“They have thirty-five to sixty people with powers, a hired assassin, and a grudge.”

“And we have a bit of time. We’ll use it.”

“We?”

“Fuck off,” Byron said, without smiling or even sounding like he was amused or annoyed. “You’re a friend. Of course I’m in this.”

Rain swallowed hard.

“Today was valuable. The team has a sense of what they’re up against. Mostly.”

“You think I should tell them,” Rain said.

Byron shrugged. He was Tristan’s inverse, in that he wasn’t one to push, even when he had strong feelings one way or the other.

“I’m going to hide out at the compound for a day or two. I, uh, I’ll think, and maybe I’ll explain when it’s time to come back. When there’s a clearer picture of what’s happening. Make sure they don’t do anything in the meantime?”

“Sure. Tristan heard too, and I think he’d agree.”

“Thank you.”

“If you’re going to hide, you should go before they wrap up that meeting and decide to catch a train heading in the same direction you’re going.”

Rain nodded, swallowing hard again.

He turned to go. Not running, this time, but walking as fast as he could.

To seek sanctuary amid monsters.

Shade 4.4

I was being watched.

I was being watched at a time when Rain was gone, hiding, when Tattletale was in play. We had enemies, I’d drawn attention. These things, though, weren’t at the forefront of my attention. It said a lot that they weren’t.

The slash on Moose’s face lingered in my mind’s eye, when I wasn’t careful about where that eye was turned.

The train was noisy as it rolled along the tracks. With the longer train journeys, I was primed to expect that the urban would give way to the rural or the buildings on either side would stop. It didn’t. Like a car driving down the highway at night, the streetlights reaching into the vehicle interior and then dropping away, the sun’s light did much the same when it reached in at a low angle, extending between buildings to light up the dark train car.

It was just late enough in the morning that most students had made their way to school, but the students with classes in the afternoon block that had stopped in to check in or change were now leaving the schools. They were heading off to work, to do light construction work, for academic clubs, study halls and to join the Patrol block, and many were dressed accordingly. They looked so young.

The train car was packed, and I was glad I’d managed to get a seat, even though it was one of the narrow, tiny ones by the door that flipped up to be flush with the wall, when a wheelchair or baby carriage needed the room.