When Chuck’s alarm woke him the next morning, Meg was gone. He vaguely remembered slipping into the house, pulling her into his bed, and holding her as they fell asleep. He vaguely remembered her slipping out his bedroom window sometime in the early morning.

For another moment, he stared at the ceiling, reliving the heat, emotion, and comfort of what had to be the best night of his life since his parents died. He smiled. He was floating. He rolled from bed, rubbing the crust from his eyes, and pulled open his blinds. The sun hadn’t yet broken the horizon, but the sky was clear.

“Another beautiful day, eh, Monster?” he said. He felt alive. Truly alive, maybe for the first time in his life. He thought of the Viktor Frankl quote: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how.’” Well, he had a why, all right. Fighting crime with his best friend. And—and he had to smile—the woman he loved.

He wasn’t afraid to admit it, now. There was no fear of rejection. He knew his purpose, and that was to help Meg — to care for her in every facet of her life.

“The day is nice but I’m a little worried,” he imagined Monster saying, as the dog raised a furry eyebrow. “It’s a new moon tonight, which is nice, but Mercury goes retrograde at eighteen degrees of Aquarius. And Uranus is exactly the South Node of the Moon at thirteen degrees of Aries. So the forecast doesn’t look too hot, astrologically-wise.”

“Don’t worry,” Chuck said, patting him on the head. “Everything is perfect.”

He put on clothes and went downstairs, letting Monster into the backyard to take care of his business. After pouring food for the dog, and getting him fresh water, Chuck turned on the radio and helped himself to a bowl of cereal and milk.

“Two men in Hazelwood were found dead this morning from arrow wounds,” the reporter said, and Chuck choked on his cereal. “Police Chief Dave Montabaun had this to say at a press conference.”

“Right now, we haven’t even begun to speculate as to a motive,” the police chief said over the sound of clicking cameras. “But we believe this to be the work of the internet celebrity Jaybird, and I firmly reassert that she will be brought to justice.”

Chuck finished coughing and pounded on his chest. He took another bite of his cereal and chewed slowly. It tasted like ash. He got up and turned off the radio, and poured the cereal down the drain. Ils doivent envisager qu’une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir, he heard his French teacher, Madame Putterman, say; as it was reinterpreted in Spiderman’s debut comic appearance, circa August 1962, “With great power, there must also come great responsibility.”

He didn’t see Meg until their last period English class, when they paired up to workshop their essays on Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” She noticed his sullen look immediately and said, under her breath, “There were extenuating circumstances.”

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“I’m sure,” he said. He didn’t intend for it to sound sarcastic, but that’s how it came out. He didn’t understand how things had gone from perfect to terrible so quickly. One moment he was walking on air, and the next… well, he couldn’t think of any excuse for murder.

“We’ll meet at your place after school,” she said. “There’s something you should see.”

He nodded. He tried to look at her essay but couldn’t read the words. “I’m scared,” he whispered. “I’m scared that if we cross that line, there’s no coming back.”

“Shhh,” she said, putting her hand atop his. “You’re such a good person. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

He noticed that she didn’t claim the same salvation for herself.

“Mr. Weinstein.” Chuck looked up. Ms. Henshaw was peering at him from behind the rims of her cat-eye glasses. “I hear that you’re going to Yale. And yet, in my class, you insist on being a constant disruption.”

Chuck stood. Ever since he’d begun training, he’d felt less inclined to put up with what he saw as unimportant.

“Well?” Ms. Henshaw said. “Are you going to say something?”

“Ms. Henshaw,” he said, staring her down. “With all due respect, go to hell.”

It took Chuck an hour to smooth things out with the principal, but when he finally made it to the treehouse, Meg was waiting for him. The moment he was inside, she handed him the camera.

“This will explain everything,” she said, as he walked to the desk and plugged it into his computer. The video appeared to have been taken from a high window; Meg was perhaps twenty feet above three men who inhabited what looked like an old warehouse. One man stood against a wall, and a second stood next to the third, who was tied to a dentist’s chair.

“Now Jonathan,” the man standing next to the dentist chair said. His head was covered by a white chef’s hat and he wore a blood-smeared apron and a white mask with rosy red cheeks and a painted mouth that curved into an eerie smile. In his right hand, he held a silver spoon. “I told you what would happen if you couldn’t keep your end of the arrangement. I went out of my way to send you my best product because you said you could make it move. And did it move?”

The man in the chair moaned.

“Did it move?”

“No, Chef,” the man in the chair said. “We tried, but the Marizetti Gang—”

A growl came from the Chef and he took his hand off of Jonathan’s shoulder. “Never mention the Marizetti Gang in my presence,” he said, quietly. “Laird, hold him.”

At the Chef’s command, the man who stood against the wall stepped forward and put one hand on either side of the man’s head.

“No, please,” the man said as the Chef twirled the spoon around in his hand. “I promise that I can get you—ah!” He screamed as the Chef plunged the spoon into his eye socket. A moment later, the pulpy mass dropped into his lap.

Chuck saw the crossbow come onto the screen and the Chef whipped around, as if he’d sensed Meg’s presence. Perhaps he had: he calmly stepped to one side a moment before she pulled the trigger. Instead of taking the Chef in the back, the bolt took Jonathan in the throat. Chuck heard Meg swear. She fired again but the Chef was gone, moving through the room’s single door faster than Chuck had ever seen anyone move. Laird, however, was still standing behind the chair. He pulled a pistol from a holster at his waist and began firing. The screen went black as Meg took cover, and when the reports stopped she popped back into the window and fired. Chuck saw the room just long enough to register that her bolt took him in the heart before the screen went black again. He heard quick footsteps and measured, even breath.

Chuck hit the pause button. Goose flesh covered his arms. “That’s it, then?” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “That’s what happened?”

“Unless you want to listen to another fifteen minutes of me panting, that’s it,” Meg said. “I ran as fast as I could. Did you see that guy’s mask? And how fast he moved? Jesus.”

“I guess we have our first supervillain,” Chuck said.

“Yeah,” Meg said, nodding. “And I’m going to stop him.”