The latest Encore was sitting in the brig, swiping on his phone. The other Legends probably would’ve taken it away, but Zari thought separating a person from their phone was a punishment worse than death. If he was going to go out, he might as well do it while posting on social media.

Zari held her phone out to check her reflection. It was her first time on the night watch and she could already see the bags forming beneath her eyes. Is this why everyone else looked so tired all the time?

“Are you taking a selfie?”

Zari looked up to find the Encore staring at her with a smile on his face. He was kind of hot in a silver fox way—sharp blue eyes, great bone structure and a gorgeous smile. It helped that no one had bothered to tell her what exactly he was imprisoned for. Too busy saving the world or something.

“Just checking my makeup,” Zari replied. “Why?”

He snapped his fingers in disappointment. “I’ve been looking for someone to teach me to selfie. My daughter was supposed to but—uh—now I’m stuck in here.”

Now this Zari could work with.

“Lucky for you, you’re speaking to the world’s greatest influencer,” she said, standing up. Her skirt had ridden up her legs and she shimmied it back to its intended length before approaching the holding cell. “Zari Tarazi, at your service.”

“Damien,” the man replied. He held out his hand before remembering the forcefield, choosing to wave instead.

“Open your phone camera.”

“That much I know how to do,” he said, tapping at the screen with one finger. He eventually unlocked it and held it up to his face, smiling.

“Flip it around,” Zari instructed. “The front camera distorts your features. You have to use the back camera and zoom in.”

“Got it,” he said, haphazardly snapping a photo. He excitedly turned his phone around then frowned, showing the photo to Zari. It was a blue-ish white blur with a murky flesh-coloured shape in the corner that could’ve been a finger or something else entirely.

“I usually hold up a mirror to see the screen,” Zari said, looking around. She found a reflective piece of equipment on one of the desks and picked it up.

“Here,” she said, standing as close to the forcefield as possible. “Face me and you can see your phone screen in whatever this is.”

Damien tried again, this time getting his face in frame.

“Angle your chin further down,” Zari said. “That’s it.”

“This is perfect!” Damien said, looking excitedly at the photo he'd just snapped. He zoomed in, checking each of his features individually, and Zari tried not to laugh.

“What do you need a selfie for anyway?” she asked. “Updating your Facebook profile from ‘deceased’ to ‘alive’?”

“I just joined Upswipz,” Damien said. A cloud passed over his features, wiping out his good mood. “No matches though. I thought maybe a new picture would help.”

“Ugh, get that out of here,” Zari said, reaching into the forcefield to grab his phone. “Dating apps are full of desperates. You need Instagram—let the ladies come to you.”

“You really think that’ll work?” Damien asked. “I’m not—I have some stuff in my past.”

“This photo won't help,” Zari replied, motioning towards the glowing forcefield in the background of his otherwise perfect selfie. “You look like you’re in prison.”

“I am in prison,” Damien said. Zari rolled her eyes.

“Social media is all about faking it. Come with me.”

Zari approached the forcefield controls and turned them off with some minor hacking. Okay—maybe this wasn’t her smartest idea. But as she’d learned with Wickstable when she was just a kid, things weren’t always as dangerous as they looked. Plus, she had the air totem and it was the middle of the night. She’d have Damien back in prison before anyone knew he’d left.

⛈️

The force of the timestorm shook the Waverider so hard that Sara fell out of bed. She narrowly avoided hitting her head on the dresser, but the shouts from down the hallway suggested that not everyone had been so lucky.

“Babe, are you okay?” Ava asked, reaching a hand over the edge of the bed to help Sara up.

“I get to sleep on that side tomorrow,” Sara said, giving Ava a fake scowl as she sat on the bed. Ava tapped the wall that had kept her from falling off the other side. 

“The most stable person in this relationship.”

Sara’s laugh was drowned out by Ray opening their cabin doors, clad in a flannel pajama set. “Sara! Are you okay?”

“We’re fine. Have you heard from the rest of the crew?”

“No — someone shouted in the captain’s office but I thought it was you.”

“Not me,” Sara said, her heartbeat ramping up. “Who would be in my office?”

Sara, Ava and Ray ran towards the bridge, picking up John (“The fuck’s going on?” “It might be a demon!”) before bounding up the steps to the captain’s office, only to stop in their tracks. Zari was sitting in a chair, her eyes wide and innocent.

“What are you doing?” John asked, running a hand through his unruly hair. Zari smiled beatifically.

“I needed something.” Before John could ask a follow-up question to her obvious lie, Sara came to her senses.

“If you’re here, who’s watching Damien?”

Ray was already on his way to the brig when Zari stopped them.

“Wait!” she said, holding up her hand. “He’s not there.”

“You let him go?”

“No! Of course not,” Zari said. She shifted onto her other foot, phone clasped in her hand like a comfort object. There was movement from the corner of Sara’s eye, and she turned to see Damien emerge from behind her desk.

“Hello,” he said, giving them an innocent wave. He looked… different.

“Is that my jacket?” John asked.

“Are those my sunglasses?” Sara followed.

“Are those my—”

“Yes,” Zari exclaimed, cutting Ray off. “We needed them for something, but we’re done now. Everyone back to bed.”

“Zari,” Sara said, grabbing her arm. “Why the hell would you let Damien Darhk out of the brig?”

“Darhk?” Zari said, turning to face Damien. He dropped his gaze to the floor, refusing to meet her eyes. “Wait, you’re Nora’s dad?”

“Are you friends with my Nora doll?” he asked, giving her a soft smile. Zari glared at him.

“We just met—but from what I’ve heard, her dad is a serial murderer.”

“Reformed serial murderer,” Damien insisted. “Haven’t we all made mistakes?”

“Not like you,” Sara said accusatorily. Everyone fell silent until Sarah eventually sighed, breaking the tension. “Can someone please take Damien back to the brig so we can go to sleep?”

“I’ll do it,” Ray said, a smile masking his obvious nervousness. “Some in-law bonding time can’t hurt?”

Damien removed John’s jacket and Sara’s sunglasses, handing them to their respective owners before striding past Ray towards the brig.

“Nora better not have slept on this ship,” Damien warned, his voice echoing in the hallway.

“Of course not!” Ray said, crossing his fingers behind his back. Sara snorted and rolled her eyes at Ava, who smiled and grabbed her hand, dragging her back to their room.

And then there were two.

“What were you thinking?” John asked, his voice soft and free of accusation. Nothing but genuine curiosity. Zari’s eyes began to well up.

“I just wanted to help,” she said thickly. John wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in, tucking her head beneath his chin.

“Let’s go to bed, love.”

As they crept into Zari’s room, careful not to wake the others, Zari’s phone screen lit up in the darkness. She unlocked it with a quick swipe and clicked the Instagram icon, the ever-present notification bubble floating in its corner.

damien_darhk started following you.

He had already posted the selfie from earlier. It only had one like—Nora—and Zari resisted doing the same. She clicked through and saw that Damien had already commented an excessive string of emojis on Nora’s most recent selfie, including the prayer hands, a fairy and multiple bright blue hearts.

“You coming to bed?” John asked, holding up the edge of the covers. Zari turned back towards her phone, the blue light burning her eyes in the dark.

Letting a serial murderer out of the brig hadn’t been her finest hour. But maybe it was a sign that Zari wasn’t meant to guard the brig in the middle of the night. There were things she was good at—things that made people feel good—and at the end of the day, maybe that was worth something.

“I’m coming,” Zari said. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she turned her phone off—all the way off—and shut it in a drawer. Then she climbed into bed and snuggled into John’s warmth, already half-asleep.