“You can’t see them right now.”

I responded reflexively to the man’s demand, then immediately backpedaled at the furious look on his face.

“Uh, wait! I don’t mean it like that! We’re not trying to keep them away from you. They’re just not here yet!

My expanded explanation only did the tiniest bit to soften his fury.

“Where are they, then?”

“Somewhere in Cotton Acres, with the rescue group. I think.” I tried to sound confident, but honesty compelled me to add a qualifier. Well, honesty and pragmatism; he didn’t seem like he was about to let the matter go, and I’d rather deal with a little extra nervousness on his part than have him start doubting everything I said.

“What do you mean you think?” It wasn’t the man who spoke this time, but a woman with him. Her voice was tense, almost shrill.

Tamara answered. “My husband was running surveillance and communications from a different location. He’d been working for hours and tried to make an Announcement to y’all before. He let us know the one he made just now, that let y’all know we’d pulled off the rescue successfully, would probably be the last thing he could do. I’m guessing he’s asleep now somewhere, and that leaves us blind while we wait for the rescue group to return.”

That clearly wasn’t welcome news.

“We just turned on the people who said they’d kill our kids and parents and spouses for turning on them, and now you’re telling me you can’t tell me where those people are right now? Some of us just died.” This was the first man again, speaking in what was practically a snarl.

“Yeah, well, you attacked us! Some of our people died too!”

I winced internally even as I snapped back at him.

Were my words true? Yes.

Were they helpful? No.

Exhaustion and stress had made me not consider my words.

Tamara put a hand on my shoulder, stepping slightly in front of me. “We’re as sure as we can be without other communication specialists. We had a walkie-talkie network set up before, but we haven’t used it in about six days and in all the rush and surprise we didn’t think to tell people to have them ready. We want more information as badly as you do. A lot of us have loved ones with the rescue group.”

Tamara’s mention of the rescue group sparked a connection in my mind. “We do have one of the Dragons’ hostages in our neighborhood for sure! A young girl. Name of Ava?”

A short, fit man pushed through the crowd. “Ava’s here? She’s safe?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing you’re her father? She’ll be so relieved. She gave us the information that led us to making the rescue attempt, but we were all worried her escape would be noticed before we acted. I think…” I stretched my brain. “I think she’s probably with the kids from Combat Group B? They were taken to the eastern half of the neighborhood, away from the fighting. If you can all wait a little bit, I’m sure we can track down where she is exactly. The rescue group should return here, too.” I gave the former soldiers a hopeful smile, which wasn’t returned.

“I’m not waiting,” the first man growled. “If they’re on their way back, I’ll go to meet them. If it turns out you lied, though…”

He paused a moment, then hefted his baseball bat over his shoulder and turned, leaving the threat unspoken.

His reaction saddened me, but I understood. They must feel terrified right now. They'd been following the Dragons' insane commands in the first place because they were worried their loved ones would be slain otherwise. Now, they'd rebelled. If the hostages weren't out of the Dragons' reach, there was a good chance they'd been slain.

This whole horrible night had kicked off because we'd thought we could save their loved ones. According to the colonel, we'd done just that, but there'd been much more of a cost than we'd hoped or expected, and until everyone was reunited, we had no way of proving to these people we hadn’t just made everything worse.

It wasn’t as though our motives had been purely altruistic, either: we’d wanted to remove the Dragons’ hold over their growing force of soldiers. It still seemed unfair. We’d been doing something good! Rescuing people! Could our attempt to help really have ended up in the deaths of the hostages? If we ended up fighting their families even after we'd removed the Dragons from the picture... it all seemed horribly unfair.

I desperately wanted to avoid that, but good intentions weren’t the same as good outcomes.

My worry wasn't for our own safety, or the safety of the Shop. The Dragons’ former soldiers weren’t really any stronger than one of our Combat Groups, so I wasn’t too worried that they could overpower us without the Dragons themselves backing us up.

No. If they attacked, they wouldn’t have a chance.

I thought I could make my peace with what had taken place tonight, but if we ended up slaughtering a group of people who’d already suffered so much… If they attacked, we'd do it. We wouldn't have a choice.

But I was sure it would haunt me.

Part of my brain fired up, “helpfully” suggesting ways I could have acted differently and handled this better. I shut it down forcefully.

Maybe we’d messed up, maybe not. Either way, it was done. I couldn’t undo the past, and there wasn’t much I could do about the situation in the present.

Most of the group had turned to follow the man with the baseball bat back to Cotton Acres. I called after them. “Be careful! We think four or five of the Dragons are still out there, although we don’t know if they’re together. If you can wait, we’ll-”

“We’re not waiting!” It was a different person who interrupted me, a slightly frantic-sounding woman.

