My memories of Dean and our time together were limited in number, and I'd spent dozens of hours going over each of them, wringing every last drop of use or meaning out of them: mourning, self-care, mental self-defense against my sister's intrusions, and sustained introspection. Seeing him out of that carefully curated context, even before he opened his mouth or did anything but simply walk into view, was too much.
I seized him. He got embarrassed by public displays of emotion, so I flew us to the rooftop of the pancake house before he could say anything. Then I dropped my forcefield so I could embrace him without holding back, buried my face in the warm hollow of his shoulder, and sobbed.
Skipping the makeup had been a good choice.
I finally stepped back and wiped away enough tears I could see him. His bewildered gray eyes, vibrant and alive, sent me over the edge again.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I just—"
What could I say? What could he believe?
"I'm happy to see you."
"I can tell," he said, grinning a little ruefully at the wet patch I'd left on the shoulder of his gray polo. "You've got a nimbus. It's practically glowing."
Yellow was how he saw happiness, and he still saw enough to get a basic sense of what I was feeling even with my power's resistance to his.
I smiled helplessly.
"We saw each other yesterday during school."
"It's hard to explain." I moved to blot my tears with my shirt again, but I'd run out of dry sleeve space.
"Take your time," he said. The gentleness in his voice made me well up once more, and I had to search through my bag in search of tissues without being able to see what I was doing. I used the time to think about how I'd explain.
How much would the people I'd spoken to earlier allow me to share, even indirectly? They apparently had the ability to pick up on thoughts, and Dean popping up on Cauldron's radar was the last thing I wanted for him.
"It's silly," I warned him. True to form, he didn't say anything dismissive, he just waited for me to speak. "It's just . . . I had a dream Leviathan attacked here and you died."
"I'm here," he said.
I ignored him. "Because of course you went charging into a fight against an Endbringer. Of course you couldn't help yourself, or have the common sense to stick to the sidelines. Of course you had to go and—and get yourself crushed. You dumbass."
It wasn't fair of me to blame him for his own death. Leviathan moved so fast there weren't sidelines to stick to. Still, I'd often thought of the ways things could have gone differently; he could have sought shelter with his family, or stayed paired with someone who could move him from danger, or done anything but try to face off against Leviathan.
But he wouldn't have had it any other way, and I wouldn't have had him any other way.
Didn't mean he wasn't a dumbass.
"It seemed so real." I forced myself to draw in another breath. "And then the Slaughterhouse Nine came and made my sister lose control . . ."
A twitch, a closed look. He couldn't quite suppress his reaction.
"You know," I said.
He didn't pretend not to know what I was talking about. "I noticed as soon as I got powers," he said. "Looking back, I think she's been in love with you for a very long time. At least since we've all known each other. Probably before."
I didn't like hearing the word love applied to her twisted motivations, but I didn't argue. Instead I said: "Then the world ended and my mother was an asshole."
"That was a hell of a dream," he remarked.
"I guess so." I pulled a pocket mirror out of my bag and dabbed at my face with a tissue, trying to make myself more presentable. "Let's get something to eat."
A waiter in khakis, a garrison cap, and an olive drab field jacket descended on us with a pitcher of water and a request for our order. I committed to defeating Operation Blueberrossa, three giant fluffy waffles stuffed with blueberries and topped with an amount of hand-whipped cream the menu assured me was so criminal it violated the Geneva Convention. I wondered whether that was strictly in the best of taste as I asked for tea and milk. The waiter said it would be a ten-minute wait and, as he turned away, I caught him casting an appreciative sideways glance—at Dean.
I smiled. I was secure enough to be a little generous. Mine, I thought.
Dean smiled, too, but it was a little strained. "So, uh, your sister," he said. "What tipped you off? She didn't—tell you, did she?"
What was lurking behind that pause? She didn't attack you, did she? She had. She didn't brainwash you into attraction as a precursor to forcing you to enjoy the rape, did she? She had. She didn't do whatever she felt like and then erase your memory, did she? She had.
I saw from the alarm on his face that my emotions were showing.
"I figured it out because of the bank robbery," I said. It was only technically true, but I didn't think I could try to say anything further. "I've had to recontextualize everything about her, and I've been trying to figure out if I already knew and just didn't want to admit it."
