Spitfire? I thought with a snort and a roll of my eyes. Newter would doubtlessly make fun off her for the shitty choice of name—he’d certainly done so with the awful name choices I had worked through before settling on Meteor—so I’d leave that to him.

“Spitfire then,” Melanie said, giving the heavily freckled girl a nod. “If you’re tired, we can depart for the Palanquin now. You don’t look too different in size from Labyrinth and Meteor, so I’m certain we could find you some clothes for the night. Otherwise, there’s a mall just a bit west of here. We could take you now and get you some clean clothes.”

Spitfire’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and I wanted to give her a piece of my mind for continuing to think we were up to no good. What did she think we were going to do? The only way to forcibly recruit a cape who can set shit on fire by hocking a loogie is to do something drastic like drugging them up or holding their family hostage, and anyone who really knew us would know that’s not our style. That’d fit for the Merchants—I didn’t know much about them, but I’d heard some things—and I didn’t care for her lumping us in with their vile company.

“And I take it you’d do that out of the goodness of your heart?” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words by the time she’d stopped.

God I wanted to punch her in her freckled face.

“I could take it out of your first paycheck, if it bothers you,” Melanie said without missing a beat. I couldn’t help smirking at the bewildered look that elicited from Spitfire. “Recruitment of new members is precisely the sort of expense our crew’s general fund is designed to handle.”

“Paychecks, general funds… You sound like a business, not a gang.”

“We’re mercenaries—not villains. Everyone on the crew gets an equal share, with the general fund taking one share. If that arrangement sounds like a business, then it should come as no surprise to you that I own several businesses.”

My eyes snapped up above Spitfire. Small hunks of metal were approaching the end of the pier at about head height, judging by the lamppost they had just passed—fillings in teeth, if I wasn’t off my mark—accompanied by what could only be keys and a phone somewhat lower. I nudged Melanie, who glanced my way. I floundered for just a second before remembering the right signs. I pointed my right index finger up and swirled it around before shifting my right hand to be vertical with all fingers extended, ploddingly moving it towards the open palm of my left hand. Someone approaching.

Learning to speak again after Victor had stolen my voice had been proving… frustrating. The easiest way to ‘talk’ was still my Etch-a-Sketch, which was for the moment tucked into the bag slung across my chest, but Melanie insisted on my practicing both ASL and speaking as much as possible. It wasn’t like I couldn’t see the logic. I would never get better at either if I didn’t practice, after all, but it was… Well, let’s just say that having clear memories of being able to speak—of doing so completely effortlessly—while I now struggled to string together two words was goddamn annoying.

“Spitfire, we have company incoming,” Melanie translated. Fuck, how I wish I could have just said that. “Let’s avoid names and sensitive topics while we move towards our car.”

She turned and started along the sandy shore leading out from underneath the ferry’s dock Spitfire had been living under, her hands on mine and Elle’s shoulders steering us along. I didn’t bother to look back. Would the newbie come? I wished she wouldn’t. The rest of the crew had been pretty open about their interest in her, so I had kept my opinion to myself, not wanting to be the sole dissent. The soft sound of our feet in the shifting sand was joined by a fourth pair a moment later, and I scowled with disappointment, an expression I quickly suppressed when Elle turned to look at me curiously.

We stepped out from under the wide pier dock just as the items I had been tracking reached the stair access to where we were, revealing a somewhat bulky man in a work polo with a BBPW logo on over khakis and some comfortable sneakers.

“You shouldn’t be down there,” the man said with a frown, stopping short at the sight of us. I quickly maneuvered the fifty yen coin I had been spinning wildly in place behind me around and into my hand before slipping it into my pocket. “It’s dangerous.”

“Is it?” Melanie replied, affecting concern as her hand slid from my shoulder down to take my free hand in hers. “I hadn’t realized, sorry. We were just leaving in any case.”

I clenched her hand a bit as we brushed past the man, already beginning to feel the contradictory pulls on my thoughts. The drive to use my power and the opposing urge to let myself sink into a fugue. The lamppost, the two cars parked in the lot and the many driving the street just past it, the discarded or carelessly lost coins littering the asphalt and the sands below, the abandoned trash can, the soda cans buried in the sands under the water—they all called to me. The man’s fillings were right there, and the temptation to play with them was almost overwhelming, but just as tempting was the thought of letting my annoyance with fire girl slip away.

