I CLOSED my eyes and braced myself, trying to will the beam away. It was involuntary. I didn’t have time to get out of the way, I was going too fast, and I didn’t want to see it coming.

When I opened my eyes, J4 was no longer standing up holding a laser gun. I fell to the ground with a thud, my aerial wind dispersing behind me. The gun lay broken on the ground and Quentin was holding J4 above his head, while Kurt was pressing his hands against the bluing temples of Phoebeter. A moment later the two men deflected the assault and were on the offensive. Quentin and Kurt clutched their heads and fell to their knees in pain. Phoebeter and J4 stood over them, concentrating their energy.

With their focus on the two boys, the world reappeared from the hellscape that Phoebeter had constructed. The police cruisers and SchWat wagons were all still there. The police were statues. J4 must have hypnotized them somehow. I noticed, gleefully, that Butters and the Spectors were just an illusion. Wherever he was, he was safe.

I continued to lie on the ground, feigning unconsciousness, but quickly scanned the ground for some kind of weapon that I could use. In the distance I could see two police guns near two hypnotized officers. I focused all my energy on that small point behind them and the guns blew forward, nailing J4 and Phoebeter in the head. They hit with an almost inaudible boink, and the two of them fell over.

Kurt and Quentin got up, shook their heads, and picked up the guns. They pointed them at their unconscious adversaries and I shouted “No. Fight fair.”

They turned to me. Quentin looked almost hurt by my protestation. “Why?” he said. “They tried to kill you. They tried to kill us.”

“Alice was right. We’re better than that. They’re no longer a threat,” I said. “And there’s no honor in stabbing someone in the back.”

“They will be,” said Kurt, pointing to the gun at Phoebetor’s head. “Besides. We saved you, we have the right.”

Quentin raised his free arm, placed it on Kurt’s gun, and pressed it down to the ground. Kurt didn’t protest, though he looked visibly disappointed.

“She saved us, too,” Quentin said. “Only fair.”

“Fine,” Kurt muttered. He spit on the gun and tossed it against a police cruiser. It shattered into a million frozen pieces. As they scattered across the pavement, the officers started to come out of their fug.

“Maybe it’s time we get going anyway,” I said.

We flew back to the building and found Johnny, Alice, Marcus, Hamilton, and Tape Deck all waiting outside.

“Nice moves,” Alice said.

“Thanks. I got a few more if you’re interested in getting out of this place.” Things felt like they were getting nearly normal with my favorite friend.

We watched as the police came to life. They clutched their heads and looked around in disbelief. It would only be seconds before they noticed the two unconscious government officials—the ones they were ostensibly supposed to protect—and the seven of us smiling and alive. I summoned an enormous cloud, as large as I could muster out of all the lingering anger and rage, and launched a torrent of baseball-sized hail on the barricade. Someone got hit in the face and it gave them a bloody nose. Seeing this, the rest of the cops took cover in their cars from the hail. I made it so there was a small patch of sunlight around the most important people in my life and the two borderline terrifying wounded animals that we had taken in. As angry as I was with Sam and everything that he stood for, I still respected what he had taught me.

We piled in the back of Johnny’s car and took off.