Lauren tried calling Hogan Wednesday morning, before class. It went to voicemail.

  “Hey, it’s Lauren.” She felt awkward talking into the phone. It felt like something she shouldn’t mess with, having used it for illicit purposes, but they had given it back to her. She paced on the dewy lawn in the silence before sunrise.

  “I just… I’m sorry for overreacting and stuff, last time we talked. They told me you brought me back. I don’t really remember. But thanks. Can we talk, maybe? I know you’re busy, probably don’t have time to come here, but maybe call me back? I know you’d tell me if there was news. So…”

  So why did she want to speak to Hogan? Maybe just to hear he was still looking. Maybe just so their last interaction wasn’t so acidic. Or maybe Lauren just wanted to tell him how she was doing in school so far. That she wanted to stay for the time being. Lauren didn’t care what the agents had said about custody, and who was in charge of her. Hogan had found her, taken her in, and brought her here. So she wanted to update him.

  “Anyway, just call me when you can?”

  She ended the message and put the phone back in the pocket of the oversized jacket Hogan had given her. She pulled the folds of it tight around herself to feel warmer in the chill air.

  Two hours later, Lucy led Lauren into A2, a classroom near the front of the school. Thirty desks sat in rows in the large space, almost enough to hold all the school’s current student body. Half the desks were filled with students. Lauren took a seat next to Lucy near the front of the class. There was no instructor to be seen in the minutes before the bell rang.

  “She used to be Kinetika,” Lucy said to Lauren on their walk over, referring to their teacher, Ms. Almstead. “Super cool local hero. I got to meet her once when I was younger. I like her style as a teacher so far.”

  Ms. Almstead entered the classroom a minute before the bell. When she strolled into the room, heels clicking, everyone quieted at her presence.

  Lauren wasn’t sure what she expected a former superhero teacher to look like, but it was surprising just how young she looked, maybe in her early 30s. Her skin was fair, eyes dark green, and hair a burnt gold and slightly curled. Her build was powerful, tall and statuesque. She wore a dark pencil skirt and white buttoned shirt that curved around her large chest. She was the kind of teacher Lauren imagined students developed crushes on very easily.

  Ms. Almstead surveyed the room with an easy smile. She made eye contact with Lauren. Her slender eyebrow raised with curiosity.

  “It’s good to see you all again,” Ms. Almstead said, going to her desk. Her voice was rich and easily attention-grabbing. “I’m glad to see my first class hasn’t scared anyone away. And I think there are even some faces new to me.”

  Probably just Lauren, but it was nice to not be singled out.

  The teacher rested her head on a hand with painted nails as she considered the students before her.

  “For those who are new, and those who need a reminder, this class seeks to find the heart of what it means to be a superhero. It’s an exploration of everything we do and why we do them. It’s part philosophy, part law, part civics, and part meditation. Many heroes in the past have had to learn the responsibility they wield the hard way. Hopefully, this class is an easier alternative, so that out in the world you’ll make less mistakes, and suffer fewer losses.” Her look swept the room. “Sound fair?”

  Lauren found herself nodding along.

  “Good. We’ll also be talking superhero strategy, eventually. Anyways… I’d like to start class with a question. It’s an open-ended question, and one we’re going to keep answering throughout this whole class. I’d just like to get started with some ideas today. The question is: why do people become superheroes?”

  The class was silent.

  “Well?” she asked. “Any ideas?”

  Ms. Almstead turned and grabbed a marker to write on the whiteboard.

  “Let’s get them all out there. Shout them out.”

  “To help people,” Troy said first.

  Ms. Almstead repeated it and wrote it down.

  “What else?”

  “Because it’s our duty when we have powers,” Vivian said with reverence.

  Ms. Almstead wrote sense of duty.

  “To get in fights,” Megumi suggested boldly. She got a high-five from Danielle next to her.

  Ms. Almstead added it without comment.

  “Because we owe it to our country,” Ike said.

