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Jake leads me out of the medical ward through dozens of unfamiliar hallways. Having never been injured until last night—and wow does my head still hurt—I’ve never had a reason to come here. But Jake takes my hand and meanders through a maze of halls, all marked with abstract symbols instead of numbers and words, as if he comes here all the time. Of course, as a Retriever, he probably does.

It’s a struggle not to wince as I talk. Each movement of my jaw causes pain in my temple. The silence is annoying though, so I grit my teeth through the pain and make conversation. “So what made you choose the field of Retrieving?”

He answers without hesitation. “They wouldn’t let me be a Hero.”

I snort. “Been there.”

We round a sharp corner and he glances back at me with a smirk. “You have no idea. I passed my Hero exam.”

I stop dead in my tracks until Jake’s grasp on my hand lurches me forward again. “Why are you a Retriever if you passed your Hero exam?”

He palms the door in front of us and we step into the east side of Central, a hallway I actually recognize. Jake glances around before answering. “You’ll notice all the hair on my head is black.”

I nod. “I noticed.” I definitely noticed. Besides my own darkening hair, I’ve never seen a Super with black hair. Dark brown, rarely. Light brown … sometimes. Blonde? Mostly.

Most villains don’t have even have black hair. Only the worst cases of villains do. Jake may be the only Super in the world who understands what I’m going through right now. “They didn’t let me be a Hero either,” I say. It feels good to admit this to someone without fear of judgment. “So what have you done to piss everyone off?”

He shrugs. “Have a genetic anomaly, I guess.”

“You ever lose control and freak out on someone?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “You think I’d be here if I did?”

My MOD dances in my suit’s tiny pocket. I pull it out and see Pepper’s name flashing on the screen. “Hello?”

“Drop everything you’re doing and come to the studio now.”

“Your studio?” I ask like a dumbass.

“What the hell other studio would I mean?” His voice is rushed, his breathing ragged. I picture him talking to me while doing cartwheels across his sparkly marble floor. “Actually,” he amends, his voice calmer now. “Valid question. I’ll see you soon.”

The line goes dead.

Jake and I climb into an awaiting KAPOW pod. “We need to stop at Pepper’s,” I say.

His lips squish to the left side of his mouth. “No.”

“Uh, how about yes.”

“As much as I love taking orders from pretty girls, President Might’s orders will trump yours any day.”

My body falls into the seat as the pod lurches forward, its destination set to the coordinates of my house. Jake must have set them when I was talking to Pepper. I curse on instinct as my head jerks with the pod’s momentum, but the wave of pain in my whiplashed head is nothing compared to an hour ago. My body is finally healing.

Jake’s eyes narrow as I say his name with the tone of a pissed off mother. “We’re going to stop at Pepper’s.”

His mouth opens to disagree with me but I press my palm against his lips in the second it takes for him to suck in a breath of air. “I am stronger than you are. We are going to Pepper’s with or without your cooperation.”

Mr. Stubborn shakes his head, even with my hand still on his mouth and my threat of strength lording over him. Geez, he’s loyal to my dad.

“Yes,” I say.

No
, he shakes his head again.

My teeth clench together. “Maybe you don’t understand, Jake. Unlike you, I wasn’t born with black hair.”

I stand and hover over him, eyes locked with his as the power flows through my veins and onto his mouth. “I earned it.” His jaw muscles tighten, pulled taught with the vibrations of my power. I expect him to shrink back and break my gaze, but he doesn’t.

Warm wetness fills the inside of my hand and I yank it back with a yelp. “You licked me!”

Jake stands, presses his hands onto my shoulders, and pushes me back into my seat. “You tried to threaten me.”

Our staring contest lasts for twenty-six seconds, each moment taking us farther away from the studio and closer to my freaking house, where I have no desire to be. I have to see Pepper. It may be the last interaction with people besides my family for a long time. Plus, Pepper has literally never called my personal MOD. This is important. I won’t let Jake screw it up.

