I'd hoped that I could find anything on Athan, but he stubbornly refused to manifest in any form. But that was actually a little reassuring given what I was able to find about him.

What I knew was that the XPCA didn't have him. I knew this because he was at large in a way I didn't know Exhumans could be. It didn't take more than a 'net search to find his face and profile plastered everywhere, news stories listing him as an 'unprecedented threat', and giving vague narrative to his time with the P-Force and his alleged betrayal.

If nothing else, this serves as a cautionary tale to remind us of a truth we already knew. Exhumans are dangerous, violent, and unstable, and to trust them is to invite an enemy into your confidence, one site concluded.

Of course, none of the stories or reports mentioned a thing about how despite being with and under the XPCA, they didn't do a damn thing about either the Defiant nor Dragon. Even the positives in his records had been whitewashed, making it look like he'd done nothing more than sit around under XPCA control for most of nine months with his thumb up his butt.

"Y'all right over there?" Tower asked. I looked up from my device and realized I was pacing a trench into his floor and chewing on my thumb despite having run out of cuticle long ago.

"Just finding less than I'd hoped. And more, I guess."

"How's that figure?"

I flopped down with a grunt, the lingering pain from Argus' work still with me, but not enough to slow me down. "I found nothing about where he is, but a lot about how the XPCA wants to kill him."

"Yeah that sounds about right," Tower nodded.

"And nothing else about the others?" Steffie asked, wheeling in from the hallway, wiping flour off her hands onto a towel.

I shook my head. "From the sound of it, the XPCA are still looking for AEGIS, Karu, and Saga. They have you, me, and Jack here, of course. No mention of Moon or Tem, which makes me think they were also taken."

"What about that girl, the portal chick?" Tower asked.

"Rito? She was captured the same time I was," I said, frowning at my mobile. "I don't know how they'll hold her, given that she needs to be under constant surveillance to keep from jumping off. She wouldn't be put in the broader New Eden population."

"You say that but she was before, wasn't she?" Steffie asked. "She joined the resistance somehow."

"Yeah I don't know. Maybe she was never a New Edener and Soran recruited her from somewhere. Or maybe she submitted voluntarily and so they gave her a pass. Nothing that'll fly now that she's associated with Athan, though."

"Might she be with Jack in the uh," Tower struggled. "The introduction cells."

"The admission blocks," I nodded at him. "Maybe. I get the feeling there's a lot of weird Exhuman powers holed up there, because they set up a system to get them contained, and then nobody wants to move them once they're secure."

"Like Jack," Steffie said in a slightly hushed tone.

"Yeah. Like Jack," I agreed. "Probably a lot of really dangerous powers all locked up in one place."

"So that's great then," Tower said, sitting up suddenly. "We go there, we break in--"

"This is already not great," I added.

"--and at least one of those nutjobs has got to have some powers useful to us, to help us get away. If nothing else, we can use Rito, right? So we just let a few of them loose, and they make enough of a distraction that we can all get out."

"I think this is a really bad idea," Steffie said, wringing the towel in her hands. "Starting a fight between the prisoners and the XPCA will just lead to more deaths. That's what we were trying to avoid in the resistance."

"But you guys did a huge riot and killed tons of people and Exhumans both," I asked.

"Yeah. But that wasn't supposed to happen. We were mostly trying to liberate people, not start a war."

"Soran was just using you as his personal army," I said, waving my feet in the air as I thought. "He's a master manipulator. Don't feel too bad about it."

"I don't think so," she fretted. "He helped a lot of people."

"Yeah, publically. So that people like you would believe him."

"Well I haven't seen any signs of this murderous manipulator, not since he surrendered and came to New Eden and started the resistance. I've only heard tell of it from you guys, and in my book, actions speak louder than words."

"Dude, he broke your spine," I said.

"And?" She crossed her arms and glared at me. "I blew up an entire grocery store."

"That was an accident. He planned on using you as bait to take out the P-Force. He plans and schemes and manipulates."

"Oh, you'd know, wouldn't you?" Steffie barked.

"Okay, enough," Tower cut in. "This isn't helping us find Athan OR Jack."

I rolled my eyes and gave up on looking at Steffie while she fumed at me. Tower was right, but that girl needed to open her eyes and realize when she was being manipulated, or it might bite all of us in the butt at some point.

