I flunked my history quiz, which sucks, because I did the unthinkable and stayed up all night studying for it. For the past few days, I’ve done nothing except twitch and turn and blink through the night, and seeing that I missed school on Monday because I was feeling ‘sick,’ Mr. Monroe let me retake the test on Thursday instead. My body just could not calm down long enough for me to fall asleep, so I had actually gotten the books out for once, too.

I guess it’s a little hard to sleep knowing that the same hands you’re using to wash yourself clean in the shower are the same hands that were just drenched in human remains. I can barely shut my eyes without my mind flinging me back to that breezy stretch of warehouses every other second, and unfortunately, school is a way for me to distract myself from the Mexico fiasco. The Easy Mart, though, is another thing entirely, and I bury that at the back of my mind more often than not. Or try to. I’ll act normal, as normal as I can, but that’s hard on its own.

I’ll be the first to admit that my mind hasn’t stopped moving at a million miles a minute either. The migraines I’ve gotten are so bad that I had almost been tempted to whack my head against the pavement just so I didn’t have to feel it pulsating around my skull anymore. Studying, somehow, had taken my mind off of the pain.

Doesn’t really matter though, because he marked my test in front of me, his face getting paler by the second with every cross he flicked onto the paper. I had watched him do it, massacre my paper until I came away with an astonishing five out of thirty. Even for my standards that sucks. We had kind of just looked at each other for a while, me holding the paper, him smiling thinly, not really knowing what else to say, because he’s already given me the whole, In my forty years of teaching speech before, so…now what, you know? I can’t even blame the guy for asking me if everything was fine back home, or if I needed special tutoring with some of the other kids, but no, of course everything is fine at home, and yes, I’m sure I don’t need the extra aid. That’ll just be wasting resources.

And time, too, because at the rate I’m going, I probably won’t be allowed to graduate from here. To be fair, I also don’t really have much else on my mind apart from trying to pick the non-existent blood from under my nails.

I groan and put my face to the cafeteria table, my empty tray beside me rattling. Jade is sitting opposite me, as is always the case, with her phone in one hand and an earphone plugged into her head. She’s listening to some new task that Scion wants her to get down to doing soon. Some case file on a mercenary or whatever, which sounds cool in theory, but is just as exciting as the dry-as-chalk pizza she’s nibbling on when you realize the guy is dead. That’s all she ever does at lunch break. Eat, listen to Scion’s instructions, and sit with me because if she didn’t, we’d both have to find somewhere to sit by ourselves. But trust my superhero sister to make me feel better right now.

“Contrary to what you might be thinking right now,” she says, still watching her video and chewing her pizza, “failing a test in high school rarely ever determines your future, because I doubt you were going to college.”

I look up at her and ask, “Some sympathy would be nice, you know? I mean, five! I look stupid, Jade.”

She switches off her phone and looks at me. “You were never going to pass, let’s start there.”

“Ye of little faith,” I mutter, putting my head back down on the table. “Spare me the pep talk, sis.”

“Mostly because you’ve seemed distracted ever since you left me in the dark.”

I shut my eyes and sigh. So that’s why she’s giving me shit today. “I dropped my phone—”

“I’ve been training to spot a liar for several months now, and you might as well scream it.”

Sometimes it’s a pain having her around, because she’s a little too good at being the detective type. The king of support superhero I’m sure any state or country would shell out money for one day. But right now, though?

I wish she could zip it, because the more she talks, the more I feel guilty. What am I supposed to tell her? That I died, came back to life after making a deal with some Cape deity, then diced up a grown woman with nothing but the same arms that helped carry her backpack into the bus today? Jade is smart. She would be able to tell I’m not lying, but even I haven’t figured these powers out yet, and knowing my sister, she’d go straight to Scion, who would go to dad, and that’s another thing entirely. You know how scary it is to touch literally anything right now? When I grabbed my lunch tray, I nearly punctured four holes straight through it. Don’t even mention when the football team asked me to throw them their ball back just before lunch and I almost concussed the quarterback.

But it’s been fine so far. Perfectly fine. I’ve even learnt how to drown everyone out to background noise.

I just wish I could do that with Jade, too.

“You return home late at night with pizza, and Mr. Wilde isn’t far behind either. You’re both in an oddly good mood, which is strange, because the past several times that you’ve snuck out, he’s come down hard on you.”

