"That'll be $31.11."

I grumbled as I tugged two twenty-dollar bills out of my wallet before passing them forward to the cab driver. It never failed to disgust me how much taxi drivers charged. I would have much rather flown us over if we weren't out in casual clothes—or trying to stay under the radar, for that matter—but it was no use crying over something I couldn't do anything about. Until Newter found the Blinds, our job was to stay put.

Not that going to Luna Park was staying put, but…

"Pretty," Elle breathed out with obvious appreciation as she looked at the park, its many lights casting the night aside.

… well, some things were worth breaking the rules.

Newter had been going out early every evening and staying out until long after I had fallen asleep. The idea, as Melanie had explained it, was to catch the Blinds when they were the most likely to be sleeping. His lack of success for days now had prompted Melanie to order him to come back early last night and switch to investigating during the day, in case the Blinds were a more nocturnal bunch than expected. Whether it would prove successful or not was up for debate, but in any case, the rest of us were still supposed to be staying at the safe house, ready to go at any moment.

I adjusted the straps of my coin-filled backpack, feeling a bit nostalgic by the presence of the nearly weightless bag on my back. If Newter was finally successful and we were caught out, then I would have no problems flying us back ASAP. Dealing with any fallout from Melanie would come later.

There wasn't any line, not at this time of year and day, but when Elle started towards the ticket booth, I tugged her back. She gave me a curious look, and I told her, "Fuh-ree to walk. Rai-duh costs."

"Interesting," she remarked, immediately understanding. "Would pay. Want?"

Not for the first time, the thought struck me that anyone listening in on us would have difficulty understanding what each of us was saying. "It's cold out. Walk ah-ruh-nd?"

She smiled and offered me her hand. I returned her smile, took her hand, then lead her past the ticket booth and into the park itself. It was cold enough we could see our breath, and neither of us had eaten in a bit, so the first ting I steered us towards was an open food stand. This time of year the park's stands were at partial capacity, but I knew from experience that those that were open would be serving hot food and beverages.

Once she saw where I was leading her, Elle told me, "My treat. Want?"

"Hot coh-coh and…" I almost chose the nachos, which I genuinely would have enjoyed the most, but the thought of having an accident and getting salsa and cheese on myself—or heaven forbid Elle—stayed my hand. "…a pruh-et-zel."

"Okay."

As she stepped forward and ordered our snacks, I considered where in the park to guide us next. We weren't going to do any of the rides, and as far as I was concerned, the only food worth getting was small stuff like this to tide you over until you got something worthwhile outside the park. That left the shops and games, but which ones would she like best?

"June?" Elle said, drawing me out of my thoughts. She smiled and gestured at the food on the counter. "Help?"

"Yeah," I simply replied as I moved to join her and claimed my food. "Thank you."

"Where to now?" she asked as we moved along and she took a bite of her hot dog.

I mirrored her, nibbling on my pretzel as I settled on a plan. We were at the far end of the longest, most populated section, and the sunset would be only a couple of hours from now. We could work our way slowly down towards the beach and watch the sun slip away, then it would be dark enough out for us to discreetly fly to a club I knew.

Of course, I needed to check one thing first, something I really should have thought to ask before telling the cabbie to drive us here. "Do you like car-na-vul gay-mz?"

Elle gasped, and for a brief moment, I thought I'd made a horrible mistake bringing her here. "No metal!"

I stared in utter confusion for a few seconds before she winked at me and giggled. I quickly joined her, realizing the joke. "No cha-eet-ing. Pra-miss!"

It wasn't exactly hard to keep that promise either when the first game we came across was ring toss. We each ponied up a bit of cash for some rings and proceeded to win absolutely nothing as we tossed ring after ring into the sea of bottles only to come up short… or far. Or nowhere even close in my case after one of my tosses went embarrassingly far off course. That made Elle giggle though, so I suppose I did win something after all. Still, I had been eying the prizes, thinking it would be nice to win one as a gift for Elle, so as Elle tossed the last of her rings and we moved on, I resolved to try harder on the next game.

Ironically we skipped the next game—knocking over metal cans—at my insistence, so I wouldn't be tempted. We reached the three-pointer basketball game next, so we took a few minutes to finish up our snacks then paid for a pair of attempts. I'd played a few times at school and local courts, so I did manage to sink a handful of shots in the short time window, though most bounced off the backboard. I figured Elle probably wouldn't like the miniature souvenir basketball I'd won, but all thoughts about that quickly flew out the window when Elle stepped up to the three point line.

