I trudged around the corner of the house, then scrambled back as a terrifying array of missiles arced toward me, slamming into the exposed space where I’d briefly stood.

It took a moment for my adrenaline to recede, shock giving way to the obvious realization: I guess they don’t have any way of telling me from anyone else in the dark.

“It’s me!” I shouted. “Meghan Moretti! The Shop owner! A few of the Dragons ran off, but most are dead. The people with them are on our side now. We’ve won! It’s okay!”

I heard my words repeated by nearby defenders. After a minute, I heard Tamara’s voice. “Okay, come on out, Meghan!”

Cautiously, I edged forward. A stray Ice Bolt was still thrown my way by someone who hadn’t gotten the memo, but a Force Shield blinked into existence before it reached me, stopping its flight midair.

“Is that really her?”

“Yeah, it is!”

“We’ve won?”

“It’s over?”

“Oh, thank God.”

Someone started cheering wildly, and others took it up, like a crowd at a football game. People came forward, clapping me on the back and hugging me. I smiled at their obvious relief, but I could feel the stress of unaddressed issues pressing at me. I extracted myself as soon as I could.

Fighting free of the crowd, I checked the spot where the Dragon had been trapped in tree branches, wanting to deal with them before the angry crowd followed me out, but the branches were empty. I'd have to find out what happened to them.

Tamara met me and surprised me with a hug. Looking around, I realized that most people weren’t relaxing yet. Many were still standing vigilantly on nearby rooftops, and the ground around the Shop was littered with wounded fighters and exhausted healers. Plenty of others stood nearby, watching Tamara and me, body language tense and alert.

Tamara snapped out orders to these people as we returned. “I need volunteers to search the backyard of 107 Lavender for the injured.” Hands were raised and she counted them off. “You five, go!”

“We need guards on the Shop as well,” I said. “There are multiple Dragons still out there. I’m hoping they won’t try anything without Chris to goad them on, but… we really don’t know much about what motivated them.”

Tamara nodded. “Combat Group G arrived just as the fighting ended. I’m putting their adults on-duty for the next four hours, and then, uh…”

She floundered for a moment, the chaotic situation overwhelming even her organizational skills. A nearby healer raised a hand. “Group D is mostly ranged, and I saw our close-up fighters come back okay. We could probably take the next shift.”

Tamara offered her a grateful smile. “Thank y’kindly.”

The woman nodded and got to her feet, swaying slightly. “I can’t do too much more just now. I’ll let everyone know so we can catch a few hours of rest.”

“Please do.”

I looked at the wounded scattered around the area. “How bad… How many…”

“Bad, but probably not as bad as you’re thinking. The alien abilities work wonders. I’ve got six who died before we could get them any kind of healing, mostly to head injuries. One more died to…” Tamara grimaced. “Poor organization, much as I hate to say it. A man was brought in having lost a lot of blood already, and the woman trying to heal him exhausted herself. She fell asleep sitting up, and it took us too long to notice. But everyone else here, they’ll recover. Eventually.”

“Seven people, then.”

“Well… sort of. We’re still working on searching the battle area. Also, I don’t think all of the people who died were from our neighborhood. Three were, for certain. Maybe all of them, but it’s rough getting IDs. There isn’t anyone who knows everyone from our neighborhood yet. Even the Combat Groups have only been together a few days and don’t know each other all that well. It’s just not easy finding out if a corpse belongs to one of us or one of the attackers.”

That made sense. I thought only Dragons had died in the final struggle behind my neighbor's house, but I wasn't sure. Oh, and we'd have a few more dead on top of our current totals: the colonel had told us that the Dragons had killed people on the way in. I wasn’t sure how many.

Still, it sounded like the death toll was much lower than I’d feared. Seeing the way the dragons had torn apart our defenders, I’d been expecting dozens.

I’d forgotten that most lethal wounds didn’t kill instantaneously, whatever Hollywood would have people believe. Many injuries didn’t need to be fatal, if they could be reversed in seconds. Even a stab through the heart might be survivable, if you had supernatural healing available.

I felt my eyes tearing up, mostly in relief. I hadn’t wanted anyone to die, but I’d expected it to be so much worse.

“We’ll need to get all the Cure Disease and Cleanse people over here tomorrow, or we’ll lose more,” I said, but I couldn’t keep the smile from my face as I said it.

“Yeah, but other than a couple people with gut injuries, that can wait.... I think.” Tamara looked uncertain. “Actually, I’m not sure. I should find a doctor or nurse to ask.”

“Probably, but before that…what happened to the Dragon that was trapped back here?”

Tamara stared at me blankly.

I waved a hand toward the tree beside the road. The branches were still somewhat misshapen and gnarled, but no one was trapped there any longer. “That tree? I’m guessing it was the work of Matilda or the other farmer? There was a Dragon restrained there when I charged the backyard, so I wasn’t sure if they were moved, or killed, or…”

My explanation left Tamara looking more confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize we had a captive. I’ve been focused on the main group of enemies and on the wounded.”

I sighed heavily. “Alright, then. There could be up to five Dragons on the loose in the area. And they must have left at least one guard on the hostages, maybe more. We'll have to find out if those escaped or if the rescue group, um, killed them.”

I’d hoped the threat the Dragons had posed was over. Maybe it was, but we couldn’t count on it. Chris’s overwhelming strength was actually somewhat reassuring to me. If he hadn’t taken all the Points that had been Siphoned away, he’d certainly taken most of them. Even if his synergies had been very good, he was still clearly much stronger than me, a feat that wasn’t easy to attain given the way that each new ability took twice as many Points as the previous one. That would leave the rest of his followers roughly as strong as me, give or take. Still, four people as strong as me, working together and feeling aggressive could easily do a lot of damage if they wanted to.

I was so, so grateful you couldn’t get Points or Money for killing humans. The Dragons still might want revenge for their friends’ deaths, or just be filled with enough spite and anger to disregard the risks to their own lives, but it made the threat they posed a possibility rather than a certainty.

It was a possibility we couldn’t ignore, though.

“We can’t send people out alone with so many Dragons still out there,” I said. “That’s a problem. I really wish we could make an Announcement right now.”

Tamara shook her head. “If I know my Dane - and after forty years of marriage, I can assure you that I do - he pushed himself until he literally could not keep his eyes open. I’m glad we sent guards with him, but if we want him home in the next few hours, we gonna have to carry him, and he ain’t gonna be good for much.”

I raised an eyebrow as her precise diction slipped, but she didn’t notice. She looked exhausted. I was, too. Rest didn’t look like it would be available any time soon, though.

Maybe her husband had been onto something when he’d told us all to go to sleep earlier. He’d probably had nights like this. Nights of fear and uncertainty and battle, that is. The Ice Bolts and monsters were probably new to him, too.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me think. We need to check on your husband. We need to tell everyone that the big fight is over but that there might still be enemies around. I want to go find my kids. We need to find someone who knows what happened to that captured Dragon. We need to-”

“Hey!” A loud voice interrupted me, and I turned to see a big crowd walking toward me.

“What do you need? What Combat Group are you?” Tamara asked.

“Combat group? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, lady. That Announcement said y’all rescued the Dragons’ hostages, though, and we need to see them right now.”