Four days had passed. It was Wednesday afternoon, and I was currently being cornered by my sister in a bathroom at Arcadia. It was just the two of us; I was backed against the sink, butt resting on the counter, and arms crossed over my chest defensively.

  The door opened, and a raven-haired girl walked in, and the look Melody gave her as she turned to face the intruder could have driven nails in the wall.

  She backpedaled. “I’m going to go…” and the door hissed shut.

  Melody turned back to me, jabbing a finger into my chest again.

  “No more bullshit. No more excuses. No more lies. I have the car, I have permission to be out after school, and I will follow you back to your place–holding up traffic the whole way if I have to.”

  I swatted her hand away and rubbed my forehead. “Fine, fuck!” I snapped, already annoyed by the way she was acting. “Why can’t you respect that I said this weekend would be better?”

  “Because!” She stomped a sneaker and raised her voice. “Mom gets to see it. Dad gets to see it. Vicky and Amy get to see it, and now maybe others too, and I’m being left high and dry!? Your twin sister!?”

  I was going to get a migraine, and not from holding my shape since 6 AM, working out, sparring, and attending school after. Or maybe on top of that.

  I took a breath and spoke, as calmly and level-headed as I could: “I told you this weekend would be better because I’d actually like to spend time with you over for more than a few hours. I have career stuff I’m doing tonight, so I’m only going to be there for a few hours before I have to leave.”

  Melody leaned forward again, and I looked up at her from my lowered brow. “I’m not entirely sure that I trust you about that, either. But good. Fine. We’re going. Grab your stuff, I’m giving you a ride over. I don’t want you trying to pull a fast one and ditching me.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I said, rolling my eyes. She glared at me but didn’t say anything else, at least temporarily placated.

  We stopped at her locker, got her bag and stuff, hit my locker, did the same, and were out in the parking lot and cruising over to my place within ten minutes. I was a little nervous about this. I did not want her, or the ‘rents, to know that I was Apex, who’d been all over the news and the central topic of debate since first thing Sunday morning.

  We would be back at my place around 2:45 or so, which gave me about an hour and a half before we started progressing into the sheer misery territory of holding my shape.

  I still hadn’t found the hard limit yet, but things started going downhill fast after around eleven hours.

  “Take a right here, there’s a wide alley right before you get to the buildings at the far-left corner of the block, turn left down it, and then left into any of the parking spots.”

  My place was an old commercial building converted into a deep, narrow, two-story apartment. It had roof access too, so I could garden or hang laundry up there, but I hadn’t used it yet. The lack of any kind of pillars inside didn’t exactly inspire confidence. I wouldn’t go straight through the roof.

  I’d been sneaking out each night to explore and test things, mostly sticking to the air and the emptier, gang-infested parts of town where people stayed inside after dark. I’d kept building on the working theories Victoria and I had pieced together Saturday night, before my first fight and big burger debut.

  Practicing predator parkour in heavier structures, getting better at maneuvering around on all fours, being mindful of my body, and stuff like that. It was also where I’d discovered that most rooftops were boobytraps in disguise.

  As Phoenix Strike, rooftop running, leaping between buildings, jumping up or down one or even two-story drops were no problem at all. I wouldn’t do it on residential roofs, but basically, everything else was fair game. The rooftops were my express highway through the city.

  But now? Oh boy.

  Getting up or down from buildings was easy; I could vault a first-story rooftop in a single hop. Staying on them? That was the problem. Industrial roofs held. Commercial ones? Dicey. I’d already punched through two gravel-top roofs like wet cardboard. On others, I’d heard creaking, cracking, and snapping beneath me.

  Being on all fours helped. So did dragging my tail around like some kind of overgrown alligator. I wasn’t sure how much the buildings’ abandonment or disrepair was playing into things. I wasn’t about to risk wrecking newer and in-use buildings just for the sake of learning or a bit of fun.

  I was getting a lot better at moving around on all fours. It dramatically lowered my visible profile. I was still huge–the size of a large van, tail not included–but I wasn’t able to extend my legs and peek in a second-story window. No clear winner in the two-limb versus four-limb locomotion debate yet. Upright, I had reach and free arms, and I could lean way forward while running or fighting using my tail. On all fours, I could reposition dynamically: explosive launches and dodges, even without using my wings, which were a multiplier to everything.

