Previously, in Killing Olympia's Alternate Realities:

  “Ever since we managed to get home,” Suits said slowly, picking the scabs on her knuckles, “I’ve been doing a lot of research on everything going on with us, and it looks like the older one was right. Our lives vary way more than she let on, and there are a lot more of us than you can probably even imagine. Some of our villains are exclusive. Some of our friends are exclusive. The Olympians are different for each of us. But one thing is for sure: we all have the same Calamity Events. At some point, you realize your old man—or your mom—is an asshole. At some point, you’re gonna screw it up with Bianca—or Ben.” God, he’d already done enough of that, and after they’d just started talking again, he couldn’t imagine digging himself an even deeper grave. “And at some point, we’re all going to make a choice. A very important choice. And the government knows that. At least, a part of the government knows that. There are pockets around the world who know exactly what we are and how dangerous we can be. I played coy and signed their waivers and their contracts and their NDAs. I wore their monkey suits so they would get off my back and leave everyone I used to care about alone.” Her voice had gotten quieter, but not softer—almost more venomous. “And they’re all very right about us.”

  Riley glanced at her. “What happened back home?”

  “I made a choice,” she whispered. She picked her nails, but she’d be better removing them entirely if she wanted to get rid of the black filth. “I made a choice, and a lot of people got hurt, and a lot of people wanted me dead, but I made a choice, and now everybody gets to live.” She looked at him. The shadows didn’t seem to want to stop crawling through the hollows of burnt stringy skin along the side of her face. “But whatever you do, you cannot kill Witchling, and you cannot trust Taylor Greenheart. You don’t know that now, but you will eventually. I came here for your help, or to do it myself—either to stop you, or to help make sure you don’t back out. Things are good right now for a reason, because they won’t be very soon, and you know that old saying, the one that goes: the path to hell is paved with good intentions?” Riley slowly nodded. “It’s very, very fucking true. And I know you’re lying.”

  He stared at her, then looked away and clenched his jaw. “Taylor is—”

  “Not your friend,” she said, her voice low. “I figured you knew her when you mentioned you had a team back home when we were sitting at the table. Riley, for your own good, she’s not from here, and she’s also not something you deal with on your own.”

  Something? Like she's not even human? Riley thought.

  ***

  Riley tensed his jaw and plucked the cigarette out of her mouth. “No smoking on campus. Leave.”

  She shrugged one shoulder and stepped back. “Gonna regret it. You’ve got more to live for than the rest of us probably ever have, but sure, fine, if you want to destroy all of this because of your hubris, then go for it, champ. But when the sky tears open and you’re faced with your choice, nobody’s coming to save you—at least, I won’t.”

  “What, you think I can’t handle my shit?” he asked her quietly.

  “No, I think you can. I just don’t think you’ve got the guts to not buckle when it matters.”

  “Against who?”

  She slowly pointed upward. “The Empire, who else?”

  ***

  “At the end of the day, we’re all pretty super! Now we’ve just got to be heroes, too!” Rhylie spread her arms, just like she’d been told to do because—according to the lady with the tablet—they’d add a phone number on screen right now so it wouldn’t look like she was trying to hug the large, humming camera in front of her. “So, proud patriots! Join the war! Fight alongside real American heroes!” She winked and grinned. “Call this number to find out how you can be super, just like me! The Olympians fought for us, and now you, yes you, can save America, too! Be on the right side of history, be with the United Superhero Force!"

  “Cut!”

  She dropped her smile, cheeks aching so badly she wanted to reach under her skin and turn her face into putty. But a lady with an overly stuffed makeup bag scurried on set and started patting away the beads of sweat on her forehead. The lights burned bright white, damn nearly blinding her. People hurried to take off her leather jacket, give her another, this time with the airforce’s logo stitched above her heart, where her golden lightning bolt should be. Fix her hair. Fix her eyebrows. Arms up, darling, you’re doing great—just a little bit of sweat, nothing too hard to get rid of! Has anyone ever told you how great your skin is? It’s so damned soft! I’m jealous, really. And she stood still, jaw tense, ears ringing with the voices of dozens of people touching her in ways she hated. A short, scrawny guy shoved a straw into her mouth. She sipped automatically, getting hit with some putrid mix of avocado juice and lime, or whatever the fuck her nutritionist came up with to orture her.

