I spend the next several hours on my own, pointlessly wandering around with a head full of raging thoughts. I get stopped every other minute by someone wanting a picture, which I’d happily agree to, grin at, then leave before they can ask me any more stupid questions. I’m not avoiding anyone. I’m walking around on my own, sitting on stairs, trying to pretend some PU intern isn’t scrolling through my phone the same time I do, because I want to be on my own. Friends aren’t something I’ve grown up with, not in the slightest. High school was basically just me and old, coffee-smelling Mrs. Gale who’d stay after school to tutor me on everything I missed. She croaked just before I graduated, which sucks I guess, but I saw the tumor in her belly months before she started missing one class and then the next. Right about now she’d scold me for being so standoffish. Go and make some friends, Samantha. Humans are social creatures, you know! Stupid old bat, what does she know about making friends? She lived with three cats and a parrot and she’s talking about friends? Yeah, sure, like I’ll take the widow’s advice on company.

  Besides, I’m fine on my own. Perfectly fine. It gives me enough time to think, to go sightseeing, to try and not get tempted to spray paint bitch all over Alexandria’s statue, because that’s stupid and childish and God I really want to do that. I’m lying down on a low wall, one foot dangling off the side of it, just a few dozen feet away from the massive bronze thing. She’s got her shield raised above her head, almost like she hates having the sun glaring into her eyes. It’s a monster of a statue. Bigger than the ones in Liberty Bay. And all I can do is keep chewing gum, hands behind my head as I rest against my red PU jacket. Late afternoon. Soft breeze. Emptier campus grounds. The news crews are wrapping up their segments and any parents left behind are the clingy kind that are still trying not to cry as their kids awkwardly herd them away. None of that really matters to me, because all I can think about is her.

  Who the fuck does she think she is? Me? A sidekick? Which loser finds honor in being a lackey?

  Heck, your average street thug or villain goon doesn’t even take most sidekicks seriously. I’ve watched a dozen of them get beaten into bloody pulp with socket wrenches by someone’s alcoholic uncle. Being a sidekick isn’t special or cool or neat. It’s lame. So, so lame. And Samantha Luck is definitely not lame. Besides, I also don’t wash cars, buff spandex, mop floors and work like a grease monkey just because someone older than me said so.

  “Asshole,” I mutter, after popping the bubble I’d just blown. I flip off her giant statue.

  It might not mean a lot, but it’s a small victory, and I need one of those right now.

  I check my phone again. Nearly dead. Mom hasn’t replied to the thirty-five messages I’ve sent her. I’d even stomach her reading them and not bothering to answer me, but it makes me feel… Worried isn’t the word. She’s the Guardian. There’s nothing that can happen to her that’ll ever make me worry. She’s just never taken this long to reply, or pick up my calls, meanwhile I’ve read three articles in the past hour alone about how she’s been busy the entire day opening a new park in downtown Liberty City, which is…cool, fine, whatever. I guess a new park in your honor is more important than me. No, totally, just leave me hanging. I’m sorry I cheered with the humans earlier in the morning, is that what she wants to hear? She never said anything when I joined the soccer team. She even came to a game…sorta. For a few minutes. But it still counted. At the end of the day, each other is all we’ve really got.

  Just two aliens on a shitty planet, trying to do their best and keep the good humans alive.

  Because there’s no better threat to a human than, well, another human.

  I’m just surprised she cares so much about this species in the first place, especially after what they’ve spent centuries doing to each other. I would sit in history class, gaping at every single word Mr. Rogers had to say. Nobody else thought it was pretty freaking weird that the world map doesn’t include the Old Continents anymore, and when I asked why, Mr. Rogers told me to stop interrupting him. I mean, fuck, this species is so screwed. They pick so many fights with each other it’s honestly either their God or fate that’s keeping them from going extinct.

  I like to think they’re going to eventually get what’s coming to them one day. Judgement.

  And what I’m doing right now is helping a couple of bad people along a little quicker.

  just think some of these guys should consider themselves lucky, like Dr. Lively.