“You’re right,” I say, taking a seat and releasing the surge of my power until the air feels calm again. He relaxes and takes a seat across from me, wearing this smug look of satisfaction as if he thinks he’s won this argument. I tilt my head to the side. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“This.” His eyes go wide for a second right before I punch him so hard in the head that he collapses, unconscious. My fingers blur across the MOD screen as I change the KAPOW’s destination as quickly as possible. Supers don’t stay knocked out for long. When we arrive at Pepper’s a few seconds later, Jake is already starting to come out of it.

“I will kill you,” he groans as he rubs his forehead.

“I’d like to see you try,” I whisper as I reset the pod’s course to take Jake far away from here. I blow a kiss as the pod zooms off and then sprint to Pepper’s ridiculous purple doors.

Pepper yanks me into the studio without warning, causing the laser beam to stop mid-body scan. “I’m glad you could make it,” he says, tightening his grip on my wrist as he pulls me through the foyer and into the circular design room. His appearance is impeccable despite his alarming demeanor—dark-washed blue jeans and a purple silk, button-up shirt with long sleeves and silver P cufflinks. A rhinestone belt holds up his pants and his shoes are so shiny that I can see my face in them.

He stops so quickly that I slam into his back. He spins around to face me. His left shoe shows my reflection as confused and a bit distorted.

“This morning Central ordered me to incinerate the Retriever suit I had made for you. They even sent Lucy down to witness it.” He chuckles and rolls his eyes. “It’s like they don’t trust me. Can you imagine?” His coy smile is contagious.

I smile back, happy to share a moment of bashing Central with him, despite my circumstances being totally the opposite of joy. “Can’t blame them for not trusting you. You’re on my side.” I pause. “The
evil
side.”

“Don’t you worry your beautiful head, Maci. They’ll realize you aren’t evil and they’ll eat their words. I am sure of it. But when the time comes, I may not be around to make you the Hero suit you deserve.”

“Huh?” I say, or at least—I begin to say—but Pepper’s index finger presses to my lips, silencing me mid
hu?
The studio lights dim until only his shiny eyes and the purple streak of sparkly eyeliner are visible as he whispers, “So I made it for you now.”

With a flick of his wrist, a beam of light bursts from the ceiling across the room. At first, it looks like a person is standing under the light, but its lack of movement and frozen, hip-cocked, arms-locked pose tells me it’s a mannequin. It’s my size.

And it’s wearing my Hero suit.

“Pepper.” I breathe the word. My suit is black with intricate silver accents as sharp splines woven in the fabric. Two silver lines start at the shoulders and come to a point on top of the wrists. Thicker silver lines spill out of the sides and travel down the side where boning cinches in at the waist. I walk around the mannequin, taking in the fabric that seems to turn silver at one angle and black at the next. A thick Kevlar ribbon laces up the corset back through gunmetal grommets.

The gloves almost look like human dishwashing gloves, only the fingers are catered to fit tightly against every muscle in my hand. Instead of rubber-duck-yellow, they’re black with slots along the back. If I know Pepper, and I do, the slots are a shroud for Retriever hooks. “I’ve never seen gloves like this.”

Pepper’s arms cross in front of his chest. “It’s a Kevlar-carbon composite with steel reinforcements and two sets of hooks. Diamond-tip finger plates to amplify power release and textured to ensure grip strengths of five hundred pounds without slipping.”

“So it’s got everything,” I muse. My finger places the barest touch on the sleeve and chills run down my spine. “Everything but a plunging, sexy neckline like Crimson’s.”

I don’t know why I say it like that. I mean, I don’t want a stupid booby suit like hers, but I guess I’m insulted that Pepper designs them for her, and just about every other female Hero, but when it comes time to design a suit for Maci? Let’s have fabric cover her entire chest and she can be the virgin queen of the Supers, famous for emanating exactly zero sex appeal.

“Oh, get off it girl. Crimson begged for that cleavage.” Pepper shakes his head and holds his hands above the chest of the mannequin, forming a diamond with his fingers and thumbs. “I designed this chest area for a reason. Research developed this new poly-titanium material that would protect your chest better than anything I could ever design. Your chest is the source of your power, after all.”

My chest feels warm as I become aware of the power coursing through it. “I – I don’t know what to say.”

“You’ll say nothing because I didn’t put it in your suit.”