  She fought a gag, then swallowed.

  “There we go,” the girl with the makeup said, stepping back and smiling. “You look gorg.”

  “Get the fuck out of the way so I can get this over with,” Rhylie said, lowering her arms.

  The girl blinked, stammered a little, then nodded and said, “Right. Sorry. I’ll, um, be over there.”

  She got off the set and stood to her right, bag cradled in her arms, trying not to cry. Rhylie ignored her, shut her eyes, tried her best not to massage her temples because she had one heck of a headache deep in her skull. It almost felt like she'd been punched in the head over and over again. She pressed her fingers into her eyes, ears ringing, mind buzzing—she felt like puking for some reason, maybe because of the weird juice still in her mouth, or maybe because she couldn't help replay the argument she had with Bianca last night. It was…worse, this time. Way worse. Shouting. Screaming. She’d swiped a three-thousand dollar vase off the table and smashed it so hard against the wall it disintegrated. And Bianca had stood there, arms folded, jaw set and eyes cold, then told her maybe it was better they didn’t see each other for a while. By morning, Bianca’s half of the apartment was empty. Clean.

  Like she’d never lived there in her life. Rhylie had woken up with a hangover and tried to call.

  Bianca hadn’t picked up. At all. Not even a voicemail message. She’d wanted to stop by her place, but she had this thing, and then another thing after that, and brunch with the mayor and dinner with her dad, and now she’s selling war bonds.

  Because there was nothing quite like sending superheroes to their deaths on a broken heart.

  “Hey, superstarrrr,” the director sang. Rhylie sighed through her nose and looked at him, or tried to—the large white light behind him made that nearly impossible. “We’ve still got a couple—”

  “I need five,” she sighed, pulling the leather jacket off and throwing it to a runner.

  “But—”

  She stopped on the edge of the set, staring at him as he stood up. She tilted her head and waited.

  He cleared his throat and sat back down. “Alright,” he grumbled. “Take ten, everyone. Princess said so.”

  She faked a quick smile, then grabbed her headphones from someone’s hands and briskly walked past the dozens of people in suits quietly watching from the back of the set. She’d gotten used to seeing them these days, always there, smoking their thin cigarettes, quietly pulling her aside so they could talk about the war, but not really. All they ever wanted was a favor. Always a favor. And that meant going off at night and tearing a hole through some foreign country she’s never heard of, capturing someone she didn’t care about, and getting a blank check for it.

  A man with medals pinned to his chest tightly nodded at her.

  Not today.

  Five minutes later, she was standing under the scorching San Angeles sunlight, sweat on her bare arms as she pulled off her headphones and let the wind comb through her hair. She sighed and massaged the back of her neck, taking her time walking across the lot toward her trailer. A hulking, red and gold monstrosity that her agent said was totally necessary for the brand. The Great Cape Tour. That’s what was printed on the side in large, blocky letters, because two days from now, she’d be back in New Olympus, and then Florida, and then Washington to meet with the president again, just so everyone in the country could hear the super awesome superhero draft that was planned!

  That was gonna rally everyone's hopes, that's for sure.

  It was gonna be mandatory this time. Congress just agreed to superhumans getting special treatment. Seventeen now, down from nineteen just a few months ago.

  Just super...super freaking awesome.

  She reached the trailer’s door, then smelt something raunchy in the air. Her nose wrinkled. Gross, she thought, and then checked her boots. No, nothing filthy. Her nails? Sharp as ever, because she needed them to carve open foreign dignitaries for the sake of national security, or whatever. Today, they were red, white, and blue, with tiny golden stars dashed across them. Not her choice, like everything she did in her life. That smell, though, was in her throat, on her tongue. She sniffed the air and looked into the sky, around the lot, but sure enough, it was coming from inside of her trailer. She groaned and shoved open the door, really, really hoping her nutritionist hadn’t just—

  Rhylie stopped in the doorway, watching a homeless person burrow through her fridge. She looked at the floor, at the filthy footprints on the formerly white carpet. The flat screen TV was on, loudly playing a show she acted in years ago…maybe. Time started moving weird ever since Miss Rivers got in office and the world started throwing superheroes at one another. The homeless person was humming to herself, wearing Rhylie’s sweatpants and her baggy pajama shirt, unbuttoned all the way down to her belly button. She shut the fridge with her hip, took a chunky bite out of a sandwich she’d been hiding for later, reached into a bag of chips, threw those into her mouth too, and eyed Rhylie as she did. She folded her arms. The homeless girl with the wild, ratty blonde hair kept eating, kept chewing, then dusted crumbs off her chest, licked salt off her fingers, and burped after she downed a beer can.