  I hear a quiet click a second before I register someone standing a couple of feet away. I jerk, then turn my head around faster than I have in years. I can usually feel when someone is close. Or hear them. Humans are pretty loud, what with their heartbeats and mucus-filled lungs and squishy organs squelching inside of their bodies. Even invisible superhumans are pretty easy to find, because being see-through doesn’t make you silent, it just makes you a creep. But… I slowly sit upright and frown at a girl with a camera in her hands, who takes another picture of me, then lowers it and smiles. Why can’t I feel you? I squint, cautious. She walks a little closer. A thick cloud of black hair sits on her shoulders, strapped down with a yellow band across her head. Light brown skin, hazel eyes, a tiny scar on her lip and athletic legs exposed by her beige shorts. She smells like honey and burnt oranges, which sits on my tongue and slides down my throat like gasoline. I wince when I swallow the gum, because now she’s near the wall, arms resting on it, camera hanging from her neck, as her eyes sparkle in the late afternoon sunlight in the sky.

  For a moment, she says nothing. Just stands there, looking at the statue, sunglasses on her collar.

  “When I was a kid, I really wanted to be like her,” she says, then looks at me. “Then she yelled at me for two hours because I wrote an article about a scandal involving her and a senior in the back of her car, so…” She shrugs. I raise an eyebrow. She feels wrong. Off. Airy. Almost like, if I reach out and touch her, my fingers will go straight through her arm. It leaves my body alert, brain spinning and blood rushing. Scared? C’mon, me? Scared? She offers her hand. I don’t shake it. At least not for a few seconds, until the hours of PR training carved into me take over and wrap my fingers around her hand. Nope, definitely real. Smooth skin. Warm blood. Superhuman? I breathe in, but she still smells overwhelmingly like oranges and honey. “You’re Sentry, right? You saved me once.”

  I pull my hand away and pretend not to wipe it on my pants. “No biggie, kinda just part of the job.”

  She raises a slim eyebrow and leans on the wall. “Do you even remember what you saved me from?”

  “A supervillain?” I ask. She tilts her head. I scratch mine. “I’ll be honest, it’s kinda hard to keep track of everyone I save. My job is just to make sure everyone gets out of there, the bad guy gets folded, and the day is—”

  “You’ve never actually saved me before,” she says with a smile and a small laugh. For whatever reason, my cheeks start to burn. “I live in Santa Barbra, wayyy across the country. I only ever saw you on TV or on my phone. Not that I was searching you up. You just happen to be what a lot of people really enjoy talking about recently.”

  I shrug and lean back on my palms, still perched on the wall. “Just another day in the books, y’know.”

  “Really?” she asks. “There’s been nothing special about today?”

  “Well, there’s been a couple of things, I guess.”

  “Like getting turned into a sidekick?”

  My face blanks, then I stare at her. My voice is tight as I whisper, “You know?”

  “Yep,” she says, then waves her hand. “Everyone’s gonna know by tonight, if they don’t already. I’ve been in this school for one semester, and let me tell you, the rumor mill is never dry, and now that you’re here, you’ve been talked about so much it’s almost like I already know you. Heck, I think everyone already does know you.”

  “Of course,” I mutter, then sigh. “Well, I’m not gonna be a sidekick. That’s just a rumor.”

  “Is it also a rumor that you’re some alien princess who’s been sent here to take over Earth?” I freeze. She stares at me for several seconds. A beat of silence passes. Wind quietly blows through the grounds, sweeping leaves off the pavement and sending them spiralling into the air. Then she starts laughing. I weakly smile as I watch her grin at me, teeth all white, smile brightening her face. Why can’t I see through you? “I’m kidding!” She lightly punches my thigh, then flinches and shakes her hand. “God, you really are made of metal. But that’s just another stupid rumor everyone keeps saying about you, which I think is totally dumb. Besides, if aliens were real, then I like to think they’d come here in their weird little spaceships and have big ugly black eyes and weird gray heads, you know? Kinda like the ones they found in Area 51 during the war.” I keep staring at her. She smiles uneasily. “I mean, if you believe in that junk, which I don’t, by the way! I mean…unless you’re also into outer space stuff.”

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  I turn my back to Alexandria’s statue and swing my leg over the wall, now sitting facing her. I’m getting a headache trying to see through her skin, but she’s just…blank. All I can see inside of her body is just white space.

  “What are you?” I quietly ask. “Some kind of Shapeshifter?”

  Her smile tilts, almost into a frown. “I’m a journalist. The name’s Hope. Hope Bishop.”