  “To protect civilians.” Jonas.

  “Because it’s fun!” Annabelle.

  “To get famous.” Grace, of course.

  “Because we care about the world,” Lucy said.

  A few more answers trickled in. Lauren declined to comment. She still thought this whole superhero thing was insane. But she was learning to keep that opinion to herself. The only reason she’d use her powers would be to keep the people she cared about safe. Like Rachel. Like Lucy.

  Once the board was full of answers, Ms. Almstead turned back to them.

  “Now, which of these answers is a valid reason to become a superhero?”

  The students glanced at each other, suddenly worried their answers were wrong.

  “All of them!” Ms. Almstead said. “The truth is, it doesn’t matter why you became a hero in the first place. That’s the lesson to take away from today. Whatever reason you’re here for, whatever drives you, it isn’t better or worse than anyone else’s. Even if it’s for reasons that might seem selfish. What matters is what you do.”

  Again, she made eye contact with Lauren for a brief moment. Lauren had a feeling another person knew her past.

  The class changed into an open discussion about motivations for becoming a hero. Lauren kept to the background as others talked. The bell rang eventually.

  As she left, Lauren could feel the eyes of Ms. Almstead on her. But she didn’t look over. She didn’t want to get reeled into having another mentor just yet.

  Including Wednesday, there were ten days left in Lauren’s grounding. She tried not to count down the days as each passed. She forced herself to find things to occupy her on campus.

  She tried running in the mornings, but it just frustrated her how it never wore her out. She’d need to find a different exercise.

  In the evenings, Lauren gave an honest shot at doing homework. Lucy was happy to be her study buddy. They sat at the dining table in their dorm and did history reading together, then math problems. Lauren got so much help she basically ended up copying all of Lucy’s steps and answers.

  She ate dinner with her friends. Sometimes others joined them, Reuben or Mary or one or a few of Adam’s roommates. Almost always Abigail, who was starting to look at Adam with unabashedly heart-shaped eyes. If Adam noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it. Lauren’s initial skittishness around Edward passed quickly.

  During one dinner, Adam came up to their usual table with an excited look. Lauren, Lucy, and Thalia all looked up at him. Abigail was somewhere else for the evening.

  “Guess who got invited to a gala!” Adam said.

  “Uh, you?” Thalia guessed.

  “Yeah me!” Adam said, sitting down. “I have been invited, as the director of Atlas Foundation West, to a networking gala hosted by Cyrus Null.”

  He said the name like it was a big deal. Lauren didn’t know it.

  “The tech guy?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah the tech guy!” Adam said. “The billionaire tech innovator, media mogul, and world philanthropist. It’s gonna be held at NullCorp tower. Fancy drinks, fancy food, fancy people.”

  “Your natural element,” Thalia snarked.

  “Exactly.” He looked around the table. “Soooo, who wants to be my date?”

  Lauren nearly coughed out her pasta.

  “Thalia?” Adam prompted. “We’ve been doing these together since we were kids. You know the routine. And you look amazing all dressed.”

  “I’ve hated doing galas since we were kids,” Thalia said with distaste. “I’m finally old enough to not go to them for a while. Besides, my arm’s still healing. Why don’t you take someone who’s never been to one?”

  Adam looked mildly disappointed, but he accepted it.

  “Lucy?” he tried.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  She hesitated. “Ooh, as much as I’d love to spend an evening with our modern feudal overlords who are probably undressing me with their eyes… I would actually not love to do that. No offense.”

  Adam turned to Lauren, clearly not hopeful.

  “No?”

  “No,” she confirmed.

  Adam sighed. “Well I need to take someone. It’s how these things work.”

  “Take the bird of prey of who’s always following you around,” Thalia said, cutting into her steak. “She’s clearly a fan of you.”

  “Abigail?” Adam sucked in air. “I dunno. I mean, I know she’d go… but I don’t think she’s right for this…”

  “Because she’d babble on about things no one cares about or understands and make them feel dumb?” Thalia asked.

