The last thing Bianca needed right now was a superhero. A couple of waiters would be better, she thought, hunched over the day’s garbage that had turned into a stew of stenches for her to breathe in. She finally got the knot tight enough on the garbage bag to not have it spill onto the floor again, just as laughter and hooting cheers erupted at the front of the restaurant. Bianca glanced upward, sweat stinging her eyes, because there came Zeus walking into the restaurant with his plastic grin and thick hair, his oversized costume and bulky awkward muscles flexing for the little kid standing in front of him. The kid dropped his vanilla ice cream in awe, which was great! Because that was probably going to be Bianca’s problem later, too. The rest of the workers were too busy clapping and singing along to notice, which was fine—nobody liked a buzzkill, so she slung the garbage bag over her shoulder and walked out.

The rain had stopped just a few minutes ago, but that didn’t make the walk toward the dumpsters across the parking lot any easier. It was still frigid, and her breath turned to gasping mist as she shouldered the lumpy bag of leftovers and dumped it inside of the dumpster. She slammed the lid shut and groaned, stretching her arms over her head and working the ache out of her back. From all the way out here, she couldn’t hear anything from the diner.

Which was probably for the better. Mikey had come up with some song he’d written about the great and mighty Zeus that he’d forced everyone to learn when they were on break, including Bianca. Why have a birthday when half the city is in ruin right now? When people are screaming for their kids in every other news video people keep posting? Ask her boss, who’s kid is having the time of his freaking life right now getting lifted up by Jim in an old costume that had smelt like milk when Mikey had first brought it into the store. Bianca wasn’t even meant to be here tonight, because, you know, people kind of have other things on their mind right now that didn’t include half price burgers and slushies for kids under ten. Whatever, she thought, sliding her phone out of her pocket. The kid’s having fun, so fine. Hell, the only good thing to happen tonight was the breaking news making her phone vibrate.

Which was probably some of the biggest breaking news ever since Adam saved the city.

Olympia was back—she was bleeding and bruised and was barely strong enough to stand.

But the Golden Girl was back.

Bianca thought she’d be thrilled, maybe ecstatic—Harper kept sending her headline after headline, so excited herself that she’d stopped making fun of Bianca for having a crush on Zeus’ daughter, but you know what?

She didn’t really care.

She was happy, sure. Maybe relieved was a better way to say what she was feeling.

But Rylee was gone. Just…gone. No calls. No texts. She’d had to do her own digging, trying to find where she had moved to when she’d split from her mom, and she’d found it in no time flat. But she wasn’t there either.

Rylee Addams was a ghost, this thing that was becoming kind of like a fleeting memory. Her phone would cook up a collage of pictures of them at summer camps together, and she’d think, I wonder if I left her there as kids.

Because ever since high school ended, she’d just stopped being her, like somewhere along the way, through the countless arguments and locker slamming, mutterings in the hallways and blind-siding, she just…left.

“Hey loser,” a voice said. Bianca jumped and spun around, then swore quietly when she saw Katie leaning against the dumpster, arms folded and wrapped up warm in a scarf and jacket and comfy brown boots. “Angsting?”

“No, I wasn’t angsting. I was just thinking about things.” Bianca stuffed her phone back into her pocket, only after she fumbled to quickly do it for a few seconds. “How’d you even get here? I thought you were at home.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “My Bianca senses were tingling.”

“You sound like Ben.”

Katie grinned. “Why thank you.” She put her arm around Bianca’s shoulder and slowly led her back to the diner, where its red and white neon glow was pushing the parking lot’s shadows away. “Now, I know your mom kind of has a bit of a problem with me hanging out with you, but on the other hand, I was thinking you and I should go do something fun tonight, like the good old days when you weren’t so freaking boring and normal all the time, B.”

They stopped just in front of the back entrance. “You mean when I started working a normal job?”

“Yeah, that. Stop doing that, you’re sapping up all the air in the room.”

“Did you miss the part when I almost got killed by freaking assassins? Because I can show you the scars.”

Katie poked her in the ribs. “I was the one who came to kiss them better, anyway. But it’s fine. Besides, do you really want to spend the whole night mopping floors and keeping sticky little brats out of the kitchen? Or do you want to hang out with Aunt K for a few hours doing something a lot more fun? Mickey wouldn’t even notice.”

Bianca sighed and glanced at the metal door, where even more cheering just came from. The other workers had probably just arrived in their Cleopatra, Hekka, and Hermes costumes. And don’t forget Shrike, who’ll appear when the lights suddenly turn off and then back on again, handing out candy from his many, many belt pockets. “I think he would. If nobody’s manning literally the entire kitchen, then I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a fire, Kates.”

The hair sticking out from just underneath her beanie danced in the wind as Katie put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. “You’re so stubborn that it’s honestly kind of impressive. What’ll it take for you to leave?”

