Humans love to think they’re smarter than they actually are. It’s this belief in themselves that usually gets gangsters and lower-level supervillains killed. They’re constantly checking over their shoulders, looking at ceilings to make sure there aren’t superhumans hanging over them—they listen to everything that goes bump in the night without realizing that I’m two miles away and can see through the walls of their bedroom. It’s simple: I perch on a very far away ledge, squint my eyes, and watch them think they’re being smart. I get a headache after five minutes, sure, and I once passed out when I was younger trying to stretch it to ten, but by then, I’ve seen everything that I need to see.

  It’s not creepy, by the way. I’m a superhero. Stalking people (evil people, emphasis on the evil) is fine. Legal, in fact. I think. Unless the article I once read online was lying to me, but regardless, if the police can track your phone and profile you based on your superpowers, then I can watch a group of superheroes try to save the day.

  Ivory and Aurelia are smart enough not to make a beeline directly to where they need to go, which ends up being an old, run-down school building. It’s the inner-city type of school. A chainlink fence around the basketball court has holes large enough for homeless people to crawl through them and sleep under the bleachers. The asphalt is splintered and dented. One of the hoops hangs off the backboard by a single screw. And there’s a dampness in the air that makes my nose shrivel, even if I’m two blocks away now. The building itself isn’t special. Boarded-up tiny windows. Grafiti-covered bricks. And about two dozen bodies inside of it than there should be at this time of night.

  “At least they’re keeping it interesting,” I mutter to myself, massaging my eyes and letting a wave of sick nausea crash against my skull. I put a fist to my mouth and swallow bitter saliva. Shouldn’t have eaten those fries.

  Now my only question is what exactly would two supposed superheroes need from a run-down inner-city school at this time of night? Heroes like to stick to streets and buildings, because you can grab security camera footage of yourself and have it leaked online for more authentic superhero content. You know the kind people love to gush about? ‘See, she’s out there doing all that hard work when nobody’s watching!’ That kind of stuff. The stuff that gets you on national news and magazines and makes you the face of retro vigilantism for the next couple of weeks, all with one simple trick. A school tucked into the bowels of Liberty City like this won’t get you anything except a couple of pats on the back from whoever lives around these parts. But fine. Sure. I’ve got a couple more minutes to kill until I’m officially a cliche in Hope’s books, so I get off the ledge, stretch, and decide to fly closer.

  The sweaty stink of human bodies punches me right in the mouth the second I land on the caved-in roof of a convenience store across the street from the school. I try not to gag, because superheroes are professionals. We don’t gag. We swallow our vomit like real heroes do, and grudgingly stomach the stench of grimy human bodies.

  The homeless are crowding the entrance to the school. Grinding against one another in their thick coats and fingerless gloves, pushing and shoving, cursing and picking scabs of flesh off their… My gut slowly coils.

  Mutants.

  Look, humans are weird, alright? Their bodies are noisy and their skin reeks, and most of the time, I just can’t understand anything about them no matter how hard I try. Sure, I like a couple of ‘em. They’re what I’ve got, so I can tolerate them. Mutants, though? I don’t think I’ve ever saved a mutant in my life, now that I think about it.

  These are the weirder kind. The kind the media don’t use to garner sympathy for their community. The kind with mouths that bleed because of teeth splitting apart their gums. The ones with eyes poking through their hair, red and infected with lice. Some of them chew their fingers until they reach bone, just for the flesh to grow right back, greener, more rotted, nearly sloughing off the bone. I try my freaking hardest not to vomit (and fail) when a woman with thread-thin blonde hair scratches her chin and barely notices when her jaw falls onto the ground at her feet. A kid scampers between her legs and snatches it off the pavement, then vanishes into the dark.

  It’s a blessing that radiation-infection is pretty hard to spread. It’s mostly genetic, I think.

  Dunno. I didn’t pay much attention in biology class. I fell asleep most of the time.

  I finish spitting the last of my lunch onto the roof, then slide my thumb across my lips. “Maybe Jason is running some kind of underground mutant bum fighting championship,” I say to myself. “The winner gets heroin.”

