“ARE THERE ANY other questions?” Snow asked the room.

Everyone shook their heads, Jo included.

“I propose we remain here and begin to work out a plan of attack.” Eslar took the initiative when the rest of the group remained silent. “There is no time like the present.”

“There is precious little time, period,” Wayne added, and Jo found herself silently agreeing.

“Then I suggest you all get to it.” Pan got to her feet with a languid stretch and a very bored-looking yawn. “I trust you all will not disappoint.” And with that, she turned to leave, no more helpful than she’d been during any other wish before.

Jo couldn’t hold back the rush of aggravation burning through her stomach. Whatever mysterious hold Pan had over everyone else, she was not about to have over Jo as well. Thankfully, it would seem she’d blissfully missed the meeting where they’d all sat down and agreed to fear the woman. “Classic Pan,” she scoffed. “Bowing out of all the heavy lifting as usual.” Jo half raised her voice. “Good thing none of us want you here anyway.”

With a slow and inhuman fluidity, Pan turned back towards the group. A smile curled from ear to ear, spreading like sizzling butter across her face. It reminded Jo of the Cheshire Cat from the long ago stories of Alice in Wonderland. “Well, it looks like someone in this group has a bit of fight left in them. Aren’t you a gem who makes her mother proud?” Jo stood to meet her, awaiting her approach, another confrontation, but Pan didn’t make any motion toward her. Instead, she continued toward the doors. “I’ll leave you to it, Miss Savior, since you seem so ready for a challenge. Maybe, if you do a good job, I’ll even let you challenge me someday.” Pan threw her head back and laughed, as if the idea was pure humor and little else.

Jo watched Pan’s every move as she sauntered out of the room. She couldn’t think of a comeback fast enough and the woman was gone in a blink. Jo curled her hands into fists.

“Sit down, doll, or you’re going to scare us all into submission.” Wayne’s voice startled Jo back to reality.

“If looks could kill,” Nico mumbled to himself.

“What, are we just supposed to sit here and take that?” Jo thrust her hand in the direction of the doors leading back to the innards of the mansion. “I don’t get it. I don’t get how you can let her act like thousands of lost lives are nothing.” Her question from before had gotten no answer, so maybe if she stated them as fact, demanded and begged even, she’d finally get one. And oh how she needed one.

“They’re not lost yet,” Eslar reminded her firmly, ignoring all remarks about Pan.

Jo snorted at the elf. “Yet? Like it’s possible for us to actually do this?”

“That is a matter I think we should all remain here to discuss.” Eslar, too, could rephrase his earlier statements. He had not moved from his chair, but Jo suddenly felt like the willowy man was towering over her. She wasn’t ready to back down yet. She was still seeing red.

Her eyes swung from Eslar to Snow. She didn’t know why she was bothering with the subordinate when the ruler was among them. “You are our leader. Stand up for us! Stand up for Takako. Do something.”

“I can stand up for myself.”

Jo froze, Takako’s tone sending ice up her spine; it almost pained her to move her neck and look at the woman. When she did, it was to find cold, dark eyes staring her down with an expression caught somewhere between insult and disappointment. “I do not need you or anyone else to do it for me.”

“Takako, I—” Jo began to plead softly. Her temper had walked her foot right into her mouth.

“What I want is for you to let go of this misplaced righteousness and do as Eslar says. That way, we can figure out a way to prevent the loss of all life—my family included. If you are truly my friend and ally, you will work toward this as well.”

Jo sank into her chair and wished the cushion would swallow her whole. Pan had been the asshole, so why did Jo suddenly feel so terrible?

She hated this, all of it. She didn’t want to let her anger at Pan go, nor her curiosity at why the woman had such a hold on all of the team.

“You’re right,” Jo mumbled, trying to swallow her pride and find a normal voice once more. “I’m sorry, I— Fighting amongst ourselves over some insensitive comments won’t help anyone. Let’s just. . . focus on the wish.” She’d never managed to figure out the whole “being the bigger person” thing that was meant to come with adulthood.

“Now that’s settled,” Snow spoke deliberately, as if trying to radiate his displeasure. Jo folded her arms over her chest; she wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction. “I shall leave you all to it.”

