I raised up off the ground, because I really did need to be going. “It’s not a team, really.”

“If you insist. Still, Take care of yourself, prioritize yourself. Promise?” Her tone was pointed.

“Sure. I promise,” I said.

Eclipse x.1

She saw her own expression in the mirror, her hair freshly cut, pupils absent in white eyes with modest amounts of mascara and shadow around them. Something in the image startled her, and the pill slipped between her stubborn fingers, falling into the sink with the running water. She watched the little white pill circle precariously around the spiral of the drain, never slipping down.

Years of lessons taught her to be still and not to act on reflex, that it would be futile and make things worse. Before, the wrong movement of her hands would make her power flicker to life, and then there would be no pill, no sink, no adjoining section of wall. It had been the case for so long that it had been ingrained into her, a new instinct that pressed on past death and resurrection.

Now it was pointless for different reasons. Her hands wouldn’t listen to her.

From one set of shackles to another, with more waiting to overlap and compound the current set. It was frustrating and frustration was dangerous. The wrong thing threatened to push her over the edge; she could hear a song that she remembered from back in the day, someone could say the wrong thing, or a thought could cross her mind, and her mood would careen away from her. Like a car losing its brakes while parked on a hill, it would gain momentum and either end in a crash or a collision with others. Failure, harm, or death would result.

She watched the pill swirl and dance in the tumult of water, and she did what she could to keep focused. She touched base by reaching for the reassuring. She was going to be locked up and this precarious her was going to be someone else’s problem. Partially. Reassuring.

She could kill everyone here if she wanted. Reassuring. She didn’t want to, but it was an option of last resort.

The others were going to be here. Kenzie would be here early, because she was always early. Reassuring.

My hair looks good, she thought. She used the fingers of her more functional left hand to adjust it at the brow. Reassuring.

It helped to center her. All of those things helped.

All of those things terrified her, in very different ways. It was enough that she took what scraps she could from it and turned her mind away, her eyes focusing on the little white pill that still circled the drain, defying the plunge. She wanted to see it somehow survive despite odds. She wanted to see it fall at the same time, to see if she could spot what finally doomed it.

“Hey,” a man said, behind her.