  Hell, that would be just one way for a street-level Cape like Jason to keep himself informed. Grab a couple of these guys, give ‘em some food and whatever else they need, and now you’ve got a network of junkies telling you everything you need to hear, almost to a fault, about whatever you need. Heck, that’s what I would do if I was stuck hopping from one rooftop to the next. Unethical? Barely. I’m giving these people comfort in their time of—

  The school’s front doors suddenly jerk open, smashing against the homeless crowded around it. They stumble back onto the pavement as the doors swing wide, revealing a man with gold-plated teeth and a purple velvet suit in the doorway, arms spread wide and his gloved hands sparkling with golden rings. Haven’t seen you before. I lean a little closer, resting my arm on the ledge. Greasy comb-over black hair. Mousy moustache on his upper lip. He’s wearing sunglasses even if the only light around him is the flickering street light outside the school.

  “Look at this turnout!” he says, almost giddy. “Not great, but hey, beggars aren’t choosers, am I right?”

  The homeless only stare at him.

  “Tough crowd,” he muses, turning on his heels. “Regardless, follow me, everyone, for what your heart desires is exactly what was advertised. And don’t worry, this isn’t some weird sex thing, either. I know how those nasty Capes treat folks like you.” He swings his arm around, and they all quickly follow him, drifting behind the cologne-smelling West Coaster. Easy to tell. He kinda talks like Logan, exactly there’s a lot more of a punch to his words and a much deeper tan around his smile. The doors slam shut the moment the last of the homeless vanish.

  I drum my fingers on the ledge and weigh my options. I can be reasonable, call the police, maybe even my mom and be a really upstanding member of my community. Or I can go down there and save tax payers their money.

  I hurdle over the ledge and softly land in a crouch on the pavement, startling a cat with a broken tail. I roll my right arm and walk across the street, and the closer I get to the building, the harsher the smell in the air becomes. It’s almost electric. No, spicy would be a better word. Like I’m chewing chili flakes and inhaling hot sauce, except it’s nowhere near as tangy, and a lot heavier on the choking-your-mouth-dry part. I sneeze and shake my head, then sniffle and fight another sneeze. God, what the fuck is that? I can smell radiation, but that? That’s something else.

  Something disgusting, and something I now want to find.

  Either I find a new strain of heroin Mr. West Coast is selling to homeless people, or this is going to turn into one of those nights that leave me empty-handed and exhausted because I’m chasing nothing but my instincts.

  But my gut hasn’t been wrong before, so she won’t fail me now.

  Besides, Ivory’s scent leads directly into the school building.

  It takes me a single minute to find a boarded-up window on the third floor. Pulling apart the rotted wood is easy, and quietly climbing through the hole I made is even easier. It’s corridors of classrooms and a nightmare of a toilet situation, cigarettes on the floor, the occasional bullet casing and your occasional broken needle. The floor below me is also empty. Well, partially. Five classrooms are full of mattresses. Clumpy and yellow, stained to hell and black with dry blood and vomit and urine. The windows are barred down here. Welded shut. Doors are thick steel monstrosities that groan when I shove them aside. I find old bandages on silver trays. Medical scissors so rusted they break when I try to work them. The stench in here is killing me. Spicy. Raunchy. Sweaty and grimy. I’m starting to sweat all on my own. It gets so bad I roll my compression shirt to my ribcage and blow freeze breath into my hands just for the extra chill. By the time I find the first corpse, I’m so busy rubbing my hands that I don’t even realize I step through its ribcage. It’s the grimy squelch of old organs rupturing under my foot that gives it away.

  “Gross,” I moan, shaking my foot. “There goes another pair of sneakers.”

  It’s a kid, I think. Judging by the size. Or a really small adult. Curled up beside a mattress that’s been left out in the hallway, flesh so dry it’s hanging off the body’s bones like sheets of rotting silk. I crouch and nudge the head with my knuckles. There’s enough give for the muscles to tear and leave the head rolling down the hallway.

  Loving this? I am too. Be a superhero, kids, it pays well.

  I stand up and hear the quiet shuffle of someone hiding. I glance over my shoulder, and a tiny head vanishes around a corner the next second. The kid hiding from me must’ve forgotten they have fingers, fingers they’re using to hold said corner. I really want to pretend I didn’t just see the kid, but with Aurelia and Ivory walking around, I might as well do the right thing, or whatever, before they ask why I didn’t help the little thing.

  “Come on out,” I sigh. “I know you’re there. You can trust me, I’m a superhero.”

  The kid bolts down the hallway until the sound of their feet is nothing except an echo.

