“A place for now, where I can put my things. I don’t need much, but running water is good. Power.”

There were places with boarded up windows. A last resort. She walked down the block until she saw a sign in a window. Black, with orange letters spelling out, ‘For Rent’. There was another sign for an open house the next weekend.

Good.

Her pace quickened as she circled the property. The others lagged behind, talking among one another.

She used her power to destroy the doorknob.

“What was that?” Matias asked. The three hadn’t rounded the corner.

Ashley smiled, pushing her way inside.

Everything was clean, swept. There was a fridge, appliances, shitty cheap things, but they would do.

She opened the fridge, and found it dark and warm.

She went to the tap, opening it with her wrist, and turned on the water.

Running water, at least.

“Changing,” she said, dropping her bag and kicking it across the floor as she entered the bathroom that was adjacent to the kitchen. It skidded to a stop at the base of the toilet. She still smiled. “I’ll be back.”

“You said you’d pay us for the ride,” Xi said. Ashley leaned around the door, and saw Xi standing with her back to the kitchen.

Ashley pulled off her sweatshirt, glad her power hadn’t destroyed it. She dropped it and kicked it across the floor. “In the pockets. You can come in if you want. We’re both girls.”

“Uh,” Xi said. She picked up the sweatshirt and looked up just in time to see Ashley with her back to her, undoing her jeans. She turned around again. “How do I put it? That doesn’t rule anything out.”

Ashley scoffed.

“You’ve got like, forty dollars and change in the pockets.”

The last of the pharmacy raid. “Take it all. I’ll make way more than that tonight.”

“Oh. You have other options,” Xi said.

“I don’t want other options,” Ashley said. “Believe me.”

She pulled her gritty American flag shirt up, and her power flickered. It tore apart the shirt, the noise of it joining Xi’s yelp of surprise.

A loss. It had been a nice shirt, and it felt wrong to destroy a depiction of the flag, but… Ashley ripped the remains off her upper body. If such a time came that she had a flag of her own, she would want it treated with respect. Still, the damage had been done.

She used her power, aiming at her own body. The shirt, still in her hand, was destroyed in the curls and waves of energy. As her power bucked and kicked, hurling her arm one way and the other, she was jerked into the sink. She didn’t have much padding, so the impact was sharp.

She hid the pain, which wasn’t hard, because she was caught up in the moment. Her power washed over her body, destroying everything that wasn’t her. Sweat, dirt, lint, dust.