Lauren’s awakening was sudden and explosive.

  Pain seized her from inside. She shot up in bed, clutching her abdomen. Curses and groans shot out of her mouth. The feeling was excruciating. It was like a black hole had opened inside her, ripping the rest of her organs into it. This wasn’t a wound, though. It was a primal, instinctual ache.

  She was hungry.

  So goddamn hungry.

  Hunger shouldn’t be this painful. It shouldn’t be possible. It didn’t feel human. Not even on their worst days, when the money had dried up and there was no food to be scrounged around Callis, Lauren had never been this hungry. She’d rip into the side of a living, breathing cow right now if it was in front of her.

  Her moans of pain drew a nurse to her, the curtain thrown back quickly.

  “Lauren. Calm down, Lauren, tell me what’s wrong,” the concerned nurse said, coming to her side.

  Lauren grabbed her forearm.

  “Food. I need food.”

  The nurse was getting a little panicked, maybe from how hard Lauren was gripping her arm. But Lauren didn’t have any control over the action. She was getting delirious. She could feel saliva dripping down her chin.

  “Honey, I need you to let me go, and I’ll go get you an applesauce.”

  Not good enough. Lauren threw the nurse away. She stumbled back.

  Her next memories were a blur. She left the bed and ran out of the hospital ward. People tried to stop her. She pushed past them when she had to. There was food in the air. She was outside, bare feet moving against grass. Door open. Big space. Food.

  She got to the meat first. Bones were stripped bare in seconds. She flung them away to grab more. Her hands were covered in slick, hot grease. More. She couldn’t get it down fast enough. Apples, grapes, oranges, carrots, broccoli. She needed it all. Bottles and cartons ripped open, half the liquid spilling down her front in the rush to chug it down. The floor became wet around her feet. Her hands were scalded as she brought scoops of cheesy, saucy mess to her mouth. More. More. She needed…

  She slipped into darkness.

  Then, Lauren awoke again.

  There was a white ceiling not too far above her. She writhed slightly, and felt that the bed she was in was wide and soft. She was in her room. Her face and mouth had been cleaned, and she had been changed into real clothes.

  “Lauren!”

  Lucy was on top of her before she could even sit up. Her lungs and boobs were getting crushed.

  “Lucy…”

  “Sorry!” Lucy sat up, but kept her hand on Lauren’s arm. Her sweet face was brimming with concern.

  “What the hell happened?” Lauren asked. She had a killer headache. The bedside light was hurting her eyes. She remembered the pain of waking up, and the pain before that of the beating. Her stomach was sore.

  “What happened?!” Lucy repeated in disbelief. “I’m supposed to ask you that! You told me you could handle one day alone!”

  Lauren groaned. “I thought I had a lead on my sister. I went to the bad part of town. Some kids beat the shit out of me. Powered kids.”

  Lucy wrapped her in a gentle hug. “You should have waited for me!”

  Lauren patted her on the back. “I hate to break it to you, but they would have beat this shit out of you too.”

  When Lucy let her go, Lauren touched her own face. It was a bit sore, but it should have been a lot worse. She felt her pierced shoulder too. It was the same.

  “How long was I out for?” she asked Lucy.

  Lucy looked confused. “Just today. Why?”

  Lauren shook her head. “I don’t mean to freak you out, but I was in a bad way. I shouldn’t be doing this well. I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe it’s your powers,” Lucy said. “The doctor thought you’d do better waking up in your own room, but he wanted to talk to you when you woke up. Are you feeling okay to get up, or do you want to wait a bit?”

  “No, let’s go.” Besides her headache, she felt fine. The mad hunger she felt before was gone, but it had shaken her. It was another moment of losing control. If the doctor had answers, she wanted them.

  . . .

  “So basically, I heal quickly?”

  That was the gist of what Lauren had got from the doctor’s spiel. She sat in his office in the medical wing, Lucy by her side. She had asked her friend to stay.

  “That’s the central idea, yes,” Dr. Yeoh said. He sat in his impressive chair that was too big for him behind his oak desk that was also too big for him.

  “I regret underestimating how much external energy your body would need to repair itself in such a short time. Hence, your hunger on waking up. My apologies for that.”

