I straighten in my chair, feeling the weight of his eyes on me. There's something unnerving about his gaze—clinical, assessing, like I'm a specimen under a microscope rather than a person.

  "I know what I promised to tell you," I begin, choosing my words carefully. "And I'm going to hold up my end. Superheroes keep their word, even to people like you."

  Mr. Antithesis raises an eyebrow slightly. "People like me?"

  "Criminal organizations," I clarify, my chin lifting slightly. "My scrupulosity only goes so far as to fighting dirty, not dealing dirty. When I make a deal, I follow through."

  He interrupts me with a sharp gesture, cutting through the air like a knife. "Let me stop you there. I don't care about your moral values or superhero code." His voice remains perfectly modulated, but there's a new edge to it. "A quick correction as to the stakes, Miss Small. There is one thing that matters in this room—the almighty dollar, and the control it brings."

  He leans forward slightly, his golden eyes never leaving mine. "There is no ideology in this building. No politics. Soot is dangerous because they are a financial liability. You are the resource we are using to collapse this liability. Do you understand, in your sixteen-year-old mind, that this is not some grand clash of good and evil, but the movement of capital? Capital, not cause."

  The words wash over me, delivered with such cold certainty that they seem to drop the temperature in the already chilly room. This isn't a speech, not really. It's a statement of fact as he sees it—as natural and unquestionable as gravity.

  "I... understand," I say, though I'm not sure I do, not completely.

  "Good." He settles back in his chair. "Now, about Soot."

  I take a deep breath. This is it. The moment I've been rehearsing in my head since the car ride began. The careful mix of truth and fiction that Kate and I spent hours crafting last night.

  "Soot is a girl from my neighborhood," I say, letting my voice catch slightly on the admission. "Her name is Kate. I don't know her last name, though. I thought she was a guy until last night. Imagine my surprise, heh."

  Mr. Antithesis remains perfectly still, his expression unchanged. Not even a flicker of shock or satisfaction crosses his face. "I was going to say. We were operating under the assumption Soot was a he, based on previous intel. But keep going."

  "Well, I was wrong. Anyway, her house burned down when Aaron McKinley rampaged through Mayfair in February," I continue. "He was trying to get to me, and her place was collateral damage. My parents helped Kate and her dad get back on their feet, but it's just the two of them now."

  "How well do you know her?" he asks. His tone is conversational, almost bored, but there's nothing casual about the intensity of his focus.

  "Not that well, personally," I say with a small shrug. "She's just the girl that sleeps in my bedroom and keeps to herself all the time. She leaves frequently—well, now I know why."

  "Did you know her earlier? Before the fire?"

  I hesitate, caught between versions of the story. The temptation to say yes is strong—it would give my knowledge of her more credibility. But it also creates more threads for him to pull on, more details I'd need to keep straight.

  "No," I say finally. "I think she went to my middle school, but if she did, we were in different cliques. She was just someone from the neighborhood, you know? I'd seen her around, but we didn't really talk until after the fire, when my parents offered to let them stay with us while they figured things out."

  I hope to god they don't have some sort of guy who can photograph backwards in time, or whatever. And I'm glad there's not some big library of every cheesy photo my mom took of us in elementary school. That would really suck in a time like this.

  They don't have a guy who can photograph backwards in time, right?

  Mr. Antithesis's fingers drum once, lightly, against the polished surface of his desk. "How did you discover she was Soot?"

  Another careful moment. Another rehearsed lie. "I noticed the pattern of her disappearances. She'd be gone for hours, sometimes all night, and come back smelling like smoke and chemicals. Then I'd hear about Soot hitting some Kingdom operation the next day."

  "That seems circumstantial," he observes, his voice neutral. "What convinced you it was her and not coincidence?"

  "I followed her one night," I say, injecting a note of recklessness into my voice. "Saw her pull on the mask in an alley a few blocks from our house. Watched her head toward that Kingdom-run bodega on Almond Street, the one that burnt down in March."

  His expression remains impenetrable. "And why didn't you confront her then?"

  "I didn't care," I reply, adding a hint of defiance. "She wasn't hurting anyone but the Kingdom, and, well, screw you guys, right? No offense."

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "None taken." Mr. Antithesis reaches for a small tablet on his desk, taps it once, and a file appears on screen. "Where does she keep her equipment?"

  I shift slightly in my chair. "I don't know. Probably a safehouse."

  "And her chemical supplies?"

  "Not at our house," I say quickly. "My dad would notice chemicals. I think she has some kind of stash somewhere else, same place she'd keep her stuff. She comes home sometimes smelling like bleach and ammonia, but she never brings anything like that back."

  He nods once, making a small notation on his tablet. "What's her typical pattern of operations?"

  "Mostly nights," I say, trying to remember what Kate and I rehearsed. "She usually leaves around eleven, after my parents are asleep. Sometimes she's back before morning, sometimes not until the next day. She sleeps a lot during the daytime, claims she's studying at the library when she's not home."

  "Does she ever mention specific targets?"

  I hesitate, calculating. Too much detail could make my story suspicious, but too little wouldn't be credible. "Not directly. But sometimes she mutters things under her breath when she sees guys around the neighborhood. Once she saw that car with the gold rims that parks outside the convenience store on Torresdale—you know, the one with the K logo air freshener hanging from the mirror?—and she got this look on her face. Said something like 'not for long.'"