“Hey now, you can’t just—”

“Can’t just what?” she replied, not stopping. I held tight. Didn’t want to wash away with the waves crashing against the sand or the rivers of cars flowing through the sea of buildings.

“Didn’t you see the ‘No Trespassing’ signs, lady? There are fines—”

I shivered as a cold wind blew over us and tripped over the word, “Wanna.” There was more to talk—I wanted hot chocolate—but my lips and tongue wouldn’t dance the right dance. I pouted, turning to look up at Melanie and did the tongue tango I could manage. “Wanna.”

“Help everyone into the car please,” Melanie said putting my hand into Elle’s and passing her jangle dangle keys on a circle.

My Elle squeezed my hand and shot me a smile, asking, “What is it you want?”

That put a smile on my face. I liked her smiles. But it wavered when I messed up my mouth mambo. “Ha— Ha—” I knew this. It was on the tip of my tongue. Frustrating.

“Try signing it.”

Signing? Hands. With a writer— no, not with a writer. Hands hands doing a hand hustle. I pulled my hand from hers and brought it to my mouth in an arch, flicking it away to the left. Hot!

“Something hot,” she supplied, and I nodded fervently and raised my hands but hesitated. “Okay. More?”

Yes—chocolate—but I didn’t know this sign. That meant A, B, C, D… I began to carefully curl my hand into the various letters, but before I could finish, fire girl interjected, “Uh, what is going on?”

I tapped the sign for ‘B’ against my chin and glared at her, and my Elle looked torn. After a moment, she ignored me calling fire girl a bitch in favor of quietly explaining, “It’s… complicated. The short story is another cape stole her knowledge of how to speak, and getting around that is a work in progress. Also, both of our powers affect our minds at times.”

“… really?” she replied with obvious skepticism.

I tapped a ‘B’ against my chin several more times. A bitchy bitch who bitchily bitches.

“Really,” my Elle affirmed, giving me a look as she opened one of the rear doors of the vroomer and gently directed me inside. I slipped into the seat and buckled myself in, ignoring the urge to do it with my power. “I’m… completely nonverbal some days.”

She said that funny. Why funny? Go deeper. Funny, but… worry. I didn’t know the sign for that either, but we were at the vroomer, which meant I had my Sketch-A-Etch.

“You can sit in the passenger seat, Spitfire,” my Elle directed the fire girl as she stepped around to the door of the seat next to me, and as she hopped in, I held out my Sketch-A-Etch.

[Why worry?]

Her eyes flicked up to mine, and a soft smile spread across her lips. “I’m fine,” she assured me as fire girl climbed into the front seat, and when I gave her my best dubious look, she giggled. “Really.”

“Nonverbal, huh?” fire girl remarked. She was looking away, something in her eyes I couldn’t name. “That sounds awful. I’m sorry.”

My Elle’s smile grew, and I begrudgingly gave fire girl a Meteor point. Bitchy bitches who bitchily bitch could have their perks.

It took Melanie a couple of minutes to slide into the driver’s seat. I had thought rude teeth man might be left on the ground, but he was step-step-stepping away. He got lucky. Melanie could do a mean right closed hand to face. “Apologies for the delay. Meteor, what was it you wanted?”

Want! Yes, I still shivered and forgot mid-spell because of fire girl!

“She wants hot chocolate,” my Elle explained, having apparently seen enough letters of my signing to understand.

“Want!” I agreed, bouncing giddily in my chair.

Fire girl looked at me funny, which was rude knowing the things that needed knowing, but Melanie just nodded and said, “We can stop by a coffee shop on the way to the mall. Would you make your coin dance for me?”

Aw. I didn’t want to coin dance. These words I could say with my mouth. “Don’t wanna,” I said, making my mouth do the right rumba.

“I know, but we have a guest with us, remember? We talked about this.”