  We pulled in and parked behind my apartment. I glanced up at the second-story window where my bedroom was. Where Panacea and Glory Girl had broken into my place. I’d glued the latch back into place so it looked untouched, but I’d jammed a chunk of wood in the frame so it couldn’t be opened without breaking the glass.

  “This is me,” I said from the passenger seat, lazily gesturing with the back of my hand.

  “This?” Melody leaned forward, peering up at the second story. “This looks like it used to be one of those little street-level stores.”

  “Pretty sure it was, yeah. It’s not too bad inside. The layout’s weird, but I like it. Doesn’t bother my claustrophobia.” I unbuckled my seatbelt, grabbed my bag from the back seat, and climbed out of the car. I leaned back in through the open door. “Well, let’s go, you wanted to be over here so bad, and daylight’s burning.”

  I climbed out and headed for the apartment. Melody was climbing out of Mom’s car and locking it while I fished my key out and unlocked my back door, which led straight into the kitchen. I hoped I hadn’t left anything too incriminating or suspicious lying around.

  Melody walked up and poked at the bars over my kitchen window. All the ground-floor windows had them. Painted white to match the building exterior, they were thick, heavy things and not the decorative kind I’d seen elsewhere in the bay. These were bolted into the wall and weren’t screwed in with dinky little fasteners.

  I undid the last lock and pulled the door open, stepping inside. Melody came in behind me, commenting, “Security a little overkill? You’re not that far from the Boardwalk.”

  I sighed. “A touch, but Mom absolutely insisted. There was a place I liked a bit more in my price range two blocks down, but she wasn’t budging.”

  The inside of my apartment was dark thanks to the layout. Where there might have been a bay door or big glass storefront, it had been bricked up and replaced with smaller, more residential-looking windows. Combined with the solid brick walls running the length of either side, it meant the interior lights had to do most of the heavy lifting.

  I didn’t mind it. I flicked the lights on, nudged the door shut with my heel, and threw the locks back into place. Mom might have ticked me off a little by overruling my pick, but I had to admit, this place was secure against most types of foul play or ganger bullshit. Steel doors. Multiple deadbolts. Bars on the windows.

  Sure, someone with a ladder could get in, but this wasn’t that kind of neighborhood. Something like that would get the cops called.

  I winced a little at the nest on the kitchen floor, along with the alarm clock sitting next to the wall. Melody’s gaze fell on it, and then she turned and looked at me with one brow arched.

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  “Break the bed already, party animal?” she teased, and I felt just a touch less nervous. The weird layout might’ve raised a brow, but the normalcy seemed to cool her jets. No signs of drugs, binge eating, or whatever else she’d been imagining meant she could lower her hackles for now.

  “Har, har, har. Still haven’t slept with anyone. Too busy to bother changing that.” I quipped, clipping my keys to my lanyard. I was rocking a pleated short skirt today. It was a bit unseasonably warm this week, and I’d been enjoying the wardrobe liberties the heat allowed. “Help yourself to the fridge, food, drink, whatever. Some bottles in the back.”

  Melody glanced down at my lanyard. It was a PRT lanyard from the gift shop, one I’d had since before working there. “Surprised you’re wearing that, with everything that happened.”

  I let out a long sigh and unlaced my sneakers to set them on the little rack by the back door. When I was done, I grabbed a sports drink from the fridge and made my way to my living room. I plopped my ass unceremoniously on the sofa. Melody rummaged through my freezer and fridge before grabbing cold bottled water and coming over to the couch and joining me.

  The lid of my drink snapped as the safety seal broke, and I took a deep swig. I was hoping that staying hydrated would help with the brewing headache from my power.

  “I mean… What’s there to say? Sure, I’m bitter. I still believe in the mission. My friends still work there and still have bright futures. I’m honestly happy for them. I want to see them succeed.”

  Melody kicked off her sneakers and threw her feet up on the sofa between us. I waved a hand in front of my nose and coughed.

  “Oh shut the fuck up. Every soccer player gets athlete’s foot now and again, and I don’t have it.”

  I smirked and took another drink.

