I wake up to the sound of heavy knuckles rapping on the window. I guess after my meltdown in that Ohio diner, we moved on again. When I sit up, I notice pale beams of light cutting into the backseat through the glass. Hilde sits in the front passenger seat with the window cracked.

"Officer, that is none of your concern," she says. Oh, great, more fucking cops. "I can leave right now—"

"You can after stepping out of the vehicle," the officer barks, interrupting her.

"I can leave right now," Hilde starts again, harsher, "but I need you to back away from our van, please."

"Ma'am, if you do not comply, we will have to force entry," says another officer at the driver's side door, staring daggers at Wade. "You have ten seconds to comply."

"You're not breaking into this van, sir," she growls. "If you don't back away right now, I'm reporting both of you for harassment."

"Hilde, I think we should get out," Wade whispers.

"No!" I hiss from the backseat. "What do you think is gonna happen if you go out there?"

"I'm coming out, officer!" Wade says, keeping his movements visible as he opens the door. Fucking idiot. "I'm opening the door. Let's just talk about this."

I look out the side door's window. The officer is shorter than Wade, and she keeps something long half-leveled in her hands that's over half her stocky body's length. When my eyes adjust, I finally realize that it's a motherfucking shotgun.

"Walk to the hood of the vehicle and empty your pockets!" she shouts, pushing him in his back with her free hand.

"Okay, no." Hilde unclips her seatbelt and the male officer steps away from her door to give her room to step out.

"Hilde, what the fuck—?" I start, but she turns back toward me, giving me a stare that petrifies me in place.

"Stay here," she says, then turns to the officer. "We haven't done anything wrong, sir. Like I said, I can pull the van out of here and we can be on our way."

"Who said you could step out of the vehicle?" the officer closer to Wade shouts at Hilde.

"Wood, it's fine," the other replies. "Ma'am, if I could just see license and registration for the van."

"Whoa, hold on," the officer with the shotgun notices something on the hood of the car, half-covered by Wade's receipt paper. A tiny plastic bag. Fuck. "What do you think you're doing with this?"

She picks it up and holds it less than an inch in front of Wade's face, pushing it closer when he flinches away. Through the windshield, I can see the blood still heavy in his eyes, mostly from being asleep rather than from the weed.

"You know what this means, kid?" the officer shouts in his face. He stares at me through the windshield, a strange look on his face. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"How 'bout you back the fuck off?" I ask when I start to climb out of the side door.

I'm greeted by a wall of snowy air and a shotgun leveled at me. "No one said you could move, kid! Get out of the vehicle now and get on the ground!"

"Officer," Hilde chokes out, trying to maintain a calm voice in this infuriating fucking situation, "I'm going to need you to stop pointing that weapon at my granddaughter."

"Shut up and stay over there, miss!"

"Wood, calm down," the taller officer says halfheartedly.

My veins become empty highways and I feel the blood rocketing through me at a rapid pace, Legacies at the ready. But staring down the barrel of a shotgun, I suddenly feel that same unnerving sense of mortality in my gut that I felt back in LA when that detective pulled the camera from his desk. Unlike the other eight Garde still scattered across this sick fucking planet, I've got no barrier protecting me from getting killed by human attacks.

If this bitch shoots, I'm dead.

"Are you deaf?" the officer shouts in my face. "Get out of the van and get on the ground!"

"Could you move the fucking shotgun out of my way first, please?"

"One, do as she says," Hilde calls from across the van. I can't see her from where I am, but I know she's looking back through the passenger's seat door, watching my every move to make sure I'm okay and don't fuck up.

When I don't move, the series of yells from Officer Wood, from Hilde, from the calmer cop on the other side of the car all flow distorted into my ears. I know that I'm not about to die tonight, not at the mercy of some power-high cop with a gun in my face. But the only way we would have gotten out of here tonight is if they just let us drive the fuck away. With that option hitting the fan, I doubt there are any other scenarios where this doesn't make news or something. It'll be pretty damn easy for the Mogs to find us after this.

Wade winks at me and picks up his wallet. I shake my head at him, but he doesn't pay attention as he nears the officer, flipping through his wallet and trying to shout over the pandemonium.

Wood sees it in his hands.

Hears him raising his voice.

Levels the shotgun at Wade and pulls the trigger.

"No!" I scream, leaping from the van and making to shove her away.

But I'm too late.

Something furious radiating from me beats my hands to it, and Officer Wood is sent flying across the lot, the loud pop of the shotgun sent into the pavement in a bright, fiery flash. Within the flash, my eyes lose all sense of color and shadow. Everything becomes an intense red that rolls down past my eyes and into the tendons of my neck. It surges through my shoulders, down into my arms and roils into my veins with vengeance.

Officer Wood rests slumped against a car, upper body bent at an awkward angle in comparison with her lower body. I might have broken her back. I might have killed her. I don't give a fuck. She deserved it for what she just tried to do. When I turn to my right, I see Wade standing there, wallet dropped to the concrete, arms shielding his face.

He could have died tonight for trying to do the right thing. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

I stride past Wade and leave him standing there in a daze, trying to figure out what just happened. Fuck it. Let the world know about us. Right now, that's not my concern as I approach the other cop. He's got a bushy mustache and a lean build and unlike the husk of his psychotic partner, the only weapon he seems to have on him is a handgun strapped to his belt.

The officer steps in front of Hilde, holds out one hand and, with the other, reaches for the pistol.

I counter his extended left arm and use that irate force to telekinetically snap his right arm before it can pull the gun. He keels over in pain, shrieking at the sight and feeling of his broken bones. Good. I got no sympathy for these fucks, and when I push him away from me, sending him stumbling onto his back, I try to grind him into the pavement with my mind.

