"Can you believe all of this?"

Leïla hummed, shaking her head ruefully, and looked up and down the street that ran past her apartment building, her gaze pausing on the burnt-out wreck of a car. Almost a week had passed since the night of hell, when the entire city had come under attack from the Lynchpin's people. The city still bore scars from that night in the damaged buildings – some of them in the process of being torn down and replaced. On their walk, they had passed a dozen damaged vehicles light the burnt-out car. By now, all of them had been pulled out of the middle of the road and placed along the side, out of the way of traffic. But still they remained as a stark reminder of what had happened. Thinking back on that day, Leïla couldn't help the shudder that ran down her spine. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, she raised an eyebrow at Adil expectantly. "Which part of it?"

He shrugged. "All of it. Starting with whatever happened at the Champ de Mars last week – I still don't understand where you ran off to, by the way."

She tensed, trying to hide the spike of anxiety that accompanied the question. "I told you: I went to the bathrooms to hide. As soon as it was over, I found you guys, remember?"

"So you say…" he began, giving her an intense look. "But that doesn't explain the why."

On Leïla's other side, Marie hummed and nodded slowly. "It really would have been better if we'd all stayed together," she agreed. "That's what the Akuma drills always said to do. But instead, you and Thierry both ran off and disappeared. Although you didn't exactly stay with us, either," she added, raising an eyebrow at Adil.

"I went to try and find Leïla!" protested Adil, his eyes widening. "But she wasn't there!"

Marie gave him a look of concern. "Tell me you didn't actually go snooping around the ladies' room looking for Leïla…"

Adil flushed. "No…" He coughed. "I was concerned, is all."

Leïla cocked her head to one side, looking at Marie in surprise. "Wait, really? Thierry went somewhere on his own, too?"

"I think he decided to hide in a bush or something," Marie mused, furrowing her brows in thought. "Laurent wanted to go back for him, but we decided to stay together instead."

Adil grinned. "See? Maybe it's a good thing I didn't stay too close to you two…"

Marie pursed her lips. Her nostrils flared. "Maybe." Folding her arms, she turned her attention to Leïla. "Did you have a chance to see what happened there?"

In a manner of speaking, Leïla didn't say. "I saw enough of it," she answered instead. "The guy we saw attacked two girls. A couple of the Heroes of Paris showed up to stop the bad guys and save the day."

Marie raised an eyebrow in amusement. "That wasn't all that happened…"

"Oh?" Leïla gave her a look of mild interest.

"Did you know that one of the girls they attacked was actually the Lancer?"

Leïla's eyes widened. "No – I had no idea! Which one? The dark-haired one?"

Marie shook her head. "The blonde – Aurore, I think her name is? I saw her transform and stab the harpy-woman through the shoulder."

"Wow! You never know who could turn out to be a superhero!" Leïla observed wryly, stifling a giggle.

"I suppose that's a good thing," mused Marie thoughtfully. "It's nice to know that the heroes are always out there. After last week, I guess we can't ever know when we'll really need their help."

Leïla hummed, her stomach clenching. Last week, she had been looking forward to just spending the afternoon having fun with her friends. But then it had all been thrown off balance by the attack. She could feel Kheaa fidgeting in her purse. She was glad that she was there – if she hadn't been, if she and the Owl hadn't arrived so quickly, what would have happened to the Lancer and her friend? "I hope we don't need their help too often…"

Adil scoffed. "You didn't need the Heroes of Paris to protect you," he assured her confidently. "You could have just stayed with me – with us," he corrected himself quickly, looking away.

Leïla drifted a bit closer to Marie, watching Adil out of the corner of her eye.

"If you ask me, that whole afternoon was wild," Marie asserted, shaking her head. "Did you hear what happened to the mayor?"

"Who hasn't heard about what happened?" Adil asked rhetorically, a look of shock and disbelief on his face. "It's been all over the news since it happened – even with all the chaos that happened right after!"