She eschewed using the regular basketballs in favor of the larger ones, which would make it harder for them to go through the hoop. I quickly realized why though. On a mixed day like today, it was difficult for her to move and react quickly, which meant she wasn't going to be able to shoot all twelve balls in the forty second window. But she sank her first shot with seemingly no effort, then her second not long after. She took shot after shot, never missing, and even though the attendant blew the whistle to stop a second after she had taken her eighth shot, the ball slipped through the net like it was water.

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"Geez, kid, pick up the pace with that shooting, and you could play professionally!" the attendant remarked with a laugh while a couple of people that had been watching clapped and cheered. "C'mon over here. You get the top prize, but I gotta take your picture and get your name. Only once a year, you hear?"

It took a few minutes for the formalities to be over and for Elle to claim her prize, an official 76ers jersey, but once we were on our way towards the beach again, I asked, "So… bahs-kit-bah-ull, huh?"

She blushed and looked down, squeezing my hand. "Afraid you thought cheat."

"No," I told her with a frown. Which wasn't entirely true—the thought had briefly crossed my mind—but I knew her well enough to know there was no way she would break her word over a glorified carnival game. I had enough tact to withhold that much, especially since it had only been a fleeting consideration. "Just suh-pryz-duh."

She tugged me towards a passing bench, and we crossed over to it and took a seat. She closed her eyes and said nothing for a couple long minutes, and figuring she was running through the exercises Dr. Drovanch had given her to center herself, I stayed silent.

When she did finally speak, she was quiet. "Lived in Baltimore. Practiced a lot. Freshman on team. Gym roof needed repair. Collapsed during game… Trapped, shouting, pain… I…"

I slipped my arm around her and pulled her into a hug. The wetness of her tears in my hair as she laid her head down on mine made me embrace her all the tighter. I knew I should say something, but words escaped me. What were you supposed to say when someone told you their trigger event? Triggering was an awful enough experience all on its own, but I already knew that on top of that she had been thrown into the asylum in Philly because her power had been deemed out of control.

In the end, I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just kept holding her as she quietly wept, frustrated with myself.

"Thank you."

The quiet words murmured into my hair startled me. "For?"

"Listening."

"Of course," I softly replied with a shrug, still disappointed in myself. I hesitated, then added, "I tha-ink you know I near-lee druh-own-duh and Roo-nuh was there."

"Yes." She shifted, pulling back slightly and looking down at me. "Don't need to say."

"I want to," I denied. And I honestly did. "Aft-err my fur-stuh day at skoo-uhl in BB. I said sum-thing dumb uh-bout E88—don't ruh-mem-ber what—and I was oh-ver-heard. Only a cuh-pull mun-thuhs into my tran-sih-shun too. Roo-nuh hun-tuhed me down, truh-app-duh me in a car truh-nk and… uh…"

I shivered, my throat seizing up for a moment. Elle shifted again, tugging me into her chest. I clutched at her, afraid to let go. "Keh-pt cuh-all-ing me… me…" I hiccuped. "I still hay-tud looking in the mirr-ohr, y'know? I was awful. So ob-vee-us. I didn't… I just…"

"No." Her grip on me tightened. "Were—are—beautiful."

I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You're swuh-eet, but I wasn't."

She gently pried me off of her and when I tried to look away, she cupped my chin, tilting my eyes up to meet hers. "The hall when met… Took breath away."

I stared, and her eyes remained frighteningly serious. "You… reel-ly?"

Her lips curled up into a soft smile, and she ran her thumb over my cheekbone. "Sucker for freckles," she said, which made me choke and cough on air for a moment, my cheeks burning hot, while Elle grinned down at me.

"O-Oh. Wow. You mean it?" At her nod, I admitted, "I, uh… Took a lot lon-gur."

"You said so," she pointed out. The mood shifted a bit, and I suspected that she, like me, was thinking about what else had happened the day I admitted I liked her.

Going down that line of thought was the absolute last thing I wanted for either of us, so my mouth switched into autopilot, and before I knew it, I blurted, "Woo-duh have been WNBA for sure. If you don't stop grow-ing tall-er, you'll be an Am-a-zon!"

She blinked, clearly caught off guard by my rough, blatant attempt to shift the topic, then she burst into giggles. "Thanks. Wanted be Mystic."

