The rooftop of Avant Garden was rather peaceful te at night even as a gentle snow fell. It was early in the year for it, but that was how Minnesota tended to work. Even with the whole globe turning into an oven as countries threw caution to the wind in the face of annihition, Minnesota still saw frequent snow.

  “Beautiful, as always,” Maraline said, her hand held out to capture some of the falling fkes. “That girl, I feel there is a story.”

  Nicole sighed, turning to sit on the parapet. “Yeah, there is. It’s a long one though.”

  “You saved her,” Maraline said with a smile. “She figured out who you were and wished to thank you.”

  Swallowing heavily, Nicole turned her attention back to the sky. “Yeah. It hit home when she told me how close things were to going badly. That I helped someone else avoid something I’ve struggled with?”

  “You felt closer to her for it,” Maraline supplied.

  “Exactly,” Nicole said, sweeping her arm out a bit. “It’s great to meet the people and hear how I helped them, but something like that just feels personal. Sure, the fancy suit helped, but it didn’t define what I did.”

  That was the core of it, and she really hadn’t had time to process the whole thing. Given Kay’s van was pulling up, something told Nicole that she wouldn’t be able to sort out her emotions for some time.

  “Well, looks like our ride is here,” Nicole said. “Can you give me a minute with her first?”

  “Of course,” Maraline said with a smile. “I do not wish to frighten your friends.”

  Well, that was all but a given at this point, but she could still avoid the worst of it.

  Nicole stepped over the side of the building and dropped, twisting just enough in the air to nd on her feet with only a slight flexing of her knees to bleed off the worst of the impact. She had barely started to stand when a dark-haired missile impacted her, gripping tight.

  “Thank fuck you’re okay!” Kay excimed.

  The hug was returned with much of the same enthusiasm, after a week sequestered away in some hole in the ground that happened to be filled with jungle and spaceship, being back among friends was more than welcome.

  “I’m just gd to be back,” Nicole said, stepping back. “I wouldn’t recommend it as a vacation spot.”

  Kay blinked. “Right, and where the hell was that? And where the hell did you find those clothes? They’re about a thousand years out of date.”

  Nicole ughed. “Try ten-thousand. Their selection was rather archaic.”

  “Now I really want to hear the story,” Kay said. “Well, hop in, we’ll get you to Grace, the rest of the team are already on their way out there.” She hesitated just long enough that Kay caught it, her eyes narrowing almost immediately. “Okay, what gives?”

  “I’m not alone,” Nicole said, looking back up at the roof.

  It was unfortunate that Maraline couldn’t just step off like she had, not with all her enhancements being down. Nicole took a deep breath and power surged with it. Darkness swelled around her as she jumped, her suit firmly back in pce. Maraline took a step back as she nded, and Nicole hated that she had fallen into a loose combat stance from the sudden appearance of a Ranger.

  “Sorry,” Nicole said, rubbing the back of her helmet, or tried to as the hood got in the way. “Kay’s down there waiting.”

  Maraline rexed, though most of the tension remained. “I did notice that you didn’t expin anything to her.”

  Looking back over the edge, Nicole winced at Kay’s returned gre. “You could have LED with getting your morpher working!”

  “It isn’t,” Nicole said, then turned back to face her friend. “Come on, let’s rip this bandage off and get the yelling over with.”

  “Let it be known that I do not approve of this ploy,” Maraline said, begrudgingly allowing Nicole to pick her up in a princess carry.

  “Duly noted,” Nicole said, then hopped over the edge of the rooftop. Her feet hit the ground with greater impact than before, yet she didn’t even feel it. The power that came from being a Ranger was almost intoxicating at times, yet she couldn’t let it go to her head, not when she had to keep that power consciously in check or risk death.

  Setting Maraline back on her feet, Nicole dismissed her morph just as easily as breathing out. It got progressively more difficult to do so as she channeled ever increasing amounts of power, but she’d barely drawn enough to shift into her Ranger form to ensure a smoother trip for her friend.

  “Um, Nicole?” Kay said, her voice carefully controlled as she eyed the Syn General. “A word in private before I let this stranger into my car?”

  A rather undignified snort was Nicole’s answer to that as she just shook her head. “She’s exactly who you think she is. Let’s just say that Maraline and I went through some shit these st few days and there’s a lot to talk about.”

  “Riiight,” Kay said, still skeptical as hell. “So, somehow on your little vacation you made nice with the bitch that spped all of us around like we were nothing?”

