I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t.

My muscles would not obey me, and my eyes stayed closed. My lids felt like heavy sludge, and I felt like a bug trying to lift a pile of sodden blankets.

The thought came to me that I might be asleep. That seemed plausible, but also…not. My thoughts came too quickly. I was lucid. I was aware, just not able.

I noticed a strange sound in the air, abrasive and erratic. And chronic. It started and stopped in spurts, but it continued on and on. I couldn’t tell what it was from, but it sounded close.

Confusion filled me, and I tried to reach out to feel my surroundings with my hands….but discovered I couldn’t move them, either. I fought against the artificial lethargy and strained to lift them, and pins and needles stung along my limbs, like they’d fallen asleep. I gasped, tasting mold, and felt a distant sensation on my wrists, like something hard and taut was digging into them.

They were bound together by thick cords.

I stilled as I came to this realization, a tiny lance of fear awakening in my stomach.

I wasn’t really here; none of this was real. It was all a dream. A nightmare. One that I’d had before, and that I knew far too well.

I had to wake up.

I bucked against the restraints, arching my back and growling with the effort - but they would not give. I was stronger than this, but in the dream I was weak. I flopped back, desperate, trying to think of how to escape. I was alone for now, but I wouldn’t be for long.

From behind closed eyelids I saw lights and shapes flowing back and forth in indistinct flares. Unfamiliar shadows I couldn’t comprehend. I strained my eyelids to open, and I felt them lift just a little, feeling like it was taking all the combined strength of my being just to do that much.

I saw the room blearily through half-lidded lids, my vision obstructed by my lashes. Half of my face lay smooshed against a dirty tile floor, the corner of my mouth brushing against dirt and worse. I was on my side, lying awkwardly like I’d been dumped here. All I could see from my position was a dark wall covered in cracks. How long had I been there?

I tried to move, to stand, but my muscles did nothing but spasm with prickles. I lay there, breathing tensely against the floor, completely helpless.

Come on, come on! What do I do, what do I do, what do I do…If I didn’t wake up soon…

I heard the sound of a door opening nearby, echoing like it was from down a hall. I tensed involuntarily, my breathing hitching up, one panicked yelp passing through sluggish lips. I was too late.

Footsteps scraped against the floor nearby. They came from behind so I couldn’t see them, and I couldn’t turn to look.

“Jwnhirmn lqqn twbnz ntnqpx?”

He spoke. I could tell it was a he. A deep voice, surprising me as it broke the silence, making my insides churn with fear. I knew he was speaking English, but my mind wouldn’t put the sounds together. He had to speak up because of that strange noise in the background, the one that keened and grated. Like a wounded animal.

I gasped for breath as I struggled to move, and I felt one leg lurch drunkenly, shifting my form and pressing my face harder into the floor, the moldy taste of the tile in my mouth. I gagged and coughed, my stomach convulsing, and even that happened in lurches and spurts. I was getting my strength back, but it was happening so slowly.

In the middle of my heaving a claw-like hand grabbed my arm and hauled me up, wrenching my shoulder and making me cry out in pain. I raised my sagging head to see him through my ruined hair, but I couldn’t make him out; his face was blurry like I needed glasses, like my mind just couldn’t comprehend what it was seeing, the same way it couldn’t understand him when he spoke. And yet I could tell when he smiled, and I could feel his gaze lingering on me like a hawk’s gaze lingers on a vole.

“Prvhamv ocnth blumdh.”

“No…no…” I whimpered, my voice weak and shaking.

He ignored me, pushing and hauling me across the room, and dumped me in a chair like a sack of potatoes, my tied hands slung over one armrest and my head slumped over the other, straining my neck. I dragged my limbs around and tried to stand, but the man was there, pushing me back like I was a four-year-old, straightening my frame to align with the chair and running a length of cord around me. Tying me to the chair.