  Saves me time, anyway, I think. One kid means other kids, which means a mess.

  I turn around and keep walking, because that can be someone else’s problem. You know all those grimy, back-alley brawling vigilantes so many people think are awesome? Yeah, they can deal with that, instead of playing tag with mass murderers and thinking they can be a symbol of hope to a grand total of five people who know about their existence. Like, why even bother with kids, you know? Especially mutant kids. God, I can just imagine their grimy fingers grabbing my hair as they shove their mucus-covered faces all up against my neck. I shudder at the thought. Truly and utterly horrified that there’s some Capes out there who’d go out of their way for…

  I’m so into my own thoughts that I walk straight into a guy wearing nothing except a cape and white underwear. We bounce off each other and stumble back. I shake my head, then stare at him. He’s staring at me, too, eyes bloodshot behind a red domino mask. His cape is scarlet. His undies hug his crotch. And he’s got a big H spray painted on his chest. He’s skinny, mostly bones and pale flesh, with hair too blonde and eyes way, way too blue.

  He breaks into a grin so fast I can almost hear his jaw click when his teeth clash together.

  “Amazing!” he cries, fixing his fists onto his hips. “I’ve located another civilian! What a stroke of luck!”

  I look him up and down. His feet reek. His toenails are gnarly and black, some of them missing. And he’s got these big red plastic gloves on his hands that go up his forearms. They squeal the harder he clenches his fists.

  I guess he’s not the weirdest thing I’ve seen, I think. I’ll put this in the ‘don’t think about it too much’ box.

  Like every superhero has to eventually do in their lives.

  I move past him and pat his shoulder. “You should probably get out of here, it’s not safe for—”

  “Oh, I know it’s not safe.” He chuckles and starts following me, which is…great. Just great. “That’s why I’ve got to get as many civilians out of here as I can! The only problem is that they’re just so quiet. I can’t hear them too well with all the screaming in my head.” I stop and look at him. Grinning. Eyes glowing a deep, icy blue in the shadows blanketing us. For a moment, neither of us moves, then he whispers, “Would you like to be my sidekick?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “I’m Sentry.”

  “Right.”

  More staring.

  I put a hand to my chest. “I’m a superhero.”

  “OK.” He nods.

  “I’m not anyone’s fucking sidekick.”

  He wags a big red finger. “Superheroes shouldn’t swear, it’s just plain old wrong! What if a child hears?”

  I sigh and turn around, because whatever this guy is stuffing up his nose isn’t going to be worth my night. So I keep walking, keep searching, and this freak keeps following. He doesn’t walk, he flies an inch above the floor, constantly out of reach, constantly making his foul-smelling cape billow behind him. He scratches his neck and keeps sniveling mucus down his throat. He’ll do this thing where he picks scab wounds off his forearm and flick them at a wall, and shards of his skin would punch tiny holes through the wallpaper like it’s pale-colored shrapnel.

  “Say,” he, well, says when I find another classroom full of soaked mattresses, torn clothes, more medical tape and even less alive bodies. This one has a smashed window, and outside of it is an old, tell-tale human-shaped dent in the cracked pavement below. No corpse. No blood. But if I squint, I can see bone fragments in the cracks. He taps my shoulder, so now I have to sigh again and look at him. “I’ve gotta ask: why are you here tonight, Sentry?”

  “What’re you, a cop?” I mutter, stepping over a heap of blood-smelling clothes. “Hero work.”

  “Hero work, hero work,” he quietly hums, tapping his pointed chin. “Oh! To save civilians, right?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. “To save every single one of ‘em.”

  “We can be super-friends!” he says, throwing his arm around my shoulders. His armpit is a festering black forest of tangled hair and gunk and— I shove him off me and tear my compression shirt off, because Jesus! I nearly cough up a lung trying not to vomit. But he doesn’t seem to care. Not one freaking bit. “Out saving the day! Wow, look at us go! Hero-Man and Sentry, Issue Numero Uno: The Ultimate Allies. We’d be the best Cape-Duo ever!”

  “What’re you doing here?” I turn around before I tell Hero-Man where he can stuff his comic book issue. Ivory is a few feet away, eyes probably narrowed behind her mask. She looks at Hero-Man, then me. “Who is he?”

  “Some creep who won’t leave me alone,” I say, throwing my shirt into a trash can. “What is this place?”

