She hummed her lips curled in consideration. Attracting attention wasn’t particularly hard her glow ensured that. Yet specificity was the problem here. How could she be obvious without putting them or the unseen survivors at undue risk? She couldn’t rely on luck and quick thinking for this.

“Any thoughts on the, how.” She sighed and broke the chain of thought.

He drummed his finger along his cheek, “A few though none particularly good.” He muttered.

“Well,”

“We could try distributing notes,” he dryly began.

“But time and effort is prohibitive”, She closed her and rubbed her brow. Danger and effort were expected when she started this. However banging her head against a wall for good ideas, was beyond her consideration.

He nodded, “Indeed, it would be much simpler if we could remove their hunter but,” he didn’t need to finish.

Was all this scheming even worth it, they could control where the people went. When the monster decided to surprise them and to top it all time spent planning. Was time were their sheets degraded and they traded one big risk for incremental danger that would wear them down.

“Ah,! We should just shout at them,” she rocked to her feet and spun around. He raised an incredulous brow, though on him it looked more like mild perplexity. “We’re overthinking this, we need them to come to us, everything else is secondary. We can run if we’re overwhelmed, hide, all we need to do is minimize the risk” She said and brought her hands to a victorious clap before freezing. She glanced at the covered windows and completed a more modest punctuation. She ignored his twinkling eyes.

He idly tapped his cheek as his eyes lost focus, “We should stash our stuff in case we need to bolt,”

“Okay, good Anything else you could think of,” she said her mind already turned to other solutions, “It’ll make you easier to carry,” she muttered and blinked as she realized what she said.

Her gaze crawled to Mensha’s impassive stare, and she shone much higher. A gin brightened his face and she shone with a different light. “Why were you so worried,” he chuckled and the sound brought no distaste.

“I wasn’t,” she answered calmly and dared his gaze.

It remained light. “You glow,” Her facade broke and she sighed. He continued” Can you jump the rooftops?”

Her thoughts brightened with visions of skipping across buildings before reality pulled her down. “Jump yes, move with any degree of speed or certainty no.” She doubted her light’s range was enough to illuminate a route through the mixed development they found themselves in. “The centipede’s also faster than me.” She sighed and searched her thoughts for opportunities.

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Defeated yet determined she stood and covered “Let’s go,”

“Okay, with any luck you’ll get to wrap your big strong arms around me,” he drawled, She hurried out the door with a flush light. Mensha’s silent presence followed her into the dark.

Between the tense excitement of inevitable danger and probable violence Summer relaxed. Implacably Mensha led them to danger and she wondered what gave him the courage.

He wasn’t resilient like her and in all likelihood, she could break his hand with an overexcited squeeze. Yet here he was with a power that couldn't save him from a cracked skull, facing a monster faster and stronger than him. Truly he never ceased to amaze and baffle.

She could feel his measured steps in the periodic tug. Yet she doubted confidence filled them, nor was he buoyed by the sense of duty that trailed hers. Simply the stubbornness to see this through and enough tenuous hope to keep him going.

The reminder brought hollow eyes to mind and chilled her idled musing. Mensha stopped as did her swirling thoughts.

His unseen form pressed against her dark confines, “There near, in one of the buildings and we’re surrounded.” His whisper flattened by silent cloth, rang loudly in her ears.

Muscles relaxed and tensed in the same instance, her fingers caressed the bat in her hand and rolled her bag free shoulder. Mensha’s had found hers through the garments separating them. She breathed deep, then threw her hood back and head up.

“If you’re out there were looking for other survivors!” for a few breaths the world was as silent as the sades that filled it. Her gaze swept the three-way intersection they stood at the back of and the two storied buildings that surrounded them. It bustled skittering along its streets warmongering the road. She couldn’t fathom how Mensha got them here, let alone got their backs pressed to the wall and every single one stared back. Posturing filled the dark rainbow from frightened to hateful and a few she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t the apathetic press but nonetheless thick with darkness.

She flared and light-pressed the shades back. “If you’re there find us!” she intoned and the world listened, it felt right after so long bundled and hidden, cathartic. She relaxed and braced for violence as the first tentative shades approached. “We won’t make it hard.”

She shone and shadows charged, she swung and lightless bodies ruptured, in dark bursts that tried to smother her. Yet black blood burnt under the heat billowing from her dark bronze skin.

A jagged blade lunged for her chest to be caught by her partner. A shade punched ineffectually at her left her left as Mensha struggled to hold her right. She grabbed the offending limb and her stare pieced into their faceless visage. Then she heaved and swung. “Duck!” he might as well have been swept off his feet for his compliance haste. She threw her unwilling projectile into the harrying crowd.

Her attention returned to the daunted wave, as Mensha flowed back to his feet. His posture was calm, almost bored yet strung with lethal tension, undiminished by the injured arms she glimpsed through his open cloak.

She couldn’t do that, the courage that filled her swings came not from carefully controlled responses, and god knew she couldn’t act for anyone’s life. No, emotion burned in her glare at the surrounding shades as the last dark drops burnt from her skin and sizzled from her bat. Anger at them, at the world that pushed and sadness.

She willed the shades to flee the wave to break like the skittering shades scattering behind them and free her the need for violence, but she saw the truth, in fingers fidgeting along weapons and hefted rocks. Maybe those few unique amongst them could choose. Be pulled by more than insipid violence and cowardly self-preservation.

They couldn’t though not any more than she could stop hoping. Perhaps if she were brighter, or her violence more absolute, it be would different.

Yet with ballooning light and quiet resignation, she realized that would not be today. The tide surged and her weathered bat rose to meet them.