“Dum-dum-DA-da, Dum-dum-DA-da!”

Steady rhythmic thumping accompanied the singing, like a mechanical drumbeat.

“Boom-boom-BA-ba, Boom-boom-BA-ba!”

Thump, thump, thump, went the drums.

“Tum-tum-TA-ta, Tum-tum-TA-ta!”

The singing finally roused Max. His eyes still closed, he snapped.

“Jesus, Ben, would you shut up!” He normally was very careful how he spoke to Ben, handling his half-brother like he was a jar of nitroglycerin; the seemingly most innocuous comment would make his half-brother explode into a violent rage, regardless if he was drunk, high, or stone sober. But this time Max had been in the middle of an interesting dream, one involving the strangest Villain who had chased him through the woods. As terrifying as the dream had been, Max wanted to see how it played out. If he managed to drift back to sleep, he prayed his subconscious would return him to the same dream.

The singing had stopped.

“Sorry, mate. You were out cold. I didn’t realize I might wake you.” A slight pause. “Who’s Ben?”

That wasn’t Ben’s voice.

Max’s eyes flew open. A moment later, his mouth dropped open too.

He blinked at the unbelievable vista that greeted him.

A vast expanse of blue water stretched out endlessly in all directions, shimmering as bright sunlight bounced off its surface. The sheer magnitude of it took Max’s breath away. It was an ocean, he realized—a sight he’d only seen in pictures and videos, never with his own eyes. The seemingly endless supply of water made Max feel tiny and insignificant. He knew intellectually that the Earth was mostly water, but seeing this vast expanse with his own eyes drove home that fact viscerally.

Turbulence jostled him. He realized he was inside a helicopter, flying high above the waters below. The copter’s rotor blades beat a steady rhythm overhead, making a sound his groggy self had interpreted as drumming. The sterile, metallic, and plastic smell of the aircraft mingled with the faint scent of salt from the ocean below, creating a not unpleasant blend of the artificial and the natural.

The helicopter Max traveled in was not alone. It was part of a convoy. Over seven choppers. Max was too overwhelmed to stop and count the exact number. He couldn’t begin to guess where they were all going, as there was no land in sight.

His heart raced. Shock, bewilderment, and awe intermingled as he tried to piece together how he ended up here, so far removed from the familiarity of Rebel County. The juxtaposition of the vast ocean outside and the confined space of the helicopter made him feel both trapped and infinitely free. This was a world he’d never imagined, and for a moment, wonder overshadowed his fear.

The last thing Max remembered was being stabbed in the back by Stiletto. He had seen her sword glide through his chest like a hot knife through butter.

Why wasn’t he dead? He should be dead. Or at least in the hospital.

His face was bare as his ski mask was gone. His fanny pack was gone too. But he still wore the same black clothes he had on when Stiletto stabbed him. And yet his shirt wasn’t ripped or torn.

He tugged his shirt up with trembling hands and probed his chest.

There was no blood, no wound, no scab, no pain, no scar . . . nothing at all. There was zero indication he had been skewered like a kabob.

He suddenly remembered how the sword had flickered with a black flame as it impaled him. Stiletto must’ve used on Max the same Unreal abilities she had used to immobilize Sheriff Barker’s gun hand. While being stabbed, Max had barely noticed how the sword had flickered with a black flame as it poked from his chest. But he recalled it now. It was strange how being stabbed to apparent death made you overlook niggling little details.

“Your first helicopter ride?”

The words jolted Max from his stunned reverie. He had forgotten all about the person who had been singing. The not-Ben.

The question had come from someone else in the helicopter’s passenger compartment. Strapped in a seatbelt beside Max was a slim, athletic-looking guy with olive skin. He looked to be around Max’s age. His wavy jet-black hair, tousled by aviation headphones, fell just past his ears, framing his angular face like wrinkled drapes. His eyes were so green, they almost seemed fake, like they belonged in the face of a wild animal instead of a human. The only jewelry he wore was a silver signet ring with an intricate design on its face. His attire was refined: creased khaki slacks, shined dress shoes, and a tailored dark jacket sporting a subtle pocket square. Max was no fashion plate, but he got the feeling the pocket square alone cost much more than the entire grab-bag ensemble Max wore.

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From the guy’s body language to his attire, everything about him read calm, cool, and collected. Only the way he absentmindedly toyed with his signet ring, spinning it around and around his finger with his thumb, indicated he might not have been as calm as he appeared on the surface.

“Your first helicopter ride?” the young man asked again. The question crackled into Max’s ears from the aviation headphones Max wore, the twin of the ones the green-eyed guy had on. Other than a hint of an accent Max couldn’t place, the guy had the voice of a radio announcer.

The guy’s lips twisted in wry amusement. With a start, Max realized he had been staring wordlessly at his seatmate, mouth agape. It was as if Max’s brain hadn’t fully powered up yet after being unconscious. In its defense, it was processing a lot of new and unexpected sights and sounds. Max belatedly realized that, aside from the pilot in the cockpit, he and the well-dressed male were alone in the chopper.

Max finally rediscovered speech.