  Abigail did have a habit of interjecting into their casual conversations and making some remark or telling a story that no one really understood. It was getting on the girls’ nerves, but Adam didn’t seem to notice.

  “That’s so mean!” Adam said. “But yeah,” he admitted. “I am a little worried about that.”

  “You know who you should take?” Lucy asked.

  “Not Grace,” Adam groaned.

  “Definitely not,” Lauren agreed. She’d come back with an ego that wouldn’t fit through the door.

  “No, not Grace,” Lucy said. She gave a look across the cafeteria. Adam followed it.

  “Oh. I guess…”

  Still none too thrilled, he got up and went to Annabelle.

  While he was away, Lucy turned to Thalia.

  “You know he was asking you out, right?” she checked.

  “What?” Her guard was up again, like it was whenever they talked about Adam. “He was asking us all out.”

  “No, he was asking you out, in a way that seemed like a casual friend way, but it would’ve been a date if it was you.”

  Thalia chuckled nervously. “You guys haven’t know us very long. You don’t know what it’s like between us.”

  Lucy obviously didn’t believe her, but she minded her own dinner.

  “Ahhh! Yes!”

  The cry came from across the cafeteria. Everyone turned to look. Annabelle had her arms wrapped around Adam. He looked petrified.

  That night, Lauren stood on the roof of the dorms and tried calling Hogan again. She had to leave another voicemail.

  “Hey, it’s Lauren again. Did you get my last call? I’m sure you’re busy. Um, I’m doing well here at school, I think. I’m trying. I hope you’re following some good leads. Talk soon?”

  She forced herself to hang up before she started getting all pleady and desperate. She wanted to keep a cool head about things. That was the way to stay here, to move forward. She wouldn’t accept anything else.

  Lauren tried replacing running with weightlifting. Danielle was already in the weight room attached to the gym one early morning. She sat up from the bench press and grinned seeing Lauren lingering in the doorway.

  “Let’s start you with just the bar,” Danielle said, leaning over Lauren resting on the bench. “See how it feels.”

  Lauren took the bare bar off the rack. She moved it up and down quickly.

  “How does that feel?” Danielle asked.

  “Like holding a book over my head.”

  “Alright, alright,” Danielle said. She put 25-pounders on each side. “Try that.”

  It was barely any different. Danielle added weight in a few more increments. Finally, Lauren started to feel some burn in her arms. She moved the bar to her chest and back up, following the technique Danielle had showed her. Her muscles ached after one set of five reps. But she liked it. She needed something to strain against.

  “How much is that?” Lauren grunted, racking the bar.

  “250 pounds.”

  Lauren sat up, panting slightly. “Is that good?”

  “Better than a lot of grown men can do.” Danielle bent down and picked up a hundred-pound weight, twisting it in her hands like it was a dinner plate. “Still got a ways to catch up to me though.”

  Lauren’s gym class started learning more martial arts. They practiced strikes on featureless, opaque training dummies made of some sort of tangible energy projection. Assistant Coach Burch stood on an elevated platform and puppeted one for each student simultaneously. Some sort of innate power of hers.

  The students weren’t allowed to mix in their powers yet. Coach Dixon was adamant that they should each have the same basic training. Lauren hit hers as hard as she could for a while. Though it blocked her strikes, she sent the dummy reeling back.

  “Practice some self-control, Lauren,” Coach Dixon said. His heart wasn’t in the sentiment. “Sometimes full power is good. Sometimes you’ll need to not split someone’s skull immediately.”

  Ms. Almstead gave a lecture about the importance of a hero understanding their powers.

  “A hero is defined by their actions, but for better or worse, your powers inform everything about what you do as a hero. Your powers affect where you work, what your power class is, how you should approach a situation, and what your role is on a team. You need to understand everything about how your powers work.”