  “Oh, man,” Suits said, then landed on the couch with a grunt, feet up on the table, gnarly toenails caught in the sunlight slipping through the closed blinds. Hell, she was missing her smallest toe, too. “I haven’t eaten in months. You’re too fancy to know what rat kebabs are, but out there in my reality, it’s gourmet shit. People murder each other over cockroach hives. But it gets a little chewy when it’s cold since, you know, we don’t have working electricity grids anymore.” Rhylie tried her best not to scream when she spotted a pair of underwear—not hers, totally not hers—in the tiny kitchen sink. It had to be Suits'. She’d also showered. Or tried to. She was clean, sure, but Rhylie’s white towel was a lost cause, just like all her empty shampoo and conditioner bottles scattered all across the bathroom. Before she could pass out or scream or explode, she softly shut the door behind her, took a deep breath, and smiled at the girl picking her teeth with a fingernail and flicking food off her nails with ease.

  “Hey…you,” Rhylie said, getting closer, but still out of range from an aerial fingernail food attack. “What’re you doing in my trailer, wearing my clothes, eating my food, making this place smell like you hid a body in my fridge?”

  Suits shrugged. “Maybe I did.”

  “I’m gonna murder you.”

  She scoffed. “And ruin those nails?”

  Rhylie shut her eyes as the migraine pulsed hard behind her eyes. She stiffly sat down on the edge of the couch, buried her face in a pillow, and screamed. When she was done, she flipped her hair back, sighed at the ceiling, wished Suits hadn’t brought that stench with her, and then looked at the girl with half her hair missing. She was pretty sure Suits had a full head of hair the last they saw each other in the dunes, but maybe she had some kind of meltdown. Rhylie knew all about those. It kinda suited her, with dark roots and pale blonde hair, still wet from the shower she must’ve loved taking. Scabs. Scars. Rhylie tried not to stare at her stomach, where a nasty pink gash ran from her right breast to her hip. She’d either been gutted or someone had tried to split her in half. If she was here, then whoever tried must not have gotten lucky. She looked like hell. Like the first wave of superhumans to get shipped out and sent back home shivering, shaking, rattling messes. Thirty. That’s how many of them had shot themselves.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Thirty-five, if you counted the ones with bulletproof skin who tore open their own stomachs.

  Thirty-six, not counting the girl who came back as sheets of flesh in a wooden box.

  “What?” Suits asked. “Don’t look at me that way. You’re the one screaming into pillows.”

  “Honey, you look like a disaster.”

  Suits gestured at the TV. Rhylie didn’t have to look at it to know what she was watching. The news wasn’t fun these days like it used to be when it was about her. False casualty reports. Cheery-faced reporters doing their best to make it seem like the war was going great. More land concqoured. New offensive fronts working just fine. American factories pumping out more and more equipment every second, even if half of the steelwork industry had gotten wiped off the face of the map just last week. “If you wanna talk about disasters, what the fuck happened?”

  “What hasn’t happened,” she sighed, flopping onto her back. “The world is tearing itself apart.”

  “And you’re just watching it happen?” she asked quietly, mockingly.

  Just like how Bianca asked her last night.

  “No,” Rhylie said, massaging her eyes. “I’m selling war bonds right now for the government.”

  Suits stayed silent. Rhylie glanced at her. She expected laughter, or a shake of the head—all she got from Suits was this cold, empty stare as she chewed on her tongue. Rhylie sighed from her nose and looked away, because she’d been looked at like that enough times over the past few months, thank you very fucking much.

  “Don’t start,” she muttered.

  “And you said I was the sellout,” Suits said. “You’re sending kids to their death for a paycheck?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s what it fucking looks like.”

  “You don’t know me,” Rhylie snapped, sitting upright. “So don’t judge me. I know you think I’m some blonde idiot, but I know what I’m doing, alright? And I chose to do this, so I’m not gonna take this from you of all people. Not after what you made me do to Glasses.” Suits’ eyes narrowed. “Now, get out. I’ve got another shoot—”

  “I spoke to Riley,” Suits said. “You remember him, the guy? Quarterback with the perfect smile?”