Leïla shrugged. The whole evening after the fight at the Eiffel Tower, after the attack on the Mayor, during the chaos of Killer Bee's attack on the city, she had been at the Dupain-Chengs'. Marinette had talked about nothing but what was happening around Paris that day! And once her fears for her own family had been alleviated, the top of her list of worries had been Chloe's parents. "I didn't hear too much about it," she finally told Marie. "What happened?"

"Someone tried to kidnap him!" Marie exclaimed with a noise of disbelief, her eyes wide. "Can you believe that? And then the whole city started going completely crazy… Do you think there could have been a connection?"

"What? Do you mean like they were trying to get the mayor and got angry when he got away?" Leïla asked, arching an eyebrow dubiously to cover up her amusement. With all the conspiracy theories floating around Paris lately, no one quite seemed to know what had happened that night. Lila's trial was set to begin on Monday, though; hopefully, once all the facts were out, that would answer all of the questions.

"My dad heard on the news that Loubet accused Bourgeois of staging the kidnapping to garner sympathy," Adil told them, leaning in and raising an eyebrow. "He thinks Bourgeois has been riding the Heroes of Paris' coattails this whole election."

"He's not exactly wrong…" Leïla muttered, frowning. They were the Heroes of Paris, not the Heroes of Mayor Bourgeois. Leïla hadn't become a hero so she could hand M. Bourgeois' party an election. She had become a hero so she could protect her city and the people she cared about. And she wasn't the only one thinking that: a picture of Ladybug and Rena Rouge arresting a drug dealer had ended up in a political ad several months ago, and Marinette had flipped out, insisting that Mayor Bourgeois remove the poster and issue an apology. While the poster had disappeared almost immediately, Mayor Bourgeois had said nothing. Leïla hadn't seen much of Chloe in the last week – not since they returned from Lyon. But Chloe had mentioned once that her father had asked her to attend a political rally as Sent-Bee, and she had flat-out refused. Apparently, he had not been happy with that decision. Leïla folded her arms, pursing her lips.

Marie gave Leïla a surprised look. "I would've thought you would be on the mayor's side," she observed. "Doesn't your mom work for him?"

Leïla nodded. "She does. And he's a nice enough boss to her. And Chloe is amazing–"

"I never thought I'd hear that about Chloe Bourgeois," Marie interjected, stifling a giggle. "She always acted like the Queen of François Dupont when she was there!"

"–but that also gives me some better perspective on what he does," Leïla continued, sighing. "And he's done some… questionable things. At least as far as the Heroes of Paris are concerned."

Adil leaned a little closer and grinned. "I told you: it was an inside job!"

Leïla rolled her eyes.

"Hang on; what happened here?" wondered Marie, her eyes widening in surprise as she stopped in front of the Semouns' convenience store.

The front window had been boarded over, the door padlocked. M. and Mme Semoun hadn't been seen since it happened – it had been a rude shock for Leïla's father when he went to the store the day they arrested Lila, only to find the store closed. Leïla's stomach clenched, staring at the storefront. M. Semoun had poured his life into that store, had made it the center of the community. Everyone loved the Semouns. They did so much for the neighborhood. When they had almost been forced to close after the Chaos, it had been a miracle when Paris United stepped in to help them keep it open. "The store was robbed," she explained curtly. "The night when everything went crazy."

Marie shook her head sadly. "That's too bad. I always liked their snacks."

Leïla nodded. "It won't be the same without them open."

"At least the Lamb Stop is going to stay open," Adil pointed out, nodding to the restaurant next to the convenience store. Splashes of red paint had been thrown across the front of the restaurant, splattering the brickwork though the windows were gleaming new. The outside tables that had been in front of the building had all been removed. A bright sign across the front door read "Under New Management."

"Yeah, but will the food there still as good?" wondered Marie.

"I heard they're keeping all the same people in charge of the restaurant," Adil explained. "They're just going to be reporting to someone new."

Leïla frowned. "It won't be the same."