  Alone, in her room, Lauren tried getting to know her powers better. She practiced drawing and sheathing the bone spike in her hand. It was an immediate process, less than a second from thought to weapon. She could do it on either hand, or both at once. She focused on her fingernails. They went from short and dull to pointed razors at a similar speed. She clenched a fist. Much smaller bone spikes formed over each knuckle, giving her a natural knuckle-duster.

  Stabbing, slashing, and beating. She could do all three. Forming the weapons was as instinctual as each breath she took. When she needed them, they came, but she could also think about the process and trigger it manually.

  She tried practicing the increased-reaction state she had slipped into when fighting Reagan, but that was harder to trigger manually. If she had slipped into it during her fight with the other powered teens, the bunny girl, Usagi, had completely outclassed it with her own speed. Now she couldn’t seem to find it within her at all.

  She thought about cutting her cheek or something just to see how fast it healed, but that seemed a bit too angsty, even for her.

  She watched television with her roommates. She showered. She slept. She called Hogan again. Voicemail.

  “Hey, are you getting my messages at all?” Some heat was creeping into her voice. She wanted to be at Rosewell, but she also didn’t want the world outside to move on without her. Hogan wasn’t the kind of guy to not know someone was trying to reach him.

  “I know you know I’m calling you. I literally just wanted to talk for like five seconds. Geez.”

  She hung up. The silence was starting to get ominous. The headmaster predicted Hogan would rescue Rachel before Lauren was even allowed to leave campus again. He had a few days left. He wasn’t calling back for some reason in particular.

  The next morning, Lauren wanted to do exercise more tactile than weight-lifting. There was a punching bag hanging in the corner. It looked heavy-duty. Built for taking what super-teens could dish out. Lauren walked up to it and punched it. It swung lightly.

  She hit it again, as hard as she could. Its relatively small countermovement set something off in her.

  She unsheathed both bone spikes and attacked the bag with a flurry of blows she wasn’t allowed to try in gym. Her arms worked like pistons, trying to pierce the durable black mesh of the bag. She only succeeded in leaving silvery scratch marks on its surface.

  She switched to claws and turned the scratch marks into a mess of raised lines crisscrossing the entire bag. It rotated back and forth.

  Lauren formed the knuckles on her spikes and punched the bag, willing it to break off its chain. With each hit she imagined someone else’s face: Dr. Smythe. Her warden, Isaac. Usagi. Lilith. That bastard with the bow. Agent Dodds. Everyone holding her back. Miring her deeper in this world she didn’t belong. Pressing her down. Thinking they knew her. Bringing her here. Abandoning her. She wanted to be here. She wanted her friends. She wanted to run away with her sister. She wanted to bring Rachel here. She wanted to know what the right thing was to do.

  She gave up on the bag and turned ninety degrees. Her fist was faster than her thoughts. She punched the white-painted concrete bricks. Again. Again. Again. There had to be some mark of her anger, some proof that she could alter the world around her.

  She mostly just left a smudge of blood on the wall. Her knuckles buzzed. Her elbow and shoulder ached.

  The day came when she could leave campus again. She didn’t. Lucy offered to take her out somewhere. She listed a bunch of places that all sounded like nothing to Lauren’s ear. She felt petulant. She didn’t want the headmaster and Dodds and Hogan if he was watching her somehow to see her race out the door the second she was free. She didn’t want their punishment to look like it affected her. She fulfilled her part of it and trained her mind and her body. They probably all thought she’d go get into trouble tonight. Well she wouldn’t.

  Lucy broke her exile and went out to visit some of her old friends, after Lauren made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere.

  As soon as she was gone, Lauren felt stupid for staying.

  The next Friday, a special session was called in the gym for all students. Lauren headed there with Lucy and Harper after art. Inside, Ms. Almstead was waiting for the students alongside the coaches. Two racks with outfits hanging on them were set up on the gym floor.

  Grace pushed past Lauren, gasping dramatically.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “If you think it’s costumes you little urchins haven’t earned, you’d be right,” Coach Dixon said. “But you’re hitting the streets soon. And to do that, you need your street identity.”