  She stood up and gestured at the door. “Out. Please. I don’t want to hear anything about—”

  “I need your help,” Suits said. Rhylie faltered, then lowered her arm and frowned.

  “…me?” she asked quietly. “You need my help? Why?”

  “For some reason,” Suits sighed, running her fingers through her hair, just like they all did, “I can’t get to the strong one. The one who left before…well, before we found a way home. And I’ve checked other realities and we’re either dead, dying, or didn’t even get to live long enough for our casket not to be baby-sized.” Rhylie tried not to flinch, but she couldn’t help it. “So…” she continued with another sigh, “I came to you, my very last hope.”

  “Nice to know I’m really high up on your list of important people.”

  “You’re soft, it’s just how it is,” Suits said with a shrug. “I’ve been in your reality for a while, you know. Not long enough to sit down and watch the news, but long enough to figure out that everything about you is a lie.” She folded her arms and tried not to chew the inside of her mouth. “The villains the rest of us fight? I doubt you even know what they’re doing to them, do you? They’re in labs, Superstar. They get cut open and spread out on tables, and then their organs get put inside dead army boys, just so they know what happens to human bodies when you shove a bunch of superhuman organs inside of them. And do you know what happens when they do that?” Rhylie didn’t want to hear any more of this, but she stood still, arms folded, jaw clenched and heart racing. “They always wake up. Can you imagine that? The US government cured death! And then they get cancer, turn violent, kill a couple of scientists, and now they’ve got a hulking abomination under lock and key that they sometimes send overseas to fight their wars. So yeah, you’re soft, because any one of us would’ve blown our top and torn a hole through the entire fucking country. We’re not the most heroic superhero in history, but we have some morals.”

  “Don’t grandstand, it looks tacky,” Rhylie said bitterly. “They’re doing what they have to.”

  Suits balked at that, staring hard. “Do you hear yourself? They’re using kids. Kaiju kids. They put shock collars around their throats and send them running into battle with bombs in their guts because, well, fuck ‘em, right? Their parents sold them, so who cares what happens to them, right? Kids go missing during war, so what?”

  “Now you’re just making up bullshit to make me feel bad.”

  “Is it working?”

  “It’s making me sick.”

  “Good.” Suits stood up and pulled a piece of paper out from her bra, then forced it against Rhylie’s chest. “You want proof? Take a look. Locations of labs and blacksite army bases and pick-up points for the kids. My government wasn’t clean, but Rivers never became president back home, not when someone made her head explode on national television, so that means half of this stuff never got further than some egghead’s sick hard drive. This?” Suits waved her hand at the TV, showing black helicopters ripping through clouds of smoke, right alongside superhuman fliers skimming through the sky behind them. “It’s not normal. I’ve seen war, but Jesus Christ, I’d rather the Empire came down here than whatever the hell you’re letting happen.”

  “Letting happen?” Rhylie whispered, then batted away her hand and jabbed a finger into Suits’ chest. “I’m doing something. From what I know about you, Miss I’m-So-Fucking-Great, is that you let your world fall apart so badly that you ran away from it!”

  A beat of silence. The reporter on the TV spoke about the Great American Conquest overseas.

  “Yeah, I did,” Suits said, staring directly into her eyes. “And I’m trying to make sure you don’t, too. You have more to live for, I don't. Don't throw this all away.”

  Rhylie blinked, then sighed and stepped back. Her fingers found their way through her hair as she cursed. “I…” Another sigh. “I know about the Kaiju kids,” she said quietly. Suits didn’t react. Maybe she already knew this, maybe she just wanted to hear Rhylie say it out loud. “But things are different here. Kaiju aren’t people. They went and killed the president, Rivers took over, and…” She paused, then went to the TV and tore out its power cord. Then she snapped her phone in half, killed the smart fridge, the microwave, and punched a hole through the floor, grabbed a fistful of wires, and tore them out. The lights inside the trailer blinked, fritzed, and shut off. Suits folded her arms, trying not to smile, but like she’d said—she wasn’t some blonde idiot. She knew they were listening. And she’d just have to tell her agent she had another argument with Bianca on the phone again and things got messy.