He took a long drink from his coffee mug. "You did that all last night?"
"It was a long night."
I saw him make the choice not to call me on that.
"I can't read minds," he said. "But . . . yeah. There's a lot going on there. I kind of talked to her about it on Thursday, but she pushed me away. I'm not her favorite person, but she needs help."
She let you die, I thought. There was time. She could have saved you.
"She hates you," I said bluntly.
"I can't read minds," he said again. "So I can't talk about what she's thinking, or how she's going to act. All I can see is what she's feeling, and we don't have a lot of control over that."
Every word he spoke really only confirmed the worst of my suspicions. It wasn't that Tattletale or the stress or the Nine that put things into her head; the desire and will to change, control, and take me had always been there, and everything else had merely exposed it.
"There's the ugly stuff—the jealousy, the hatred, the, the—" He broke off, looking uncomfortable.
"Temptation," I supplied.
He grimaced, nodded. "All that is there, don't get me wrong. But I see the other things. Guilt, shame, exhaustion, loneliness . . . Not good, either, but the combined portrait isn't quite so bad."
You're being too nice. She let you die. She destroyed me.
"Isn't so malicious," I said, though I wasn't certain on that count. "It's still bad."
"She needs help," he said again.
"I'm scared of her, Dean."
He didn't rush to reassure me, and the silence lengthened.
Amy sat there, between us, as she always had intended to. I had been gifted an impossible reunion and a priceless opportunity, but here she was, still getting in our way. Still taking from me.
The waiter with the wandering eyes rematerialized with a loaded tray. "Your missions," he said. "Should you choose to accept them."
"We do," Dean said solemnly, looking down at the Overlord, which came with two plates. A tall stack of chocolate chip panzercakes occupied one, and the other gave the dish its name. Toast halves were arranged in a shape the menu explained was meant to evoke that of an amphibious assault vehicle, with sausage links and bacon strips serving as troops. Three sea mines in the form of fried eggs surrounded the vessel to complete the effect.
Instead of doing my part on the eastern front, I watched him eat.
When he noticed me staring, he gulped a slice of bacon down before he had finished chewing it. "What?" he asked.
"You," I said. "Just you."
"Yeah? Which part?"
"The part where you're you," I said.
"You know," he said, jabbing his bepancaked fork in my direction, "I've always loved that about you. Your specificity."
I grinned. "It is one of my more attractive features. List the rest."
"Your enormous appetite," he returned, with a meaningful glance at my untouched meal.
I laughed and finally started digging into my waffles. If I accidentally smeared whipped cream around my mouth because I was looking at his face instead of my fork, he didn't say anything.
Dean cut himself off halfway through a sentence about Arcadia's track season. "Bad vibes," he said quietly, his brow furrowing. "Your four o'clock. Been deep purple, dark green since we arrived. He's getting grayer by the second."
Anger and fear giving way to determination. I turned my head to the right and looked over my shoulder. As I pretended to look for our waiter, I let my eyes slip over to the booth closest to the entrance, where the man Dean was talking about sat by himself.
He was scrunched over an untouched crepe that had something to do with the liberation of Italy. The brim of a red baseball cap poked out from beneath his hoodie, pulled as low as his bulky sunglasses would allow. His head turned this way and that as he looked around, now at the double doors that went to the kitchen, now at the door we'd come in. Checking out potential exits.
He couldn't have looked more stereotypically shifty if he'd tried.
I watched him wipe his palms on his jeans and I turned back to Dean.
"He's psyching himself up for something," Dean murmured. "And he looks Asian."
I stared at him, wondering why he thought that was relevant. We weren't near the Docks, and ABB members tended to be more open about their affiliation.
He leaned forward. "Bakuda," he said.
Right. That was still going on. Had just started last night, in fact.
The man dropped a wadded up bill on the table and power-walked out the door. He'd left a green backpack behind.
"Fuck," Dean said, already rising.
"I'll evacuate the area and call the PRT," I said.
"I'll go after him, keep him from setting it off if it's remotely detonated."
He was halfway through the door when I grabbed his wrist, holding him back. "If something happens, I don't want Amy to heal me. Promise."
He frowned.
