I take the long route home, making sure to grab myself a RedRush raspberry slushie from Burger Planet before my stomach decides to eat me alive. Before I ever lower myself through the sky, though, I spend time hovering high above the clouds, picking gore out of the boot I used to crush Shadow-Helmet’s hand. Here’s a tip: freeze it, then pick it. You’re welcome. It takes a lot less time compared to washing and scrubbing, because water sometimes stains your costume, and now everyone’s wondering why my golden boots are more pink than usual. A little bit of freeze breath, and my boots are perfectly clean (don’t mind the smell inside them) a couple of minutes later. I straighten out my mask, push a hand through my hair, then check my fingernails for blood. None. I’m ready for my final shift.

  Believe it or not, I used to work as a fry cook in Burger Planet for a while. Not because I wanted to, but because I accidentally crashed through it when I was fifteen and stupid. My agent said it would be the perfect way to make everyone say, Hey, look, she’s normal, just like us! Whatever. I’d wear my earphones for my entire shift and eat the food that accidentally fell on the floor. I wasn’t getting paid for it, because Gary, the greasy guy running the joint, said there’s no point paying someone whose mom gets paid thirty million dollars a year to save the world. Did I one day melt the lock in his office door, briefly trapping him inside? Me? No, never. I wasn’t even there that day.

  And that’s how I found out that, if you move fast enough, most normal cameras can’t track you.

  Fun times, working for literally less than minimum wage. I started doing adverts for them in sophomore year of high school. Smiling. Fake-chewing. Laughing with actors paid to be my friends as I kicked it back with my very own Sentry Slushie. Stay cool this summer with Burger Planet’s newest drink, the Sentry Slushie, awesome, just like Liberty City’s greatest future hero! Worst summer of my life. I never got picked on that much in high school, but kids would come up to me, all sparkly-eyed and giggling with their friends, asking to take a picture with the girl who saves the day and then takes a big juicy bite out of a burger that magically appears in my hands.

  Laugh all you want, but I am honored to be part of the Burger Planet family. Besides, I eat for free, too.

  I land softly outside the building, smelling hot grease coming from the restaurant, food rotting in the dumpsters out back, and a homeless guy who stinks so badly my eyes water. He rattles his cup, asking for change. I tell him I must’ve left a couple dollars in my other costume, sorry, then push open the doors, making the bell ring.

  Gary, the piece of walking-talking lard, is near the counter, quietly grilling the teenager who must’ve given someone back too much change. I wave and smile at the handful of families grabbing breakfast sandwiches and coffee. Kids stand in the booths, mouths wide open as they gape at me. I give ‘em a wink then reach the counter.

  “—because the next time I tell you to get here early, you fucking do it, idiot,” I catch Gary saying, before he looks up, disgruntled, then his thick unibrow climbs his broad, sweaty forehead, and now his entire face breaks out into a grin. My own face is smiling at me behind him on the menu screens, showing off the Guardian Meal, with mom standing right next to me, cheekily biting into a fry and winking at the camera. “Well, look who it is!” He grabs the teenager by the shoulder and points at me. “You know who she is?” The kid nods, almost meets my eyes, then looks away, as if he’s scared I’ll arrest him for the tiny packet of weed he’s got stuffed in his back pocket. I can smell it pretty easily. “No, you don’t, you idiot. She’s the best goddamned fry cook I’ve ever had working here!”

  He’s loud. Really loud for families just trying to grab a quick meal before work.

  I chuckle uncomfortably and lean on the counter. “Maybe if you paid me more, I would’ve stayed here.”

  He blinks, then says, “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, kid.”

  “Yep,” I say, drumming my hands on the counter. “I quit, and I want a Titan Burger to-go, with a RedRush slushie, too. Oh, yeah, right, and if you’ve got any of those curly fries left that would get stuck in the fryer, I’ll take those too.” I think for a moment, then jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “And something for the homeless guy.”

  Gary stares at me, tugs his sweaty collar, and says, “Kid, you can’t be serious. You’re quitting. Now?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “I’m going to college today, and besides, you’ve already got a new fry cook.”

  “College?” he says, like he’s shocked I actually amounted to something in my life. Well, when he first met me, I was picking myself out of the rubble of his store, cursing at him for leaving his burger joint in the middle of nowhere. “Whaddya mean college? I didn’t go to college, and hell, I still ended up here, king of the goddamned castle!” He spreads his arms, which leaves flesh dangling under his biceps. I always wondered if he rubs onions under his armpits instead of deodorant every morning, and for a girl with my kind of nose, this place sucked to work at. He leans closer and says, “Kid, listen, college is a scam. You can learn everything you need in the real world!”

  “It’s Freshmen Day,” mumbles the kid beside him. Gary looks at him like he’s surprised he can speak.

  “Huh?” Gary says. “What’s that?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “It’s for all the kids who got scholarships to Big Five Programs,” the kid mumbles, scratching his arm.

  “Jesus, kid, speak English.”

  “I’m going to Pantheon U,” I say. Gary blinks. A couple of people glance at me, including the back of the kitchen, where it’s suddenly very quiet. Eavesdropping, much? I shrug again. “And I should probably leave soon.”

  “Goddamn,” Gary grunts, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, that ain’t too far away. You can still—”

  “I’m not doing deliveries, either, dude,” I say. “Now, burger me, I’ve got an orientation to catch.”