I arch an eyebrow.

Pepper throws his hands in the air. “The poly-titanium blend was created at Research two years ago. I wanted to provide every Hero with an impenetrable breastplate, but due to regulations and Central’s paper-pushing elders, they wouldn’t let me. They said it was too expensive, said it worked too well, and that the Heroes wouldn’t try as hard if they felt invincible.”

“That’s crap. We’re practically invincible without a fancy suit.”

Pepper leans in. “A lot of things are crap, Maci Might.”

“You wasted this suit.” My eyes fall to the floor. “I’m not a Hero. I probably won’t ever be. You had to know that.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know the future and neither do you.”

He’s right, I guess. Central is wrong though. I don’t think any sort of suit would ever make me think I’m invincible. Pepper said it was invented two years ago, the same time Evan started working in Research. I wonder if he worked on this? I shake my head and focus on more important things.

Pepper is a total genius. Every inch of this suit was designed for me, right down to the drastic color choices. I’ve never seen a black suit before. Heroes don’t wear black.

I must have said that last part aloud because Pepper is beside me in the next moment. “Maci Might wears black,” he says in my ear. He takes a strand of my hair and runs his fingers through it, deliberately making his point. “Maci Might rocks it.”

“You designed a suit that calls out my darkening hair rather than hides it.” I give Pepper a mild stink eye as he stands there looking pleased with himself.

“You can hide what makes you
you
, or you can embrace it. That’s exactly what I told the examiners too.”

“You did?” The weight of what he’s done for me, what he’s risked by overstepping his authority with the examiners, sinks in. “What did they say?”

He waves a hand through the air. “They told me to screw off.”

Oh.

Well then.

I wasn’t aware of how much hope I had stored up in those few words until his reply made it all burst and float away.

At Pepper’s command, the mannequin shrinks into itself, taking what used to be the shape of my body and conforming it into a cylinder the width of a stripper pole before recessing into the ceiling. My suit crumples to the floor and Pepper folds it into a neat square, crossing the gloves on top of it.

He places it in a plain paper bag, incognito style. “It’s yours. Now I’m afraid I must change the subject and ask for your confidentiality a moment.”

“As if we weren’t already being confidential?” I smile. My fingers can’t stop running over the smooth fabric of my new suit inside the bag.

“Do you know how to keep a secret?” Pepper asks, every fiber of his body writhing in melodramatics as he makes me a latté.

“Of course I know
how
.”

“But do you actually keep them?” He takes a seat on the barstool near his workbench and then stands right back up again.

I sip my latté and ponder the question. As daughter of the president and sister to a Hero, I am privy to loads of sensitive information that I am not allowed to share. And I never have shared it. So, in that sense, yes, I can keep secrets.

On a much more realistic level, I share my deepest, wildest secrets with Crimson every single day. Max hears all the ones that don’t involve boys or embarrassing female issues.

“Maybe if you tell me the type of secret, I can answer more accurately.”

Pepper watches me, his eyes flickering back and forth between mine. He opens his mouth and then closes it. He erupts into an avalanche of laughter. I jump at the unexpected sound and tighten my grip on my latté. It’s the kind of laugh someone does when confronted with a hilarious joke, something that makes you laugh and then laugh some more as each layer of the joke peels away, sending you even further into hysterics.

I smile awkwardly as if I get the joke too. Pepper wipes his eyes with a handkerchief as his laughs subside into chuckles. “It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m over. I’m done.”

“You’ll need to elaborate if you expect me to understand,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter if you keep the secret or not.” With a final wipe of his eyes, he folds the handkerchief and slides it back into his coat pocket. “I have something to tell you and you are the first to know.” He sips his latté and sets the cup on the workbench. He takes a stainless flask from the inside pocket of his blazer. “I am retiring.”

I’m shocked into silence as he pours a clear, foul-smelling alcohol into his coffee, shaking the flask a few times to ensure it is empty. “I received a memo from Aurora this morning.”

“She’s taking your job?” I ask.

He spins around in his chair, facing the blank wall as it comes alive, displaying his messages. A lump forms in my throat as I read Aurora’s message to Pepper, sent less than an hour ago.