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“What’s this?” I ask.

“It’s a Band-Aid. Your skin won’t heal instantly anymore. Not on the depowered arm. Can’t have any more blood escaping from that tiny hole.” She smiles. I don’t find any of that funny.

When she’s finished, she rises from the side of the bed and reads something on her wrist MOD. “They’re allowing you to go home today,” she says with a smile. “My work here is done. I’ll send you home with plenty of bandages and you can tend to your arm for the next week or so.”

Changing my own bandage? Yeah, that’s not happening. “What about Dad?”

Her lips slide to the side of her mouth. She messes with her MOD in what looks like a way to avoid looking at me. “President Might isn’t so lucky. They’ll keep him for a few more weeks. But he will survive this.” She points a finger at me. “Don’t you worry about him. You need to keep your stress levels down so your own body can heal.”

She leaves me to get dressed in an outfit that Max sent from home. I cling tightly to my shredded Hero suit as I sit in a frigid metal chair near the nurse’s station, waiting to be released.

I hear the steel doors to the medical ward slide open and two sets of footsteps echo down the hallway. Nurse Martha’s voice carries down the hall. “You are to escort the girl to these coordinates and then take her home. She’s been a bit moody lately, but I’ve given her enough medication to keep her pacified. Ah, there you are,” she says as she steps around the corner and sees me. She doesn’t even look concerned that I just heard her calling me moody. “Your escort has arrived, my dear.” She waves a hand to introduce the man next to her as he steps forward, eyes locked on his MOD.

I clear my throat and he glances up at me, his silky black hair covering one eye. Realization dawns on his face as he turns pale and flinches so hard his back hits the wall. “Oh no. No. Absolutely not.” His eyes shift from me to Nurse Martha like he’s having a mini seizure. “Not you again.”

I hold out my arm as I stand. “No worries, Jake. I’ll be good this time.”

“How are you doing?” Jake asks as we ride in the KAPOW.

“Are you being sarcastic? I mean how the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“Sorry. Dumb question.” His head rests against the wall and he folds his arms over his chest. “Everyone’s talking about you. And about what happened. People are scared. Central is supposed to be safe, ya know?”

“Of course I know,” I hiss. “I’ve had way more training than you.”

No matter how rude I am, he always ignores it. “Is your twin sister really alive? Or was that a rumor?”

My eyes shoot daggers his way and all of his excitement folds in on himself. “Rumor, then. Sorry, I knew that was too insane to be true.”

I let out a deep breath and concentrate on trying to be a decent Super. Jake doesn’t deserve to put up with me being an asshole. “My twin is alive. Or was, three days ago. I almost died, Jake. I don’t really want to talk about what happened—at least not right now.”

He nods and closes his mouth, even though his eyes tell me he has a million more things to say. The KAPOW reaches our secret destination quicker than expected. Jake escorts me across an empty corridor with black floors. Dad’s presidential office has black floors. I didn’t think they were anywhere else in Central.

“Do you know where we are?” I ask. He nods and keeps walking by my side. “Are you going to tell me?”

He stares straight ahead as we near a pair of black metal doors set into the rough canyon walls. Jake’s right hand presses against my lower back as his left one touches the door until it beeps and both doors swing inward. At his gentle push, I step through the doors first. “Good luck,” he whispers in my ear. The doors close a moment later, leaving Jake on the other side.

My fingers dig into my palms as I step through a tiny black-tiled foyer that makes a sharp left turn. Whatever lies ahead can’t be worse than what I’ve already endured. It’s not like Aurora is waiting for me on the other side of this hallway.

At least—no, she’s not. That nightmare is over. Everything is going to be okay. I turn the corner. Three of Central’s elders, the examiners, watch me as I enter the room, which appears to be Hugo Havoc’s office. He sits at a massive mahogany desk, flanked on either side by Lucy and other examiner, whose name I can never remember. His face softens when he sees me. The two women remain stiff like stone.

“Erm, hello.” I stop behind a single chair in front of his desk. I know better than to sit uninvited.

“Maci,” Hugo says. “How is your arm?”

I cringe. What kind of answer am I supposed to give?
Oh, it’s fantastic. A depowered arm is the latest fashion accessory for every teen that spent their entire life trying to be a Hero. My arm is GREAT, thanks for asking!

Since I have nothing nice to say, I choose to say nothing at all.

“I am sure you are ready to go home so I will make this quick. Because of recent events and the way you handled yourself and protected the Heroes as well as President Might,” he swallows and rises from his chair. “We have decided to award you probationary Hero status.”

Words fly out of my mouth quicker than I thought possible. “Thank you, sir.”

I bring my arms behind my back and grasp onto my bandaged hand with my good hand. No need to have the offending arm in sight.

The examiners all give me a forced smile as if they had practiced it before I arrived. Lucy places a black leather folder on the desk and opens it to a contract with an attached pen. She twists it around to face me.