She said the words with patience, but I wasn’t dumb—I knew it was an order. I pouted as the fifty yen coin slipped out of my pocket onto the back of my hand on my lap. I began to roll it over my knuckles and under my palm. A seemingly normal activity, if a dexterous one, that I could use to keep myself from sliding into a fugue or to pull me out if I was in one. It had been Dr. Drovanch’s idea. A form of meditation to help me center myself that would also help me work on small movements and tweaks with my power. The coin’s dance across my fingers made the thin, jagged scar cutting down its middle occasionally rubbed against them, and I couldn’t help but think of the night I had flung this very coin at Melanie’s forehead in Palanquin felt like a lifetime ago. The day my life had changed.

“Sorry,” I carefully enunciated, the fugue dispelled. Elle reached over and laid a comforting hand on my wrist, and I laid my free hand over hers in turn.

“Thank you,” Melanie replied as she turned the ignition and shifted the sedan into drive. “Spitfire, the phone in the drink holder is for you and has everyone’s contact information in case we get separated. The mall we’re going to is Weymouth Shopping Center. The phone has data, if you’d like to check the stores available to determine where you want to start.”

“Oh, uh, thank you.”

Some proper respect at last, was my uncomplimentary thought as I swung the coin under my palm back to my thumb. It was going to be a long day.

“Oh, this color would look good on you!”

“Do you really think so? I’ve never really thought it complemented my complexion.”

Correction: It was going to be a very long day.

I gave my phone a particularly murderous glare it didn’t deserve as Elle held up another top to the freckled Latina, who looked a bit overwhelmed but appeared to be genuinely enjoying herself. It was getting more and more difficult to keep my frustration from showing in the movement of the coin rolling over my knuckles as I attempted in vain to distract myself with perusing PHO with my other hand. There was little recourse to be found there though, with most of the news being nowhere near sufficient to distract me. I had already long since read through the latest posts on our crew’s thread about the corporate job we did in St. Louis the week before last, and my personal thread was full of the usual speculation and weird groupies, almost none of whom believed I was the real Meteor when I posted. My direct messages with Amy had stagnated and eventually died off after what happened in Philly, and I didn’t understand why it had happened.

It might have been a tad more bearable if Melanie hadn’t needed to step away to take care of upcoming business matters, but as it stood I was a certified third wheel in the worst possible way. I knew enough about fashion to get by and really only shopped for practical reasons, so I couldn’t really insert myself into the conversation. Even if could have genuinely contributed, it was tough to do that when I couldn’t fucking talk, knew precisely zero ASL related to fashion, and didn’t want to draw attention to us by constantly using my Etch-A-Sketch.

“Which of these cuts do you like more?”

I need to get out of here before I go mad, I finally decided, giving up distracting myself with my phone as a bad job. I was hungry anyway, so I switched to my SMS program and quickly typed, [I’m going to go get a bite to eat. I’ll be in the food court,] in a group message to Melanie and Elle and hit send.

I stood and moved over towards Elle, giving a small wave to grab her attention. She looked up from where she and Spitfire had been critically examining two pairs of jeans and said, “Hey, what’s up?”

I signed ‘cell phone’ by curling my hand into the letter ‘C’ and tapping it against my cheek then pointed at her bag. She tugged her phone out curiously as Spitfire gave me another curious look, which only reaffirmed my need to get out of here. “Oh, okay! Have a good time!”

She stepped forward and pecked me on the lips, which drew a smile out of me despite my foul mood. Waving goodbye before I could sink back into my frustration, I tucked my phone back into my jeans pocket and left the store as quickly as I could without looking suspicious. I hadn’t actually been to this mall before, but we had passed the food court on the way here, so I didn’t have trouble finding my way there. No, the trouble came when I realized I didn’t really know how to go about ordering anything. Up until now, the few times I had eaten in public I had always had Elle or Melanie with me, who had understood my disability and could take care of things on my behalf. Suddenly faced with the prospect of doing it solo, I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

My stomach growled its demand of tribute, so any thoughts of only taking refuge from the shopping were no good. I would have to figure it out.

A quick consultation of the internet showed most deaf people used a pen and a pad of paper, neither of which were things I had on hand. My phone did have a notes app though, so that would need to suffice. After a quick scan of the options in the court, I settled on what looked like a small time Italian place on the other side of the large room and crossed through the middle of the table area to get there. Once I was close enough to properly read the menu I confirmed they had what I had been hoping for: A chicken parmesan sub. Unbidden my imagination conjured up how Aisha might make fun of me for having finally ditched my diet, which unfortunately made my mood plummet again.