But another time. For now, I needed to get us into the admission blocks where Jack was being held. Athan wasn't here, and Jack might be able to get us out of here, so his rescue was two birds for one stone.

"So we have two obstacles," I said aloud. "One is getting to Jack and Rito, and two is defeating the security in place on them which is keeping them from getting out -- and from taking us out when we get there."

Tower and Steffie nodded along as I continued.

"Getting in...will be rough given that it's the most secure part of the whole prison, probably. As Tower said, there's a bunch of strong Exhumans in there, so security's gotta be tight, and since Rito isn't going to be allowed to just port away, we also know that they're monitored a hundred-percent of the time."

"Question:" Tower asked, raising his broad hand. "Could she just be on camera?"

"No, AEGIS tested that for fun at some point. A camera pointed at her does nothing, but watching her through a camera does."

"Exhuman powers are weird," Tower said.

"You're the guy who can literally shrug off gravity."

"True facts," he grinned.

"Honestly, getting into the admission block sounds even harder than all the schemes the resistance had to break out of here," Steffie commented. "I don't know that we have the capability with just the three of us."

"Well there is a whole prison of sorta-miserable Exhumans out there," Tower said. "And hey, Lia's pretty much in charge of a couple blocks now, sorta-kinda, isn't she?"

I was gonna disagree with him about just how quickly he thought my influence had spread, but I was still stopped about a sentence back from what Steffie said.

"Uh oh, she's thinking about what I said," Tower commented to Steffie. "That means whatever plan she comes up with, it was my fault."

"No, you weren't useful at all," I told him, and his face soured. "The Exhumans in here aren't generally useful to go up against the XPCA for the same reason I was able to beat Khol and Argus. People in this prison believe they can't take on the XPCA. They've all either given up or were beaten up to get in here."

"Hey I can take the XPCA," Tower said. "Don't throw me in with the rest of them, I've got a big leg up from the mess in here."

"Really?" I asked, sitting up and then walking to the door. I opened it and gave him half a bow. "Your friend Jack's right over there. Go rescue him."

He blinked at me until I closed the door and resumed the couch.

"I mean, I could," he said.

I shook my head. "Don't mean to pop your ego, but no. You know you can't just like the rest of us."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"So what, it's impossible then? Is that what you're saying?" Steffie started at me, her voice a hint of shrill. "Because I refuse to accept that. I'm not letting them keep Jack, and if you're just going to give up--"

"Calm down, please," I urged her. "I'm saying, when it comes to getting people to rise or fight or throw themselves at the XPCA, nobody will do it. Not again, anyway, not since the bravest and dumbest all died or escaped in the last riot."

"Then what?" she asked.

"What you said earlier," I told her. "It's easier to escape New Eden than it is to break into the admission block."

"So you are just quitting? Just going to run away and leave Jack--"

"Dude, chill," I begged her. "I'm working on it. But believe me when I say I love Jack too, and I don't want him held there anymore than you do. I'm just weighing our options."

She glared at me and then spun her chair violently enough to make it squeak on the floor, rolling off with a violent huff in her stride...if you could call it that.

Which maybe I deserved. Any plans I had forming in my head were woefully incomplete right now, and bringing her in during the brainstorming process was just asking for butthurt feelings when she was already so desperate and obsessed with the situation. If I came to her with anything less than a perfect plan, she'd just take it as backpedaling when the plan got revisions, and would be frustrated that we had a plan we couldn't yet act on.

People were funny like that. They could stew and wait a surprisingly long time, even if they were stressed or panicking, so long as you reassured them. But as soon as they knew what the plan was going to be, that something should be happening, that's when they tended to lose any patience they had left. Seemed backwards, but true. I'd heard that was one of the reasons deployed soldiers were often left in the dark on orders -- easier for them to sit and wait an indefinite amount of time rather than counting down the days.

I hoped I hadn't screwed up by bringing Steffie in to planning too soon, but if I did, I'd just have to talk her down. In the meanwhile, I had a lot more thinking to do.

"You mind playing bodyguard while I go on a walk?" I asked Tower. He nodded and waited while I put on my hoodie and my flip-flops. No bra, because the sweatshirt was frumpy enough, and who was I trying to impress?

