It washed over her face and her head, and she thought and saw white.

The hair that fell across her face was no longer dyed. The hair had been preserved, and the dye hadn’t.

The boys had come, and Xi kept them from entering or rounding the corner. The girl’s eyes were wide, and she clutched the sweatshirt with both hands, and then she was gone, out of the room and around behind the door.

To preserve the moment, Ashley reached for black fabric near the top of her bag. A dress. She pulled it over her head.

There were other things in the bag. Twisted bits of black matter, not dissimilar to charcoal.

Her power twisted, it annihilated. There was more to it, though. It made things swell and burst into nothing, and it made them wither. It decayed by making paint peel and wood fade and splinter. The passage of time. Halting time.

Her mask was a twist of what had been part of an engine block. She’d used her power on it, to erase it from existence, and all her power had done was to kick it around and warp it slightly.

The leftovers were rare to show up, needing a good combination of condensing of already dense material and some time-warping to make them work, but she collected them every time she spotted one. Many were so small she could close her hand around them, and now they littered the bottom of her bag. Two more were like stakes or knives without edges. A third find had been used and twisted around her mask to actually make it fit around her eyes, instead of leaving one eyebrow uncovered. A triple-loop of wire served as a belt, with the two spikes dangling off of Ashley’s left hip.

Ashley stepped out of the room, facing the three teenagers. She liked the looks on their faces. The realization. They’d looked down on her and now they knew.

“Like I said,” she told them. “I manage. Now tell me. Are you interested in making more money?”

Wide eyes. Ed offered a shake of his head.

☽

With wide eyes and a shaken head, Kenzie smiled.

Ashley felt uncomfortable. She didn’t have much experience with people, and her experiences with the kinds of people who could be around someone like her and smile like that hadn’t been good ones.

Kenzie looked between the members of the group. “No response. I hope I didn’t overshare.”

She looked at Jessica. Jessica answered the look, “That’s not for me to say. I’d encourage the group to share its feelings on oversharing, sharing, or how you feel about Kenzie’s background.”

“I think it’s partially up to you to define whether you overshared,” Sveta said. “Don’t feel you have to share if you don’t want to.”

“Oh. If you’re talking about boundaries, I don’t think I have any,” Kenzie said. “I’m broken. Tell me to stop when I feel like it? I’m going to put my foot on the gas and vreeeeeee. That’s my thing, it’s what I’m working on.”