  Her tone shifted from playful annoyance to something sharper. “I don’t understand what happened with you and them. I feel like there are things you haven’t been entirely honest about with Mom and Dad. I looked at your paperwork, but that’s all legal gobbledygook. What aren’t you saying?”

  I considered ribbing her–maybe she’d understand better if she hadn’t slapped me and stormed off halfway through–but thought better of it. I rubbed my forehead. She was, as usual, too perceptive for her own good. Or mine. I screwed the cap back on my bottle and looked over at her.

  “Some of the members of the Protectorate, including people I barely know and who make my head spin, went to bat for me. I think the PRT was either neutral or maybe leaning slightly in my favor. But ultimately, the decision came down to Armsmaster. He’s the one who decides who makes the cut, assuming the PRT doesn’t object.”

  “So he just gets to play sink or swim, to pick winners and losers, and that’s it?” She demanded, angry now.

  “Yes, Mel. That’s that. It’s like pissing off a head coach and getting sidelined, but in a much bigger way.” I said.

  “This is your career! Your future! You were good, great! People loved you.”

  I held up my index and middle fingers in a V towards her.

  “Two things. One,” I dropped my middle finger. “My future and my career are only his business if he’s invested in them, and he wasn’t.”

  I gave her a second to let that land, then dropped the other finger. “Two: I wasn’t. I really wasn’t popular."

  “So what did you do to piss him off?” she asked, still a bit testy.

  “That’s the thing. I didn’t. I don’t even-” I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “I don’t even blame him. I asked him to be honest with me, and he was. Total asshole delivery, he’s apparently not great with people, but it was the honest truth.”

  “Which was?”

  “More Wards are graduating this year than they have room or budget to accommodate. I was the weakest pick of the bunch, so I didn’t make the cut.” I surprised myself with how neutral my voice was when I said it.

  “What about a reserve roster?” she asked, her voice softening.

  I chuckled and said, “I asked the same exact thing. They don’t do that. They told me I could relocate and get a spot with another PRT division, but not here in the Bay.”

  Melody looked away and took a swig of her water. After a few long moments of silence, she said, “I just don’t understand why you won’t take that offer. Why do you need to move out and do this abrupt, hard detour all of a sudden?”

  I pushed back against her, firmly: “Yes, you do. You absolutely do.”

  Her eyes darted back over to stare into mine.

  “You’ve busted your ass trying to get into BBU’s soccer program. If they told you there was a paperwork error and they couldn’t bring you on, but they could get you a spot on a lower-division team across the country, would you just take it?”

  Her jaw flexed, and her knuckles whitened around the bottle cap. After a long, increasingly uncomfortable silence, she closed her eyes and let out an explosive sigh.

  “I want so, so fucking badly to say you’re wrong. That’s not the same. That it’s not fair, what you’re doing to me.” Her voice grew thick with emotion. Anger and grief.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “...But no. No, I wouldn’t. If there was another university competing with BBU, I’d join their team and then go make BBU look like fools on the field.”

  The muscles in her jaw twitched and rolled. She took a deep breath, unscrewed her bottle, and drank.

  I stuffed my bottle between the back cushions of the sofa, crawled over to her, and held my arms out. She capped her bottle and wrapped her arms around me, practically crushing me. I hugged her back just as tightly. After what felt like a couple of minutes, we broke apart, and I slumped back into my spot.

  “I want to see the rest of this place. Not sure if I like it or hate it yet.”

  I rolled my eyes, got up, and followed her upstairs. She rooted around in my space, invading my privacy more than a little, but whatever it took to get her off my case at the moment, I’d put up with it. I still thought she was being paranoid, but as much as I loved her, if she suddenly started acting weird, I would probably do the same.

  When she was finally satisfied, she issued her official judgment: “It’s a little weird, but not terrible. The layout’s basic, the bathroom’s nice, you spent too much on that showerhead, and your kitchen sucks. And you need decor. Posters or something. It’s too Spartan and white right now.”

  “Wow, not holding back, huh? I’ll try to hang some aesthetically pleasing decor before Her Majesty, Melodious the Magnificent, graces me with her next visit.”