I felt like Tower was half-right. I needed a new power or something, a silver bullet which could get us in. If only we had Rito, that girl's power was beyond anything for making plans happen...but she was on the rescuee side of this operation, and even if we could somehow get her free, I kinda doubted she'd want to hang around and rescue others.

After all, it was her flipping out and jumping off prematurely which had led to us all getting split up and captured like this in the first place. I shook my head as we walked and grumbled to myself about amateurs who let their emotions get in the way of doing the job.

Which lead me right back to Taglock, maybe the last piece I had in play that I hadn't tapped yet. I'd always made sure to pay him well in advance for his services, in case I was put in a situation like this one, so he was still mine for a time yet...but that didn't mean I had a ton of good uses for him. He wasn't about to single-handedly take down New Eden...or even parts of it. As convenient as it might be to have him blow a hole in the wall, I doubt he'd accept that sort of mission, since intelligence and recon were his thing, not really combat.

Which, as I was growing up into his role, I realized made him a much less useful asset than he could be. He was awesome, fully awesome, no less, and he was as sharp and professional as they came...but in modelling myself after him, I had begun to find him more and more redundant to things I could do myself.

Like, right now, I was looking for Athan, and I knew I could send him off on the hunt...but knowing most of his methods by now, having followed and imitated his intelligence-gathering strategies and tapping his same contacts, I was fairly certain that if I could find literally nothing on Athan, he would also pull up short.

Which in a way made me really sad, but also really happy. I felt like I'd grown so much since running away from home, thinking myself clever for wearing a disguise while sneaking out to the public computers in the library to look up where Athan might be. I had done such a poor job of wiping up my trail that even Brick had been able to chase me down, spending credits still flagged as being my parents'...oof, I cringed just thinking about it.

I kicked up a little pile of sand and watched it drift in the air before settling onto the concrete.

And there was still the entire second half of this issue. I didn't know what countermeasures they'd have for Rito, but Jack at least had a bomb wired into his heart that was set to blow if they pushed a button. Stubborn romantic that he was, I could see him jumping to Steffie's side with a hole in his chest if he ever caught wind of her being here, so that was a case to avoid...but more significantly, the entire hole-in-chest scenario needed avoiding.

I kicked the sand again and watched it glisten in the sun as it fell this time, like the sparkles on the ocean. I felt frustrated and…

...and incomplete, really. I wondered where Athan and AEGIS were, hoping they had each other at least, that he and she and Saga and even Karu were all safe and together somewhere, probably undertaking some derring-do to rescue Tem and Moon, and rendering all my scheming and worrying here completely moot.

Because of course they would. I was sitting here feeling incomplete because we'd always worked as a team, ever since I'd found them. Here, I was just the random-idea and way-too-good-at-dialogue girl. That was like being half of one key, and not even knowing what door to go to.

I'd been missing Athan, especially, but everybody, and the sudden thought that all my struggles here might be pointless and useless and dumb, and that I couldn't do it by myself, after everything I'd gone through so far...it cut me like a knife, jammed straight through my self-confidence into the bone.

"You okay?" Tower asked as I slid down a wall.

"Yeah," I lied. "Just resting."

"More comfy to rest at home," he offered. "Less sand. Less sun."

"I like the sun," I said, squinting towards the sky. Bright blue. Saga's favorite color, I suddenly remembered, the thought of missing her too feeling like another layer of my heart peeling back.

I realized I was having a panic attack and just closed my eyes and tried to block out the world and all the thoughts in it. I can't cry if I'm too busy smiling. So smile, Lia. Smile. Smile.

Smile, goddamn you.

Where the hell was Athan? And Saga, and AEGIS, and Karu? Why the hell was I in here, in prison, a stupid little sixteen year-old girl with a few hundred murderously pissed Exhumans? And why was it all on me, always on me to save everyone? Tower and Steffie were good people, but useless, just sitting on their stupid butts, waiting for me, waiting for me to save them, waiting for me to come up with a plan, waiting uselessly.

And that's assuming that what they wanted was even possible. We were a handful of idiots trying to fight back an institution designed to contain and repress us, which was only doing so out of the benevolence of not having us killed. What. The. Goddamn. Hell.

