“That first part isn’t all that wrong,” Rain said. “We’d laugh about it, because parents would tell soldiers to stay away from these loons that have probably never seen a fight.”

“They’re all loons,” Kenzie said.

“Well, yeah,” Rain said. “These guys specifically were… not all super nuts. Some were like you or me.”

“You and me are pretty screwed up,” Kenzie said. “I don’t think that’s a good measure.”

“I think it’s right. The minor ones were almost normal, except for the part where they were Fallen and they’d each done something to earn their stripes, like playing death metal over speakers at a remembrance ceremony. But there are a lot of them who… I guess spent years getting celebrated for doing fucked up things. No empathy, no fear of death. Those are the ones to watch out for, and the ones I can definitely see hurting civilians. Shooting people. Shit.”

“Those are the little guys. What about the leaders?” I asked. “If they can order their guys around, what are they going to tell them?”

“I don’t know. I never really learned much about them specifically. I saw a few of their immediate family members. They thrive on being unpredictable, I guess. They seemed to go back and forth between a ton of infighting and hurting themselves and then suddenly being really good manipulators who would send relatives to other branches and isolated cells and try to get them to collaborate on something or they’d steer that ship.”

“If the Patrol knows they’re that hard to figure out, they could be taking a wait and see approach,” Sveta said. She looked at me.

“The patrol is overlooking that we have some pretty good ideas about their current direction, with them using the guns like they did,” I pointed out.

“People are going to get hurt if someone doesn’t stop them,” Rain murmured.

“You think?” Byron asked.

“Oh yeah,” Rain said. “Yeah.”

I started to lean forward, because the backs of the bus seats obscured so much of the group, found I couldn’t comfortably do it without my arm hurting, and sat up straighter instead.

“We wanted to prevent this. A spy in Advance—”

A noise at the front of the bus interrupted me. The door was being pushed open. Kenzie and Byron reached for their helmets. Kenzie held the front half of her helmet up in front of her face with her hands.

They relaxed when the head popped up. Black-haired, with jewelry.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Erin said. “I can go.”

“Stay,” Rain said.

Erin remained where she was. From the height she stood at, she had to be standing on the stair of the bus just before the level the driver’s chair was situated on. The flat barrier with the railing separated her from us.