"Promise me that you will make sure they know I don't give consent to her touching me, regardless of the circumstances. As in I would prefer to die, Dean. Tell them why if you have to."
"I promise," he said, and his voice was firm even though he looked reluctant. "We'll talk about this later."
"Go."
He went, leaving me by the entrance. I'd put myself between the bomb and the thirty or so diners and staff members who were still in the restaurant, and I realized I wasn't comfortable there.
Glory Girl would have grabbed the backpack in less than a heartbeat and flown off with it, confident in both her shield and her sister's healing hands, but Antares knew the ruin powers could leave in their wake and Victoria knew Amy was not an option.
Did I trust Dean?
Yes.
But there were other factors, like the possibility of Bakuda having the trigger or it being on a short timer. If Dean didn't get to the bomber in time and I were caught in the radius, did I trust myself to be able to pull through another experience like the Wretch?
No.
I left the backpack where it was and focused on the civilians I had to evacuate. Nobody had noticed Dean or the bomber's departure, so I interrupted them all with a brief burst of my aura, a one and a half or two out of ten. I was taking a risk, hoping that everyone here had a sufficiently positive view of me, or at least the heroes in general, not to be further terrified by my power.
It worked.
They all looked to me, and I didn't see any fear in those looks.
I cleared my throat. "Good morning! I'm Glory Girl." I was not Glory Girl, and lying about that felt wrong. "Sorry to interrupt, but I've received information that the supervillain Bakuda is planning on bombing this restaurant. The PRT is coming, but I'm going to help you evacuate right now."
The predictable silence followed by a predictable hum of panic. I cut it off with a slightly stronger application of my aura.
"Please stay calm," I said. "Use the kitchen doors, and once you're clear of the building you will have enough space to move away more quickly."
I followed them out, reassured the manager that his insurance should cover any damage or loss of revenue provided he got a report from the PRT, and took off in search of Dean and the bomber.
I found the Red Sox cap first, crumpled up in the middle of the street, and then them sitting on a sidewalk half a block away. The man had his knees hiked up to his chest and was crying, while Dean awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.
I wondered what Dean had hit him with in order to garner that reaction.
"Remorse," he said in answer to my unasked question. "He's got a bomb inside him. Are you up to calling your sister?"
"No," I said. I'd heard enough of her voice yesterday. I looked down at the man on the pavement. He probably hadn't been a gang member before Bakuda had arrived in town, and even if he had, he didn't deserve this. I had flown Amy to places so she could heal some of the people affected by Bakuda's bombs: a teen who had been rendered as fragile as glass, a deliveryman who had been blown up and popped like a balloon, an Immaculata schoolteacher turned inside out. There was no telling what could be inside his head.
"But I'll text her," I said, taking out my phone and bracing myself for a punch in the gut. Sure enough, when I opened the conversation with Amy, I had to catch my breath. Three texts from yesterday.
VICKY!: U know you can count onme, right?
Ames: I'm not going to talk about it.
VICKY!: Itll be ok. (
I scrolled up a little and saw a conversation on Thursday.
VICKY!: Lunch?
Ames: Headed to the bank.
VICKY!: OK i'm with Dean neway have fun
And up again.
VICKY!: Ur the BEST, Ames!1
A text from Glory Girl to her sister, in response to some trivial favor or other, probably her dropping off a textbook or something. I'd said that a lot, and I'd meant it every time.
I grit my teeth and started typing. My ex-sister wasn't a threat to anyone yet, and soon she would be gone, care of people who were equipped to deal with problems like her. Maybe she wouldn't even reply; maybe Cauldron had already relocated her.
VICKY!: Bakuda victim, alley behind Batter of the Bulge. Bomb hasn't gone off. Help?
It was the right thing to do.
In the worst case scenario, I could fly away rather than having to see her.
She responded immediately.
Ames: k omw
"Panacea will be here soon," I said, and relief immediately spread across the man's face. Anger flared within me, and I irrationally wanted to tell him he was being stupid for placing hope in her. I suppressed it before Dean could say anything and reminded myself contacting her for this had been the right thing to do. He would be safe in her hands, and it was important I got him talking.
I approximately remembered the location Bakuda had been captured—a tinker workshop in the Docks. If I could get him to point me in that general direction, I might be able to generate a pretext for ending her bombing spree a week early.
