Jordan slams the door open like they own the place, which, technically, they kind of do. Tacony Music Hall isn't exactly theirs, but they live here, and they run the Auditors out of here, and they're the one who rigged up the motion sensors and the reinforced locks, so if anyone has squatters' rights, it's them.

I don't look up right away. I've got an ice pack pressed to my ribs, and if I move too fast, I'll lose the exact angle that makes it less excruciating to breathe. My phone is propped up against my knee, cycling through news coverage. Everything is either about the marina or the anti-vigilante law. I'm about to read something about the marina - always interested to see how my work is interpreted - before Jordan's arrival shakes me out of it.

Jordan kicks their backpack to the floor and throws themselves into the armchair like they just won the lottery. They look like they've been through hell, and they're grinning. Clothes rumpled, hair a mess, a scrape on their cheek that wasn't there before, but they look energized. Like they thrived on whatever fresh disaster they just crawled out of.

"Hey, team," they announce, sprawling dramatically. "Miss me?"

Lily stops sorting bandages long enough to give them a dead-eyed stare. Amelia doesn't even look up, just keeps stacking gauze packets.

Tasha, from her seat at the desk, mutters, "This better be good."

I close my eyes. Take a breath. Feel the ache of my ribs complain about it. Then I open my eyes again and turn my full attention to Jordan, who is way too pleased with themselves for someone who was almost arrested yesterday.

"How did you get out?" I ask.

Jordan leans back, folds their hands behind their head. "Oh, that's not important right now."

I stare at them.

Lily snorts. "Yeah, okay, but it's kind of important."

"Like, it is the most important thing," Amelia adds. "Especially if it's something we can actually use again."

"Or something we should never, ever, ever try again," Tasha mutters, still half-listening to police scanner chatter.

Jordan swings their legs over the arm of the chair like a kid about to tell a campfire story. They are so ready to milk this moment. "Alright, alright. You want to know? I'll tell you. But first - "

They reach into their jacket pocket and pull out a crumpled candy bar. Unwraps it. Takes a slow, agonizing bite.

I sit up too fast and regret it immediately, my ribs protesting with sharp, unfriendly pain. "Jordan."

They hold up a hand. Chew. Swallow. Look so goddamn smug while doing it.

Then, finally, they say, "Okay, so you know how my power works, right?"

"Oh my god," Amelia groans.

"Of course we know how your power works," Lily says.

"Do you know how your power works?" I ask.

Jordan makes a pfft noise, like that's a dumb question. Which, to be fair, it kind of is. If there's one thing Jordan knows, it's how to break their power in weird ways.

"So, here's the thing," they continue. "Connor and I were talking a while back - "

"You mean before he retired?" Amelia cuts in.

"Yes, before he retired, thank you for that reminder of our tragic loss," Jordan says, placing a dramatic hand over their heart. "Anyway, we were brainstorming ways to use my power for smuggling, hypothetically speaking, and we came up with this."

They dig through their backpack, which they so casually chucked to the floor a minute ago, and pull out a beat-up old cardboard box. It's... big, like the kind you'd have kept a chair in. Looks like it used to hold office supplies or something. They set it on the coffee table with way too much reverence for a piece of trash, unfolding it from its previous position folded into quarters.

I squint at it. "That's your big escape plan? A box?"

Jordan grins. "Not just any box. The perfect box."

They flip it over. The bottom has been cut out and replaced with a false bottom, a thin layer of cardboard separating two compartments. There's a tiny hole near the corner, barely big enough for a fingertip.

"So here's the genius part," Jordan says, leaning in. "I get in the fetal position - "

"Oh my god," Amelia groans again.

" - inside the bottom part of the box, see? Then, I use one hand to expand the false bottom just enough to make myself comfortable. Not too much, because I don't want the weight to feel wrong if someone picks it up."

Lily leans forward, grinning, like she knows where this is going. "And the top part - "

" - hey, don't ruin my moment, gets filled with fake drugs and real money. But mostly fake drugs. Because if you recall," Jordan gestures grandly, "when I expand a space, my power duplicates objects inside it to make it look full. So I just stick my finger through this little hole here and, bam, endless supply of fake product."