  We kept chatting, and she stayed over too long, but I couldn’t bring myself to kick her out. I was really enjoying having my sister back in my life, in a space that felt safe.

  It felt like my pulse was ringing in my brain like a hammer striking a bell as we ticked past five o’clock. I felt weak and shaky, like I had low blood sugar, and I was sweating. I was trying to get Melody out before things got worse, reminding her I had to take a shower and head out soon.

  “What about a key? Mom said you wouldn’t let them have one at all. Can I have one?” she asked.

  Stabbing cramps twisted in my gut, but I tried not to let them show.

  “I have to give you the same answer I gave Mom and Dad. While I try and build my career, I might be having meetings or talking to people in here who have their masks off. Privacy and trust are everything when it comes to capes trying to work together. With everything that’s happened, I can’t risk a one percent chance that one of you walks in to drop off food or say hi and sees something you shouldn’t. I’m out of other options.”

  She scrunched up her face, then gave a reluctant nod. At the back door, she held out her arms for a hug, and I gave her one.

  “You feeling alright? You’re like muy sweaty right now.”

  “My stomach is a little upset. Bit crampy,” I said, this time not exaggerating. “I’m gonna clean up before I head out, don’t worry.”

  Another cramp hit, sharper this time, and I clutched my abdomen with a groan.

  “Well, take a rain check if you’re really sick. I’ll head out so you can go blow up the bathroom or whatever.”

  “See you tomorrow at school?”

  I nodded quickly, then added, “Unless I’m still feeling off. Might do class online if so.”

  “Not a bad idea…” she said, trailing off. Then she turned, opened the door, and left.

  I stepped into the doorway and called out, “Later, Mel!” as she got into the car. She waved, then started it up and pulled out.

  I locked all the doors, dropped the blinds, stripped and dumped my clothing in the hamper, then bolted to the kitchen. I thought I might throw up. I checked my clock: 5:45.

  I kicked my blankets and pillows to the carpet, shoved the table and chairs back against the counter, and cleared the floor.

  My power surged in my head. I dropped to my knees and got ready to release the shape. Before I could, my abdomen seized. I barely got a hand over my mouth in time to catch the puke, keeping it from spraying everywhere. Two gushes later, it was all down my front and pooling on the floor.

  It wasn’t vomit, didn’t smell like it. One glance down confirmed it.

  Blood. Bright red, flecked with bubbles and spit.

  And something else.

  Thick black ichor. Sticky. Viscous.

  I let go of the form, expecting the usual shift to start, but what came instead was wrong.

  No shifting in my chest. No steady mass increase. No gentle retraction or expansion.

  No.

  I erupted. Apex tearing its way out of my human form in a spray of flesh and gore.

  Agony tore through every part of me. My chest burned with spreading veins of liquid fire, carving outward.

  I tried to scream, but couldn’t. Steam blasted from my throat and scalded my face. Things were tearing. Bones snapped like tree limbs. I barely registered the asymmetry of my form as it continually broke and reformed.

  At some point, I collapsed on my side and curled into a ball. Every moment felt like the worst of my life. Until the next, which somehow managed to be worse. New sights. New sounds. New sensations.

  Oh god. The sounds.

  Bubbling. Hissing. Spraying. Splashing. Splattering. Crunching.

  The sounds were somehow worse than the sensations.

  Eventually, it ended.

  I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I’d just endured hours of the worst torture I could have possibly imagined.

  I blinked tears from my eyes and glanced at the glowing digits of my alarm clock. A spray of blood decorated the wall behind it.

  5:49.

  A deep sob wracked my chest, Apex’s chest.

  I closed my eyes and rested. When I opened them again, it was 7:31. The pain was a memory. I felt better. Good, even. Physically.

  I pushed myself up onto all fours, ready to spend the next couple of hours cleaning. But when I looked around the kitchen…

  Nothing. Not a speck of the horror I remembered.

  I searched everywhere. Every crack. Every nook and cranny, the undersides of the counter, table, chairs, and the grille of the alarm clock.

  Nothing. Not a trace.

  I was sure I hadn’t hallucinated it.

  Had I?

  I felt disoriented. Off-beat. Uncertain.

  I didn’t know what scared me more:

  That it had happened…

  Or that there was no sign it ever had.