“Your Hero contract is probationary for ten years, at which point all precautions will be lifted if you have not breeched any rules. If you agree to the terms, you will become a Hero immediately and will be assigned only to assist with natural disasters and the occasional human criminal. Probationary status bans you from dealing directly or indirectly with Villains and high security level operations. Failure to comply with your contract results in a permanent ban from the Hero Brigade. Please consider this carefully. This is a one strike and you’re out situation, Miss Might.”

My eyes scan across the single page contract but the words are blurry and meaningless as I step forward on shaky legs and grab the pen, signing my name at the bottom. I don’t care what the rules are—I will follow them.

Lucy takes the contract the moment I set the pen down. Hugo holds out a stainless steel box and opens the lid. Inside sits a shiny new BEEPER and I have a feeling it will fit my wrist perfectly.

“Congratulations,” he says, stepping around the desk and shaking my hand. “You are the newest member of the Hero Brigade.”

Everything happens quickly and yet slowly at the same time. I know I’m supposed to turn around and leave but I can’t help myself. “What happened to my sister?”

Lucy squares her shoulders. “You have no sister.”

Hugo clears his throat. “I assume you are talking about the villain who is allegedly your twin sister.”

“Um, yeah,” I say. “That person. What happened to her?”

Lucy lifts an eyebrow. “She is as good as dead. No need to concern yourself with her.”

“Was she depowered?”

Hugo gives Lucy a look, which she returns with a glare. The third examiner speaks up. “We do not keep secrets from Heroes, and I trust you two haven’t forgotten that.” To me, she says, “The villain in question ran off shortly after we arrived on the scene. We do not know where she is, but we are searching for her and she will be given a swift death on sight.”

A lump forms in my throat. “But we’re Supers. I thought we didn’t kill?”

Hugo places a hand on my shoulder. “If you murder innocent Supers and depower the president, we will make an exception.”

Lucy’s head tilts to the side, my signed contract still gripped tightly in her hands. “Do you have a problem with that, Miss Might?”

I slip the BEEPR onto my wrist and it tightens into place. I shake my head. “Sounds like a great plan to me.”

The smell of home hits me like a freight train. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my house and the familiar sound of the door sliding open, the stench of Max having just done a workout in his bedroom, the feel of the carpet beneath my feet. Evan’s place didn’t have carpet.

I drop the hospital bag full of medicine, gauze, and my damaged Hero suit to the floor and give a halfhearted smile to the two faces staring back at me. All the air squeezes out of my lungs as Max throws himself over me in a massive bear hug.

“Welcome home, Mace.” He pulls back slowly, letting his right hand trail down my left arm but ignoring my other arm. I can’t blame him for that. His hand stops at my BEEPR. “What’s this? Is it from the hospital?”

I snort, feeling excitement rush over me for the first time since I left the examiners. “What does it look like, genius?”

Max holds up his left wrist. “It looks like this.”

I pat him on the chest as condescendingly as I can for being so much shorter than he is. “Good job, Sherlock.”

“You’re a
Hero
?”

“Yup.” I try to play it cool but I’m all smiles and there’s no denying my excitement. All the air rushes out of my lungs again. This time Max lifts me off my feet and spins me in a circle. When he puts me down, he punches me on the shoulder.

“You’re the most badass person in Central now. Partially depowered and still a Hero.”

“I can fix that for you.” Evan speaks up for the first time. Max and I both spin around to face him.

“You
can
?” I practically yell to him in anticipation. He scratches the back of his neck. His hair is pulled into a messy ponytail. His eyes have dark circles under them and his t-shirt is three sizes too big. Borrowed from Max, no doubt.

“Well, I have no idea how to fix it.” He bites his lower lip. “But I’ll work on it. We can clone power cells, regrow veins, maybe do a partial vein transplant—I don’t know but I’ll figure something out.”

He stares at my bandaged arm as he talks, the gears in his brilliant mind turning and thinking up possibilities that I could never imagine. I have full faith that he will think of a solution. Because that’s just Evan. I smile at him even though he’s not looking.

“Geez, just hug already,” Max says, shoving me toward Evan. “I can cut the sexual tension in here with a knife.”

I turn a furiously embarrassing shade of red and fall into Evan’s arms. He clutches me to his chest, wrapping both of his arms around me without a care as to which one of them is depowered. My cheek rests against his neck and I breathe him in, digging my fingers into his shoulders. I’ve seen him more than I’ve seen anyone else in the last two weeks but somehow I missed him the most.

He kisses my head and shivers run through my body.

The doorbell rings. Max slaps his hands together. “Pizza’s here.”

An hour later I’m still munching on cheese bread while Max and Evan play Assassin’s Quest in the living room. The game room has a bigger screen and better gaming chairs, but I get the feeling Max wants to be closer to the door just in case Dad comes home earlier than expected. We haven’t talked about Dad yet. I think we’ve all just decided he’s better off as the gigantic invisible elephant in the room right now.