There's a beat of silence.

I tilt my head. "That was your master plan?"

Jordan beams. "And it worked!"

"You hid in a cardboard box and bet your life on the fact that nobody would look inside?"

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Pretty much, yeah."

I stare at them. Amelia looks like she's reconsidering her entire life. Lily has the exact same expression she did when she tried to install a new lock last week and got it to work.

Jordan, undeterred, slaps a bunch of post-it notes on the table, grinning like they just won a war. "And this is what I got while I was in there." I pick one up. The writing is messy, but dense with information. Jordan crosses their arms, smug as hell. "You're welcome."

Amelia rubs her temples. "I cannot believe that actually worked."

"Yeah, and you said I take too many risks," I mutter, flipping through the post-its. "Alright," I say, exhaling slowly. "Let's see what we've got."

Jordan is thrilled with themselves. They're vibrating in their seat, legs bouncing, eyes darting between all of us like they expect someone to declare them a genius. Amelia is carefully stacking the post-it notes into categories - known names, unknown names, locations, dates - trying to make sense of what we've got before Tasha even finishes running the first check. Lily is sitting on the couch, stretching out her arms like she's psyching herself up for a marathon, even though she's barely moved since Jordan got here.

And I'm sitting in the same damn spot, peeling back the edge of my bandages, very carefully not wincing as Amelia catches me and immediately glares.

"Don't start," I mumble.

"I don't have to," Amelia says, already reaching for the medical kit.

I sigh, lean back, and let her work. The skin around my ribs is bruised to hell, the swelling down but the ache persistent, a deep, dragging kind of pain that makes me feel heavy. My arms are still raw from last night, the scrapes and burns half-healed but not fully there yet, and I know if I say anything, Amelia will go into full nurse mode, so I just bite my tongue and let her swap out the bandages without complaint.

Jordan, meanwhile, is rambling.

"So here's the thing, right - Monkey Business's contracts? Completely unbreakable. Like, no wiggle room, no loopholes. If he says 'You're under contract,' you are under contract. Only way out is if he breaks it first. That's why none of those dealers last night flipped on him. They couldn't."

Tasha nods distractedly, still focused on her screen. "Not surprising. The guy's whole brand is being an evil lawyer."

"Yeah, but here's where it gets really interesting - there's this guy named Jackpot who is somehow essential to Jump production. Like, the key ingredient."

"Human ingredient or chemical?" Lily asks, rubbing at her temples.

Jordan tilts their head. "Both? Neither? Not sure yet. But Rogue Wave is keeping tabs on superhumans with interesting powers. Like, actively tracking them. And get this - they have about a thousand signed contracts in Philly."

There's a beat of silence.

Amelia stops mid-bandage swap. Lily lowers her arms. Tasha finally looks up from her screen.

"A thousand?" I repeat.

"Yeah. A thousand."

"That's..." Amelia trails off.

Jordan grins. "Horrifying? Terrifying? Unbelievable? All of the above?"

Lily exhales. "That's a small army."

"A loyal small army," I correct. "If the contracts are unbreakable."

"And the way they handle logistics is - honestly? Kind of genius," Jordan continues. "First delivery is free, right? But then they use a guy named Rush Order to deliver contracts directly to the users, and those contracts make the users come to Rogue Wave instead of the other way around. It's a closed-loop system. You never meet your supplier until you're already locked in."

Tasha clicks her tongue. "Explains why nobody's been able to track their hubs. They don't have hubs. They don't need them."

"Right," Jordan says, still way too excited about this. "And here's the kicker - they see the Kingdom as their number one enemy. Like, this is war. The new drug the Kingdom's been pushing? The black syringes? Huge threat to them. But they're not worried. They're planning for a full-scale gang war. Like, inevitable, inevitable. And their big move?"

They pause, grinning, like they're waiting for a drumroll.

"Jordan," Amelia says flatly.

"They're gonna activate all their sleeper agents at once."

The room goes still.