… what? "You lost me."

She quirked an eyebrow, a hint of a grin on her lips. "Washington Mystics. WNBA."

"Oh. C-Cool."

"Don't know. Right?"

"Uh. D.C. team?"

"State."

"What?! Re—" I paused then sighed when I realized her grin had grown wider. "You got me."

She laughed and rose to her feet, tugging me up with her. "Watch game when back, okay?"

"Okay." I hooked my arm through hers and rested my head against her arm. "So… a bahs-kit-bah-ull would be a good geh-ftuh…?"

----------------------------------------

The rest of the park was much the same, though we skipped the other basketball games, and Elle didn't reveal herself to be a prodigy at whack-a-mole or using water guns to propel stuffed animals along tracks. We ended up at the beach around the time I expected, and though there were a few people scattered across the beach, no one was close by, and Elle twisted some of the sand into a blanket for us to lay down on.

"Did you have a good time?" I asked as I settled down.

"Very."

I smiled. So much conveyed with so little said, I thought as I looked out over the water and carefully suppressed my anxiety as best I could while trying to focus on the burning red sun that was just beginning to slip behind the horizon.

"Feet in sand?"

I looked to Elle, who was watching me intently. "No. This… was home."

"Okay," she replied, nodding in understanding, and together we turned back towards the ocean.

Practically any other time of year, and this beach would have been teeming with people and the morass of noise that came invariably bundled with them. Now though, it was peaceful and rhythmic. The waves crashed on the beach with mostly steady frequency, their collapses punctuated only by the few gulls passing overhead. Those people still left on the beach were all quiet, seemingly on the same frequency as us as they silently enjoyed this reprieve from the busy city behind us all.

Eventually, when the sun had nearly vanished altogether into the night, Elle softly spoke up. "Should go soon."

"I had more to show you."

"Tomorrow."

I hummed and turned to her. "Melanie will no-tuss even-choo-allee."

"True," she agreed with a frown. "Group…? No, Gregor."

"Yeah…" Gregor and Newter always put on a brave face about how difficult it was for them to go about their days without the ability to take off a mask and blend in with a crowd. Even still, I could see the signs. I'd been around them both for too long to not notice. "May-bee we cou—"

Elle abruptly grabbed my arm tightly. "Need go."

"What? But—"

"Now," she urgently insisted. "Teeth."

Fuck. The zipper on my backpack all but ripped itself open as I hurried to comply despite my confusion. Coins spilled out the top and began to surround us both, and that was when I heard the sound of someone running towards us. We had been in one place for a good bit, so Elle must have heard them through her power talking about jumping us. We needed to—

"Wait! Please! You're my child!"

My head snapped towards the on-comers—two women, both with blond hair. The Butcher was here?

The sands beneath them abruptly began to swallow them up, and hastily began to coalesce some of my coins together, throwing them towards the Teeth. Melanie had warned us that one of the Butchers—the fifth or sixth, I couldn't remember right at that moment—had a teleport ability based on line of sight that didn't work over or in water. Running alone wasn't going to be enough. I would have to blind them and try to toss them out into the water before either could break free.

The younger of the pair was already breaking free from the sand, so I sent the liquid metal I had prepared shot towards them only for it to be intercepted a couple of feet away by a piece of flat, round metal that materialized in the middle of the air. I tried to incorporate it into my own, but my eyes bugged out when I couldn't affect the metal despite feeling its presence.

"Please, I just want to talk!"

Ell twisted the sand up into predators like wolves and bears and a veritable sea of traps while shouting, "Won't talk, Butcher!"

I tried to divert around to strike elsewhere, but more mid-air metal barricades took form, perfectly blocking any attempt I made. What was this? Unless there was a new Butcher, he shouldn't have a power like this.

"I am with the Teeth, but I am not the Butcher!"

That brought both Elle and I up short, and her beasts, which had just about been ready to pounce, stalled. "Wha—"

A sound like nails on a chalkboard tore through the air, and my hands shot to my ears in a vain attempt to block it out. I had unconsciously pinched my eyes closed at the awful, grating noise, and when I managed to pry them open, I immediately wished I hadn't. A long, growing gash of light had begun to tear apart the sky over Brooklyn, and after a few seconds' more growth, a gigantic sword that looked larger than any skyscraper I'd ever seen fell from it and slammed into the ground, the tremendous eye inlaid in its handle swiveling all around.

An Endbringer had arrived.