I looked around and saw other chairs like mine bunched haphazardly nearby, and in one of them was another person. I blinked feverishly, trying to see them more clearly, but they were blurred out, too. They’re screaming, I thought, and then suddenly realized that they’d actually been screaming the whole time, and that was the source of the strange sound I’d been hearing. They jerked in their restraints, unable to escape or do anything but scream and scream and scream.

“No…no…”

I pulled and hauled in my seat. The man laughed at me the same way you’d laugh at a joke, like the more I struggled, the happier he was. He finished tying a knot and stepped back for a moment, watching.

“Please,” I said, and I heard the panic in my own voice and realized I was sobbing. “Please, please let me go!”

The man reached over to a table and picked something up. A syringe filled and ready.

My panic jacked up another notch. I didn’t know what the needle did, but my emotions went out of control. I yelled at him, I pled with him, tears streamed down my face and I gasped for breath. The man walked closer, the syringe held up in a forty-five degree angle, glinting as he passed under a light. I screamed, begging him to stay back, to stop, to do something. I may as well have not been speaking at all. I was completely and utterly powerless…

----------------------------------------

I jerked awake in my bedroom in my family’s apartment, terror still coursing through me. I sat upright, throwing the blankets off, panting, and grabbed a pencil from my bedside table. I squeezed it between my fingers, and it smooshed and splintered like a bone being crushed.

Good. I had my powers. I wasn’t weak anymore, like in my dream.

I let out a shuddering sigh. I wiped my tear-streaked face and wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging myself, waiting for the lingering effects of the nightmare to pass, the air feeling chilly on my sweaty skin.

It had been a couple of weeks since my last nightmare. I kept hoping they would eventually go away on their own, but I guessed not yet. Even now that I was awake, I had to convince myself that I was safe. My eyes searched the corners of the room, seeing the glint of a needle in every shape and outline. Trypanophobia. Except…needles didn’t bother me normally. It was just in my dreams that they seemed to give me trouble.

I closed my eyes and breathed in…and out. “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay…” I’d been through this before, and although it never got easier, I at least knew what to expect. It just took a bit for my nerves to let go, like fear was literally holding me in a vice and was slowly, slowly loosening its grip.

I’d be okay. I knew it in my head, even if my heart didn’t yet.

The nightmare was always the same, and it sure felt real. The paralysis, the room, the floor, the man, the needle…I could never seem to wake up early, in spite of my efforts. I could never skip the agony; I always had to plunge through it before it could end.

I stood and went over to the desk, my limbs feeling jittery. I picked up my phone where it had been charging during the night and opened a social media app and started to scroll through the feed, not paying much attention to what I saw. I didn’t have a specific goal in mind; it helped to distract myself and take my mind off things. Images and feelings from the dream would flash in my head without warning, making me seize up again with spikes of fear. But distracting myself like this made those intrusions less frequent, and I could pull my mind away from those thoughts easier. I curled up in my blankets and settled in, the light from the phone screen splashing the room with a soft glow…

I jumped when I heard a knock on my door.

“Yes?”

The door opened, and for a brief moment I imagined it might be Ben, coming in to share some cool story of one of his recent escapades. Just like old times.

“Hey, Em,” said my dad, taking a step in. “Ah…I heard you moving around in here, but…did you want the light on?”

“Oh, uh, go ahead!”

He flicked the light on and smiled. My dad was kind of like my mom in that they were both reserved, fairly quiet people who always seemed a little tired, but in a compassionate, I-care-about-you sort of way. He wore a button-up business-casual blue shirt and a yet-to-be-tied tie over his shoulder.

“On your way to work?”

“Yeah. Usually you aren’t up by the time I leave.” He shifted. “You look kind of pale. Are you feeling alright?”

“Uh…I had a bad dream.”

“Another one?”

“Yeah…”

He came over and laid a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

I just gave him a hug. I did like having someone around. It made the night seem not as dark. And while talking with my mom the day before had been comforting, this was different. There was something about my dad that made me feel like he looked at me and he just got me.

