The first time I meet them, I am standing in the wreckage of a loading dock, trying to figure out if I can reattach a thumb.

  The answer, I have learned, is no. Once something comes off, it is off. The callus is already forming over the stump - thick, gnarly skin sealing the wound faster than any healing I have ever seen. It does not hurt, exactly. It just feels wrong, like a door that has been closed and locked from the inside.

  The thumb itself is about three meters away, embedded in what used to be a concrete pillar. Impact detonation. I was aiming for the pillar. I hit the pillar. I also hit everything within a two-meter radius of the pillar, because I have not figured out how to shape the blast yet, because I am learning this by myself in an abandoned shipping facility in Southie, because I do not know what else to do.

  "That was about eight hundred joules," someone says behind me. "Give or take. You're lucky you didn't bring down the roof."

  I spin, and for a moment I am back in the crush - Loss of control, loss of control, threat behind me, I need to -

  "Easy." The voice is calm. Female. I see her step out of the shadow of a rusted container, hands raised, palms out. She is maybe my age, maybe a little younger, with close-cropped hair and a face that gives away nothing. "We're not here to start anything. We just wanted to see who's been setting off fireworks in our backyard."

  "Your backyard?"

  "Metaphorically." Another figure emerges - tall, lean, moving like a dancer or a martial artist. "We operate in Boston. When someone new starts blowing up buildings, we like to introduce ourselves. Make sure everyone's on the same page."

  "I'm not blowing up buildings," I say, too fast. "I'm practicing. I'm trying to--"

  "Control it," the woman finishes. "Yeah. We figured."

  There are four of them, I realize. The woman with the economical movements. The lean one with the dancer's grace. A guy in archival gloves, hanging back, watching me with open curiosity. And another woman, younger, with dirt under her fingernails and a messenger bag slung across her chest.

  "I'm not looking for trouble," I say. My thumb is regenerating. I can feel it - an itching, pulling sensation where the stump is slowly extruding new bone, new flesh. An hour, maybe two, and it will be back. "I just need somewhere to practice where I won't hurt anyone."

  "That's the thing," the lean one says. "You're going to hurt someone eventually. Practicing alone, no feedback, no safety net? It's a matter of time."

  "I don't have a choice."

  "You do, actually." The woman with the close-cropped hair takes a step forward. Not aggressive - just closing distance, making the conversation more intimate. "You could practice with us. Learn from people who've been where you are. Figure out what you can do without figuring it out the hard way."

  I stare at her. "You don't know me."

  "We know enough. We know you were at the Commons."

  The words hit like a punch. I feel my whole body go rigid, my hands curling into fists - and I have to consciously stop myself, consciously unclench, because if I am not careful I will detach something and then we will all have a very bad day.

  "That wasn't--"

  "We know," she says. "We're not here to judge. We're here because we've all been the person who couldn't control it. And we figured out how. Together."

  The silence stretches. My thumb itches. The loading dock smells like rust and old seawater and the lingering ozone of my own explosion. I stare them down. I haven't had to use my powers in any sort of actual fight yet. Three months and I'd like to make that infinity months. But I'm ready if I have to, I think. All I need to do is split my finger into three parts, detonate the knuckle, and launch the fingertip. The good part about explosives is that you don't need to aim.

  "What do you want from me?" I ask, adjusting the little slitted cloth I have tied around my face.

  "Nothing you don't want to give. Come train with us. See if it fits. If it doesn't, you walk away, no hard feelings. But if it does..." She shrugs. "We could use someone with your skill set."

  "My skill set is blowing things up."

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  "Yeah," she says. "That's the skill set we need."

  I am halfway through my third protein bar when I realize I have been staring at the same section of the building schematic for ten minutes.

  The memory surfaced without permission, the way they do. The loading dock. The thumb. The Colonel's flat affect and the way she said we could use someone with your skill set like it was obvious, like it was simple, like I was not a walking disaster who had hospitalized a hundred people four months ago.

  I look around the basement. Ghostwriter is reading again - different book, something with a red cover I do not recognize. Red Scare is doing something on his phone, thumbs moving fast, probably coordinating with whoever is feeding us intel. Lavender Girl is packing her kit, arranging vials and pouches with the care of someone who knows exactly what each one does and how badly it could go wrong.

  The Colonel is cleaning her gun again. Or still. I am not sure she ever stopped.

  They took me in. They taught me. And in three hours, I am going to blow open a door for them.

  "Again," Red Scare says. "Slower this time."