I held up my hands. “Alright! Fine! Just… be careful. If those Dragons head back to your area, it’s likely they’ll try to take over the Points Siphon again.”

“And you want us to stop them for you?”

My well of patience wasn’t deep tonight. It ran dry at the bitter tone in the woman’s voice, and I snapped back at her. “Give me a break! If I told you we were going to deal with them, you’d probably accuse me of stealing your Siphon. I don’t have a plan yet. I don’t know what you should do. I just would prefer you don’t walk in blind and get murdered, is that okay with you?”

The anger in my voice made her flinch, and she looked away. Another man stepped forward. “Thanks for the warning. And for… not holding our actions against us. We wouldn’t have chosen to attack you. If my kids are okay, I’ll owe you more than I can say. I’ll find some way to repay it, I promise. But we need to get going now.”

I nodded, a little embarrassed at my own outburst, but not wanting to apologize. “Good luck. Stay safe.”

The group moved out, most of it. Ava’s father had stayed behind. In addition, several people sheltering among our injured had sheepishly identified themselves as part of the Dragons’ former army; our side had been frighteningly unable to determine friend from foe after they fell. In this one case, that had worked out, with our enemies becoming at least potential allies, but we couldn’t count on such luck in the future. The “enemies” we’d rescued were still suffering from debilitating (if no longer life-threatening) injuries, but it was easy to envision healing someone who stood up from a sickbed and started murdering our healers.

At any rate, we now had seven Cotton Acres residents who couldn’t return with their group. Four were still too injured, and three, all healers, were too exhausted from ability overuse.

“We need uniforms, if we can.” I said. “If not, lists of names. Maybe passwords? We didn’t even know we were rescuing attackers.”

Tamara pushed me gently. “Worry about that tomorrow. We have enough problems tonight.”

I followed her eyes. Thirteen bodies had been laid out in the neighboring yard: six Dragons, three defenders from our neighborhood, two who’d been with the Dragons’ group, and two more whose identities were unknown.

Thirteen dead bodies, to be clear.

Gruesomely so, in most cases. The types of injuries it took to kill someone when miraculous healing was available were ugly, and unlike monsters, the corpses of humans didn’t disappear. I’d helped carry one of the bodies over, and the scent of blood and effluvia up close had been nauseating. I had to look away to keep from gagging at the memory.

Forcefully, I refocused myself on the work ahead of us. We had to figure out what to do with all the corpses. We had to try to get news out to everyone in the neighborhood. We needed to organize enough people to guard the Shop through the night. We needed to be sure that the Dragons who’d escaped had fled the neighborhood. I wanted to know what had become of the Dragon we’d temporarily captured.

I ached to get back to my kids. They must be so worried about me. I was worried about them, and I didn’t even have a good reason to be. Priya had gotten them out of the area well before the Dragons arrived.

I shook my head; this was no time to make emotional decisions. I could delegate.

It wasn’t hard to find people who wanted to go check on their children, so I gathered a few of them together and coaxed them into trying to alert all the groups with children, or at least all that they could find quickly.

“And make sure that they stay off the roads tonight! We’re not sure where the Dragons fled to, and I don’t want to give them easy targets.”

They agreed and I did my best to put the matter from my mind. How could I make sure that the neighborhood was safe again? Or, at least, only dangerous because of alien monsters instead of human ones? I wasn’t finding easy answers. As the colonel had said earlier, the neighborhood was big and our dedicated manpower was low. Protecting an area this big needed resources we didn’t have.

Yet.

I let the matter spin through the back of my mind as I started interviewing people about the fight, asking if anyone had seen what had happened to the captive Dragon. Maybe we could build watchtowers? Even if we do, we need more than one person with the colonel’s abilities. Having him out of commission is affecting us too severely.

The first few people I spoke with hadn’t seen what had happened with the captured Dragon. Most people had been watching the direction the Dragons’ main force had disappeared to, or simply hadn’t had a good view in the darkness. I did find someone who claimed she’d seen what happened eventually, a teenager with Fire Bolt who’d been perched on a nearby roof during the battle.

“Oh, yeah, I saw that. Not surprised others didn’t; there were enough people gathered around that it was probably out of view of anyone who wasn’t close.”

“What happened?”

“I couldn’t hear anyone talking, but there was an old woman and a couple others arguing with the big crowd, and then the old lady touched the tree and it let the Dragon go. He was out of here like a shot, and then the crowd got mad at the old lady. She ran off too, and most of them followed.”

I thanked her, my jaw clenching as I walked away. Great. Another Dragon is on the loose, Matilda set him free, and there might be an angry mob after her. Freaking perfect.