The room was silent once more for the morning’s second departure. The clicking of the doors closed left just the usual six of them.

“Oh no, please. Let us handle it. Thank you for the help, Snow. We greatly appreciate it,” Wayne remarked snidely from Jo’s side. It seemed she wasn’t the only one rankled.

“Snow has done enough for us.” Eslar, ever the peacekeeper.

“Oh? Like getting us into this mess?”

“It’s not as if he chose this for us.” Eslar fired the statement with such certainty that Jo sat a bit straighter.

Snow didn’t choose the wishes? Was that true?

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Wayne continued, oblivious. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Or Pan, Jo added mentally. Between Snow and the candy-haired creature, Jo would put her money on Pan being the one who’d pick a wish like this.

“Isn’t picking the wish good, though?” Nico said softly.

“What?” Wayne balked.

“We can save a lot of people. We can do real good. Isn’t that what we wanted?”

“Not if we don’t stop arguing like children.” Somehow an irritated edge had come to sharpen the typically direct timbre of Takako’s voice.

“Takako’s right.” Jo rested her elbows on the table, leaning forward. As much as she wanted to know more about Pan, and Snow, and everything else, there was nothing to be gained yet on those fronts and far more to be lost by infighting. “So, what are we going to do?”

“We just have to move a few hundred thousand people.” Wayne leaned back in his chair. It was his turn to sulk now, it seemed. Jo and he were similar in so many ways, they could create a dangerous feedback loop of frustration if they weren’t careful. “Could just ask them all one by one, we have a lot of time.” Wayne looked at his watch and then put on an all too sweet tone to say, “Excuse me sir, madam, you’re about to die in hellfire. If you could just—”

“Enough, Wayne,” Eslar snapped, rubbing his temples.

Jo put her forehead down on the table and let the rest of the team squabble around her. The moment she closed her eyes, the newsreels she’d watched for a week played before her like an ominous premonition. How could they get all those people to move? What methods had she seen utilized in state- or country-wide evacuations? Hadn’t she assisted in one before, for a past boss or a cover-up? Surely there was something she could do, something she was overlooking. . .

She shot upward and, judging from the surprised looks the movement inspired, she’d had her head down for longer than expected.

“Great of you to join the class, dollface.”

“It’s simple,” Jo said quickly, ignoring Wayne. She had more important things to discuss now.

“What is?” Eslar asked. But when Jo spoke, it was directly at Takako. “All we need to do is hack into the evacuation system. Create a few falsified statements, issue a large-scale evac. It should just be a push of a button or two and then every man, woman, and child will get alerts on their bio bands.” Jo held out her wrist.

“You can contact every person just like that?” Nico seemed somewhat surprised.

“Warning systems were commonplace back in the early 2000s,” Takako mumbled, chewing on the thought. “They’ve only gotten more sophisticated over time. . .”

“It could work,” Jo urged. “We do it quickly, and then there’s plenty of time for everyone to move. By the time they realize the evac wasn’t government approved, everyone will already be out of the blast zone. And even if people try to go back, news of the actual disaster will start spreading. Everyone stays put and everyone stays safe.”

“You’re sure you can do this?” Eslar folded his hands and rested his mouth against them, his bony knuckles resting just below his nose. “We don’t have a lot of time on the calendar.”

“Leave it to me.” Jo flexed her arm like she was about to flex her skills with a computer. “I can do it all from the recreation room, even. It’ll be easy peasy.”

Eslar turned to Takako. “What do you think?”

Jo looked back to her friend and ally, realizing that for this mission, Takako had become their de facto leader. Snow would always have control over them, but this was personal for the woman, and that seemed to go above everything else. Takako locked eyes with Jo, who swallowed hard, giving a nod as if to say, I can do this. Let me.

“I give you my trust.” Takako nodded as well.

Pride swelled through Jo’s chest and then went right to her head, the pressure of anxiety hardening it into a dizzying weight right between her temples. Jo had pulled off far more complex jobs, certainly. But she wasn’t sure if she’d ever had a job with stakes quite this high.