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“None of your business, you half-breed mongrel!”

Ty drew in a shocked breath, as if Ben’s bigotry was far more appalling than the abduction.

“He’s upsetting my Match and stalking the woman who made my birthday penguin.” Gion told Kahn gravely. “I’ll help you kill him.”

Vandal seemed to realize that this situation was getting away from him. He should have known it would happen. It was inevitable, given the group he’d kidnapped. He wanted piteous begging, and instead he got family squabbles. “We’ll be the ones conducting the executions today. Publicly and with you traitors pleading with all Phases for forgiveness. Starting with Job.”

“You’ll destroy the balance of existence, if you hurt Job. Didn’t we just go over that?” Nia threw up her hands in frustration. “I thought you were supposed to be a tactical genius.”

“I can’t wait until Kahn kills him.” Cross muttered, a protective hand on Nia’s pregnant stomach. “Or maybe Missy will kill him. Or Sullivan. Whichever.”

“No, baby. Kahn’s killing the human. Missy’s killing Vandal.”

“Ben isn’t a human.” Thar said quietly.

“Missy is dead!” Vandal bellowed, finally losing his cool. The Water House could do that to people.

So could the Fire House. Sullivan smirked, looking disturbingly like his villainous in-laws. “You’ve never met Missy, have you?”

Ben jabbed a finger at Kahn. “Where is Randa? Tell me or you’ll be the first to die.”

“If I die today, I’ll take you with me, dickhead. …And you still won’t have Randa.”

Randa would not allow Kahn to die today.

Not when she’d just found him. Not when her feelings for him were building faster and going deeper than she’d ever anticipated. Not when they had a whole future waiting for them on the horizon.

She forced all the negative voices and doubts from her mind, just like Dr. Ashley would’ve instructed. She was smart enough. She was strong enough. She could do this. She just needed to figure it out, one step at a time.

Physically, Randa couldn’t take on Vandal and the robots. She needed to break through the force fields and rescue the others. The Light Phases could handle the fighting from there. So, how could she get them free? It was impossible to reach in and pull them out. The purple bubbles created a dome with impenetrable walls and a ceiling.

But not a floor.

The wooden roller rink under their feet wasn’t covered by purple energy. …And Tharsis said that there was a bomb shelter beneath them.

Randa looked down.

There was enough rock in the ground and in the concrete foundation that she could use her powers to control it. Most Stone Phases couldn’t, but her powers were wrong. Diluted by her great-grandfather’s Earth House DNA. It made her lousy at freezing people in place, but it allowed her to manipulate stone. That was her primary power, much to her parents’ shame. She could break and shape and move any kind of rock imaginable.

If she cracked the floor, the other Phases would fall through it. They’d be out of their cages. The bomb shelter had been abandoned for decades and was probably half flooded from the high water table, but it was down there. Landing in it would give the others an opportunity to jump to safety. They only needed a few seconds and some space to maneuver.

If this didn’t work, she was dead.

The grim thought flickered through her head, but it didn’t matter. It also didn’t matter that she wasn’t sure that her powers were big enough to crack the building’s foundation. Or that using that much energy would expose her hiding spot. Or that she could only target one cage at a time. This was the plan to save her Match, and she was going with it.

She was indestructible.

Closing her eyes, Randa connected to her Stone energy. Drawing it to her. Focusing on the ground. Willing the rocks to break and the soil to part. Pouring all of her power into the….

A series of cracks echoed through the room. Randa felt the ground shift beneath her.

Everyone’s head snapped towards the snack counter, just as the floor under Kahn’s cage gave way.

“Fuck.” He went tumbling into the abyss that opened up below his feet.

“Get the girl!” Vandal shouted at Ben. “She’s doing this!”

Randa didn’t even try to run. Her best chance was freeing the Light Phases. Even if it hadn’t been her best chance, she still would have saved them first. They were her family.