Poppy slammed her fist into the cracked leather of the punch bag. She’d been at the gym for hours, blowing off steam. In fact, most of her time since the Clan Akkaba attack had been spent exactly like this, rep after rep, and her days were deja-vued. She went in for another jab, each one harder than the last. The terrified faces of her peers were flashing before her eyes. She could see herself, too, in out-of-body fashion, looming over a clan member’s mangled corpse with savage triumph. That wasn’t me, she thought, That was a monster. Somebody else. But how could she ever make anyone understand?
She gave the bag another hit. It jerked leftward. Perhaps she really was a monster, not even mutant, and her loss of control was just the start of the inevitable. The thought caused a thrill of raw anger in her, and she came at the bag with her most powerful strike yet. It lurched back in response and nearly hit the girl standing behind it, missing her by a mere inch. “Watch it!” Poppy hissed. But she pressed a finger to her sweaty temple and took a deep inhale, trying to collect herself. “Sorry... I’m sorry.” She steadied the bag with a taped hand. “Are you all right?”