A collision ahead of them snapped her to reality. Tires squealed as J hit the brakes, then steered to avoid the trucks that were simultaneously braking and swerving to avoid what was ahead of them.

Her power destroyed the door handle as she opened the car door. The eighteen-wheeler’s long body provided some cover as she jogged ahead, trying to get to a point where she could see what was going on.

Latent emotion boiled up. The dread became something manifest and tangible that ran in her veins. There was a desperate edge to her feelings.

She saw a ghostly prism floating in the air, rotating slowly.

“Licit!” she screamed the word.

Her people were climbing out of the back of a truck.

“Boss,” one said.

“Licit!” she screamed, again. Her power flared.

She saw the heroes further down the street. Licit wasn’t alone. He walked toward her, filling the air around him with more ghostly shapes, ranging from a few feet across to the size of a car. Spheres, cubes, diamond prisms, cones. His backup didn’t advance with him.

“What do we do?” someone asked.

She stared at Licit, breathing hard.

“We need two trucks, minimum,” she said. She had to catch a breath to get the final two words out. “Get out.”

“Bar!” the person shouted. “We gotta leave with two trucks!”

Other names were called. O’Neil—he’d been driving one truck. She glanced back and saw him being extricated from the cab of a truck. The airbag had trapped him and someone was now hacking at it with a knife to try to get the air out sooner.

Licit raised a hand, extending it their way. She saw more shapes appear in the air. Between her and Licit, behind her, and—

One truck reversed. It ran into the sphere that had been created behind it.

She reversed direction, walking away from Licit. A wall appeared in front of her—the face of a cube—she destroyed it with her power.

More. One after another, obstacle, frustration, stalling.

She snarled.

He created them almost as fast as she destroyed them. Her progress was measured in single paces.

She reached the back of the truck and destroyed the cube there.

“Back!” she called out, hopping up and grabbing a dent for a handhold. Her power crackled, tearing a hole in sheet metal, and her fingers caught on the sheet metal, gripping the edge.

She expected the shape to appear, and she blasted it before it could have an effect.

The truck got turned around, and she hopped off as it sped off.

Another shape—a tall spike—appeared in the truck’s way. The driver avoided it, but it hit the side view mirror and cracked the passenger side window.