  “Hell of a name,” I mutter.

  “Blame my mom and dad,” she says. “They’re pastors that still try to teach people about Pre-War Christianity.” She waves her hand. “But that’s boring. I’m a freelance photographer and semi-employed journalist for the PU newshound, which is kinda like our school’s rebel newspaper that doesn’t have to get wiped down and cleaned up by Vale and the other top guns. We’re kinda underground. Super secret, super cool stuff. Totally only for people who want to stay in-the-know.” She purses her lips, then looks away and whispers, “What was that, Jesus!”

  I stop trying to give myself a headache and massage my eyes. “No, no, I think it’s cool that you’ve got your own newspaper thing going on. Power to the people, or whatever, right? So why did you take a photo of me?”

  She opens and then shuts her mouth, then says, “I…dunno. You just looked pretty good. Nice. Not nice. I mean, you look really photogenic, so I figured, why not, you know? And with Alexandria’s statue behind you…”

  We stare at one another for a moment, before Hope looks away and clears her throat.

  “Well…” I say, hopping off the wall and landing beside her. “Can I see it?”

  “Sure,” she says quietly. For almost a minute, I’m close to her, looking over her shoulder as she fiddles with her old camera, kept together with stickers and a band-aid. This close, and she reeks of…something. Something that burns my throat and churns my gut and has my head spinning. I lean a little closer, trying to get a deeper sense of what’s coming off her body. It mixes with sweat and whatever she’s eaten for lunch, and when she tucks a section of her hair behind her ear, making her golden earring sparkle, it lunges down my throat and goes straight into my gut. It makes me feel weird, like my skin is buzzing and my blood is tingly. I scratch my arm and feel like I’ve dragged broken glass against my skin. “Here,” she says. I step back a little when she shows me her camera. “Do you like it?”

  I’m looking at her face instead, into her hazel eyes, at the tiny scar and the tiny gap between her front teeth. My heart is hammering hard against my ribs. So hard that it hurts. Then, slowly, I feel something spill from my nose and onto my top lip. I curse and turn around, then knuckle blood off my mouth and pinch the bridge of my nose. What the fuck? A nosebleed? I don’t get nosebleeds. Not unless a Class One Threat punches me in the face and puts me through two buildings. But that’s a sprinkle of blood. A small enough amount for the humans to point and say, Hey, look at that, she bleeds just like we do! But this is too much blood, way too much. I grab my jacket and force it against my face. I can taste it around my lips. I can feel it, warm and metallic, sliding down my throat.

  “Oh my God,” Hope says, then gets closer. “Are you—”

  I wave her off and say, “I’m fine, I’m fine. I get these sometimes. I probably fight too many people for my own good, you know.” I laugh, because that’s what disarms them—laughter, for some reason, gets them to ease up, calm down, and only look worried. I pull the jacket off my face. Blood has soaked into it, but at least it’s stopped flowing. I use my t-shirt to wipe my mouth, then smile at her. She almost winces. “See? I’m doing fine. No biggie.”

  “You’ve got blood on your teeth,” she says, eyebrows pinched. “Hold on, I’ve got some water in my—”

  “No!” She flinches. I smile again. I am not drinking anything you’re gonna give me. Humans used to believe in witches, and maybe this is one of them. I take a couple of steps back and say, “You know what? I think I should probably go and unpack my stuff and find my room before I end up sleeping on the floor.” I start jogging backward, then, like some circus monkey reciting its little dance routine, I point at her and say, “And don’t forget that Evil Never Wins!” Fuck, why did I say that? She looks at me funny, right before I spin around and run away.

  No, wait, I don’t run away—what I’m doing is going to wash the blood out of my mouth before anyone asks me what happened. I’m Sentry. I don’t get bloody, broken and bruised. I beat villains into submission. I turn gangsters and thugs into whining, weeping children begging for mercy. You also stood next to a girl and started nosebleeding like some freak. I turn a corner and stop, press my back to the building and…and… I swallow once.

  Then lean into the bushes beside me and empty my stomach, and like that, there goes my burger, my slushie, and my dignity when I vomit on my shoes. Great. I spit. Wipe my mouth. Groan and squat on the grass.