He squeezed me back, leaning over the bed, and I leaned away because I didn’t want to get any of my sweat on him.

“I heard you and mom talked a bit about Ben yesterday?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“...Not really.”

“Okay.” He stepped back, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “I guess I better get going.”

“Yeah. Um…hey, dad?”

“Yeah?”

I took a breath and said, “If you had a chance to talk to Ben, what would you say to him?”

He looked at me for a long moment, and I could feel the emotion in each of us gathering like a gentle breeze.

“I would tell him I love him, and I want him back.”

Anyone could have said those words. But the way he said them meant everything. I heard the shift in his throat, saw how he smiled and glanced down with humble tears on his cheeks.

My mouth parted as I felt my eyes grow hot. “Me, too.”

My eyes closed and my head bowed, and I felt him give me another hug. He knelt down on the floor so he could give me a full, two-handed squeeze. This time I leaned into him.

“You’re gonna be late,” I said, my words choppy with tears.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, which was fine with me, because I didn’t want him to go.

“I want him back, too.”

“Yeah…”

“Dad…”

I looked up into his eyes, and though my voice trembled, I managed to inject some steel into it.

“I’m gonna get him back.”

----------------------------------------

I walked through the doors of the lunchroom and looked around at all the other kids. In some ways, it felt like any other day. At the same time, I couldn’t believe how much things had changed in twenty-four hours.

The hero scanner app was deleted off my phone. I wasn’t chasing random distress calls across the city anymore.

I knew the secret identity of Falcon: James Clyde, my classmate.

And I had a plan of how to start a conversation with him. This would get me closer to Archangel - to Ben - than I’d ever been before. I was going to find a way to talk to him, and I was going to get him to come home.

I’d thought about it all morning, and I’d decided I would at least start the conversation with Falcon…anonymously. I was afraid that James would be upset that I’d been spying on him. Spying? I didn’t think I’d been spying. But I’d certainly seen him on the bridge and put two and two together and now I knew the Falcon’s secret identity…

…and that was cause for any superhero to be rankled.

And if he was upset, I wondered what he’d do, or how he’d react. I fully intended to explain my situation to him as soon as I could; I figured that Archangel’s teammate would surely have compassion on me once he understood I was the guy’s sister…but perhaps it was best to start the conversation with some safeguards in place.

So I wanted to avoid a face-to-face meeting. Texting first. And it turned out I didn’t need a burner phone. This wasn’t the nineties anymore, and yes, there was an app for that. Good thing, too, because otherwise I would have had to figure out a way to buy a burner phone, and I had no funds and no income. As for his phone number, it was clearly listed in the student directory, just like everyone else’s.

“Ember!” exclaimed Mai, jumping up as I walked over to our usual table. Then she paused, looking in my eyes. “Hey, you feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, sticking on a smile to cover my nerves. “I’m just glad it’s lunch time.”

Mai cocked her head, her expression searching: she could tell I was faking. Had she been able to see through my mask all this time? How had I not noticed? Good grief, Mai was right - I was crotchety!

“Well, sit down, because we made a bunch of memes in science class that you’ve gotta see.”

I sat awkwardly and she started showing me funny images on her phone. I barely saw them, feeling weird. I…didn’t have time for this.

I looked around the room again, searching for James, and I rehearsed the words I planned to send in a message. Mai laughed next to me, but I couldn’t think about anything else. How could I? This was it, a test I’d studied for for months.

The air felt thick with anticipation. I felt like I was on a roller coaster laboriously clanking its way to the top of the first hill. Once I sent the first message, who knew how the conversation would play out or what would happen? Maybe - maybe I was about to get a connection to Ben.

“Hey James!”

My head perked at the words, and my eyes snapped to the lunchroom door to see James entering, looking tired, a friend running up to greet him. I watched them amble over to a table and sit down, chatting. From where I sat, I had a clear view of his face, so I’d be able to clearly see his reactions to texts I sent.