  Lauren hung back as the other students swarmed the rack like sharks at a feeding frenzy. The thought of there being a costume on the rack for her gave her a sense of unease. But the other students ate it up. This was everything they had been waiting for.

  “This is an important moment for all of you,” Ms. Almstead said over the noise of jostling students. “Your first costume marks the beginning of your professional career as a superhero. It may not be the costume you have forever, but it’s the one you’ll always remember the best. Your costume is your first introduction to the world and the most iconic image of you. Each suit has been tailored to your powers and your personality. Take some time to—”

  “HEY!” Coach Dixon stepped forward. “Put your shirt back on! Everyone go change in the locker rooms when you have yours. If there’s any confusion, come ask.”

  A few students clarified which one was theirs with the help of Ms. Almstead.

  The crowd rushed off, costumes in hand. Lucy had started off with them, but she saw Lauren hanging back and hesitated. She knew how Lauren felt about costumes.

  “Hey, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a promise or anything” Lucy said to her quietly. “Just try it on. You might like it.”

  It was almost certainly a promise, that Lauren would go where BASTION told her to and put herself in danger when they wanted her to. But Lauren didn’t say that. She went and found the last costume on the rack. It had been made for her, so Lauren would try it on. She followed Lucy to the locker room.

  In the locker room, the girls were in various states of undress to put on their costume. Spandex-like metamaterial flowed over arms and legs and took the shape of bodies. Lauren and Lucy changed in the same locker row as Grace.

  Grace was just finishing securing a chest flap to the opposite shoulder. She turned and looked at herself in the tall mirror at the end of the row.

  “Oh, it’s perfect!”

  Grace’s costume was a bodysuit of alternating red and white sections, with a lopsided blue star slashing across her torso, arms, legs, and neck. Her chest was left open.

  “And they even gave me a boob window! Whoever designed this knows me so well.”

  Grace sounded on the verge of happy crying.

  Lucy and Lauren slipped their outer clothes off.

  “Ooo-oo-oooh…” Lucy crooned as her costume came together on her. “Not what I was expecting, but I like it…”

  Lauren was startled by Lucy’s new look. It was completely different than the costume she had picked out in the market store.

  The stretchy underlayer of the costume was the color of Lucy’s skin, giving the appearance that the armor portions of it were the costume. Bracers thick and textured like wood covered her forearms and shins, and formed a chest plate on her torso with shoulder protection as well. A skirt of faux-leafy vines covered her waist to her knees. She put on a mask, with attached hair that flipped over hers and covered her natural hair near-flawlessly. Her brown locks were replaced by a wild shock of bright green. The mask itself blended it with her face, making it hard to tell where her skin met it. It was somewhere around the nose, which was covered by a witch-like prosthetic. The mask’s eyes were bulging green goggles surrounded by severe cheekbones and a sharp forehead, all the color of Lucy’s skin. Two long ears curled away from Lucy’s head and ended in points.

  She finished the costume by draping herself in an opaque shawl patterned to look like dappled shade.

  Lucy grinned as she gazed at herself. Her cheery smile looked demented coming from her mask-face.

  “So cool! I’m like some kind of crazy forest witch. I should come up with a persona for this costume! Something scary.”

  Lauren had a hard time imagining Lucy could be scary, even with such a costume, which she had to admit was pretty cool.

  “Okay, now your turn!” Lucy said. “I can tell it’s gonna look good on you."

  Thalia came to their row and leaned on the lockers to watch Lauren slip it on. She had her outfit on, a black leotard underneath a brown sleeveless jacket with a fur-lined collar, plus spotted gauntlets and boots that both ended in clawed tips. The wildstone hung from a leather strap around her waist, and a necklace of teeth was draped around her neck.

  Lauren looked at the bundle of fabric in her hands. Slowly, she unraveled it and let it hang by the shoulders.