These bursts seem telekinetic, but they feel different. New. They don't come from my mind directly. If anything, the energy flows from the small of my back and up my spine, carrying out of my limbs to do the damage.

This is Terric. Or at least a form of it.

"You sick pieces of shit just shot at a kid doing what you fucking told him to?!" I scream at the cop.

He struggles against the Terric's grip, tries to speak or gasp for air or whatever the fuck, but he's held away from me like the poles of a magnetic. I think he knows it's futile to struggle. Just like how Wade probably thought it was futile to even try and reason with these people, I hope the cop knows that this is how he's gonna die.

My body reacts contentiously to this new form of Terric, especially after going without using it for so long. I feel it squeezing in my muscles, neurons exhausting faster than they can regenerate. It's so much effort that I can almost hear it vibrating through the hollow spaces in my bones.

Right now, who gives a shit? All I want is to see this bastard die.

"One, I said stop!" Hilde reaches her arms around me from behind and pulls me away from the officer. I was so hellbent on ripping him to shreds that I wasn't even concerned for her safety. Jesus Fucking Christ. "You're done here. Get back in the van."

"They can't keep doing this to people like him," I protest as she lifts me up so my feet don't touch the ground. We pass by Wade, who stands where I left him, gawking at Officer Wood's body twisted across the lot. I wonder how he's interpreting everything he's just seen. "They can't do this, Hilde. We can't let them get away with this."

"I know!" she replies, throwing me back into the van. "Stay here."

I don't argue. I know I made a mess of the situation, but fuck if it didn't feel good to fight back against those assholes. No tears shed for those monsters. Given that they would have shot Wade, I don't have a single damn regret. If Wade saw me use my Legacies, who really cares?

Watching Hilde scoop up the bodies of the officers and carry them across Woodward Avenue to the Community Care Associates building, I tuck my legs up to my chest and close to doors to the van with my mind, watching Wade pace back and forth. He must be trying to understand all of this, but his mind appears to be having a difficult time grasping what I just did.

For now, I ignore him and instead focus on my Legacies. The Terric leaps back and forth between my palms, stuck in a vibrating call and response that my own inner rage is in control of. Even though I know I'm in control of the Legacy, my hands won't stop shaking.

"I…uh…what just—happened—what just…they…she…"

"Wade, I need you to calm down, okay?"

"Hilde, you…you—you saw that too, right?"

"Of course, I saw it. It was crazy and amazing and I'm glad you're alright, but I need you to just take a deep breath. In…out…. See?"

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"It's just…she shot at me."

"I know."

"Is she…?"

"She's going to probably need surgery, but she'll be okay."

"I don't want to be here right now."

"Um…"

"I'm sorry."

"You're fine, Wade. Hey, you want to get on the roof?"

"Of the van?"

"Sure."

"Why?"

"It's safe up there."

"It is?"

"Yes. Let's go up there and talk. Come on. See? Isn't that better?"

"It's nice."

"It's cold."

"It's nice."

"You already…Wade, just sit down right here. Keep breathing like I told you."

"…Okay…I'm sorry."

"And I accept your apology, now stop making it."

"…"

"Shhh. You're okay now, Wade. It's alright."

"…I know…I know…oh my god, they tried to…"

"I know they did. But we didn't let anything happen to you."

"I didn't…do that, did I?"

"What, defend yourself? No, that was Wanda."

"You mean Raven?"

"Yes."

"Because…earlier you kept saying Raven, but then after…after I mentioned it, you started calling her Wanda."

"Her name's Wanda. It's always been Wanda."

"Okay. How did she do that?"

"Do what?"

"Throw a person like fifty feet."

"Adrenaline's a pretty crazy thing. She cares about you and wasn't about to let you get hurt. That and I've been sending her to self-defense training since she was nine."

"Oh. So, they're not dead? Those cops?"

"No, they're just hurt. They won't be hurting anybody else anymore."

"Why did she shoot at me? What did I do wrong?"

"Wade, you did nothing wrong. You just…I don't know how all this happened, but I wish you didn't have to deal with it. These guys…they came here out of nowhere, for no reason, and tried to kill you for no reason. But Wanda saved you, and I promise that as long as me and my granddaughter are still here, nobody like that is going to be able to hurt you."

"…Thanks. I, um, accept your apology…. You were right what you said about owning up to what your people need. I think tonight kinda proved that, I guess."

"Yep."

"Hilde?"

"Yes, Wade?"

"Are more cops coming?"

"I don't think so. More of them would have been here by now if someone reported the gunshot. I think we're okay."

"I don't want to stay here."

"Do you want to go find another place to park?"

"No. I don't really feel like driving right now."

"You want me to?"

"I don't really wanna get back in the van. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize. You want to stay up here?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Don't freeze to death out here in this snow."

"Actually, can you…?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Can I what?"

"Never mind. It's not important."

"Wade. Just tell me."

"Can you stay up here with me? I don't wanna be alone right now."

"…Okay, sure. I'll stay up here with you until you go to sleep."

"I'm probably not gonna be able to sleep tonight."

"…Then I'll stay up here until morning…"

"Sorry."

"Wade, if you apologize to me again, I'm going to put you to sleep myself."

"Okay."

"Stop thinking about it. Just…think about your favorite song or something."

"…"

"Don't hum it."

"Okay. Sor—okay."

"Heldos Elkos, Sandor."

"Who?"

"No one."

"…"

"My bad. For a second there, you just reminded me of somebody I knew not too long ago."