I sat down on the sidewalk beside him so Dean and I flanked him. Comforting, I hoped, a reassurance that capes could do good and the authorities could help him. "Let's talk," I said.
I didn't feel self-conscious about not wearing my costume. People typically didn't look up, and it wasn't as though I wanted to crawl back into Glory Girl's skin. The street was largely deserted this early anyway, and I didn't think that would change much, not as news of the bombings got out. People would stay home unless they were desperate or weren't aware of the threat—or Bakuda was controlling them.
Just as I came to the conclusion that anybody I found out and about was either in danger or a danger, I spotted a man walking slowly down an alley. He was carrying a cardboard to-go tray with four coffee cups.
I alighted on the ground in front of him. "Hey there," I said.
He stopped abruptly, sloshing the coffee down the side of the cardboard cups. I noticed it was extremely pale, so diluted he might as well have stuffed a glass of milk with sugar packets. Were there four people who wanted the same order?
"Please don't be scared by my asking this," I said. "Do you have a bomb inside you?"
He stared at me.
"No," he said at last.
I sighed. "I know what Bakuda might have said, but I'm on a team with someone who can get it out of your head without it hurting you."
"No," he said again. "I don't need help." He waited a little while. "Thank you."
"All right," I said. I brought up my bag and started to rummage through it, looking for a pen and my little notebook. "I don't want to pressure you, but if you do find yourself needing help, call this num—"
He shot me. The bullet slammed into the bridge of my nose. Crumpled, it slid down my face and into my palm. I made a show of looking at it and then slowly lifted my head and looked him in the eye, raising a theatric eyebrow as my forcefield came back online.
He shot me again and turned to ash. The tray fell to the ground and the cups burst open, splashing coffee all over my jeans.
Fuck.
I had just fought Lung yesterday, and I could always fly away from a bomb. But Oni Lee—Oni Lee could actually kill me, if he thought to fire more than once, or used a fragmentation grenade, or stabbed me twice.
So naturally he was the one I ran into.
I took off after him. He had teleported to the top of a building, and from there to the roof of another building as far away as he could see, and so forth. I could catch up with him, but he had the advantage of choosing the direction.
What had happened to Oni Lee the first time around? So far as I knew, he'd disappeared at the same time Bakuda and Lung had been sent to the Birdcage. Had he fled the city, had he chosen to lie low, or had he been killed? Neither he nor Bakuda had been a major enough player after Gold Morning for me to have come across them.
He disappeared again, and I couldn't tell where he'd ended up. I pulled to a halt to look around, and a weight slammed into me from above. An arm wrapped around me, and I barely had time to realize he'd teleported onto my back before he used his free hand to draw a knife across my throat. My forcefield didn't even go down.
"You dumbass." I twisted around to grab him by the neck. Then I drew back my fist and punched him, holding nothing back. Shards of bone punctured his left eye as the side of his temple collapsed from the force of my blow, but even as I recoiled from the sight of my work, he turned to ash.
I spun around, looking for his new location, and spotted him crouched on top of a ventilation shaft. He was staring at me through two blank and uninjured eyes.
Damn.
"You really want to do this all day?" I called out. "It's not like I have school or anything."
"Bakuda will warn Lung. I can't be held."
Wrong, fucker. All I need is a baby blanket.
A very Glory Girl thing to think. All he had to do was shoot twice, and he actually had a gun whereas I didn't have a baby blanket.
Suddenly he was on my back again, clawing at my eyes with one hand while forcing the fingers of his other up my nose. Then he teleported, leaving me coughing and blinking, unable to see where he'd gone.
It was possible he'd used my temporary blindness to get far away, but I had another idea. We were in the area I could remember Bakuda being captured, the coffee (and coffee-flavored sugar milk seemed a way more Bakuda than Oni Lee thing to drink) that had fallen on my jeans had been warm, and he had said he intended to warn her. It was possible we'd arrived at one of her workshops, and he'd teleported into one of the surrounding tenements or warehouses via a window.
I flew high enough I would be able to see anyone going into or out of the buildings and I called 911 to request the PRT hotline. Once again, I identified myself wrongly as Glory Girl. "I've tracked Oni Lee to the intersection of 34th and Charles," I told the operator. "He's in civilian clothes, not exactly sure of his exact location, but I believe he's holed up with Bakuda."