Dejected, I opened the notes app, typed out a message with the right combo, and joined the back of the line. Eventually I reached the front, and when the lady at the counter said, “Hello! What can I get you today?” I held up my phone.

[I’d like the chicken parmesan sub combo with a bag of chips and a coke, please.]

The woman peered at the screen, then my stomach plummeted when, to my horror, she began to sign to me. Of all the places I could have chosen to eat, of all the employees who could have been at the counter, I just had to get the one person who knew ASL. I had been mute for two months, and Melanie had began encouraging me to practice my ASL and my speaking for essentially that entire time, warning I would regret it one day if I didn’t. I doubt this was what she had in mind, but damn if I wasn’t immediately regretting leaning on using the goddamn Etch-A-Sketch while putting most of my focus into speaking again. My knowledge of ASL extended only to basic, everyday words and some a few specific terms I had picked up that we used regularly on the job. None of that prepared me for interpreting this lady’s response to my ordering food.

Afraid I was about to be yelled at for being ‘phony,’ my hands began to shake, and my phone slipped through my suddenly numb fingers. I fumbled the catch, narrowly avoiding a reflexive use of my power, and just to add insult to injury, the device smashed into the floor screen first. I knelt down to grab it, and sure enough, the screen was absolutely shattered. A wary tap of my finger against the prickly glass yielded no response from the screen, and it was all I could do to not break down crying on the spot. Recruiting Spitfire, thinking about Aisha, all the struggles with speaking,

“Hey, are you okay?” someone said, kneeling down next to me and laying a hand on my shoulder.

I shook my head, absolutely dejected and not sure I could trust myself to say ‘no’ with how emotional I was.

“Hi,” the person said, standing up. “You were asking if she wanted a large drink, right? She’ll take a large, thanks. Here, I’ll pay.”

Wait, what? I looked over my shoulder as the person who had spoken to me, curly blond-haired girl, pulled a wallet out of her bag, tugged some cash free from it, and handed it over to the somewhat flustered cashier. Once the woman had accepted the proffered bill, the girl’s attention immediately returned to me, extending a hand to help me up.

I took it, completely bewildered, and started to reach for my bag to repay her, but she immediately said, “No, no, you don’t have to repay me. I insist. I can tell you’ve had a bad day.”

God that was an understatement. I didn’t like being in anyone’s debt, but my experiences with the crew and some of my work with Dr. Drovanch had been focused on letting go of that neurosis, so I bit my tongue. Instead, I quietly stepped to the side with my savior to wait on the food, and cautiously looked her way, trying to figure out why I vaguely felt like I knew her. She was trans if I wasn’t off my mark—I knew what to look for from personal experience critically examining my own reflection to pass judgment on whether I would be clocked or not. There was a slight hardness to her features, she was pretty tall at a bit more than a half head taller than me, and her short, riotous curls were clearly growing out from a short cut. She was strikingly cute, and I found myself blushing at the thought of those curls once they had grown longer. She would doubtlessly be stunning.

“This is a different side of you,” the girl abruptly spoke up, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Last I saw you, you were a chatterbox. You were particularly vocal about how much you were enjoying the food.”

So I did know her. But from where? Even if someone I had known from Brooklyn had come to the Bay, there was no way they would recognize me. They might think I was my own sister or something—I could still see the resemblance—but they wouldn’t think I was one and the same with my deadname identity.

“Sorry, you’re clearly having trouble communicating,” she remarked. “Am I right in guessing talking is a no-go?”

“No,” I carefully enunciated. Even with all the effort I poured into that one word, it came out just a bit off, bearing none of the natural ease I ought to have for a language I knew.

“Okay. But it’s still not easy, I take it?” she added as she pulled out her own phone and unlocked it, pulling up a notes app. She handed over the phone with a smile, and I tucked my own battered device into my coat pocket before gingerly accepting hers. “We can get your screen repaired down the way after you’re done eating, but please use mine for now. Oh, I’m Therese, by the way.”

[June,] I replied, tapping the relevant letters on the keyboard before holding it out to her.

Therese smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, June. Let’s do lunch together!”