  Lauren looked down at her own hands and flexed them. According to the doctor, they were stronger now. They didn’t feel stronger. But she didn’t know how to feel that. All over getting hurt.

  “There’s one other thing, Lauren,” Doctor Yeoh said, sounding apprehensive. “You may want to have Lucy wait outside.”

  “No,” Lauren said immediately. She trusted Lucy with all of this. She needed someone to help her understand it.

  “Alright. Well, it involves a procedure that I believe was done without your knowledge or consent. The ones who altered you, they also seem to have removed your uterus and ovaries. And your body isn’t responding to repair the… damage.”

  He cringed at that last part.

  Lauren stared at him. She looked to Lucy.

  “Your uterus is where a baby grows,” Lucy explained. “And your ovaries are where your eggs are kept.”

  “…I have eggs?”

  Apparently other kids really did learn things in school. After a brief and awkward sex ed crash course, Lauren began to understand what was taken from her. She didn’t know whether to be upset or not. She had literally never entertained the idea of having children. She couldn’t even fathom other teenagers in a better position thinking about children. Children just were. They could have popped out of the ground for all she thought about it. Yet, there was something enraging about that part of her being stripped away. It was a violation, even if she was never going to use it. She wanted to be mad about it. She would be, she decided. She was pissed about it.

  Lauren and Lucy left the doctor’s office. Headmaster Knapp was waiting in the hall. Lauren saw her and sighed.

  “How much trouble am I in this time?”

  The owlish woman looked chagrined.

  “I’m getting concerned by my increasing association with punishment. I swear, my job is much more than that here.”

  Lauren smiled a little without meaning to. The headmaster was good at breaking tension. She walked with them.

  “I’ll cut to the short and sweet of it, Lauren: I’m not extending your grounding.”

  “You’re not?” Lauren asked, surprised.

  “There were… circumstances beyond your control. Just know that you won’t be getting down that mountain the same way again. And if you try, you’ll likely be removed from this school and put into a much less stimulating environment for a time. I’d hate to lose you. We all would. But if we don’t have rules, we don’t have anything.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  They reached the exterior doors. The headmaster pivoted and faced Lauren.

  “There’s one other thing. I won’t coddle you and act like last night was the first fight you’ve ever been in. I’m aware of your background. And I can clearly see your extraordinary ability to heal. But violence leaves more than just physical wounds. It damages the psyche. Often in ways we don’t feel consciously.”

  The headmaster considered her words.

  “I won’t make you attend therapy. I think it would be good for you in numerous ways. But I won’t make you. For now. Just know that the option is always there. Judgement free.”

  “Would you be the therapist?” Lauren asked.

  “Would you want me to be?”

  Maybe, if the choices were between her and a stranger.

  Instead of answering, Lauren deflected with her own question.

  “Do you know who the ones who attacked me were? I didn’t really get it at the time, but I think there’s more of them somewhere. And there was this big monster—”

  “BASTION is handling the situation with the criminal known as Dr. Chimera,” the headmaster said. “As for the powered teens who attacked you… well, that’s an evolving situation. I can’t tell you much yet, but I expect we’ll have a school assembly to address things soon. Don’t trouble yourself about it any further, for now.”

  The headmaster let the girls out into the evening. They walked across campus to the cafeteria, even though Lauren felt like she didn’t want to eat anything ever again.

  “I guess I missed all my Monday classes,” Lauren said.

  “Yup,” Lucy confirmed. “We had our first class of Crime Fighting and Justice with Ms. Almstead. She used to be a superhero. Then History, then Math & Science. I think we have all our Monday and Wednesday classes together.”

  Lauren gave a low, pitiful moan at the mention of Math & Science. The last thing she remembered learning was decimal points. She wasn’t very good at them.

  “It’s gonna be alright. I’ll get you caught up.”

  Lucy’s voice was flat. Not intentionally. Not in an upset way. She was probably just drained.

  Lauren stopped her friend before they entered the cafeteria.

  “What?” Lucy asked to Lauren’s stare. “Everyone’s waiting. They want to see you.”