I hung up and turned my mind to what I could do while I was waiting for backup. I wasn't sure I wanted to engage with Bakuda by myself, but maybe I could make things easier on the PRT if I took Oni Lee out.
I didn't have a blanket, but I did have a purse.
I landed on a tenement's roof and emptied out my bag with more speed than care. I hoped nobody would come by and steal my wallet, phone, or the jewelry I'd intended to place in a safe deposit box, but it was less important than stopping Bakuda a week early.
Freshly armed with the finest pleather bucket bag a Brockton Bay department store could bring to bear, I started flying around.
Now to narrow it down. Which building was the tinker's most likely refuge?
The Docks were dilapidated, largely abandoned, which would give her her pick of bases. In her place, I would have picked an apartment to set up shop in—less likely to attract attention, but still enough room to work. I made a circuit around one of the tenements, peeking in through one dirt-streaked window at a time. There weren't any lights on, which was to be expected as most of these buildings hadn't had power or water in more than a decade.
But a tinker would prefer to work in a place with electricity, wouldn't she? Some tinkers were good at improvisation, but some needed to work with machines for precision manufacture of parts.
That was the key. I'd look, or rather, I'd listen for a generator. I wouldn't necessarily put being able to make a silent generator beyond Bakuda's capabilities—at least, she could make a bomb that could silence her working space—but my plan would have to do until the PRT could arrive with more advanced detection equipment than ears.
I dropped to a height of about twenty feet and floated around, listening for a hum as intently as I could over the ambient sounds of the city.
If this place was one of Bakuda's workshops, I didn't want to just crash in; it was bad policy to fuck with a tinker in their lair, and my primary defense against bombs was flying away—harder in an enclosed space. I could easily imagine boobytrapped doors and windows; worse, I could imagine the results of getting caught in a blast. My basal membranes could have calcified, I could be covered in perpetually burning pitch, or be filled with malignant tumors.
I caught myself. I noticed that my mind was dwelling on the idea of being injured and in need of healing, not affected by the more arcane effects I knew Bakuda was capable of inflicting. Simply being struck from physical reality, erased from the memories of my family, or being caught in a time bubble like Dauntless, didn't come to mind.
Another tendril of Amy's legacy, another gift her interference had left me.
In the end, I did not find Bakuda's lab with my ears. Oni Lee saw me as I was passing a warehouse, and he jumped on my back again, this time dropping a grenade down the back of my shirt before disappearing.
I managed to get it to slide down my back and fall to the ground, where it went off and turned everything within a twenty-foot radius to salt.
Somehow, I thought Bakuda had taken the wrong lessons away from the Bible.
Oni Lee was on an apartment balcony, looking up at me. He was unhooking another grenade from his belt.
I dove, holding my bag outstretched, open compartment facing down.
I landed on him perfectly. He dropped the grenade as his hands flew up to get my purse off his head. I caught head and bag alike in a guillotine choke, picked us up, and drove him down into an open dumpster. I disentangled myself from him and shot out, then back down, slamming the lid down before he could wrench my purse away from his eyes. I used my strength to hold it in place against his struggles for the ten or fifteen minutes it took the PRT to arrive, grateful my forcefield had been reset to its proper shape. The Wretch would have flailed wildly, cracked the dumpster open, done his work for him.
I turned my head at the approaching sound of a motorcycle. Defiant—no, Armsmaster—was the cape dispatched to respond to my call. Velocity appeared a few seconds after Armsmaster pulled up.
"Oni Lee's in there?" Armsmaster asked.
Velocity's lips quirked when I nodded. "Appropriate spot," he said.
I smiled back. "I thought so."
A convoy of PRT vans arrived and the squaddies began to disperse according to the directions the officer in charge provided. Two groups went to establish a perimeter and cordon off the warehouse, while another was tasked to pitch a tent around me and Oni Lee. The enclosed space would restrict the teleporter's line of sight long enough for them to get him in containment foam. From there, it would be a series of one-way mirrors, darkened windows, and blindfolds until they could get him to the Birdcage.
