"...telling you, it's the only way to get through to these snot-nosed brats," Patriot is saying, each word laced with a snide undercurrent of disdain. "They want to act like a bunch of spoiled children, throwing their little tantrums over a few broken rules? Well, it's past time they learned what real consequences look like."

A rumble of assent rolls through the assembled guards like a wave, buoyed by the sloshing of drinks and clinking of glasses. Beside the towering, self-styled hero in his garish star-spangled regalia, Egalitarian stands impassive and silent - a still pool amidst the flowing current of masculine bravado.

"Kid's got a point, for once," Ridley chimes in with a snort, tossing back the last dregs of his drink before slamming the glass down on the bartop hard enough to make it rattle. "I'm all for knocking a few of those poser capes down a few notches while we're at it."

His meaty fist clenches in a show of exaggerated menace, bunching the loose fabric of his off-duty security polo as something hungry and vicious twists across his flushed features.

"I mean, you shoulda seen the little hellion I had to tussle with the other day," he continues, fixing Patriot and his partner with a look of outraged indignation. "Little... mmh, mousy thing, but scrappy, I'll give her that."

"You mean Small," Egalitarian replies nonchalantly, sending a painful shudder through my spine. "The one that threw you like a frisbee."

"Whatever," Ridley dismisses, raising his drink to his lips like he expects a little extra to just spill out of the bottom for him.

Jordan shifts ever-so-slightly beside me, the barest hint of restless discomfort rippling across their slight frame. Their knuckles are white where they grip the underside of the table, jaw clenching tighter with every second Ridley continues to speak.

"Whole family's bad news, though," he goes on, oblivious to our silent fury. "Mother's got some sorta head issue, goes off her meds every couple months and turns into a right little spitfire, from what I hear. And the father? Heh, lemme tell you - dude's about as much of a man as that little runt he's raising..."

Red begins to creep in at the edges of my vision, the rest of the room falling away into a blur of meaningless static as the hot, acrid taste of rage fills my mouth. It's like I'm outside myself, a silent observer as my hands clench into trembling fists atop the tabletop, knuckles going white as a rope pulled taut.

From somewhere far away, I'm vaguely aware of Jordan reaching out to grab me, their slight fingers wrapping around my wrist in a grip like steel cable. I try to shrug them off, to surge up out of the booth and finally give that festering slab of liquor-soaked pavement trash a piece of my mind, but their hold is unshakable.

"...threatened to sic their lawyers on Heckerman, if you can imagine," Ridley continues on, supremely unaware of how close he's coming to unleashing my fury upon himself. Around him, the rest of the guards simply chuckle and shake their heads in amusement, a few exchanging knowing glances and raised eyebrows. Not a single one of them so much as flinches, like it's all but expected at this point. "But hey, what else do you expect outta one of those people, amirite?"

Egalitarian's hand falls on her baton. I flinch. Jordan's hand grips me tighter. My nails are digging into my palms so hard that I can smell my own blood, suddenly bringing my entire vascular system into sharp, painful relief.

"The kid ever wises up and gets a load of how fuckin' useless her old man is, we might just have another Deathgirl on our hands," Ridley finishes, the rancid punchline punctuated by a fresh swell of drunken guffaws from the assembled sycophants surrounding him. "Ain't that a kick in the pants?"

I'm shaking now, every inch of my body vibrating with the effort of holding myself back from leaping bodily across the room and rearranging that bastard's face into something slightly more aesthetically pleasing. Jordan's grip is like a vice around my wrist, the only thing keeping me anchored as the world seems to slide out of focus around the encroaching red haze of fury.

"Easy, girl," they hiss through gritted teeth, voice barely more than a taut whisper buried beneath the cacophony. "Easy... we'll get our chance, just stay cool for now. No maiming yet."

I take a breath, then another - each one feeling like I'm trying to inhale steel wool rather than actual oxygen. Slowly, bit by bit, the world begins to bleed back into sharpness and I become aware of Egalitarian watching us from the corner of her eye, an eyebrow slightly raised.

Patriot throws back his head in a bellowing guffaw, the tendons in his thick neck standing out in harsh relief as he claps Ridley firmly on the shoulder. "Now that's the kinda backbone I like to see, my friend!" he roars in open approval, the corners of his eyes crinkling with genuine mirth. "Let me tell you, if more of the boys around here had your attitude, we wouldn't be having half these problems with the protestors and so-called 'student activists' anymore."

There's an edge to his voice there, an undercurrent of something darker and more unsettling than mere boisterous bravado. Something that sends a chill skittering down my spine despite the heat of my anger. Jordan must pick up on it too because their hand tightens fractionally, the merest tremor rippling through their compact frame.

"Speaking of which," Patriot continues, that too-bright grin taking on an almost predatory quality as his eyes seem to bore into the back of Ridley's skull. "I understand you've already had a run-in or two with this... upstart little troublemaker the boys have been whispering about?"

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Ridley snorts out a bark of contemptuous laughter at that, his fleshy face contorting into an ugly sneer. "You could say that," he confirms with a curt nod towards the bar, where a handful of gnarled fingers are already stabbing at phone screens and calling up the video. "Little bitch went and made me look like a goddamn fool in front of half the damn school, just for doing my job. I don't even care about her, you know? Poor girl got her house ran over by a t-rex, you'd think that'd give her some appreciation for the law. But, no, she's gotta go and stick her neck out for some snot-nosed little thug-to-be lottery case. Traitors like her need to be put in their place."