It was perfect.

In spite of myself, a wave of nerves passed through me. I still had a choice - I didn’t have to go through with it today. I could just have lunch and go on to next period and pretend I didn’t know.

But if there was a chance I’d do that, I wouldn’t have chased Archangel across the city for the past six months. I wasn’t about to chicken out now.

I slid my phone out of my pocket and opened the anonymous texting app.

Falcon, I have a question for you.

I took a deep breath.

I pressed send.

I looked across the room to see his reaction. James slowly took his phone out of his pocket, still talking to his friend. He glanced down at the screen…

…And his smile vanished.

I squinted, trying to read his expression. Was he scared? Confused? Amused? Was he anything that might suggest he was or wasn’t who I thought he was?

James stared at the phone for several seconds, then tapped out a reply.

My phone buzzed.

Who is this

I stared at the screen for a second, then let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I’d been so sure, but this was proof. If he hadn’t been Falcon, then he would have shared the text with his friends, or done something else differently. Instead, he had reacted as if the text had been noteworthy or serious, and that itself was a tell.

I’d been right. James was Falcon.

The roller coaster reached the top of the hill and started rolling down the other side.

Fingers trembling, I quickly tapped out the response I’d prepared and sent it back.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

A friend. You don’t have to worry about me revealing your secret identity. I just want to talk.

I looked up and watched him. His brow furrowed as he typed back.

What do you want

So far so good. I typed back, my heart in my throat.

I want to talk to Archangel. I have personal business with him.

James paused, and I strained my eyes, trying to read something in his expression, but his face was unreadable. Then he started tapping again.

“Hey Ember, what’s up?”

I jumped and glanced at Mai, and realized I was holding my phone so tight between the heels of my hands that the case was squishing out of shape. I forced myself to relax.

“Ah, nothing. Just…just the news.”

Mai raised her eyebrows while dropping her head an inch. “Em, you’re texting someone.”

I met her eyes, not sure what to say.

“Uh…it’s a boy?”

She smiled painfully, her eyebrows rising higher. She opened her mouth to say something -

- And then Hailey trotted up, slinging her backpack off her shoulder.

“Hey-o! How you guys doing?”

Mai and I stared at each other as if we hadn’t noticed her. My phone buzzed in my hands, but I didn’t look at it.

“Uh…guys?” said Hailey, leaning down so her head was between us, glancing back and forth. “Something going on?”

Another moment passed, and then Mai’s face relaxed into a more carefree smile and she pulled out a chair for Hailey. “Uh, yeah, something’s going on! I got memes for you!”

Hailey plopped into her chair and she and Mai got going on all the things they’d done in science class besides learn about science. I blinked, letting out a breath, then looked down at my phone to see what James had said.

What kind of business? Why do you want to talk to Archangel?

My thumbs twitched, itching to compose a response, but I glanced up at my friends. Mai caught my eye while Hailey giggled at a picture on her phone. She gave me a look that said “you owe me an explanation.”

Gratitude welled up inside me. But I also felt bad - like I had the day before when Mai had told me she was just waiting for me to change back to normal. She was covering for me…letting me continue to be distant and different. I felt like I was pushing our friendship, stretching it like gently pulling on a rubber band until it was taut. But I didn’t know what else to do.

Just a bit more, Mai. Just a bit more, and I could come back to normal. I was so close.

I took a breath and turned back to my phone. I tapped out three words -

I’m his sister.

- and then froze with my thumb over the send button, feeling like something was off.

I wanted to tell James who I was to justify why I wanted to talk to Archangel. Surely he would help me out once he knew the connection…why did I feel so nervous about this?

My phone buzzed with another text from James.

Tell me who you are. Then I may be able to help.

The strange bargaining nature of the communication made me twice as uneasy. I deleted my message without sending it and thought.

