Roux left Zoe tangled up in her purse straps and started browsing the day’s streams. Her roommate was snoring loudly in her room, and Roux knew she wouldn’t be awake again until her graveyard shift.

Her eyes widened at what she saw on her streamer. She gasped. “Oh my gosh. Oh, no, no, no, no no no. They killed him! They really killed him!” she whispered fervently, biting her lip. She scrolled further down the article. “And he’s staying dead this season? No!”

Roux pouted and roped her dog, who had come skittering by, into a tearful hug. “My favourite character died,” she sniffed, “and he’s not coming back.”

Zoe licked her face.

“Hmm?” Roux’s hand knocked against something. It was a little red key. “How’d this get here?” she asked Zoe. Zoe tilted her head to one side, one ear flopping down and the other, in defiance to gravity, perking up. Roux blew a kiss and got up to put the key away.

She entered her room and found the shoebox at the top of her closet, Zoe trailing after her like the lovesick puppy she was. Roux couldn’t resist a look inside for old-times sake. The box smelled musty, like faded paper and faint perfume. She brushed her fingers over her old jewelry and ballgown. Her perfect red nails still matched the costume. She smiled. She laid the key on top of her folded dress. A small note slipped out from the folds.

Roux frowned and opened the note. In messy cursive, it simply read “check the news.”

She turned it over. There was nothing on the back. The paper felt firm, like it was newer than the rest of the contents of the box.

Roux shrugged and turned on her cell. Might as well oblige the powers that be.

And she wondered how she could’ve missed the news all day, because she saw none other than the faces of her former teammates gracing the front page of the internet.

She heard a stomp on the ground behind her. She turned, hands raised, ready to defend herself, but dropped them.

Airin perched on her sofa, a bright orange raincoat dripping water onto the lace covers. Her hoodie was tied around her waist, and her bare arms were covered in scrapes from her earlier building jumping. Her hair was longer now, Roux noticed. She’d finally let it grow out.

Airin’s mouth quirked in the beginnings of a smile, and she signed Roux’s namesign, her wrist doing the flourish ever so gorgeously. Shadows leapt up all over the room. Mortified and flushing red, Roux tugged them back down.

“Hey,” Roux said out loud, stunned into forgetting to sign.

“Did you read the news?” Airin signed.

Roux wrung her hands, fighting down the shadows threatening to burst through her aching heart into the real world. “Yes.”

The air in front of them shimmered, and Brandy teleported into the room. She dusted off her shirt, which, though normally ripped, sported a new gash. “Yeah, we’re gonna need your help,” she said without even looking up, shaking water from her hair.

Roux still hadn’t wrapped her head around things. “But I’m out of the game,” she said dumbly.

“Would this bring you back into the game?” Brandy said, holding up a file that no one remembered her taking. A name shone white against the folder – Marius Del Rey. “We know where he lives and what’s he’s doing.”

Slowly, very slowly, recognition dawned on Roux. “You found him?”

“We found him. And you know, after four years of rehearsing what you’ll do to him once you find him, I thought you could do it for real.”

A devious light passed over Roux’s eyes. “Revenge for a job? That just sounds like me doing double the work.” But her face was lit up and blush was creeping into her cheeks. She bit her lip. There was a twinkle in her eye that hadn’t been there in years, one the other girls knew too well.

Suddenly, Airin and Brandy were wrapped up in a bear hug. Roux squeezed them tight, face split in a beautiful, dazzling smile. “I missed you,” Roux whispered tearfully.

There was a knock on the door, and Jayden poked her head into the apartment. She barely had a moment to say “hey” before she got tackled by Zoe, the dog slobbering all over Jayden’s face. “Wait, wait! Zoe! Sit! Assiez? Assis! Zoe!” she shouted, laughing, curled in a fetal position. Zoe didn’t seem to understand that while she was a hulking behemoth now, Jayden hadn’t grown at all in the past year.

Reluctantly, Roux released her friends and picked her dog up. Zoe’s face was a mask of bewilderment as Roux dropped her on her dog bed, as if saying, “how did she do that? I’m taller than her.”

“So,” Roux said, turning back to her friends with her hands on her hips, “if I’m following: we got the team back together. What now?”

“Now,” Brady replied, clasping her hands together, “we clear our names, and make the government regret they ever doubted us.”