Victor pushed away from the table as it caught fire. He saw Inez doing the same, pulling Petra back with her.

Catherine stepped onto the table, stalking towards Emmy. She was going to kill her. The look in her eyes was clear.

Shawn was trying to get the door open, but for some reason couldn’t move the handle. Emmy, backing against the wall, looked terrified. Inez crouched down, pulling a chair in front of her and Petra for protection.

Victor knew he had to stop Catherine. He lifted into the air, backed up to the wall, then pushed off it with as much force as he could manage. He caught her arm, yanking her around just before she stepped off the table. Catherine, rather than be knocked off-balance, spun gracefully around. She grabbed his wrist, the heat radiating from her hand enough to burn the skin off his bones. It was hot enough to cook his blood.

Victor had never felt pain so intense. He screamed, dropping onto the flaming table as his hand died. Catherine turned back around, leaving him in agony.

He closed his eyes, all senses fading as he clutched his arm. People yelled, they moved, the temperature of the room went up. Victor couldn’t focus on any of that. Every heartbeat sent a searing pain down his arm as his fingers went numb.

Finally Inez’s scream broke through his fog. Victor opened his eyes to find her pinned to the wall by Rhea. The woman pulled her arm back, about to deliver a skull-breaking punch. Inez winced, unable to do anything else.

Victor shot over, grabbing Rhea’s elbow. His right arm hung uselessly at his side. Honestly she could have easily broken out of his grip, but the sudden force on her elbow surprised her enough to make her pause. It gave Victor enough time to… To realize he didn’t have a plan.

Thankfully Inez had a plan. She pulled an arm free and blasted Rhea in the face with light. She closed and opened her fingers, sending out a disorienting strobe effect. Rhea backed away, swatting blindly at Inez’s hand. Victor shot up to the ceiling and spun around, kicking Rhea in the back of the head. He thought he heard the steel tip of his boot crack when it hit the solid stone that was her skin. For a second he worried his kick did nothing to her. Finally, slowly, the woman collapsed.

Inez checked for a pulse as Victor lowered himself to the floor. She nodded, apparently finding one, and looked at Victor.

“Is-”

Across the room, a blast of heat set the air on fire. The table, still burning, snapped as it was pushed aside. Smoke and ash billowed up as it collapsed. Shawn, the target of the blast, was thrown backwards. He hit the wall next to Inez hard enough to crack concrete.

With fire taking up all the oxygen, it was getting hard to breathe.

Shawn pushed himself to his knees, looking Victor in the eye. He nodded.

Victor took a step back, aware of what Shawn wanted him to do. He couldn’t. He wasn’t a killer. It shouldn’t be his job.

An aborted scream came from Emmy. Victor looked over just in time to see her drop to the ground, very dead. Catherine gave her charred corpse one last kick before turning to smile at Inez.

Nope. Whatever she planned, Victor couldn’t allow it. He smiled apologetically at Shawn, reaching for him.

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

Inez stretched, wandering to her closet. She got dressed, wondering if she should ask Nick for cornflakes for breakfast.

After a moment of reflection, Inez decided that if she wanted actual cornflakes, and not flakes of corn, or corn bricks, or tofu flakes, or some other thing that was almost but absolutely not cornflakes, she’d have to go to the store and buy them herself. And keep them in her room, so he didn’t use them to make Lord knows what.

She was startled out of her train of thought by the sound of something hitting the wall. Inez finished pulling on her shirt and ran out, looking around. Something hit a wall again; this time it shattered. The sound came from Shawn’s room.

Inez knocked loudly on his door. “You ok?”

Shawn ripped his door open. “Peachy!” he snapped, and slammed it again.

That… wasn’t good. She knocked on his door again. Victor came out of his room and joined her, still half asleep.

Shawn opened the door again. “Apologies,” he said, much calmer. “I am frustrated.” He pushed past them, heading for the stairs.

Inez glanced at Victor, who shrugged. He took her hand, and they followed Shawn downstairs. Shawn poured himself a coffee, muttering. Inez and Victor took their seats as Nick backed out of the kitchen.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Breakfast is served,” he announced, sliding plates to them.

Inez looked at the toast and… the stuff on top of the toast. It was brown, smooth, and suspiciously red. Honestly, it looked like some kind of bloody meat pâté. If it was, she was going to become vegetarian then and there.

“Wh-”

“Strawberry and peanut butter noodles,” Shawn interrupted, taking his seat. He looked at Victor. “Don’t eat it.”

Victor blinked, then realization dawned. He stared at his breakfast, clearly wondering if it would kill him.

“What’s wrong with it?” Nick asked, acting offended.

