“It might be best to have everyone along in some capacity. You stay far enough back the clairvoyants can’t see you and so you won’t run into Love Lost or the others.”

“Okay,” Rain said.

“Sveta and Victoria together. Erin? Good to have you here, but—”

“It would be weird if I stayed while you’re all gone. I get it,” Erin said.

I put on the sweatshirt. I’d peeled off the previous design, and put on a new one. It was better than the mess before, a similar aesthetic, with the circle and stylized rays, but the lines curled more, reaching out to the seams of the sweatshirt, where they blended into thin black bars. The hood was framed with the same design.

More of my self-care, to get my outfit somewhat in order. I’d done a little something to the mask, giving it some black accents, but it was still predominantly white.

Not that it mattered much. I didn’t place a serious priority on my secret identity. Anyone who could put two and two together would know my face, including the villains in Cedar Point.

Sveta applied her mask. She’d taken one of the temporary masks, but in the time since we’d gone out together, she’d taken some art supplies to it. The same color scheme that covered her prosthetic exterior, with deep, dark blues and greens, neon oranges and yellows, now covered her mask.

“That’s great,” I said, briefly, before applying my own, making sure it was symmetrical.

“Thank you. The color rubs off, so it’s only a temporary thing.”

“The masks aren’t meant to be long-term,” I said. “We’re making do until we’re more settled.”

I plucked at my sweatshirt as I said it.

“That’s temporary then?”

“Yeah,” I said, giving her a hard look. I glanced back at the screen. “Going to do something better, but I have to figure some stuff out first.”

“Okay, haha, I was worried I’d have to dance around my friend having low standards for her costume,” Sveta said.

I snapped my head to look around, and saw Sveta stick her tongue out at me. I gave her a light push. “Fuck off, and not the time.”

“This is better than what you had before.”

Baby steps. Better costumes as I figured out what I was doing.

What was I doing? I could see the mob on the screen. I knew from my experience with the broken trigger that mobs were hard to wrangle. Adding my emotion power to the mix, when Love Lost’s had already taken hold?

More than anything, I wanted to think things through. I wanted to be intelligent in how I went about the cape thing, but there were times that couldn’t happen. This time, where blood was being shed, was one.