, now.

The cape stopped rocking and looked up at me.

“Is there—” I started. He removed the hands from his ears. “Is there a place you can go?”

“My team’s fighting.”

“The fighting seems to be worse near the front of the building. If you head that way…” I indicated past the stairs. “You can go find a spot to wait or help others. Or… the screaming shouldn’t be as bad.”