Inez took a bite. It tasted fine. The temperature difference between the toast and noodles was odd, but it wasn’t lethal.

“Am I allergic to strawberries?” Victor asked.

“You have a cavity,” Shawn said. “It’s sensitive to cold.”

“Oh.”

Emmy appeared, collapsing into her chair. She gave breakfast the same suspicious look Inez had given it.

“It’s strawberry,” Shawn told her. “Yes, we have blackberry, but this is the last time anything strawberry will ever be allowed on this table. Just eat it.”

Emmy stared at him. “Uh… Ok?”

Shawn took a deep breath, pushing his plate away. “Team Copper wants us dead for failing to rescue Pax,” he announced. “That and for starting the ‘Coper’ trend, and for taking all their sponsors. They’ve put an incendiary bomb in our basement. When we leave to deal with a wereshark this afternoon Catherine is going to somehow rig the entire building to explode. Talking with them is a bad idea. We have to stop them. Somehow.”

They stared at him.

Emmy sat back. “But-”

Inez kicked her under the table.

“Yeah, that made it worse,” Shawn told her.

“What made it worse?” Nick asked.

Shawn didn’t answer, glancing at Inez.

Inez thought it over. She decided at this point it didn’t matter. “Pax didn’t want to be rescued. We tried.”

Emmy glared at her toast. “He told me ‘If fate decrees I die today, then today I shall die’, and walked straight into the explosion. Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Seriously?” Nick asked, jaw slack.

“Yes,” Shawn said. “We didn’t tell anyone, including you, because forcing the issue would have only caused more pain. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is Copper wants revenge, and I don’t know how to stop them.”

The team as a whole thought it over. The problem was, whatever they suggested had probably already been discussed and tried. And failed.

“What does their new member do?” Nick asked.

Inez looked at him. “They have a new member?”

Victor nodded. “A girl named Petra. I wasn’t told what she does.”

“I suspect she’s a technopath,” Shawn said. “The bombs indicate that. And the fact that Catherine has a laser gun now. But more importantly, she’s Pax’s sister.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” Inez said, staring.

Nick held up a hand. “Wait. Some psychopath gave Catherine, the insane pyromancer, a laser gun? Was she not destructive enough already?”

“I doubt Rhea would complain,” Victor pointed out.

“Not some psychopath,” Inez said slowly. “Catherine’s kid sister-in-law.”

Nick’s hand went down. “Fair. Poor kid.”

“So what are we going to do?” Emmy asked impatiently. “How will we kill them?”

Victor looked at her, surprised. “Kill?”

“Well, yeah. If we can’t talk to them, and they keep killing us, we have to kill them,” Emmy said.

“We can’t have them arrested for a crime they haven’t committed yet,” Shawn added. “Legally, we have to die before we can do anything.”

“I’d rather not die,” Nick said.

“Talking didn’t work?” Inez asked.

Shawn smiled bitterly. “Most decidedly not.”

“Have we tried not coming home?” Nick asked.

“Yep.”

“Have we tried leaving someone here?” Victor asked.

“Yep.”

“What about leaving someone outside the building?” Inez asked.

“Yep.”

“Have we tried leaving then coming back without finishing the fight?” Emmy tried.

“Yep.”

Inez put her hand over Shawn’s, worried. “How many times have you gone through this day?”

Shawn sighed, staring at his coffee. “Eight,” he muttered.

Once again, the table went silent. Inez tried to speak, but everything that came to mind sounded lame at best and hypocritical at worst. She moved away from Shawn, reaching for Victor’s hand.

His strong fingers closed around hers. “We have to kill them,” he decided.

Nick held up a hand again. “Have we tried individually kidnapping and interrogating them?”

Shawn finally looked up. “No. What are you thinking?”

The hand went down. “Well… You say ‘Team Copper’ keeps killing us, but is it really all of them? I mean, Catherine is straight-up insane and Rhea is a b- a strong willed and imposing woman. I can see them murdering us for fun and/or revenge. But Petra might just be under Catherine’s control. Oscar is a good natured idiot who will agree to anything they say. Paul is low-key terrified of the ladies, and Ethan has had as many original thoughts as the average brick. There’s a reason Rhea and Catherine are in charge of that group. The guys might not even know of the whole ‘murder Vines’ plot, and if they do know they wouldn’t dare object. They might help us, if we ask convincingly enough.”

Inez thought his descriptions of Copper’s members a bit harsh, but she couldn’t deny there was truth in there.

Shawn tapped his coffee cup with a fingernail, thinking it over. Finally he smiled. “Ok. Let’s get to kidnapping.”