  “If it helps, I am currently incapable of repeating the feat,” Maraline offered with a short bow. “I am rather literally at your mercy.”

  “Sorry if I don’t buy that,” Kay said with a huff. “Fine, whatever. You knew enough to get the info from Lisa, which means that you aren’t a fake. Get in, we’ll meet up with the others and you can tell whatever crazy tale resulted in all this.”

  “Your faith is admirable,” Maraline said, her voice regal.

  Kay narrowed her eyes as Nicole struggled to hold back her ughter. Maraline wasn’t much of a comedian, but she had come to appreciate the dry wit that the woman could pull out at the most unexpected moments. Nicole took the middle row of the van along with Maraline, though she made sure that Maraline was behind the empty passenger seat. That would hopefully ease some of Kay’s worries, though she knew it wouldn’t be enough for all of them.

  Then the car started and an ever familiar pony song came on.

  “Oh, I adore this show!” Maraline said, then she began to hum along with it as her head gently swayed with the beat.

  “One of us then,” Nicole said with a chuckle and began doing the same.

  Kay stared up at the mirror with a sck jaw as she struggled to find the words to describe what she was seeing and hearing. Thankfully she shook it off and focused back on the road and began the long drive out to the forge where Grace was supposedly hunkering down. Well, where the entire team seemed to be congregating.

  Nicole bit her lip as she wondered if Becca and Colin were holding up okay given all the attention their little stunt had no doubt brought down on them. If Grace was wanted as a person of interest and Nicole was missing, it didn’t take much for someone to figure out that Becca might know more.

  Then again, Sincir was supposedly helping keep all that under wraps, which would only go so far. Well, Nicole often imagined she might end up on the wrong side of the w in the early days of being friends with Becca, though this certainly wasn’t how she imagined it. Well, the happy songs while they drove were often part of it, so close enough?

  At least Maraline seemed to be enjoying the music and it was serving to distract each of them from the elephant in the car.

  The minutes passed slowly, and the songs kept coming. That was when they caught sight of fshing lights in the distance, the distinct red and blue of emergency vehicles. Nicole’s whole body began to coil in anticipation of a coming fight, but Kay just sighed.

  “They’ve been checking every car entering and leaving the city for the past few days,” she said. “I’ve been stopped twice so far, it’s a rather painless process.”

  “Unless one is searching for you,” Maraline said. “I have no identification, and Nicole is wanted for questioning is she not?”

  “She is,” Kay said carefully. “They also haven’t openly shared her face on the news, so we can only hope that the officers don’t know who we are.”

  Well, if there was ever an indication of an upcoming fight, that would certainly be it. Nicole fell back on the breathing exercises that she had practiced in the days spent under The Progenitor, drawing up the ever growing spring of power within her being. If it turned into a fight, she would be ready for it.

  The cars came into view, a pair of police cruisers parked on the road with only a single space between them for a vehicle to pass, and it was blocked by a spike strip. Kay pulled up, leaving enough room so she could easily pull across the space the moment she was cleared to proceed. Two officers were quick to approach, one went to the driver’s window while the other stood back, his hand resting gently beside his pistol in what was hardly a non-threatening gesture.

  “Evening officer,” Kay said cheerfully. “Just on our way to see a friend out in Oak Grove.”

  The officer’s expression remained stoic, he wore sungsses despite it being night and had a mustache taken straight out of every cop drama of the past twenty years, even if it elicited more thoughts of jokes about mustache rides and liters of co than anything else. He had a fshlight on Kay, who was doing an admirable job of concealing her displeasure at the bright light nearly blinding her.

  He then shifted it back, illuminating the Syn in the back seat. Her eyes narrowed to squints as she recoiled, a hand coming up to block the blinding beam. Then it was on Nicole who made it a point to already have a hand up and shift it away after a moment.

  “We got another ginger,” the officer said. “Alright, you in the back, get out. We need to see your id.”

  Nicole swallowed as she looked away. “I don’t have it on me.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Kay snapped. “Seriously, st time I let you go to a party in the city if that’s how you’re going to act.”

  Nicole rolled her eyes even as she squashed the internal panic. Seriously, she was only nineteen, which was far too young to drink at a college party. Sure, everyone knew that anyone that attended would be drinking, it didn’t change that she was saying this to the fucking police!

  “Alright, no id, we’ll still need to check you over,” the officer said, gesturing to the second man who was already stepping over.