  Lauren put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  Lauren’s fleeting thoughts of leaving this place, leaving Lucy and her friends to fend for themselves, were abandoned. It was just her slipping into old thought patterns when she thought she saw the end of the tunnel. But the end was a lot further than she had hoped. Lucy was right. They had an army here. There was no way Lauren could do this on her own. If last night had taught her anything, it was that. She needed the support this school had. These other teens, without really knowing her, took her in. Finally, for the first time in a long time, Lauren was starting to feel like she belonged somewhere other than just at her sister’s side. So she'd help, if she could. The classmates she liked, at least. Not be some kind of hero that the world needed. That still seemed insane. But she'd do it because she was going to need them. When the time came, they were going to help Lauren do something she couldn’t do on her own: shake Rachel free from this city. And it didn't mean she couldn't keep searching on her own time.

  "It's gonna be alright, okay? I'm okay. Everything's fine."

  Lucy nodded. But the worry wasn't gone from her eyes. It may never be, with Lauren around.

  They opened the cafeteria doors to find thirty Rosewell students staring at them. At Lauren.

  “How much do they know?” Lauren whispered over to Lucy.

  “They know you snuck out and got hospitalized last night. The headmaster made a morning announcement. They’re probably a little surprised to see you already. They might be able to guess you weren’t just fighting normal thugs.”

  Heads turned to follow Lauren’s movement. She wasn’t about to sit down at their usual table with all these eyes boring into her back. So she marched to the center of the cafeteria and gave herself to the crowd. They didn’t waste time getting into their questions.

  “Did you fight a supervillain last night?”

  “Why did you sneak out?”

  “You don’t look very hurt.”

  That last snarky comment was from Cleo.

  Lauren did her best to calm everyone down, so she’d only have to tell her story once. She told them about Vigilance, and going to Intershore. She told them about Dr. Chimera’s wicked laboratory and the other powered teens. She described her beatdown without any embellishment.

  “They said there are others. Something about a school rivalry,” Lauren told them at the end.

  “A whole school of evil powered teens?” Terry wondered aloud. The boy with light powers.

  “Sounds like good practice,” Danielle said, cracking her knuckles.

  “If that existed, BASTION would have to know, right?” Ingrid asked, peering around timidly. “Wouldn’t they tell us?”

  Kenny, in his white jacket, stood with an assertive grunt.

  “Well I think we can handle it. Three of them couldn’t even take down one of us for a whole day. How bad could they be compared to us?”

  He was trying to make his voice sound deeper and more confident than it was.

  Megumi snapped a breadstick from the next table over, killing his moment.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence for those of us who have real powers, Roofie Boy.”

  A few other students chuckled. Kenny had been telling anyone within earshot about his hypnotism powers for days.

  “Hey! You can’t call me that!” He looked around at everyone. “That’s not going to stick as my name!”

  The crowd dissolved into pockets of speculation, taking the spotlight away from Lauren. She went over to join Lucy, Adam, and Thalia. Abigail was sitting a foot away from Adam, hovering at the edge of the group.

  “I told you not to sneak out without me!” Thalia said as soon as Lauren sat down. “Now Lucy’s never gonna let me babysit you again.”

  “Sorry, rules are rules,” Lucy said, continuing the joke.

  “We’re glad you’re okay, Lauren,” Adam said. “…How are you so okay?”

  “Healing powers, apparently.” She told them some of what the doctor explained to her. She left out the part about her organs being removed.

  “Wow. That sounds useful as shit,” Thalia said. She moved her arm in a sling. “I could use that.”

  The night passed. Truthfully, it felt good to be back. Lauren fell asleep in her own bed again and woke up ready for gym. She wanted to test what the doctor had told her about being stronger. Maybe they’d give her Reagan to play with. As Lauren talked about her incident, she could feel the girl’s glare. She could only imagine her stuck-up classmate’s disapproval of breaking the rules again.

  Lauren did not get Reagan to play with again, or anybody else she would have gone easier on. Lauren’s morning gym class spent two and a half hours stretching, running, and learning proper movement techniques. Coach Dixon taught them basic blocks and deflects, then had the students repeat the movements hundreds of times. He went up and down the rows, critiquing the slightest imperfections. Most were more than slight.

  “You will all have different strengths, but before we heighten those strengths, we need to patch your weaknesses. You will not flinch when someone goes to strike you. You will block it. You will dodge it. You will deflect it. Block, dodge, deflect. You’ll learn to decide which is the best course in the moment, without thinking of it.”

  Coach Dixon stopped by Lauren as she practiced her high block. She waited for his criticism.

