“Yeah,” he said. He glanced at the window, where the shattered skyline was visible in the distance. A damaged building still stood, but with a chunk missing. The girders and beams stabbed out into the gap left by the missing chunk. Black bones and a tinted yellow exterior. “She seemed very worried about something. She didn’t confide in me about it. I can’t think of many others she would have talked to.”

“It’s on my mind,” I said.

The door opened. I glanced at it, checking to see if it was Rain or Ashley. It wasn’t. It was a middle-aged woman with glasses.

“Rain Frazier,” she said.

People began filing in. The others made way for others to pass while looking in my direction.

“I won’t get in your way,” he said. “I’ll be in the back, seeing how I’ll have to leave. I have an appointment with a patient in ten minutes.”

“It was nice to meet you,” I said. “Sorry for rescheduling.”

“I work with superheroes and supervillains. Some stay up all night, others run off to manage crises partway through most sessions. A couple of reschedules isn’t a blip on my radar.”

“You still came to find me.”

He shrugged. “My clients rub off on me. Sometimes you can’t limit yourself to chasing after or staking out and waiting.”

“Getting out ahead of the problem,” I said.

“If you want to put it that way,” he said.

I nodded.

The others were waiting for me, so I ducked my head in a quick farewell and went to join them.

It wasn’t a courtroom, but there was a layout that echoed one. A series of tables had people behind them. A woman from the Wardens that had been there when we’d pitched our response to the Fallen hit, then others I didn’t know. An old man, another.

Ashley was sitting in one of the chairs off to one side, and so we all joined her, filing in to sit around her.

Rain sat past the divider, facing down the tribunal. He’d cut his hair.

With us, Ashley looked the same. Kenzie sat beside her, her head leaning on Ashley’s shoulder.

What did it say, when I had no idea what outcome we wanted? He wanted consequence. Whether he was found responsible or somehow allowed to go free, the resolutions felt right and wrong both.

Torch 7.2

“Rain, would you please stand?”