“Y-y-y-yes,” he stammered into his headphones’ mic. “It’s my first helicopter ride.”

“First time seeing the ocean, too, unless I miss my guess.”

“Yes,” Max admitted. Those green eyes didn’t miss much.

“Not terribly surprising, considering how far inland you reside in Mississippi. Or is it Alabama?”

The question replaced a fair bit of Max’s continuing shock with wariness. Stiletto had obviously kidnapped him; for what reason, he couldn’t begin to guess. This dude might be in cahoots with her. Max had to proceed with extreme caution until he figured out what was going on.

“What makes you think I’m from either place?” Max asked, trying to keep his voice casual. But internally, he wanted to grab this stranger by the lapel and shake answers out of him.

“I spent eighteen months touring the United States a few years ago. Spent time in all fifty states. I developed an ear for each region’s accent.” Except he pronounced the last sentence as Ah develuhped an eer fer each ree-jun's aksent. It was a spot-on impersonation of how the folks Max grew up with sounded. How he himself must’ve sounded, Max now realized. Having never stepped foot out of the Deep South until now, everyone Max was used to talking to had a pronounced Southern accent. The man next to Max sounded like an alien by contrast.

“Year and a half is a long time. Family trip?” Max asked.

“No. I traveled alone. Part of my continuing education.” Maybe it was Max’s imagination, but it seemed like the guy was spinning his signet ring a tad faster now.

“You went around the U.S. all by yourself? You must be older than you look.”

“I’m eighteen. You?”

“Seventeen,” Max said. “So you traipsed all around the U.S. as a minor?”

“My father believes in self-reliance.” The increased intensity with which the guy fiddled with his ring was definitely not just Max’s imagination.

“Sorry again about the singing,” the stranger said abruptly, obviously trying to change the subject. “You were so dead to the world, I didn’t think I’d rouse you. In light of us flying over the water accompanied by these other helicopters, the song seemed appropriate. It’s Wagner’s ‘Ride—”

“‘Ride of the Valkyries,’ Max interjected sharply. “It played when those helicopters were flying over that river in Apocalypse Now. We have classical music in the South, you know. Movies too.”

“I wasn’t implying you didn’t,” the guy responded gently. “I simply didn’t know whether you recognized my onomatopoeic rendering of the song.”

“Onomatopoeic rendering.” What 18-year-old talks like this? Max thought. This dude’s weird. Then again, I teleport through shadows. So I’m one to talk.

Max let out a long breath.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s been one of those days.” He stuck out his hand by way of apology. “My name’s Max. Max Blackwood.” He kicked himself as soon as the words tumbled out of his mouth. Until he knew what was going on, maybe he shouldn’t be giving out his real name.

“Damian.” Shaking Max’s hand, there was the slightest hesitation before Damian added, “Draconis.”

“Pleased to meet you, Damian. Draconis? I’ve never heard that last name before. Does it mean anything?”

Damian spoke slowly. “Draconis is Latin for dragon. In Greek as well.”

Damian’s green eyes probed Max’s face like he was searching for the punchline of a cruel joke. When he spoke again, a hint of wonder was in his voice.

“You really don’t recognize my surname, do you?”

“No,” Max said. “Why? Should I?”

A grin slowly spread over Damian’s face. His teeth were gleamingly perfect, Max noted, making his own look like weathered tombstones by comparison.

“There’s no good reason why you should have heard about my family before. No good reason at all,” Damian gushed. He seized Max’s hand again and pumped it enthusiastically with both of his own. “I’m very glad to have met you, Max Blackwood. Very glad indeed. You and I are going to be great friends. I can already tell.”

“Um . . . sure.” Damian’s exuberance was contagious, but Max tried to resist getting swept up by it. His experience with Stiletto had made him warier than usual of strangers.

Max finally was able to rescue his hand from Damian’s enthusiasm.

“Now that we’re such good friends, Damian, you mind telling me where the heck we’re going?”

Damian’s grin transformed into a frown. “You mean you don’t know?”

“Would I ask if I did?”

“Touché,” Damian conceded. “All the helicopters are transporting matriculating students. We’re heading to Prometheus Academy.”

Prometheus Academy. It sounded like something a Hero academy would name itself. But that didn’t make sense. Why would Stiletto shanghai him for the purpose of shipping him off to a Hero academy? Unless he had been wrong about the bizarrely acting Unreal being a Villain, and she really was a certified Hero as Max had first supposed. Who said I was a Hero? she had said to him in Blessed Memory Cemetery. That was hardly a categorical denial of being a Hero. Maybe she hadn’t really wanted Max to kill Sheriff Barker. Maybe her request had merely been a test of whether Max would do it. A morality test.

Hope stirred within Max. Maybe he had gotten into a Hero academy after all.

“I thought I knew all the superhero academies by name,” he said. “But I don’t recognize Prometheus Academy. Is it new?”

Damian’s frown expressed confused uncertainty this time. He was clearly unsure whether or not Max was joking.

“Prometheus Academy isn’t a superhero school,” Damian said. “Prometheus is a supervillain school.”