I sit upright and shrug. “Maybe the old man is finally loosening up a little bit.”

“There’s a higher probability of a Hazard Grade five Calamity to manifest right now than that.” And for extra effect, she waits, counting for ten seconds, as the sounds of laughter and shouting, arguments, flirting and every other noise in a room full of teenagers you can ask for comes together to one rumbling crescendo until Jade bites down on her pizza again, satisfied that she’s just proved her point. “You’ve found his approval somehow.”

I snort a little. “Approval? Please. That’s the last thing on my mind.”

Because when you can kill an adult without intending to do it, approval has to wait in line.

She narrows her eyes behind those large glasses of hers. “Correction: he’s more proud of you now.”

“Where’s this even going, sis?”

Jade shrugs one shoulder and goes back to looking at her phone. “I guess we’re yet to find out.”

In Jade speak, that probably meant: I’ll find out sooner or later, and so will a lot more people.

I glance out of the large floor to ceiling windows, the only things that can ever help release the heat that San Angeles loves to boil everyone with, but right now it feels like a cage. These towering things that are stopping me from having fun right now. The sky, as always, is perfectly blue, laced with clouds and whispering my name again and again. I’ve still got a whole day of this, sitting around in my classes and only paying half attention to whatever’s being taught as I dream about literally anything else, and honestly, failing a test I actually studied for is kind of bumming me out. Getting comfortable with skipping school is a bad habit, I know, but on the other hand, I’ve got all these powers and all these questions to explore right now instead of sitting here fantasizing about them.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Besides, waxing lyrically about me being bad at calculus isn’t very interesting to read, now is it?

“Hey,” I say, getting Jade’s attention. “Mind watching my backpack until the end of the day?”

She sets her phone down on the table. “I know what you’re thinking, and that’s a bad idea.”

“I think we’re past the point of thinking I come up with good ideas, sis.”

“No,” she says, then points over my shoulder. “It’s a bad idea because of that.”

I look at what she’s pointing at, and I internally groan at the breaking news banner scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It’s not the flashing yellow caution that comes on if there’s a Calamity that’s just manifested either, because this kind of news is either annoying or exciting depending on what kind of cereal your parents feed you as a kid. Any other day, any other place, for any other thing, and I would be glued to the tv screen right now.

But this is different, because that B-Lister junior hero just arrived outside of Paul’s Easy Mart. I sit back down slowly, just like a lot of people in the cafeteria do as well. Like I said, Saint’s doesn’t get big attacks as often as most of the other boroughs or cities in California. San Angeles as a whole just isn’t that interesting for the whole supervillain scene, not counting the occasional Calamity. So, for once, dozens of teenagers are left reasonably silent because of the tall black guy in bright red and silver spandex that’s just slammed into the pavement. A really grand entrance that’s made a few of the reporters stumble backward. He spreads his arms and grins wide, his cowl only hiding his eyes but leaving his jaw and hair open to the wind. I’ve got no idea who this guy is, and the media is just right there with me, muttering amongst themselves for a moment before his arms fall and so does his smile, too.

“Who the hell is this dude?” I ask over my shoulder.

Jade is tight lipped, because he shouts his name anyway.

“My name is Bullet!” he says proudly, still showing off those pearly whites. “And I might not be a San Angeles native, but I just love this city! It’s so vibrant, so colorful, and there’s so many pretty faces here, too!”

I chew my tongue and flex my fingers, because he’s standing outside of the taped off remains of one of the only places I could run away to on a weekly basis without mom getting angry. The place he’s posing in front of is a graveyard of stones and rubble, blackened rock and chalk outlines on the ground at his feet. Outlines, by the way, that his silver boots smudge as he walks in shot to make sure the cameras are directly on him. The police tape behind him flutters and snaps in the wind, and it really won’t take me all that long to get there. Five minutes tops.

But then what, Kace? Wag your finger at him for being a prick?

It doesn’t stop me from tapping my finger against the table until it dents.

