It made sense. Damnit, it made sense.

I mean, it didn’t really make sense, not if you were a decent and rational human being, but the Dragons had already decided to be assholes. In the context of their other decisions? Yeah, this made sense.

From Tamara’s description, I figured I knew what had happened. Our rescue group had arrived at the hostages. Hopefully they’d freed them already, but they’d at least attacked. Someone who had been guarding them must have had Mental Speech and woken their leader, Chris.

It would have been one thing if the hostage rescue had just lost Chris leverage over his troops. If they'd simply stopped listening and fled, that would have been bad enough from the Dragons' perspective. But... these people had been forced to risk their own lives by threatening the lives of their loved ones. If their loved ones were safe, it was possible they'd just leave, but it was also possible that they'd turn on the people who used them so sorely. They'd been an asset to the Dragons; now, they were a potential liability.

Chris, having been unpleasantly awakened with that knowledge, had taken a moment to think it through and decided to go for broke. Attacking us was, if not a logical choice, potentially the best of his bad options. If he succeeded in capturing the Shop, he'd essentially have us all hostage by our stomachs. Even if he didn't, he'd hurt us, and if he kept the press-ganged troops in front of his own people, there was a good chance that some or all of them would be slain before they could turn on him.

Unfortunately, many of the strongest people in our neighborhood were gone, away on a rescue mission to free the hostages. That would make it much, much harder to fend off their attack.

Chris was very probably aware of that too.

It was a bad situation, and with a sick feeling in my stomach I realized I needed to make it worse. I'd have to send one of our strongest remaining fighters away.

“Priya, you need to wake the kids and take them away from here.”

“What? I have my uniform, and…”

I shook my head. “It’s dark. We’ll be fighting Dragons. The odds that someone on our side gets confused and attacks you are too high. Or, almost as bad, what if people hold off on attacking a Dragon because they think it's you? Plus… this is going to be a war zone. Someone needs to get the kids out of here.”

Priya looked frustrated, but nodded.

Tamara spoke up. “Head east. Knock on some doors as you go, let people know what’s up. Dane’s going to do an Announcement in a minute, but he won’t be able to reach the farthest parts of our neighborhood. If you can let people know the Shop’s in danger, we might get more help.”

The colonel’s Announcement came close on the heels of her comment.

Attention! All combatants, please join the defenses around the Shop. We have detected an incoming hostile force we suspect intends to either capture or destroy the Shop, our source of water and food. They cannot be allowed to succeed.

They will cross County Line Road into Autumn Hills in the next five to ten minutes. Their force is comprised of ten individuals with a scaled appearance and twenty-five individuals with more standard appearances.

Noncombatants should retreat to the east if possible, and take cover if not. Everyone else, I repeat, fall back to the defenses around the Shop.

I quickly strapped my helmet on. I could hear the kids upstairs, awoken by the Announcement, now scared and alarmed. Priya rushed up to deal with them, and I resolutely ignored the plaintive noises, instead turning to Tamara.

“Can’t Dane make an Announcement about the hostages? The people forced to fight might turn on the Dragons if they know we’re rescuing their loved ones.”

She shook her head. “That was the first thing he tried, before he made the Announcement to us - he can do them directionally. Everyone seemed to twitch when he started the Announcement, but there was no reaction to anything else he said. It was like they couldn’t hear him.”

“Has he tried again?”

“No. The big Announcements really tire him out. He could try one more time, but then he thinks he’d be too tired to use Clairvoyance or Mental Speech any more.”

Damn. Whether the Dragons had somehow stopped their troops from hearing the Announcement or convinced them not to believe it, it seemed unlikely that a repeat would succeed where the first had failed. Keeping eyes on them was better.

I dashed upstairs. We had a few minutes. I took a minute to hug my kids and instruct them to go with Ms. Priya.

“Are you gonna be okay, Mom?” Gavin asked, his voice worried.

The tone of his voice frightened Cassie, whose arms tightened around my neck.

I rubbed her back as I answered with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got a plan. You guys need to hurry and get your armor on, though! I want you to help Ms. Priya let the far side of the neighborhood know what’s going on.”

The kids reluctantly got into motion. Micah shot me an angry look, clearly seeing through my bravado a little bit, but when I raised my eyebrows and jerked my head toward Gavin, Micah looked away and kept his silence.

“I’ve got them, Meghan. I’ll keep them safe, I promise.” Priya said. She was giving up on her now-typical shorts-and-tank-top attire, shrugging on a hoodie and pants over her other clothes. A pair of swim goggles and a surgical mass disrupted the view of her face.

It was far from a perfect disguise: her scaled fingers were still visible, and her ability-enforced mohawk lifted her hood away from her head slightly. Someone looking carefully would be able to see not only her pebbled forehead, but also the top of her skull. It should make her less recognizable from a distance, but…

“Anju, Micah. I know you’ll help keep your siblings safe, but I also want you to help keep Anju’s mom safe.”

Micah looked confused, but Anju got it immediately. “The attack is the scaled bad guys, right? So people… people might think Mom is with them.”

I nodded. “You need to be good listeners, but I also want you to be proactive about telling people Ms. Priya is a good guy. I don’t want anyone to think you’re her prisoners or anything. Don’t make her yell.”

Micah’s face grew even paler, and Anju bit her lower lip, but both nodded.

“I will be accompanying them,” Pointy squeaked. “I will do my best to smooth out any confusion.”

“Thanks,” I told her. “I love you all. Stay safe.”

Priya met my eyes, her gaze communicating a million things she didn’t want to say in front of the kids: Worry for me and for the shop; frustration that her ability choices made her unable to stay and fight this time; trust, that I’d be able to take care of things without her. Aloud, she contented herself to echoing me. “You stay safe too.”

Priya was trying to wrangle protective gear over the head of a sleepy Arnav, who was whining and struggling with her. His strength was paltry, but weakness had never hampered the octopus-like evasions of a toddler unwilling to get dressed, and I could tell my friend's mind was only half on her work. "If you need to find us later, and Dane can't contact us, we'll be... um... I don't know the people in the houses that way. We'll try for one of the houses closest to the Balch Road entrance."

There was so much more to say, but no time to say it in. I helped Cassie wedge her feet into her boots and went downstairs.

The colonel was elsewhere. He’d be making his way back ahead of the Dragon’s army, but he was delaying, hoping to see the rescue group before he had to retreat. We didn’t really have a chain of command. Hell, while I thought people would listen to Zwerinski in a crisis, people hadn’t formally committed to obeying his commands, let alone anyone else’s.

But… someone had to be in charge until he returned. I owned the Shop, which gave me a certain amount of authority on the topic of defending it, and I’d been there throughout several crises in our neighborhood so far.

There was no one else who was similarly well-known or trusted.

Until he made it back, that left me in charge.