  Again.

  “The Soviets took most of the Kaiju in,” Rhylie said, almost breathless. “Rivers wants them back so, in her words, justice can be served for the American people, but she’s the one who paid them off to kill the president!” Suits didn’t react to that, not even a little, which bummed Rhylie out, because come on! “But there’s also something she’s after that I’m not allowed to know about. Something top-secret that the Soviets have. Maybe it’s Arkathian tech, or maybe they’ve gotten some of it working, but the US is freaked out right now, and we are this close to throwing nukes and superhumans at each other, and fuck, Suitsie, I am so afraid right now. I wake up everyday and I get military briefings. Me! Me! I get briefed on how many boys died and how many of them don’t have legs anymore, but we’ll heal ‘em up and send them back out there! Just have a telepath block their bad memories and tell them they've still got that special it factor we're looking for! Don't even get me started on the abominations. I've seen them. Way too many of them. They..." She shuddered. "They do things to people, hurt them but don't kill them, somtimes they try to breed, sometimes they just rip them apart and eat their guts, and since we can't stop them, we just let them wander around, naked and crazy and God I feel like I'm going nuts! And then they’ll hand me a massive script to memorize so I can convince more of them to get blown up and slaughtered and torn apart because if I don’t do it—”

  “They’re keeping someone hostage,” Suits said quietly. “It’s not Bianca, is it?”

  “Even they know that’s a step too far,” she muttered. “It’s our kid.”

  Suits blinked, then her mouth fell open. “Your what?”

  “Long story.”

  “You have a kid! How do you… What! You can't just say that's a 'long story' and end it there!" That was the most emotion Suits had probably ever shown. She paced around the trailer, then paused and grabbed Rhylie with her crooked fingernails. “How the fuck did you—”

  “Long. Story. Now back off, your breath is all funky and I’ve got a sensitive nose.”

  Suits slowly stepped back, shaking her head. “I’ll be damned. I will be damned. So you guys are…”

  “Not married,” Rhylie sighed. “I think we broke up last night.”

  Suits smiled thinly. “It happens to the best of us, Superstar.”

  “What ever happened to your Bianca?” she asked. “You barely ever speak about her.”

  Suits shrugged. “I’ll tell you one day, probably after we’re done fixing this mess.” She got closer and dropped her voice. “But let’s get serious for a second, because I came here for one reason, and one reason only.” It was only when she got closer that Rhylie noticed the scar tissue across one half of her face. She’d healed, but not enough to hide the shine of fresh skin along her cheek and jaw. “I’m warning you about Taylor.” Rhylie stiffened. Suits smiled grimly. “Same reaction as the quarterback,” she muttered. “Look, it’s gonna sound nuts, but I need you to do what you haven’t done before, and that’s to put on your big girl pants and kill her.” She spoke before Rhylie could open her mouth. “It’s for your own good. For everyone’s good. Wars on Earth might be bad, but they are nothing like the ones the Empire wages, and you know that. And if she lives, things are gonna get worse. So much worse. Taylor isn’t meant to be in this reality, and whatever the fuck she is deserves to get ripped in half. She’s a parasite, Superstar. A cancer that needs to get torn out before she kills everything and everyone you care about.”

  Kill Taylor? But she’s my—

  A knock on the door, three quick taps, followed by it swinging open. Her agent smiled at her, all teeth, green eyes sparkling behind those big circular glasses. She had files wedged against her chest and a series of tattoos up and down her arms. “Hey there, rockstar,” she said, climbing into the trailer. Rhylie glanced behind her, but… Suits was gone. Simply not there anymore. Her bare feet had left depressions in the carpet, ones Rhylie stepped on as she turned around to look at Taylor. Tiny golden sparks burst and died in thin air. “I heard you ran off set, so I came to check on you.” She lingered in the room, eyeing the dark TV screen, the hole in the floor, the underwear still in the sink and the wet towel on the floor. Taylor pursed her lips, stayed silent for a moment when she looked at the piece of paper Suits had left behind on the couch. Rhylie picked it up and folded it, smiling. Taylor cocked an eyebrow. “What the hell happened in here?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Sex, drugs, the whole megastar shebang, Tay-Tay.”

  “Hm,” she hummed, watching Rhylie slap the piece of paper against her palm. “And what’s that?”