“But I wish I could have come to see the sights”—he looks at a pretty blonde reporter, who wrinkles her nose as she continues holding her microphone at him—“on better terms, but something heartbreaking happened here last night. Something truly devastating to the people of Saints.” He puts his knuckles on his hips, and…got you, you faker—I can see the glint of the earpiece in his ear probably telling him what he’s got to say and how to say it to the gang of reporters in front of him. “A gas leak. Truly the stuff of nightmares. I mean, you never think it can be you until it is you, am I right? Five…Eight people died, and it’s only important that we start asking the right questions.” Bullet points a gloved finger at the closest camera. “What are we doing to make sure it never happens again? Yes, that’s right. As of today, a charity drive is going to be set up in the names of the people who died here to help the families that were affected. Money, clothes, stationary, anything, that can help them through this time.”

“A freaking charity drive?” I mutter, looking at Jade. “What about Pink-Hair? Why hide this?”

“Saints has an image,” she says quietly. “It’s ‘The Pearl on the Beach’ for a reason. Can’t mess that up.”

I turn to look at her, taken a little aback. “People died last night and all they care about is an image?”

“This city is a lot bigger and more important than you probably think,” she says, packing up her tray and sliding her phone into her back pocket. “Investors sink their money here and the Protectorate has plans for it.”

As Bullet keeps trying to make himself look like a million bucks on television, I follow Jade out of the cafeteria as she places her tray on a rack and strides out of the doors. Even with my powers this girl can strut. Down

the mostly empty hallway we walk, my sneakers squeaking on the tiles as I jog to catch up with her. We only stop when she gets to her locker, and now we’re more than alone as she dials in her code and reaches for her gym bag.

“What’s all this?” I ask, watching as she slings it over her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“Junior Paragons meeting,” she says, checking her phone. “At least, the B-Team Junior Paragons has a meeting right now. They probably want to brief us on Bullet. He went a little off script, so nothing major I think. Someone else was meant to be with him today, but she’s not shown up. AWOL isn’t a good look for any of us either. They’re going to go for his throat when clips start circulating of him smudging the outlines. Tampering with a crime scene is a big no-no, and Artemis is going to come down hard on him I’m guessing. So it’ll be a long night, too”

I grab her wrist before she can leave, which is daring for me to do. I let go before I even have the chance of leaving so much as a bruise on her. “Hold on a second,” I say to her. “You knew about all of that before it began?”

She shrugs one shoulder. “Mission Support included it in their dossier, yes.”

Wow. All I got this morning was a fat juicy F on my report card again.

For a moment I’m lost for words. The Jade from last night had wanted so badly to catch Pink-Hair, but today is seemingly nothing but business with her meetings and assignments and training later tonight after school.

“I thought we were gonna, you know, do some more sibling teamwork tonight,” I say, nudging her.

She rubs her arm where I gently pushed her. “The Protectorate is already handling it.”

I groan and roll my eyes, stepping in front of her before she leaves. “Come on, Jade. You sound like dad right now. We were on a roll last night. If we start right now, we can probably find out her name at the very least. It’s just a briefing on what Bullet said, right? You can miss that, can’t you? Just this once. You’d be saving my bacon.”

Jade stands there looking at me, staring at me for so long that I’m surprised she hasn’t blinked yet. The bell rings down the hallway, and that means lunch is over, and it’s time for class to start again. I swallow past the lump in my throat as my smile whittles away on my lips. I clear my throat just as she leans in closer. “I was interested last night because she was a genuine threat that I thought both of us could handle. I want experience just as much as you do, Kacey, but you left me in the dark and you’ve been lying to me for almost an entire week. You haven’t slept in days and you seem just fine. I saw you snap the handle off the bathroom door when you touched it. Something is going on with you and you’re hiding it from me, which is fine. I don’t get to choose what you want to keep secret. But for a moment, last night, I thought we could actually be a team. But you’re selfish, or maybe you don’t trust me.” She walks past me, leaving me stunned and silent. “Which hurts, because I would trust you in any reality.”

I don’t move until she’s turned the corner at the end of the hallway, vanishing from view. I swallow and nod, clear my throat again and…don’t know what to do. Ouch, sis. I push a hand through my hair and come to a decision that’ll most likely land me in a heap of trouble with a lot of different people, but it’s the right thing to do.

Because you know me and my amazing decision making skills.

The sky doesn’t feel half as bright as it was when I leave school and jog down the front steps, but there’s things to do and superhero-ing to be done, so when I’m sure that nobody is here, I’m in the sky the next second.

“Miss Wilde!” I hear a teacher bark. “Where are you going during school hours?!”

Crap!