This…conversation…with Falcon was not a conversation. It wasn’t an argument or a debate. It was a negotiation. We both had something the other side wanted. I wanted Falcon to get me a conversation with Archangel, and he wanted me to…he wanted me to…

…to not reveal his secret identity.

I saw him as an opportunity, but he saw me as a threat.

I suddenly saw things from his point of view. An unknown actor suddenly messages you out of the blue and states they know your secret identity. Danger. If that gets published, you’re vulnerable, and your friends and family are, too. Priority one: neutralize the threat. Find out who they are, and remove them from the picture.

I let out a slow breath. If I told him who I was, maybe he would still help me; maybe he’d see me not as a threat to his secret identity, but his teammate’s sister in need of help.

But…maybe he wouldn’t. Depending on how he reacted, there would be nothing stopping him from getting what he wanted, and I had no guarantee I’d get what I wanted. Even if I thought there was a good chance he wouldn’t react that way, I couldn’t trust what he’d do. I needed to be smart.

I needed to change my approach and fast. I started tapping out a new message.

I can't tell you who I am.

Then I stopped, trying to think in terms of a negotiation. What could I say to get what I wanted?

Threaten what he wanted.

If you don’t help me, I will reveal your identity.

I stopped, feeling weird again. This…this didn’t seem right, either.

I suddenly realized I was blackmailing a superhero.

I deleted the second half of the text so that the message said simply, “I can’t tell you who I am,” and sent it.

The whole conversation so far had probably only taken a couple of minutes, but it felt like an hour. My heart beat like a drum and my hands shook.

Across the room, James was already tapping out a response, his eyes dark. I waited, holding my breath. It took him so long I expected a full paragraph to appear on my phone when he finally finished, and my anticipation grew with each second he continued to type.

Finally he sat back and waited, grimacing. I looked at my phone expectantly…

But no message came.

The seconds slowly passed as confusion mounted within me. What was happening? Maybe he hadn’t actually finished composing his message? Maybe he’d paused halfway through?

I looked over at James again, but nothing had changed. He held his phone face down. Waiting.

Why would a message he’d sent not show up?

…unless he wasn’t sending a message to me, but to someone else.

Adrenaline coursed through me as this new development dawned on me. Who was he texting? Was he sending a text to Archangel, my brother, right now? Telling him what was happening? Or was it someone else?

My stress grew. There were too many things I didn’t know.

James suddenly looked at his phone again - he’d gotten a response. I saw his expression grow dangerous as he read what was on the screen. Then he stood, apologizing to his friends, and walked away from the table, towards the lunchroom doors.

I had to follow him.

“Hey guys, I gotta go.”

Mai and Hailey looked up from their fun as I pushed back my chair and grabbed my backpack.

“Aw, I just got here!” Hailey said.

I forced a smile. “I’ll try to be quick. Be right back!”

Mai didn’t say anything as I hurried away.

Even though I’d left Mai and Hailey to follow James almost as soon as he’d stood up, by the time I reached the lunchroom doors, he was out of sight. My guess was that he was seeking somewhere private where he could carry out a text conversation with whoever it was he’d gotten that last communication from without having to worry about people around him accidentally catching a glance of his phone screen. Made sense.

I walked down the hall, desperate to find him quickly, glancing in empty classrooms and constantly checking my phone for a response.

I felt like I had a fish on the hook, but it could escape at any moment, and every second I spent searching for him was another second in which things could go sideways. I’d thought I’d had a plan, but the game had changed as soon as I’d started playing.

I searched every hallway and classroom in the school before I thought to check the grounds, where I found him outside around the back. I would have missed him, but I saw a shadow that didn’t belong sticking out from behind one of the dumpsters, and I crept a little closer.

Then I heard his voice. He was talking to someone.

“What are you doing here? I didn’t expect someone to show up when I contacted you guys.”

I froze, my eyes darting to the corner from around which I heard him talking. He was speaking quietly, intensely. I wouldn’t have heard him at all except for my enhanced hearing.

The person he was talking to responded, and the voice belonged to woman. An adult, not a high school student.

