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Naomi. Angélica had won then, and the woman, who was gangly even before the weird rubber powers kicked in, definitely looked like the type to hold a grudge.
    She whipped both arms out and I yelped, leaping aside. Angélica wasn’t fast enough to dodge the hit, but she shook it off, spun on her heel, and launched herself at the woman. “Help the others,” she shouted at me as she blocked a counterstrike. “I’ve got this.”
    Arguing would only piss her off. I turned to look around. The fireball thrower, I could see now, was the infamous Scorch. He’d kidnapped me over three years before, and I hadn’t missed him at all in the meantime. The dude took pyromania to the next level. He shot gusts of flame from his wrists while Guy nimbly dodged each blast. Vicki and Brook seemed to be taking on Tamara Diesel and the man in the stained hoodie. They fought together in almost perfect tandem. It was like watching some kind of beautifully coordinated dance.
    I took a step back in awe and my heel hit a patch of ice. I landed flat on my back, knocking the wind temporarily out of my chest. When I looked sideways, I saw a flash of gray out of the corner of my eye. I rolled over, elbow dragging through a frigid puddle, right in time to see a man in a gray hooded jacket reach into the post office box where Brook had dropped the ransom payment. A glimpse of the black bag was all I needed.
    â€œThe kidnapper,” I shouted before I thought about it. The man, who’d been walking hurriedly with his hood up, broke out into a run. Trusting that my friends had the superfluous supervillain issue under control, I ran after him.
    He ducked into the station, probably hoping to lose me in the fleeing crowd. I sped after him, leaping down the stairs four or five at a time and dodging around ­people. This would have been the perfect time to phase, really. I pushed that hindsight to the back of my mind where it belonged and pumped my legs harder. The kidnapper shoved civilians as he ran by, knocking them into my path. “Sorry, sorry,” I said as I hurtled over them like I was at a high-­school track meet.
    The man spun—­I couldn’t see his face since he was wearing some kind of mesh mask—­and knocked a cart over into my path. I skidded and nearly crashed into it. When I made the leap over it, though, a sharp punch hit me right between the shoulder blades.
    It knocked the wind out of me again. I landed in an ungraceful sprawl on the hard ground, wrist and back singing with the sting. Automatically, I rolled to the side and a glob of something steaming and yellow hit the ground where I’d been instants before. The acrid scent of burning sewage hit my nostrils.
    I jumped to my feet and found myself facing off against the green-­hoodied man. And now that I was close enough, I realized I knew him. I groaned. “Toadicus, what the hell?”
    Toadicus flicked his tongue over his rotten yellow teeth. “Do I know you?”
    â€œNever mind,” I said, and he shot another glob of goo at me. Some of it hit my mask when I didn’t dodge fast enough. Frustrated, I just spun and ran again. The kidnapper had disappeared deeper into Union Station, toward the tracks. I didn’t have time to deal with a two-­bit frog villain who’d kidnapped me for laughs a ­couple years before.
    Unfortunately, Toadicus’s other froglike qualities made him a little difficult to evade. He hopped in front of me. I socked him in the midsection and ducked around him as he grunted and folded forward. My cheek started to burn, so I yanked off my mask.
    Toadicus jumped and landed in front of me again by the entrance to the tracks. I saw it in that weird slow motion that happens when adrenaline becomes overpowering: his throat bulged like a toad’s as he readied to hawk another loogie, which would hit me in the face. I didn’t have time to duck. I watched him open his