When the tent was up, one of the squaddies approached the dumpster with a containment foam dispenser and a request to "twitch the lid up just a tiny skosh," a phrase I hadn't realized was military jargon, on his command. When I did so, he jammed the nozzle into the gap and held the trigger down until yellow foam began to balloon out the top edges of the dumpster. Once they'd pried the mass of hardened foam away and secured it in a prison transport truck, I looked in the dumpster. My purse was in shreds.
I sighed and walked out of the tent. Armsmaster was there, listening to the PRT's report on the situation. They had detected several significant heat sources in the basement and were talking strategies of attack.
I studied Armsmaster's profile. The man who had just this week admitted he could not tell me if he'd killed my uncle in the pursuit of his own glory. But right now, for a few more weeks, he hadn't done that. He was not yet the man who had broken the Endbringer truce, and also not yet the man who had repented it.
Was there someone I could talk to about him? Dragon was likely my best bet there, but Piggot was more accessible. Did I have enough credibility or pull as Glory Girl to talk to him? Likely not, and I'd think on it more once I dealt with Amy and left New Wave, but I'd start to lay the groundwork here.
The PRT officer left and Armsmaster, who'd noticed my staring, turned to me. "Well done," he said, and he sounded sincere. "Securing Oni Lee and leading us to Bakuda will be major feathers in New Wave's cap."
"Actually, I'd like to talk to you about joining the Wards," I said. "As soon as possible."
If he was surprised, no sign if it registered on the lower half of his face.
"I'll be available once this is over, but I can't say when that will be. You can talk to the recruiters at the PRT headquarters any time, you know."
"I'd rather it be with you," I said. I didn't want to lay the flattery on too thickly, so I left it at that. "I'll wait until you've got time."
He smiled. "I'll reach out."
Success? It was a start, anyway.
I accosted the least-occupied squaddie I could find and asked if I could borrow a backpack so I could collect my things. I'd return it when I met with Armsmaster, I decided.
Miss Militia, Clockblocker, Vista, Aegis, and Dean as Gallant were climbing out of a van when I touched back down.
Dean broke off from the rest and took me aside, steering me down a nearby alley as the others went to Velocity for a briefing. "When we get a moment, we've got to talk. You're looking at Clock and Aegis like—"
"Later," I said. "They died in my dream, too."
I couldn't see his face, but I could imagine the concerned frown, the crinkled forehead. This had been one of the sources of our conflict. He sometimes relied on the slight insight he got from his power too much, and wouldn't listen to me if I said things were fine, because things would be fine once I'd gotten some time to process. The opposite of the stereotypical boyfriend, in that respect.
He changed the subject. "So I hear you took Oni Lee down by yourself," he said.
"Admit it," I said, pretending to study my nails. "You've got an awesome girlfriend."
"I've got an awesome girlfriend," he agreed. "Who will talk to me once I take down Bakuda."
"Which may not be as soon as you're planning," I said. "Take your helmet off."
He obliged, and I drew near to him. I took his jaw in hand and gently pushed, inclining his head so we were looking directly into each other's eyes. His eyes shut in anticipation, and mine followed suit. Then I pressed my lips to his in the way I'd spent four years dreaming about. I consciously abandoned my defenses and threw myself into the kiss.
This was wholly me, untouched by Amy, untainted by loss. This, this—
Abruptly, my conception of myself splintered into awareness of individual body parts. I wasn't cradling Dean's jaw; there were just Victoria Dallon's hands resting on the sweaty surface of his skin. I wasn't allowing Dean to kiss me, Victoria Dallon's lips independently parted to allow a tongue into a mouth that was suddenly alien.
This wasn't right.
I jerked away. His eyes popped open and he stepped back. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Instead of doing anything to help him understand or feel at ease, I stood there, paralyzed, and watched the situation grow worse every second I said nothing. I watched, unable to act, as his confusion give way to hurt as though I was glued to a seat in a movie theater.
I could have cried.
I knew he could see my dismay and horror, I knew he couldn't place those emotions in context, I knew he would think everything was directed at him, and I knew I couldn't explain—
"What—" he began, but the air was struck from his lungs and he was pushed back off his feet and sent flying into the air conditioning unit opposite from me.
Concrete shattered around my feet. Brick cracked and showered to the ground as something smashed into the alley walls.
The Wretch was back.