  “I heard you encountered some trouble the other night,” the coach said.

  “Yes, coach.” Lauren knew better than to pause practicing or turn her head. Coach liked to sweep the legs of anyone who stopped following his orders.

  “Powered kids, huh? You don’t look very busted up.”

  “I healed, coach. I was busted up.”

  Coach Dixon nodded as he stalked around her. He was massive, but fluid.

  “Rapid healing? That’s good. Just don’t over-rely on it. It’ll fail you when you need it most. My techniques won’t.”

  “Yes coach.” She couldn’t argue with taking less pain.

  “Did you hit any of them, at least?”

  “No coach,” she answered honestly. “One was so fast she hit me before I even saw her move. I couldn’t get back up.”

  “Speed’s an even better defense…” he muttered as he moved along.

  Spanish and English were easy enough afterwards. Lauren hadn’t done the reading for English, but she nodded along with the discussion generated by her classmates.

  That night at dinner, Adam’s roommate Edward joined their table halfway through. He sat directly across from Lauren and immediately gazed at her with dark, smoldering eyes.

  Lauren hadn’t paid particular attention to him before, but Edward was handsome, in a darker, more stoic way than Adam. He looked like some kind of mix between a gaunt aristocrat from an old painting, and a biker bad boy from a movie. Him sitting across from Lauren and paying her particular attention caught her off guard. He smelled like wood smoke and vanilla. Why would she notice that? She was suddenly self-aware.

  “Lauren. I wanted to talk to you,” Edward said. His voice had a strong, distinct timbre.

  The rest of the table watched them.

  “Oh?” She cleared her throat to sound less squeaky. It wasn’t boy-attention nervousness. She’d never be that kind of girl. She was just blindsided. That’s all it was. She sat up straighter for some reason.

  “One of the girls you described when you came back… the one without a mask? Lilith?”

  “Yeah?”

  Edward rubbed his hands together, and looked at the others watching him. He had a guilty expression.

  “Her full name is Lilith Darkheart. My name is Edward Darkheart. Lilith is my cousin.”

  Her nervousness was forgotten upon hearing that. Holy shit. She could absolutely see it. They had the same pale skin, pouty lips, regal face shape. If Edward had her freaky dark-glowy eye thing going on it would have been obvious.

  The others looked at each other, surprised. Edward kept addressing Lauren.

  “I’m sorry she hurt you. I’d like to say Lilith is the black sheep of my family, but the truth is, I am. Us Darkhearts… we’re warlocks. Lilith went down a path most of us don’t. She’s erased the line between herself and the demons we confer with. She never was a very patient girl. She wanted power as soon as possible. And now she has it. But she isn’t herself anymore. Or maybe she’s just her worst self.”

  Lauren didn’t know anything about magic or demons, but she wanted to better understand what was out there.

  “Do you know what she’s involved in now?” Lauren asked.

  Edward shook his head. “She went her way in life, and I went mine. I wanted to use my family’s practice to help people instead of exploiting them. I haven’t seen her in over a year. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s leading her own coterie of followers by now.”

  He fidgeted with a silver ring on his finger. He seemed genuinely regretful.

  “What your family does isn’t on you,” Lauren assured him. Her gaze flickered down to her hands to avoid eye contact.

  He nodded, appreciating the thought with his expression.

  “I’ll leave you all to it then. Enjoy your dinner.”

  He left. Lauren’s eyes followed him back to his group of boys.

  Lucy put her chin on Lauren’s shoulder.

  “You’re blushing.”

  Lauren pushed the giggling girl away. There wasn’t anything weird about being a bit flustered. So what if he was objectively handsome? She wasn’t actually attracted to the guy. He was too… well, too something. Lauren didn’t have a very refined taste yet. The last time she was even around boys her age was when she was fourteen, and she mostly fought them for scraps from Tommy. Not that it stopped them from sniffing around her and her sister like stray hungry dogs.

  Even if she was staying here longer term, dating was the last thing on her mind. Too much baggage. Too much worrying about what yet another person thought of her every move. She wouldn’t know what to do with a boy. Probably leave him unimpressed with her general lack of knowledge about anything. Better to just keep her head down and trudge ahead.

  And not think about how nice a caring, reassuring touch might feel.