My rage rockets back up from a low simmer to a rolling boil in an instant, every muscle in my body seizing taut as the urge to unleash unholy hell washes over me like a tidal wave. Across the table, Jordan's hand falls away from my trapped wrist, and for a split second I think they've accepted that I'm a lost cause, about to blow our cover and possibly our faces right off our skulls.

But then the gentle weight of their palm connects with the back of my arm, and they let go. I suck in a ragged breath, fighting down the tide of fury bubbling up inside me. Jordan's other hand flips over, and I see the blinking icon on their phone indicating that an audio recording is in progress.

"Deep breaths, wolfy," they murmur under their breath, barely loud enough to be heard over the raucous laughter and wolf-whistles filling the smoky air. "I know it sucks, but we need to keep our heads if we want him to dig his own grave a little deeper. "

I nod, a terse jerk of my chin that feels like it takes every last ounce of willpower in my body. Jordan is right - of course they are. If we go off half-cocked now, we'll blow any chance we might have at getting Ridley to truly incriminate himself in the open. We need to be patient, to keep our cool no matter how much that festering shitstain keeps on pushing our buttons.

Besides, I remind myself with no small effort, words are just words. I've faced down actual, genuine threats before - bullets and blades wielded with lethal intent. A few hateful slurs, no matter how vile, are nothing in comparison. Nothing a tough-as-nails Philly gal like me can't handle, right?

Right. So I'll grit my teeth and bear this latest torrent of bile, determined to keep my laser-focus on the goal - unmasking Ridley and the rest of his goon squad's true motivations. If it means swallowing my pride for a little while longer, choking down my anger like a jagged, bitter pill, then so be it.

I take another breath, harder this time, and shoot Jordan a sidelong glance - a silent question seeking permission, and maybe just a little understanding. Their gaze meets mine, dark eyes glinting in the low light, and they offer the barest fractional nod - a micro-expression condensing a wealth of support and solidarity into a single shared moment.

Then, almost as one, we turn our attention back towards the bar - towards the self-styled 'heroes' and their coterie of loyal lapdogs currently indulging in their nightly ritual of hateful preening. My knuckles ache from how tightly my fists are clenched, but I force myself to loosen up, to let the anger bleed away into a kind of grim determination. I wad up some napkins and squeeze them like stress balls to soak up the pinpricks of blood that have welled up from my palms.

They want a fight, huh? Well, they've definitely got one now.

"...is that little daddy's girl is still bent outta shape over a few bumps and bruises," Ridley is saying, letting out an exaggerated yawn of boredom as he waves one meaty hand in a dismissive gesture. "Which, hey - maybe if her dear old pops had taken the time to toughen her up a little, she wouldn't be so damn fragile in the first place, you know?"

A fresh swell of laughter bubbles up from the assembled guards, crude and mocking and utterly devoid of anything resembling genuine humor. My teeth grind together, each peal of drunken mirth like a slap to the face, stinging and raw. Is he still talking about me, or is this some other girl he's harassing now?

"Ah, poor little lamb," Patriot tuts with a shake of his head, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in an exaggerated show of concern. "No wonder she's so lost and confused, with role models like that setting the example for her..."

He trails off, clucking his tongue in a melodramatic pantomime of regret before fixing Ridley with a conspiratorial smirk.

"Still, I hardly think one uppity schoolgirl is going to be enough to derail anything important."

Ridley snorts out a contemptuous laugh at that, draining the last dregs of his next drink - I must have missed the refill - before slamming the empty glass back down on the bartop with a resounding thunk. He begins raising his free hand in a dismissive wave. "Way I hear it, Principal Heckerman's got our back on this one all the way, only backed off because of those annoying fucking libby parents. The mayor too, even - word is, she's the one who got us these hours in the first place. Direct from her. Not, you know, some other underling or whatever the fuck."

A tense, expectant silence falls over the assembled group, punctuated only by the faint drone of a muted TV and the clinking of glasses being refilled. Patriot simply stares at Ridley for a long moment, chewing on some morsel of information that I barely seem to comprehend. "Does she have what it takes to see this all the way through to the end? Or is she just another milksop who'll go belly up at the first sign of trouble?"

Egalitarian shifts almost imperceptibly at that, a subtle movement that nonetheless seems to convey a world of unspoken meaning. Her stance adjusts, hands drifting almost casually to rest atop the batons clipped at her utility belt as she regards her partner with a look of... what? Disapproval? Skepticism?

It's impossible for me to read, her face an impenetrable mask of stoic inscrutability. But whatever silent communication passes between the two of them, it seems to bring Patriot up short - his broad chest deflating just a fraction as he clears his throat and straightens up once more.

"Ah, but enough about all that," he blusters, waving one meaty hand in a gesture of dismissal. "We didn't come here tonight to debate the finer points of civic leadership, now did we? I believe there was talk of a drink being poured, and perhaps a toast or two to our brothers and sisters in blue who risk life and limb to maintain order out on those mean streets?"

A fresh wave of blustering agreement ripples through the assembled rent-a-cops, hearty backslaps and raucous cheers rising to drown out the tinny whine of the televisions mounted above the bar.

"That guy talks like a fucking thesaurus. And my best friend was raised by a library, so I'd know a thing or two," Jordan mumbles, disarming me for a second.

"Wait, I'm your-" I get out, just before I catch something else through the parting waves of human bodies. The thought escapes.

Nudging Jordan, I gesture towards the back exit of the dingy little watering hole with a slight tilt of my head. They catch the signal immediately, imperceptible nod as their eyes narrow to slits.

Right. Time to make our escape before things spiral any further out of control and we risk blowing everything straight to hell.