  I hang my head and push my fingers through my hair, trying to get rid of this aching headache.

  Because maybe if I squeeze my skull hard enough, I’ll get rid of it somehow.

  Or make myself pass out, which at least means I won’t have to be awake and embarrassed.

  “Moron,” I hiss, then thump the side of my head with the heel of my hand. “Evil Never Wins? What the fuck was that? Now she’s going to write some stupid article about me being some kind of super-loser. You idiot.”

  I hear a can clatter onto the pavement beside me, then roll to a stop next to my foot. I slowly look up.

  “Hey, freshman.” Same fucking guy with the varsity jacket. Same fucking guy with a jockstrap tucked right up between his crotch. Now with some girl under his arm, walking the opposite way. “Don’t litter, loser!” The girl giggles. He pushes a hand through his hair and keeps walking, loudly explaining what his dad does for a living.

  And slowly, I curl my fingers around the can, turning it into a ball of aluminium scrap, then stand.

  “Hey,” I shout. He stops and glances over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. “Pick up your own trash.”

  He pulls his arm off the girl. “What did you just say to me?”

  I throw the ball of metal at his throat.

  It whistles through the air so fast it blows the girl’s hair into a mess.

  And goes straight through thin air.

  Now he’s beside me, a hand on my shoulder, fingers digging painfully hard into the base of my neck.

  I watch the can clatter onto the ground, barely a few feet away. I stare at it, then at my hands.

  “What the hell?” I whisper.

  He pulls his arm back, and then slams his fist into my stomach. Air explodes out of my lungs. My legs go weak and suddenly I’m on the ground, dry heaving as saliva dribbles out of my mouth and tears spring into my eyes. I gasp and clutch my gut. He spits on me, saunters away. I grab his foot. He looks down, then shakes me off.

  “Oh my God!” the girl says. “That was so cool!”

  He flashes her a grin, then jerks his thumb over her shoulder. “Told you Guardian’s kid was all smoke and mirrors. It’s what all these kids do nowadays. They fight guys in costumes who get paid to get beaten up. How lame is that?” She giggles again. I struggle onto one knee, still panting heavily, watching him swing his arm around her shoulders again and walk off. “I bet you she’s probably never fought anyone real. Her mommy just pays for it.”

  “Totally,” the girl says, then sticks her tongue out at me. “Faker.”

  Right about now, I feel like putting twin laser beams through the back of his knees, maybe raking it down his spine and welding each one of his vertebras together into a block of solid bone. Except I can’t. When I try, steam hisses from my eyes, turning tears of pain into vapor. I cough and wheeze, then weakly get back onto my shaky feet.

  He’s gone by the time I can stand without leaning against the wall.

  I grit my teeth, then slam my fist into the bricks.

  And very, very loudly swear when I split my knuckles open.

  “Fuck you, universe,” I say through my teeth, clutching my bleeding hand. “What a great fucking day! Thank you! I just can’t wait to see what else you’ve got in store for me!” I’m shouting now, almost like a lunatic, face bloody, vomit on my shoes, stomach a painful mess. This is what I was talking about when I said fate has it out for people like us. Seemingly, the second you put on a costume, the universe shuts her eyes, shrugs, and decides on a whim just how bad your day is gonna get. I’d kick a hole through this stupid brick wall if I could, but something is going on with my body, and I’m starting to freak out, and the last thing I need right now is a broken foot, too.

  So I grab my jacket, wrap it around my bleeding knuckles, and hobble toward the campus dorms.

  I pause, then search my pockets. Fuck.

  I sigh loudly, because I left my phone on the wall.

  And here’s Hope, jogging around the corner, with it in hand. “Oh,” she says. “You’re still here. I thought you’d run off completely, and since you’re, well, you, I figured you’d vanish with your super-speed…” Her voice gets quieter as she gets closer, then she says, “Sentry?” I clench my jaw, gesture for my phone. She hands it over.

  “Thanks,” I whisper, and slowly keep walking.

  Footsteps behind me. “Are you Ok? What—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t look—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I snap. She stops an arm’s length away, then steps back. I glance over my shoulder, hair over my face. “Look, you’re a great person, but just stay away from me, OK?” I turn around. “Good luck with the news.”

  With that, I leave her standing there, and listen to the quiet echo of her camera taking a picture.