Bianca came up with an idea as she pushed open the back door, amping up the noise of children screaming to eleven. She smiled and jerked her head, then said, “How ‘bout an unpaid shift flipping patties and making fries?”

“That doesn’t sound half as fun as what I had planned.”

“We can do whatever you want after you help me with what I’ve got to do first, fair?”

Bianca knew Katie well enough to know that a smile and a nudge was good enough to get her moving, and it only took a few minutes before she had Katie muttering under her breath as she watched over the newest batch of fries frothing away in their tubs of oil. Nobody else came into the kitchen, meaning that both of them were reduced to the girls getting shouted at by Mickey every once in a while to keep the food coming, even if the guy didn’t recognize that some random lady was now helping Bianca do that whilst every other worker was dressed up in those oversized (and slightly smelly, if she was being honest) Olympian costumes. Then, like clockwork, it happened.

The light suddenly turned off when Mickey ‘went to the bathroom,’ and everything went silent.

Which kind of sucked when you’re trying to see what the difference is between a handle and the grill.

“What’s going on now?” Katie asked her quietly, as Bianca tried not to swear when she burnt her finger.

She shrugged, squinting to see the outline of Katie’s hard jaw and feline-like eyes. The kids were muttering and giggling amongst each other, accusing each other of being afraid of the dark, and the several mothers and tired fathers still here kept looking around asking questions to the Olympians. Phone flashlights turned on, and soon enough the mutters became a lot louder and longer and…Where was Shrike? Blackouts had gotten common ever since the Kaiju fight, especially down here in Lower Olympus. But as Bianca slowly walked toward the register, her hands on the counter as she peered through the slats on the windows, she was sure as hell there was light outside.

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Because shadows don’t just appear in the dark—only light can make them do that.

And right there on the largest window was a figure, some dark outline of a person that came and then went when the vomit-yellow security lights outside flickered. What’s going on? Bianca glanced at the bathroom, where Mickey should have slipped out of by now, dressed in his Shrike costume to surprise the daylight out of his son.

The silence only stretched a lot longer and longer, until not even the kids were talking. But the figure was gone, and Bianca must have been imagining it. She’d seen those shadows at home and back in her dorm room at school when it was still open before the Kaiju attack. Remnants of nightmares from nearly getting gutted open.

At least, she hoped they were just shadows.

“Is this part of the show or what?” Katie whispered. “Kind of sucks, don’t you think?”

Charlie, the poor girl who’d been forced into the sweaty Ares costume, plodded over to the register and removed her costumed head, making a few kids gasp and more than a few parents hiss at her to put the mask back on. Emily, being who she was, shot them a glare before turning to Bianca. “Where’s Mickey? Ain’t he supposed to come out here and end this crap by now? I’ve already missed my bus home, and now he wants to play more tricks?”

Victoria—who wasn’t even an employee here and kinda just liked hanging out with Bianca—removed her plastic Cleopatra mask and leaned against the counter. “What’s the possibility he got stuck pulling the zipper up?”

“High,” both Charlie and Bianca muttered.

Vic and Charlie looked at her, and she looked back at them. Of course. She sighed and headed to the men’s bathroom, leaving Charlie to tell the kids and the parents that they should all play a game that didn’t involve looking at anything that way of the diner. Katie followed, like she always tended to do ever since 12th Avenue, and just like then, she barely heard her footsteps touching the ground. Sometimes it felt like she was floating along just above the floor, and more often than not, when Bianca glanced over her shoulder, it kind of looked like her eyes were glowing. Not sharply and not brightly, but just enough to make Bianca stare for a moment until Katie smiled.

She stopped outside of the bathroom and knocked. “Hey, boss?” she said quietly. “Need the oil again?”

Bianca waited several moments, hearing nothing in return apart from the gurgle of tap water. Then Katie nudged her shoulder and pointed at the foot of the door, where pale blue light was making several shadows stretch.

Katie slid between Bianca and the door and opened it, and…

Nothing. Completely empty. The door whined on its hinges as Katie forced it open. It reeked of urine and cigarette smoke, fatty grease and blocked drainage. Katie walked inside and turned off the tap, making it silent. The floor was wet. The ceramic tiles shone with the sickly fluorescent lights above. But everything was plane normal.

Where the hell is Mickey?

There weren’t a lot of windows that could fit his family pack of a gut, and the stalls were empty.

“Hey, Bianca?” Katie said quietly, standing in the furthest stall—the one that everyone dreaded cleaning, just because of the sole bulb that flickered above it, the graffiti engraved on the walls and the stains that seemingly fought an impossible battle. But Bianca followed, her stomach slowly turning as she looked over her shoulder. She froze. Then she needed to puke, had to puke. She slapped her hand over her mouth to force herself to swallow her vomit, but not to scream, but holy fuck, holy fuck—she turned around and wretched, because Katie just rolled up her sleeve and fished around inside the overflowing toilet bowl, and came up with exactly what was making the floor so wet and slippery. Katie didn’t say anything as she held the thing in her hand at arm’s length, still dripping wet. “I’m pretty sure,” she whispered, looking at Bianca, “that there was more attached to him just a minute ago.”