Tower was talking at me and I covered my ears. I realized I was mad, I had been mad, mad at the whole situation, at needing to put my life on the line, my search for Athan on hold, at Steffie having the gall to bitch me out when she'd done jack-all for any of this so far except almost kill herself.

Well she wasn't the only one dealing with suicidal thoughts and a missing person she loved, okay? She could get the hell off my back and...and go save Jack on her own if she was going to be a bison about it.

I reached out and grabbed a handful of sand, opening my eyes and ears and found Tower silent again. I threw the sand in the air and watched the wind drape it a few inches sideways, shimmering as it fell. Like cloth, or water.

I knew. I knew it didn't do any good to get mad. I knew Steffie was just hurt, and scared, and out of ideas, and this place was like poison to Exhumans. I knew that being pissed off just endangered all of us.

But it also sucked that I wasn't even allowed to get mad. I had to be the rational one, the in-control one, the smiling face of the group, always. Even now, when I wanted to be alone, I had to be smart and bring Tower or run the risk of more trouble. Or else they'd look at me like Tower was, like he didn't know the sulky, pissy teenager moping around in front of him.

I threw more sand. And then a handful at him, which he bounced off himself with a grin, sending it shooting off like a firework, a trail of dust instead of sparkles in its wake.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"S'okay," he said and crouched down, still towering over me. "You're doing all right, kid."

"Doesn't feel like it. Feels like everyone's still lost or hurt or dead."

"They're not. Every one of 'em was pretty special. Just like you. And just like you're a fighter, just like you're still here, still coming on top even when you're facing down jackasses twice your size and ten times your strength and a hundred times your meanness, you win. And so will the others."

"That's just words, Tower."

"That's a funny thing to say, coming from you. I thought you told Argus off, telling him he didn't know the power of words."

"That's different."

"Maybe," he grinned, his broad teeth glinting in the desert sun, white flashes like the beach at night. "But I'm no good at using words, that's your thing. The point is, you have a thing, and so do they. Tem's not gonna talk her way out of a situation, but you know she can blast or sneak through anything. There's nothing AEGIS can't plan for, nothing Karu hasn't already seen twice, and nothing Saga can't smarm to death. And don't get me started on your brother."

I caught myself smiling back at him somehow and stopped that, but he did have a point. Everyone was pretty exceptional, in their own way, and like me, they each knew how to leverage it. Maybe...just maybe...there was more to all of this than me fixing everything, even if that's how it felt.

That stupid Ashton quirk of needing to fix everything. Man, we had it bad.

"Want to throw some more sand?" he asked me, and I obliged by nailing him with a fist of it which shot straight into the air off his dark skin and cascaded down.

The sand here must have had extra silica in it or something, it glittered as it fell in a way I wouldn't expect plain ol' red dirt should. It kept reminding me of water. I remembered the beach, looking out at the vastness of waves and crests, sparkles glinting at me in total randomness. A pattern I could never quite make out, waves crashing into each other, doubling up and cancelling out. Glittering as they flowed in and out--

I stood up, dropping a handful of sand as I covered my ears, forcing my thoughts to focus.

"What?" Tower asked, but I waved him away. I must have looked crazy, but I didn't care. I had to capture the thought.

The tides. The first half of our problem. Waves. The second half. Could it be so simple? It couldn't be. But could it?

Waves. Waves. Waves.

I needed AEGIS' expertise, but barring that, I had a backup. It might just work.

"I might have thought of a way to get into the admission block," I said.

"Awesome." Tower gave me a thumbs-up. "How can I help?"

"I need to send a message to someone. And then we need to talk to Steffie, find out what she knows about the resistance and what their plans were, and are."

"And me?" he asked again.

I smiled at him, and then took his hand and was pulled easily to my feet, bouncing in the air slightly before landing, from the ease of his grasp.

Then I gave him a hug, which he accepted in stunned silence for a moment before returning it in full back-breaking force.

"You've done a ton for me already," I told him. "Thank you for coming with me, and for helping me get over myself. It's hard, I know."

"It's easy when you've got a good friend at stake," he chuckled.

"Then...as a good friend...do you mind if I ask you a favor?"

"Anything, of course."

"Would you help me convince Steffie to let me leave?"