  “None of your concern, is what it is. You should leave before you ruin this operation.”

  Hero-Man floats closer. He considers Ivory for several seconds, then looks at me. “Another civilian? Sentry, can’t you see how lucky we are? If we keep searching, we’re bound to find more of them! Quick, let’s get her out—”

  “Quiet,” I snap. His mouth clicks shut, smile still tight on his lips.

  “But,” he says quietly, “all I’m doing is trying to help a fellow superhero.”

  “You’re—” A junkie in a cape and yesterday's underwear, you mask-wearing freak, is what I want to say, but Ivory is watching, and now so is Aurelia, who comes floating down the hallway in her corona of violet starlight, so I force myself to take a deep breath, find my zen like Ashley would have wanted me to, and smile at him. “You’re right. I’m sorry for shouting at you like that. Hey, mind telling me why you’re here? I’d appreciate all of that help.”

  Hero-Man beams, his entire face lighting up. “I’m here to save the civilians, of course!”

  “From what?”

  “From what…”

  I sigh. “From what, partner?”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He pats my shoulder and chuckles. “Well, Jackpot. Who else?”

  Jackpot?

  I glance at Ivory and Aurelia. “You guys know who that is?”

  “Only whispers,” Aurelia says with a shrug, getting closer. “Today’s a recon mission. Nothing but—”

  “Aurelia,” Ivory hisses. The younger girl flinches. “Don’t give her information that we worked for.”

  “Technically, Bandit worked for it, all we did was—”

  A pan drops to the floor, clattering noisily against the wood.

  We all look down the hallway to find a scrawny, dark-skinned guy in a dirty lab coat and surgical mask staring at us. He’s shaking so badly on his bare feet that I hear the moment his knees buckle and he collapses to the floor, right alongside two fresh rolls of gauze, disinfectant, medical scissors and five broken syringes of something that smells vile and spicy. The fluid is a reddish orange, glimmering in the dark before smoldering to nothing. It leaves behind a cloud of blood-red smoke behind, so painfully raw in the air it throws me into a sneezing fit.

  “No,” he whimpers, crawling back. “Nononono. H-hey! Look, just— Just wait a second!”

  I finish my allergic detour and straighten, spit on the floor and look around.

  But nobody’s moved. Not even Hero-Man.

  But the guy in the lab coat is staring right at me.

  “I-I’m doing this for my family, man!” he cries. “I got a kid on the way, and I– Oh, God.” He groans, and then vomits on himself as he begins crying. It starts getting awkward when his tear-stricken face stares directly at me, fingers clenching and jaw tight. “Imma change! I’ll go to the job site tomorrow. I’ll clean floors. I’ll plunge shit out of toilets. Man, just give me another chance!” He slams his forehead against the floor once, twice, and by the third time, he’s busted his nose open, now everything he says comes out nasally and harsh, garbled and strangled and with bubbles of bloody mucus. The begging turns to whimpers in a second. “Please, man,” he begs. “Please.”

  “Sentry,” Hero-Man says quietly. “Do you know that civilian?”

  Aurelia and Ivory are staring at me. The entire building is deathly silent.

  It almost feels like Liberty City just froze.

  “Of course not,” I say, waving my hand. I walk a little closer to the guy and crouch beside him. He wails and flinches and nearly curls into a ball when I try to pat his shoulder. Fuckin’ human, losing his shit like this. I’m not gonna kill you, man. You don’t even smell… Bitter. Sulfuric. Just a little bit evil. Enough to sour my saliva. I smile regardless, because people are watching. “Hey, pal,” I say lightly. He looks at me through wet eyes. “You probably have me mistaken. I’m Sentry. I save people, and you must be so exhausted, trying to get jobs, trying to make sure your kid has the life they deserve. Come on.” I stand up and offer my hand, then glare at him when he doesn’t. He makes the right choice and reaches toward me, fingers quaking. I grab his wrist and haul him onto his feet, straighten his lab coat and dust imaginary lint off his shoulders. I flip a name tag on his coat and read it. “Bob Smith.” Fake name. I look at him. “Hey, Bob? It’s gonna be OK. My friends back there are gonna take care of this mess, and between you and me? I’ll get you the help you need. I’ll talk to an old friend at Burger Planet to get you a job. It’s not gonna be glamorous, but the owner is a friend of mine, and hey, it’s good, honest work to do, isn’t it?”