  We are in the basement of a different building - an old factory in Everett, condemned and forgotten, the kind of place where you can make noise without anyone caring. The Colonel found it months ago. They use it for training, for practice, for the kind of work that cannot happen in a bookstore basement.

  I am standing in front of a cinderblock wall. There is a target painted on it - red spray paint, roughly the size of a door lock. My job is to hit the target with exactly enough force to breach a standard deadbolt. No more, no less.

  "What am I doing wrong?"

  "You're rushing." He is leaning against a support pillar, arms crossed, watching me with those eyes that seem to track everything. "You're treating it like ripping off a bandage. Fast, get it over with. But you need to feel the separation. You need to know exactly what you're giving up."

  I look at my hand. The fingernails are all there - regenerated from this morning, short and slightly ragged. Each one is worth about a hundred and fifty joules. Enough to crack a lock, shatter a window, ruin someone's day without ending it.

  "It's not a sacrifice," Lavender Girl adds. She is sitting on an overturned crate, watching, her kit open beside her in case something goes wrong. "It's not losing something. It's spending something. Like money. You have to know what you're buying."

  "Deep," Ghostwriter mutters from the corner, where he is pretending to read.

  "Shut up, Ghost."

  I take a breath. Focus on my index finger. The nail. I think about the separation - not ripping, not tearing, but releasing. Like unclenching a fist. Like letting go of something I was holding too tightly. Just like taking a shit.

  The nail comes off. No pain, just a soft click of disconnection, and then it is in my palm, small and pale and surprisingly heavy for what it is. The callus forms over the nail bed instantly, thick and pink.

  "Good," The Colonel says. She has been watching silently, letting the others teach. "Now set it."

  I roll the nail between my fingers. Impact mode. I just need to throw it hard enough, which is hard when you're throwing something as fluttery as an entire fingernail. The nail will hit the target and convert to energy. Concussive, not thermal. Pressure wave, not fireball. If I glued ball bearings to my nails I could have a frag grenade.

  If. If, if if.

  I throw. The nail hits the red circle dead center, and the world cracks open for a fraction of a second - a sharp bang, a cloud of dust, a pressure wave I feel in my chest even from five meters away. When the air clears, there is a hole in the cinderblock. Roughly the size of a fist. Exactly where I aimed.

  "Pretty good," Red Scare says, nodding. "That's a deadbolt. That's a padlock. That's a car window if you need a quick exit."

  I look at my hand. The nail is already regrowing, a pale sliver emerging from the callused nail bed. Thirty minutes, maybe forty, and it will be back.

  "What about bigger?" I ask. "What if I need more than a deadbolt?"

  "Then you spend more," The Colonel says. "You busted open that cinderblock when we first met, right? That was a finger. You turned it into a fine cloud." She pauses. "That could be a person, if you don't play your cards right."

  "The math is the easy part," Lavender Girl says, softer now. "The hard part is remembering that you get to choose. Every time. You're not a bomb. You're a person who can make bombs. There's a difference."

  I look between the four of them, trying to figure out anything at all.

  Ghostwriter smiles at me. "You have about the explosive density of dynamite, based on my math, but a little less. Like if someone surgically removed all the waste heat from it. About 2/3s of a dynamite. So picture your body as made out of miniature sticks of dynamite."

  "Great. I'm sure that'll be helpful next time I'm rubbing one off," I shoot back, trying to cover my shaking hands with bravado. "Blow up my Hitachi while I'm at it."

  Ghostwriter puts his hands up defensively. "Hey. Let's change topic - you ever try using your hair?"

  "Van's here," The Colonel says.

  I look up from the schematic. Outside, through the narrow basement window, I can see headlights cutting through the dark - a white cargo van with SUPERIOR CARPET CLEANING stenciled on the side in faded blue letters. Totally fake. The kind of thing that can park anywhere in the city without anyone looking twice.

  Ghostwriter closes his book, slides it into his bag alongside six others. His soldiers, ready for deployment. Red Scare pockets his phone and rolls his shoulders, settling into the pre-operation stillness I have seen in him before. Lavender Girl zips her kit closed and stands, smoothing down her jacket.

  The Colonel checks her Walther one more time, then holsters it. The hazard yellow is bright against her dark clothes.

  "Everyone clear on the plan?"

  Nods all around. I flex my fingers, feeling the slight give where my fingernails meet the nail beds. Ready to detach. Ready to spend.

  "Then let's go redistribute some documents."

  We file up the stairs, through the back of the bookstore, out into the January cold. The van's engine is idling. Somewhere across the city, Alcott Properties is about to have a very bad night.

  I am about to make it happen.