“If we’re compromised, we need to plug the leak. Immediately. Be grateful you’ve got cred right now, because this could look bad for you.”

“But here? Do you think the person texting me is nearby?”

“I don’t think. I know.”

I shifted tensely…but I’d used the anonymous app. There was no way they could trace my messages back to me.

I still felt nervous, though.

“Uh, Victoria,” said James, and I realized with a shock that he sounded tense and on edge. Maybe even scared? “What will happen to them when you catch them?”

“What do you think?” the woman - Victoria - responded, her voice filled with condescension.

James didn’t answer right away, and when he did his voice was quieter and rougher.

“…You’re not gonna kill ‘em, are you?”

I blinked. Wait…what?

It was the most unexpected thing he could have said. Superheroes were human, everyone knew that. Some got angry easily, and I’d heard of one on the west coast that had once smashed a few cars when he’d lost a little too much money gambling, but…heroes didn’t kill, especially not civilians.

That’s the kind of thing a villain would do.

I felt a mixture of fear and fascination as I continued to listen.

“No, of course not,” Victoria said in a disgusted voice. “We don’t know how big this is or how many others are in on it. In on your secret. If I kill them, I don’t learn any of that. We’ll take them back to our place and get some answers out of them first.”

“Oh,” said James, sounding unsure.

“Hey, you getting scared?”

”No, of course not,” he said, bristling. “I’m in.”

“Good,” the woman said, sounding snide instead of approving. “Now hand me your phone.”

“Huh? Why?”

I heard a sharp rummaging of cloth.

“Hey!”

“Just…give it.” And then a moment later, “Thank you.”

“What are you doing?”

“Sending a message.”

My phone buzzed. The last thing I’d said was “I can’t tell you who I am.” To this, Victoria had written:

You don’t have to.

Trepidation filled my chest. It was almost as if she was saying, You don’t have to tell me who you are...

...because I already know.

I suddenly heard their footsteps, a combination of tennis shoes and, strangely, high heels. They were coming my way!

Panic jolted through me, and I busted into a half-run, half-skip, trying to stay quiet and move as fast as possible at the same time. I leapt around the corner of the building, and only a moment later I heard them speaking, their voices coming from the space I’d just been in.

“Well?” That was James.

“They were here.”

“In the school?”

“No, right here.”

“...this close?”

“They might have even been listening to us talk. Hold on…”

My phone buzzed again. Another message.

“Ah. This way.”

Their footsteps resumed, coming closer.

I didn’t even look at the latest message; I just ran.

Somehow that woman could tell where I was. Like every time they sent me a message she got a ping of my location. Even though I had an anonymous app. It was impossible! Did she have a superpower or something? How was I supposed to get away from that?

My phone buzzed again as I passed back through the school doors. I hurried off at a fast walk down the hall, holding my phone like it might blow up without warning. Everything was going wrong. James was supposed to be helping me connect to my brother! What on earth was I doing running away from superheroes?

Although…I wasn’t completely sure they were superheroes. At least, not the lady, Victoria.

But even that was insane. James - Falcon - a member of the Guardians - couldn’t be working with someone like that. It all felt wrong.

My phone buzzed again and I took another turn. I felt like all I could do was just keep moving.

Okay. Options…options…what could I do? Originally, I’d thought that if I got back into the school building I could just hang out in the mass of other students and that would put an end to their manhunt. But that wouldn’t shake Victoria. How could I escape?

If she was somehow tracking my location through my phone…the answer became clear: I had to get rid of my phone.

I almost dropped it into a trashcan by a bathroom as soon as I had the thought, but I stopped myself. Once they located and picked up the phone, they’d know exactly who it belonged to and tons of other information about me. I mean, that was assuming they could unlock it, somehow, but at this point nothing would surprise me.

So instead I just turned it off. Then for good measure I snapped off the case and removed the battery. Would it work? I didn’t know.