  He’s shaking so badly he might pass out in ten seconds. But there’s a reason I have a hand on his shoulder.

  He nods. Then nods some more. “You… You ain’t gonna ki—”

  I laugh and slap his back. “Great! Consider yourself a certified fry-cook. Awesome, right?”

  He tries to smile. All his sobbing stops that. He collapses again and says, “Why’d you kill my brother?”

  Because humans are fun that way.

  I stare down at him, crying into my gore-soaked sneakers, whispering it over and over again, like I didn’t hear him the first time—like Ivory and Aurelia also didn’t near him already, because maybe if he keeps going, the entire city is gonna hear him. Hell, why not put it on a blimp? Sentry Killed this Guy’s Brother, Everyone! Fuck.

  Just…fuck.

  I sigh quietly from my nose and chew my tongue, then say, “I don’t kill people, Bob.”

  “She’s right.” I’m right? I turn around. Aurelia is closer. “I’ve seen her help cats climb down trees.”

  “Media bullshit,” Ivory says, venom on her tongue. “She’s a killer. You just can’t market that nicely.”

  “Ivy,” Aurelia says, glancing at her. “Come on, Bandit told us that she’s probably the best superhero he’s ever gonna work with, and hell, she’s top of her class in PU—that’s a lot more than either of us can ever say, right?”

  I narrow my eyes at Aurelia. That sounded…reharsed.

  Like she’s regurgitating something she just read.

  Something I might’ve just given her.

  “She’s right,” I whisper, nodding my head slowly. “I’m the best, and the best doesn’t kill.”

  “Right,” Aurelia says, grinning. But not like before. Not as bright. “Because you don’t need to.”

  “At least not right now,” Ivory says, but her hand hasn’t left her katana in minutes.

  I clench my jaw and look at one girl and then the next, and finally at the man crying at my feet.

  I open my mouth to speak, and get punched in the back of the head.

  My ears whine. My vision clears only when I’m done groaning and blinking and waving dust away from my face. Grit lines my teeth, making my tongue work hard to clear it out of my mouth. Outside. Suddenly I’m in a rigid bed of broken stone and splintered pavement, staring at the hole in the wall that I’d been sent straight through.

  Hero-Man is staring down at me, eyes burning crimson, fist clenched, the paint of his symbol flaking.

  “What the fuck?” I groan, mostly to myself. I roll onto my elbow and cup the back of my skull.

  Blood immediately wets my fingers and slides down my neck.

  “You killed that man’s brother, Sentry.” I look up through the blur in my eyes.

  Hero-Man isn’t so far away anymore.

  He’s suddenly in my face, so close I can smell the cigarette tar on his tongue.

  He grabs my throat and lifts me off the ground. I gasp and choke. He points rigidly at the school and says, “That man is a hard-working, good and honest man, and you killed his brother? So…so you lied about being a hero? What about the— You said you were—” He shakes his head. Shuts his eyes. His fingers dig deeper into my throat until I taste blood in my saliva. Hero-Man opens his eyes again, this time burning brighter, crueler, harsher.

  “I thought you were good,” he whispers. He pulls me closer. So close the heat coming off his eyes makes me wince. My lungs ache and burn. My heart slams harder against my ribcage. “But heroes like you aren’t heroes. You’re just pretending. Pretending to be good. Pretending because you’re sick.” He jams his finger in my face and shouts, “You disgust me! The world needs superheroes! Instead, all we ever get are…are freaks like you in capes!”

  He pushes my head so far deep into the asphalt I briefly forget how to form a thought.

  The shockwave alone smashes every single window down the street, sending glass into the sky, making the night sparkle as he lifts me up with his fingers knotted in my hair. Blood. Stone. Glass showers us, clinging to the scarlet in my hair. He pulls me from the Earth and raises his hand, palm flat, and smacks me hard across the face.

  For a second, my head lolls to one side as I pant. I shove my tongue against a dislodged tooth.

  Then spit it out.

  “Let this be your final warning, woman,” Hero-Man says. “Because there is no law, there’s only justice.”

  He drops me. I hit the ground, snapping the air out of my lungs. I grunt and push the rubble off my face, get onto all fours, onto my knees and finally my feet. I stare him in the eyes, slowly nodding, and smile a little at him.