  Mr. Antithesis's expression doesn't change, but his eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. "I'm aware of that car."

  "Yeah, well," I shrug, trying to look indifferent, "guess she followed through."

  "What does she wear when operating as Soot?"

  The question seems simple enough, but I can sense the trap. They have surveillance photos, probably know exactly what Soot wears. "Black clothes, obviously. Combat boots. The mask looks like some kind of modified gas mask, but I haven't exactly ripped her hoodie off to tell her."

  "No distinctive markings?"

  I keep my expression neutral. "Not that I've noticed."

  "And where did she acquire her mask?"

  "No idea."

  "You've never asked?"

  "We're not exactly friends," I reply, letting a hint of bitterness creep into my voice. "She's just some girl living in my room because my parents felt sorry for her."

  Mr. Antithesis steeples his fingers, studying me over them. "What's her motivation? Why risk her life attacking Kingdom operations?"

  This is tricky territory. I need to give him something that seems plausible without revealing anything about Kate's actual religious guilt or her feelings for me. "I think it's revenge," I say after a brief pause. "For her house. For having to live with strangers because the Kingdom's pet psycho burned down her home."

  "Aaron McKinley wasn't working for us," Mr. Antithesis corrects me mildly. "He was attempting to join, but had not been accepted."

  "I don't think Kate makes that distinction," I counter.

  "And you believe revenge is sufficient motivation for months of high-risk vigilante activity?"

  I remember the look in Kate's eyes when she told me about her near-death experience, about the hell she believed awaited her. The conviction that she was already damned, so what did it matter if she risked her life?

  "Yeah," I say quietly. "I would. Believe that, I mean."

  "Does she maintain contact with her father?"

  The question catches me off guard. "Her dad? Yeah, of course. He sleeps on our couch. I don't really talk to him either."

  "And what's his name?"

  Shit. Think on your feet time. Why did I not consider they'd put Liam in this, too?

  "I don't know," I lie. "She just calls him Dad, and my parents just call him 'Kate's father' when they talk about him. I'm not exactly dying to stay home with my parents when there's... better things to do with my time."

  His cheek twitches in a way that I would interpret as a chuckle from anyone else.

  "Interesting," Mr. Antithesis says, though nothing in his tone suggests he finds it particularly so. "Has she ever mentioned specific grievances against the Kingdom beyond the destruction of her home?"

  I shake my head. "Not to me. Like I said, we're not close."

  "Yet you're willing to betray her location to us."

  It's not quite a question, more an observation with a question mark hovering at the edges.

  "I'm not betraying her location," I correct him. "I'm telling you who she is. I think she could kill all of you and not have a hard time at it."

  That gets a reaction out of him. He smiles. Just a bit. Then, he corrects himself. Back to stone-facedness.

  "Very pragmatic," Mr. Antithesis observes. "Have you ever directly asked her if she is Soot?"

  "No," I say firmly. Lie. Sweat starts pooling under my armpits.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I don't want her to know I know," I say, as if it's obvious. "If she figured out I was onto her, she might bail. Or worse, she might try to silence me."

  "You believe she would harm you?"

  I think of Kate's confession, her desperate love, her fear of damnation. "I don't know what she's capable of," I say honestly. "And I'd rather not find out. She's robbing bodegas for fun, or for money, or whatever. Clearly, she's already willing to do some dangerous shit."

  He studies me for a long moment, his expression unchanged. "When did you last see her?"

  "This morning, before I left for Wawa," I reply. "She was still asleep."

  "And where will she be now?"

  "Probably still at my house. She doesn't go out much during the day."

  Mr. Antithesis falls silent, his fingers drumming once more, lightly, against the desk. The silence stretches uncomfortably, but I force myself not to fill it. That's what he wants—for me to get nervous and start volunteering more information, maybe contradicting myself in the process.

  Please don't kill her while I'm here. Please don't kill her while I'm here. We have a plan and everything. I take a deep breath - she's not at your house, remember, Sam? You're lying.

  It feels like playing chess against someone who can see three moves ahead at all times. I'm used to winning physical fights, where strength and speed and the element of surprise are on my side. This is something different—a mental sparring match where I can't read my opponent at all.

  "You seem nervous, Miss Small," Mr. Antithesis observes after a particularly long pause.

  I swallow. "Well, yeah. I'm selling out someone to a criminal organization that wants to kill her. Wouldn't you be nervous?"

  "I wouldn't be in your position to begin with," he replies simply. "But I understand the sentiment."

  A thought occurs to me, one that's been nagging at the back of my mind since this conversation began. "Hey, don't you have a guy that can tell if I'm lying or not? Mr. Polygraph or something? Why not just bring him in?"

  Mr. Antithesis's response is immediate and concise. "Why would I need him?" His eyes bore into mine with renewed intensity. "Keep going."

  And in that moment, I realize I've made a fundamental error. I've been approaching this like he's trying to extract information from me—treating him like an interrogator, a villain from the comics who needs to be outwitted. But that's not what this is at all.

  This is a business transaction.

  He's not testing me because he suspects I'm lying. He's testing me because he's evaluating the quality of the product I'm selling.

  Is it working?