I stepped inside the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and waited.

Enhanced hearing was a nice perk of having powers, but it didn’t make distinguishing sounds any easier; I could hear more, but I had to sort through it all, too. As I stood still and concentrated, half-a-dozen conversations from up and down the hall filled my ears, but I could barely discern a single word here and there. Adding to the clamor, I heard the buzz of the electric lights above my head, and in the distance, a dull roar coming from the crowded lunchroom.

I strained my ears, trying to hear James and the woman Victoria.

The thing that I finally caught on to was the clacking of the woman’s heels. They, along with the footsteps of the person with her, James, hurried down the hallway by the doors I’d come through. Then they slowed to a stop. The sounds were nowhere near my bathroom door, and I relaxed. Marginally.

“It seems they’re fleeing,” said Victoria. “I’ll send another message.”

I waited, and there was a long, expectant silence. Then -

“...They may have caught onto us. I can’t trace them.”

I let out a breath. I was safe.

“What now?” asked James. “Do we just let them go?”

“No,” Victoria said almost immediately, sounding waspish, and my insides churned with disappointment mixed with fear. “That would be…unideal. I’m not convinced you understand how serious this is.

“We have one more thing we can try. I may not know where they are right now, but I can still get a sense for your earlier messages.”

There was another pause, and then, “Follow me.”

Her heels clacked back in the other direction, and it took me several seconds to realize where they were headed.

The “earlier messages” Victoria mentioned had to mean the first part of the conversation between James and me - before Victoria had arrived. Those texts were sent when James and I had been in the lunchroom.

Did Victoria’s strange tracing ability have the capacity to sense that far back in time? If it did, she’d be led straight to the location I’d sent those texts from.

Right back to the table where Mai and Hailey were sitting.

With a spike of alarm I burst out the door and hurried toward the lunchroom. I rounded a corner and saw my pursuers ahead, Victoria tall and towering, James looking small and uneasy.

It was the first time I’d actually seen her, albeit from the back. She was wearing a dark blue pant suit that made her look like she could have been a principal or a school official, and the way she carried herself made students she passed avoid eye contact, like they were afraid she’d tell them off for something.

They passed through the lunchroom doors, and I watched in a panic as they stalked straight towards Mai and Hailey’s table. I jabbed my hand in my pocket and whipped out my phone, jamming the battery back in with numb fingers and powering it back on.

“Who was sitting here?”

Victoria pointed to my empty chair. Mai and Hailey looked up, surprise on their faces.

I’m a friend.

My fingers smacked the letters out frantically and pressed send. It didn’t matter what I wrote, as long as I sent something fast.

James’s hand went to his pocket, but even before he pulled it out, Victoria froze and turned to look in my direction.

I’d already turned to hide my face. Mission accomplished, time to bail.

I bolted, scurrying around a corner to obstruct line-of-sight and breaking into a sprint. Students I passed gave me weird looks, but otherwise paid me no heed. I slipped around a corner and waited there, listening and trying to calm my breathing…

I heard the clacking of the woman’s heels as they paused at the lunchroom doors. Right where I’d been standing when I’d sent my last message.

I needed to lead them away from Mai and Hailey. If I kept changing my position, I could stay ahead of them, and they’d never catch up. Besides, Victoria was wearing heels. No shot they’d catch me.

My phone buzzed.

Again.

And again.

It wasn’t a call; now that I’d re-activated my phone, Victoria was pinging me constantly. She was getting fed up.

I fled down the hall. I could do this.

This particular hallway was one side of a big square, with an auditorium in the middle. I turned the next corner and paused, waiting just long enough to hear Victoria coming after me before fleeing again.

I think I could have done it, but Victoria was smarter than I’d given her credit for.

I turned the third corner and nearly had a heart attack as I saw James coming from the other direction. They’d split up and were coming at me from both sides, and with so few people in the halls, it would be clear to them which student was running around like an escaped convict.