  “Evil Never Wins, that’s what my mom says,” I whisper through the blood in my mouth.

  “Your mother sounds like an upstanding citizen!” he says, wagging his finger again. “A good daughter follows what her mother says. Adults aren’t always good people, but they’re smart, and know things that children like you don’t. Try to be better, OK? Because I wouldn’t want to have to punish you again for lying. Promise me?”

  I wipe blood off my mouth and onto my hand, then stick it out for him to shake. “On your life, partner.”

  Hero-Man grins, then shakes my hand.

  I pull him closer, one arm wrapped around his shoulders in a hug. I put my mouth to his ear and whisper, “I’m going to pull your guts out of your body, and you better not scream. You don’t get to talk to me that way. You don’t get to think you’re better than me.” I feel his fingers begin to break and splinter. He tries to move. The hand I have on his back keeps him in place. Icy vapor slips from my lips as I hiss, “And I can smell it in your veins, that thing in the air that keeps making me sneeze. You’re disgusting. People like you are disgusting. Look at you, in your two-dollar cape and your shitty plastic mask. You’re a grown man wearing his underpants in public and nothing else, flashing his junk to teenagers the first chance he gets. Don’t you feel just a little bit pathetic?”

  Hero-Man is silent, then says, “There’s nothing pathetic about being a hero.”

  I shatter his hand. Blood gushes onto his concave stomach, smearing his spray-painted H.

  He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t flinch.

  All he does is stare at me from behind his scarlet domino mask.

  “Tough guy,” I whisper, smiling. “I like that.”

  Before I can shove my fingers through his stomach and rip out his spine, he explodes into the sky, leaving me holding his severed, broken fingers and his torn red cape. I watch him turn the clouds into vapor and vanish into the horizon, gone with several sonic booms. Animal. I throw his fingers into a gutter and let the wind take his cape from me, because maybe someone else needs it a lot more than that fucking spice-addicted freak probably ever will.

  Ivory and Aurelia are looking down at me from the hole, alongside Burger Planet’s newest employee.

  I smile and give them a wave. “Looks like you guys can take it from here. Stay safe, alright?”

  And remember, Evil Never Wins.

  I turn around before any of them can ask me questions. I’ve got time on the clock to get the blood out of my hair and my fingernails, and also grab a pizza for Hope. Fuck. Fucking fry-cook son of a bitch, screaming like that. Now I’ve got Ivory and Aurelia on my ass. Should I just ki— No. Can’t kill superheroes, or Jason’s friends, either, because that’s just begging to become a bigger mess. Now what? Shit! I’ll call Harry and Rox when I get back to school. They’ll figure this out. Maybe get that fry-cook taken out. Maybe pay him off to keep him quiet.

  I don’t even remember the guy’s brother! But if I killed him, then he deserved it.

  Because there’s no such thing as ‘the law,’ only ever cold-hard justice.

  Fuck. FUCK! I swear, I’m gonna lose my mind before I—

  Breathe, Sam. It’s gonna be fine. What’s one guy’s testimony? I’m a superhero.

  I get an exemption for that kind of shit.

  Regular people die all the time!

  Besides, if fry-cook goes to the news, then what? They risk publishing a story about how PU’s shining beacon of hope is a murderer? That she’s nothing like her mommy? Yeah, right. Like anyone would publish that.

  If they know what’s fucking good for them.

  I’m at Hope’s apartment soon enough, two pizzas in one hand and a teddy bear in another that’s got a tiny t-shirt that says ‘I’m sowwy.’ I know. Kill me. But after I got done screaming in space for ten minutes and finding a joint still willing to make pizza at this time of the night, it was three in the morning, my head was spinning, and my phone was dead because I kept refreshing my news feed to make sure nothing head leaked into the mainstream, not that anything would get leaked—Liberty City never really sleeps, least of all the nighttime news cycle, because superheroes love to do most of their work under the watchful eyes of the stars. It makes us feel a little more hidden.

  A lot less seen.

  Hope opens the door on my fourth round of knocking. She’s dazed and sleepy, blinking slowly as she puts on her glasses and squints at me. Her hair is tied up and held together with a scarf, and she smells like warm tea and an even warmer apartment. She looks at me, then the pizzas, and finally her phone, which she flips to show me.

  “It’s late, Sam,” she says, leaning her head against the doorframe. “How long was the long route?”