  “Oh, this thing?” she said, jamming it into her costume’s folds. “Just an old script I found lying around.”

  “Alright,” Taylor said slowly. “Well, I need you back on set. We’ve still got a lot more to get through.”

  “Right, I can’t wait to keep selling death to the country,” Rhylie said, chuckling uncomfortably.

  Taylor frowned. “Are you doing OK? You’ve seemed off today.”

  She waved her hand through the air. “Bianca and I had a big fight last night. It’s whatever.”

  “Oh, honey,” Taylor said softly, pouting a little. “You wanna talk about it?”

  Rhylie walked past her and said, “Nope. I’ve got bigger problems to deal with right now.”

  “Since when was Bianca not the biggest problem in your life, rockstar?”

  She froze the moment her boots landed on the hot tarmac.

  Biggest problem?

  Rhylie glanced over her shoulder, watching Taylor stare down at her, smothered in the trailer’s darkness. The sunlight was hot, stinging, the kind that almost felt insulting. And Taylor, always pale, almost see-through, stood there with half a smile on her face, eyes sparkling like she was expecting Rhylie to laugh at that shitty joke.

  “You’re my agent, not my friend,” she said flatly. “Keep it professional, and let’s get moving.”

  She blinked, took one step down the trailer’s stairs. “I didn’t mean it that way, rock—”

  “I’m a superhero, not a rockstar, BTW,” she said. “And I want a new trailer. I’ll pick one and buy it myself.”

  “But—”

  “Taylor,” Rhylie said sharply, then put on a smile after she went silent. “Shut up.”

  Silence. Long, heavy, thick silence. Taylor’s mouth went thin.

  Her nails dug into the manilla military folders in her arms.

  Finally, she nodded. “I think they need you now.”

  Rhylie smiled. “They probably have for a while. Let’s get going.”

  She made it two steps, paused, then shattered the asphalt exploding into the sky, leaving Taylor screaming her name. Fists forward, eyes squinted, wind screaming in her ears as her hair snapped wildly against her back. And there was Suits, not too far behind her. She nodded once. Short. Lips thin. Rhylie looked forward, tried to swallow the emotion swirling like a wildfire in her gut, and chose to ignore it. We’re all a little super, so let’s all be heroes.

  Even if it’ll probably kill her.

  Besides, Bianca was right—ever since Zeus died, she’d gotten cowardly. Scared of the government. Terrified they’d kill her, too. And then they’d stolen her daughter, kept her in a hole. Bianca had wanted to tear the foundation apart in Washington and grab her. Rhylie said it was stupid, too dangerous—let’s just sell the bonds together and do what they say, and they’ll give her back to us six months from now, just like it says in the contract. It was the smart option. The grown-up decision. The kind everyone kept telling her to make, because daddy wasn’t here to protect her anymore, and mommy hated her guts and didn't even want to look at her, so she needed to grow up for once and think about the future. Don’t be brash anymore. Don’t be shallow anymore. Think past herself and consider everyone else for once in her life, because she’d been stubborn, and they’d killed the greatest superhero on the planet because she’d been brash, stupid, and childish. Which wasn’t true. They killed Zeus because they wanted to let her know she wasn’t anywhere near as powerful, anywhere near as untouchable, as she thought she was. The contract they gave her was signed the day he died.

  She just hadn’t known it at the time when she was holding his body, screaming for him to wake up.

  Bianca had slapped her across the face last night. The first time she’d even touched her since she got back. She’d looked so disgusted, so angry, so hurt that Rhylie had tried to apologize. Bianca had told her to keep quiet, don’t even bother, because the world had its hero, America had its darling, but she didn’t have her girlfriend's back.

  “Hell of a hero, Rhy,” she’d muttered, throwing her engagement ring on the floor. “Great fucking job.”

  “You sure you’re ready for this?” Suits yelled over the wind. “You changed your mind pretty quickly.”

  “Killing Taylor is one thing,” she shouted over the wind. Suits didn’t look happy with that. “I can still save the world.” Then she turned her head and grinned at Suitsie. “Besides, when I save it, that just means I’m the best Olympia!”

  “You sure about that, Superstar?”

  “Never been more sure of anything in my life, Suitsie.”

  She shook her head. “Then let’s go try to prove you wrong.”