I doubled back the way I’d come, dread in my heart. I hoped that James hadn’t seen me, but there were only so many students; it would be difficult for him to have missed me.

I stopped halfway down the hallway, trapped - James coming from one direction and Victoria’s heels coming from the other. I was running out of options.

I ducked into a bathroom - the same one I’d gone in the day before after I learned James was Falcon - and stood still, trying to control my breathing, and listening for any footsteps pursuing me…

…And almost immediately heard the clacking of those heels getting closer and closer.

I spun to view the room I’d entered. It was empty and well-lit. If I hid in a stall, she’d immediately find me. My eyes flicked up to the ceiling lights, considering.

Then I climbed onto the counter and reached up to the textured plastic fixtures. I ripped one off, and it came away with a tearing of metal and showers of dust, exposing the long, cylindrical bulb inside. I bunched up a fist and hit it as hard as I could, and it shattered all at once, the glassy material practically vaporizing. The source of light cut off, and the room felt abruptly dim and shadowed. I smashed the second light, and the windowless room was plunged into total darkness.

I tore open my phone and snatched out the battery, and five seconds later the door slammed open.

Victoria stepped into the room, her eyes blazing with a faint, amber light.

There was silence for several long seconds. She stood in the doorway, perfectly still, her thin face intense as she searched the darkness.

James caught up behind her, and from the tone of his voice, he wasn’t happy.

“You can’t just go running through my high school!” He whispered furiously. “You talk about being compromised, this is being compromised!”

“Quiet!” hissed the woman. “I had a lock on it - the phone or whatever they were using. They came in here…and then…I’m not sure.”

James took in the darkened bathroom and the remains of the ruined light fixtures. “What happened to the lights? Did you - “

“Of course not,” she snapped. “It was like this when I opened the door. Although…it seems quite recent.”

She took out her own phone and activated a flashlight. I held my breath.

Victoria picked her way through the bathroom, stepping around the light debris, James following awkwardly. She pushed open the stall doors one by one and checked the janitor closet. She checked under the counter and swept her flashlight over every corner and facet of the room.

Her light passed right over me…and through me. But she did not see me.

I was invisible.

“They’re not here,” she finally said. “I traced them going to the end of this hall and then turning back. Did you see them?”

“No.”

“I did for a moment. She was a girl. Maybe a student here. Black hair.”

Ah, man.

The bell rang. Lunch was over. Mai and Hailey would leave the lunchroom and head to class. Victoria didn’t know who they were or how they were involved.

They were safe.

“Hmm…seems they caught onto us. I don’t expect them to turn their phone back on. I may have to try something else.”

“Okay,” said James. “Uh, should we go, or…”

I flinched as Victoria suddenly grabbed James’s shoulders and shook him. She looked terrifying, her face stretched with fury and her eyes slanted like a bird of prey’s.

“This is bad, James,” she said, hissing each word. “If you don’t get how bad -” she shook him again “then you’re going to find out. Report to the covert tonight. We’ll discuss next steps then.”

She seemed to grow taller as she continued speaking, towering over James, her proportions stretching horrifically in the darkened room. When she finally let him go, he stumbled, steadying himself against the wall.

The next moment she seemed normal again, and I wondered if I’d mistaken what I’d seen - a trick of the darkness.

Except my eyes could see in the dark. I knew what they’d seen.

The hallway outside grew louder as students left lunch and headed to class. Victoria glared in the general direction of the doorway.

“We should get away from this bathroom. If they - she - contacts you again, tell me immediately.”

“Yup,” said James, sounding shaken.

Someone could show up at any moment. Victoria left, her heels getting quieter with each step. James cast one last look around the dim bathroom, then followed.

I was alone. The roller coaster ride was finally over.

I didn’t move for a long time.

And then I let my cloak down. I stepped out of the shadow, back into reality, watching my hands form and solidify from strands of coalesced darkness.

I looked around the ruined bathroom, filled with a mix of relief and fear. That…had been too close.