  The stoves in the back almost immediately flare up. I hear a phone quietly take a picture of me, then vanish behind a booth as people quietly gossip between each other. Gary, dumbfounded, trudges away and into his office, but not before glancing at me, grimly shaking his head, and shutting the door behind him. I don’t know what kind of reaction I was expecting, but something more like indifference would’ve been a lot easier to swallow. He’s never been the kindest guy. He’s borderline evil, if you ask me. And he’s lucky I don’t smell it coming off his skin.

  But nothing like that weird sadness he’d just shown was on my radar. Maybe the grease bag is getting old.

  “Here’s your receipt,” the guy behind the register says. “It’s, um, on the house.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” I say, smiling, just as a cartoon version of me dances across the menu screen, juggling burgers in her hands. I pause, then squint at him. He glances at me, then looks away, his dark, curly hair obscuring most of his face. His eyes are pale green, circled deeply with sleep. Pale skin. An earring that wasn’t punched in correctly. He looks like the kind of guy who spends all his time under his blankets all day long, flipping between emo music and heavy metal. But he smells…weird. Not clean. Kinda raunchy, not fully showered, but also sweaty and nervous, almost shaking as he swallows and drums his fingers on the counter, eyes still heavily avoiding me.

  Several minutes pass, and I keep looking at him, because something is bugging me. Really bugging me.

  He vaguely stinks of sulfur.

  I watch him scratch the back of his neck. He’s painted his fingernails black, but they’re chipped and ugly, with one of them torn out and a few more bleeding a little. His left hand is bruised and stiff, kept inside his pocket.

  “Got into a fight?” I ask him. He tenses, then looks at me. I jerk my chin at his bruised knuckles.

  “Sorta,” he mumbles.

  “I’m guessing because your face doesn’t look banged up, you won, right?”

  He swallows, then shakes his head a little.

  “Oh, relax,” I say. “I’m seventeen. I’m at most a year older than you. You can tell me, I won’t arrest you.”

  His eyes flick at me, away, then he says, “I got beat up pretty bad. I just heal quickly sometimes.”

  “You’re a Supe?” I ask him.

  He freezes, opens his mouth, and then a girl behind him rings a bell and calls out my order, before winking at me and blowing me a kiss. I try to ignore things like that, and do so even more when he grabs my bags of food and hands them over. He’s about to grab my slushie when his hands start shaking and, of course, he drops it on the counter, spilling it on my boots. Bright red liquid splashes across the floor and up my legs, and quickly starts soaking into my boots and through my socks. For a long while, the entire kitchen area goes silent. I chew the inside of my tongue and tell myself, It’s fine, it’s fine, he’s a kid and he made a mistake and FUCK, now I’ve gotta go wash my stupid costume all over again. But I smile and shrug, especially when he starts stammering out an apology and grabbing paper towels to wipe down the counter. He offers me a fistful of them, pulls away, then tries to touch me.

  Which—no. Human fingers never feel good against my skin. Oily, rough, just too…disgusting.

  So I step back and say, “Dude, it’s fine, really. It washes off pretty easily.”

  “I— God, I’m so—” He’s shaking, holding the towels in his hand so hard his fingernails cut through them. He shuts his eyes, takes a shaky deep breath, and says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today, I—”

  “Just get me another one, and it’s water under the bridge.” Smile. Wait. Smile some more.

  Pretend that cold slushie isn’t soaking into my costume and bleeding through the spandex layers.

  “Hi!” the girl who winked at me says, hurrying toward the counter with another, bigger slushie in her hands. “Sorry about that! It’s Luke’s first day, and you know how nerve-wracking it can be trying to keep your shit together in front of a literal superhero.” She hands me the slushie, and her fingers graze mine, sending a jolt of heat through my knuckles and up my arm. I almost flinch. She smiles and let’s go. Kayla, reads her name-tag. Short, brown hair in a pony tail, with two parts hugging either side of her face. Cute. Freckles on her cheeks. Bright blue eyes. She puts her arm around Luke’s bony shoulders and says, “Thanks for stopping that bank robbery, by the way. My mom just opened an account with them last week, and God knows we’d be homeless if any of it got stolen.”

  “Yeah…” I say, flexing my fingers. “It’s no biggie. Stopping crime is what superheroes do.”

  Her eyes gleam as she keeps smiling. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  We stare at one another for a while, before I take a step back and say, “I’ve gotta run.”

  Kayla nods. “Have a great Freshman Day! Make the Burger Planet family proud!”

  Oh, I just can’t wait to do that!

  I leave the store with Kayla’s eyes digging hard into my back as her fingers press deeply into Luke’s bony shoulders. I glance at them before I leave the store, offering one last smile, and watch Luke’s eyes find mine behind that wispy black hair of his. For a moment, he doesn’t blink. Sun on his face, his shadow behind him, he stands still.

  Must be my stomach that’s empty, and now I’m imagining stuff, because his shadow just flinched. I squint my eyes and carefully watch it move as he shifts on his feet nervously, but…well, he doesn’t smell evil, and it’s not like shadow-warpers are the rarest breed. The kid is probably just so excited to see me that he’s nervous. So, I leave Burger Planet, watching Kayla wave bye with that wide grin on her face, and toss the homeless guy his fries, before taking into the sky, liquid still dripping off my boots and leaving a scarlet trail in the wind as I fly above the city.