  I shrug. I can still taste asphalt and blood in my mouth. I tried brushing my teeth, but maybe what I’m tasting is all the tongue-chewing I’m doing because that fucking guy in his stupid lab coat and the other asshole in his stupid red cape made my night into something of a horror story because all humans can do is get on my nerves.

  I smile and say, “Kinda long. Pizza? It’s still nice and hot.”

  “Where’d you even get hot pizza at this time?”

  “Eye-lasers, baby. Nothing beats being super.”

  “Nothing beats keeping a promise.” I stop smiling as much when Hope sighs. “Look, I’ve dated Capes before, and it’s the same thing with you guys. And I get it. It’s your sworn duty to protect the world, and you can’t just not pick up the phone when justice calls, but…I’ve got glass in a couple of hours Sam, and then I’ve got things I need to do with the school paper, and student council elections are coming up and I need to follow a lead I’ve got on the SSA, and you just don’t really fit right now, kinda like how I don’t fit in your life either.” She smiles. It’s a soft, sloppy smile that makes my heart skip a beat for some reason. She folds her arms, and I can’t help but swallow. “You’re interesting. And I think you’re gonna be great. But I think I might as well cut my losses before this goes anywhere, if it ever was in the first place. I’ll see you in class, alright? And get some sleep, you look really tired.”

  I slide my foot between the door and the doorframe before she shuts it. “Wait,” I say, and she sighs, but I keep talking before she can. “I know I didn’t keep a promise, but I’m still here, right? I can stay over for tonight.”

  “Sam, we’ve known each other for a few days.”

  “And now we can know each other for a night more.”

  Hope laughs quietly and mutters, ‘Oh my God.’ She massages her face, then looks at me. “Sam.”

  “Please?” I say. “I just think tonight would be better if I wasn’t by myself.”

  Because if I’m stuck with my thoughts, I’m gonna do something bad.

  Really bad.

  The kind of bad that might screw up a lot of things.

  Ana had tried to call me before my phone died. I hadn’t picked up. She was another bad decision.

  One I didn’t really feel like making right now.

  “Did something happen?” Hope softly asks.

  I shake my head. She tilts hers.

  “Yeah,” I mutter, finally. “I kinda need a breather.”

  “You’re gonna get in trouble staying out late as a freshman.”

  “I’m Sentry,” I say with half a smile. “It’ll be fine.”

  Because, of course, it had to be fine. I’m Sentry.

  One night wouldn’t ruin my life.

  Hope stares at me, amber eyes glowing in the soft hallway light above her door. Her skin is soft and she smells like soap and tea and pen ink on her fingers. She smiles, and my gut tightens—maybe not in a good way, and maybe not in a bad way, either. “One night,” she says quietly. “And then you stay away until you keep a promise.”

  “When’s a superhero ever not kept a promise?” I ask her. “We promise to save the world, and we do.”

  “And you promised to keep time, and you didn’t,” she says. “It’s the small things.”

  “Well,” I say. “There’s nothing small about me wanting to stay the night.”

  “Yeah?” Hope quietly asks. “And why’s that, supes?”

  “Because I need…” I need a human to take my mind off tonight. “I need something that makes sense.”

  “Oh, you don’t know anything about me to think I make any kind of sense,” she giggles.

  “I know enough to think that you can make sense to me,” I say, shrugging.

  “You talk like this to every girl you meet? Try to impress them with your super strength and your super speed? Your eye lasers and your hot pizza? ‘cause it’s not working on me. Normal people don’t have kryptonite.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You think I’m gonna be the thing that might kill you?”

  “I think you might be the thing I need to stay away from sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?”

  “Sometimes.”

  The silence that follows is long, and fits itself in the gap between us perfectly. Hope stares at me, her arms still folded and lips still pressing into a smile she doesn’t want on her face, and me, holding the pizza, with my mind racing and heart trying to outpace it, wondering what tomorrow is gonna be like but not wanting to care.

  Because I need a distraction, just like I did with Ana in high school, just like I did after graduation.

  Hope steps back from her door and wanders into her apartment, the door still slightly open.

  I nod to myself and step back.

  I hear her say, “That pizza won’t eat itself, supes.”

  An icy chill crawls down my spine.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I quietly breathe.

  I slip inside her apartment and gently shut the door.