  With no small amount of hesitation, Nicole undid her seatbelt and stepped out of the car on unsteady legs. It was all for show, and Nicole was rgely drawing on the one and only time she had gotten drunk. She knew that faking it would only make her stand out, so instead she pyed it off as being only slightly out of it.

  The two officers looked her over, compared her to some picture on their phone, then scowled. “I mean, it could be her.”

  “We’ve seen a dozen gingers today and you’ve said that about half of them,” the second officer said. “Her hair’s too short anyway.”

  “A haircut,” they argued. “A rather hasty one at that.”

  Nicole was still pissed about her hair being torn apart like that and would need to clean it up sooner than ter. At least it pyed into the whole story that she was fucked up after a party that got out of hand, even if it didn’t expin why they were leaving the city.

  “Fucker was pying with a vacuum, caught my hair in it,” Nicole muttered.

  A lie, but still based on something she had seen happen before in a video. A passed out drunk girl ended up with only a quarter of her hair after some dumbass thought it would be funny to see what happened. Well, Nicole’s own results weren’t far off from that viral video in appearance.

  The cop snorted, but continued to look her over, then paused. “Usually we’d have a female officer pat search, but we’re stretched thin tonight. I’ll try not to be invasive.”

  “It’s fine,” Nicole said, even if it really wasn’t.

  The officer nodded, then began to check her over. Sure, they used the back of their hands for anything sensitive, and didn’t cup anything they shouldn’t, but it still made her shiver as someone touched her that wasn’t her girlfriend. The officer finished up, fshed her an apologetic smile, then turned back to talk with the second officer.

  “Are we good?” Nicole asked.

  The officers looked back while the observer was the one to speak. “Stand by, we just need to clear something.”

  Nicole tried to not let her anxiety show. It was obvious that she was who they were looking for, not that it helped her nerves in the slightest. The st thing she needed was to get into a proper altercation with the police and draw more attention to themselves.

  Forcing herself to throw up would be foolish, and would potentially expose that she wasn’t actually drunk. Sure, her appearance was on point, but smell was certainly a factor. No, all she could do was stand and wait for whatever information they were waiting on.

  If nothing else, she could fight her way out and hope they got to Grace’s before anyone else showed up. Kay was tapping her hand on the steering wheel as they waited, and Maraline had shrunk down in her seat to make her presence less obvious.

  Light shone from down the road, Nicole squinted against the blinding LED headlights that really should be illegal. The bck car’s windows were tinted to the point that nothing within was visible, even to her enhanced perception. Dread began to coil within Nicole’s stomach as the vehicle parked and the officers seemed to rex slightly.

  The door opened, and Nicole wasn’t sure if they were about to be saved, or damned.

  Anita stood, sungsses covering her eyes as she surveyed the scene. She was dressed in a form fitting suit and tie that were so professional on the woman that it was completely out of pce. Her gaze locked on Nicole, yet her expression didn’t once falter.

  “This her?” Anita asked the officers.

  The pair gnced at one another. “She’s the best hit we’ve had all week, right age and hair color, and her build is a match as well. Add in that she doesn’t have ID and—”

  “It’s not her,” Anita snapped, eyes drifting to the van where they lingered. “You’re wasting my time once again.”

  “How are you certain?”

  Anita once again looked Nicole dead in the eyes, and this time she smirked. “Because I know our wayward girl, and this little one is coming up rather short.”

  “Fuck you too,” Nicole snapped, gring at the obnoxious woman. “Can we go now?”

  Anita waved her off. “Yeah, get lost. We’ve got a kidnapper to track down and all that.”

  Nicole took a step, but didn’t miss how Anita was watching the van rather than her, or more specifically, the back seat. Making a point of it, Nicole got in the passenger seat instead and smmed the door behind her.

  “I think Anita knows Maraline is with us,” Nicole whispered. “We’re not out of the woods, she’s just giving us more rope here.”

  “Fuck,” Kay said, putting the van back in gear. “This day is just getting better by the fucking minute, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll feel a lot better with the team back together,” Nicole said, watching the fshing lights as they passed and faded into the distance.

  Nicole tried to watch for a fsh of yellow, or for someone stalking them through the woods, but she saw nothing. She wasn’t the only one watching the trees, Maraline kept her attentive gaze locked outward, but Nicole could only worry about how her team might react when they saw who Nicole had returned with.

  Would it end in a brawl? Nicole certainly hoped not, but she couldn’t help but fear that it was an inevitability.

  Pendragoon