Bianca vomited onto the floor, knuckled away her puke, then looked at the bruised, bleeding, battered mess dangling from Katie’s fist. A head. Bianca shook her own and looked away, hands still on her knees, bending.

That’s my boss’ freaking head!

The lights turned off in the bathroom. Bianca immediately straightened, aching belly and raging blood in her ears be damned. She looked around, a hare in a snare or whatever the fuck metaphor her brain could come up with when it was so panicked she barely had enough sense to keep her hands from getting drenched with sweat.

A shadow appeared near the door, because yeah, she’d been wrong. Very, very wrong. Shadows could appear just fine without light. It stood there. Stood there and waited opposite Bianca with Katie to her right. She stared at them, and they stared at her—she was sure of it, something inside of her was screaming it. Then the sound of something metallic sliding along the floor screeched out into the silence, followed by a slew of sparks appearing along the ceramic tiles. Then nothing. No shadow. No silhouette or person. Katie was in front of her in a second, her fingers still curled through Mickey’s weak toupee, his neck still spitting blood and the gory end of his throat still dangling around her calf like wet meat and oh, God, it just touched her leg. Grazed it, leaving behind a lick of dark and wet liquid staining into her jeans. And then the sound of running from the darkness in front of them echoed.

The whine of something terribly sharp whistled through the air, suddenly stopping when it smacked into something just as dense. Something warm splattered onto her face, making Bianca gasp, because her mouth had been wide open, and now there was hot liquid iron running down her throat and making her blink faster and faster.

The gristly sound of meat getting chewed by metal interrupted the hanging silence, followed by a gasp.

“Katie?” Bianca whispered.

She heard a choke, a gasp, then a grunt as Katie stepped forward. And now she saw the shadow.

Bianca saw them, the shadow and the silhouette. A shapely face and sharp, dangerous eyes, just like the ones she’d seen in the shopping mall—just like the ones that had narrowed as they ordered for her to be killed. And now she watched Katie gasp in pain, stumble back, pressing Bianca against the wall as something sharp dug into Bianca’s stomach…but how? Katie was in front of her. How the hell was something sharp digging into her gut? She wiped away the blood trickling into her eyes, trying her best to see through the bloody tinge settling into her vision.

Something was churning around her stomach, gurgling and frothing and making her skin itch.

Then the figure stepped back, dragging their blade out of Katie and her stomach and out through her boss’ skull, dropping them both onto the floor with a sickeningly wet thud, followed by the splattering of something wet and long and hot that oozed out of Katie like thick tubes of green paste. Bianca stood there, motionless. Stuck. Stiff. Her body didn’t want to move and neither did her brain. She stared at the head that had been cleaved in two, and then at Katie. Katie. Katie, Katie, Katie, who she got down on her knees for amongst the steaming pile of organs and her limp arms and legs and awkwardly resting head, and then shook her shoulder gently, whispering her name again and again, because why was there so much warm liquid pooling around her on the floor right now? Must be from her boss’s head. The guy had an ego so big it probably swelled his brain wayyy too big for his own good. Yep, that was right. Bianca read that in a book somewhere. Katie would explain it, right Katie? She just had to wake her up.

It was just a little weird that her eyes were wide open, staring right at Bianca, but she was still asleep.

Bianca sat on her haunches and wiped the sweat off her brow. She couldn’t tell what color her sweat was on the back of her hand, but for some reason it was warm and sticky and reeked of iron. Must be really hot in here.

Didn’t matter.

She looked at the figure standing over her, their sword dripping wet and their eyes narrowed. Then she stood, swaying onto her feet, strands of her hair coming loose from the ponytail she’d kept it in during work, covering her eyes and part of her face, making her brush them aside as she stared at the shadow right opposite her.

Bianca looked at the floor again, because something wasn’t clicking. No, it wasn’t. Just…like that?

No, ‘course not. It was a freaking Tuesday.

Was it?

Didn’t matter.

Katie wasn’t doing so well, and she needed help right now, and some fucker was in her way. She should probably tell the people in the diner that they’re closed because someone clogged the toilet. My knees are wet.

Bianca wiped her hands on her jeans. Doesn’t matter.

Katie was dead. Just…dead. Nothing big. Just got stabbed through her chest, and now she was dead at her feet in a dingy fucking bathroom in the ass end of the city so far away from Ben’s grave that it really didn’t matter. Nothing had made this night feel weird, or off, or sick in the stomach the way it had when Ben had gone missing for the first day of several before he came back in bits and pieces in the arms of a dead superhero. No. Katie just came around to check on her niece. To check if she wanted to blow off work and do something fun, but it didn’t matter.

Why?

Because Bianca wasn’t thinking when she lunged at the shadow and sunk her teeth into its throat.