Tasha's fingers hover over her keyboard. Lily's leg stops bouncing. Amelia's hands, which were adjusting my bandage, go stiff.

I exhale. Slowly.

"Jesus Christ," I mutter.

Jordan spreads their arms like, Ta-da! "Philly's about to turn into an actual war zone. Thoughts? Feelings? Concerns?"

"Do they have a timeline?" Tasha asks, already scanning her files for any possible red flags.

Jordan shakes their head. "Not that I saw. But if I had to guess? Soon. They're waiting for something. I just don't know what."

Lily shifts uncomfortably. "So what do we do about it?"

"Great question," Jordan says. "Lemme know when you figure it out."

I drop my head back against the couch. "You're so goddamn helpful."

Jordan salutes. "I try."

Amelia mutters something under her breath, finishing my bandages. I roll my shoulders experimentally, wincing, but at least the fresh wrapping helps. My ribs still feel like garbage, though, and I know I should be resting, but resting doesn't stop the fact that an entire gang war is about to explode, and we're right in the middle of it.

My phone buzzes against my leg. I glance down.

Maggie:

I am grounded until I die. They might bury me in my room.

I snort, but my ribs protest, so I immediately regret it.

I text back:

Cool. I'll send flowers.

Maggie responds immediately.

Don't waste money. They'll just take them from me. It's a prison system in here. I have no rights.

I roll my eyes. Maggie is so dramatic.

Lily leans over. "Maggie?"

"Yeah. She's suffering."

"Bad," Amelia mutters.

Jordan is still grinning like they love the fact that we're staring down a full-scale superhuman war. Lily, on the other hand, looks genuinely nervous.

"You okay?" I ask her.

She shrugs, rubbing at her arm. "I dunno. This just... feels big. Like, too big. Kingdom and Rogue Wave tearing the city apart? What the hell are we supposed to do about that?"

"Stay alive," I say.

Jordan gestures vaguely. "And, you know. Probably pick a side at some point."

Amelia glares at them. "That's not funny."

Jordan raises their hands. "Who said I was joking? At some point, we'll be in a position to play kingmaker. All they need to find out in the end is which side we hate more."

Tasha makes a noise from the desk, something between a sigh and a scoff. "Speaking of positions—anyone wanna hear how the news is spinning last night?"

Oh, right, I was reading that. "Yeah, gimme my phone back, I'll read it for everyone," I say, making a gimme gimme motion with my hands. "When did you take my phone?"

"A magician never reveals her secrets," Tasha replies, as I stare down the headline like it owes me money.

THIRTY-FIVE ARRESTED IN MARINA RAID – PPD, FEDERAL AGENTS SHUT DOWN ILLEGAL OPERATION

I read the first paragraph out loud. "Last night, Philadelphia police, in collaboration with federal agents, executed a successful sting operation against an unlicensed superhuman drug ring in Pennsport. Thirty-five individuals were taken into custody, including high-profile traffickers and multiple armed suspects. Officials credit swift police work and intelligence-gathering efforts for the operation's success…"

I stop. Blink at the screen. Turn it around like maybe the words will change if I look at them from another angle.

"Okay," I say. "So, just checking—do we count as federal agents now?"

Lily shifts in her seat. "No mention of powered individuals?"

"Nothing," I mutter, scrolling further. "No Monkey Business, no Birthday Suit, no Rogue Wave, no Patriot, no Turbo Jett - just thirty-five criminals taken down by good old-fashioned law enforcement."

"Of course," Amelia mutters.

"They don’t want to admit there was an all-out brawl with metahumans. They want people to think it was just a normal gang bust, totally under control, nothing to worry about," Tasha says, gently combing her hair out while I sweep the page.

I exhale through my nose. My ribs ache, my skin still stings from the bandage swap, and now my brain is buzzing with irritation. Because it’s not just about credit - it’s about what this means. The second they admit superpowers were involved, they have to explain how and why. They’d have to acknowledge the scale of this fight, and they don’t want to do that.

Because if people knew what was actually happening? They’d realize nobody’s in control at all.