For Mum and the psychoanalysts who will read this book and assume that you and I have a terrible relationship
A NOTE FOR ALL READERS:
Please be aware that this book contains graphic violence, gore, panic attacks and trauma, and references to sexual assault and child abuse.
CHAPTER 1
SOME KIDS WAKE up on their thirteenth birthday with fire in their veins, ice on their fingertips, electricity chittering beneath the surface of their skin. This isn’t their story.
I’m average, a normal Normie nobody. Weaker than steel, slower than a speeding bullet. Push me off a building, the only way I go is down. The day my life goes to shit is pretty average, too—with the exception of the junior hero at table three.
July spills over Sunnylake City like a warm glass of OJ, leaving everything yellowish and sticky. Me and Jav are halfway through our Saturday shift at Artie Hanson’s Vegan Burger Shack, a faux-rustic diner teetering on the southern edge of the Bridgebrook district. I lean over the park-style bench I’m supposed to be cleaning, nails gouging the wood.
“He did what?”
“Chill, Riley,” mutters Jav, tugging her hemline down to hide her knobby knees. “Don’t want drama.”
There won’t be any, unless we make it. Bean patties sizzle in the open-plan kitchen. Flies mob the light trap while diners munch below, oblivious to slaughter and irony alike, mopping egg-free mayo from their hipster beards. No klaxons, no alarm bells. No gigantic fluorescent arrow above the junior hero’s head, broadcasting what he’s done.
He sits with his back to us—I can’t see his face. Doesn’t stop me wanting to plant my fist in it.
But no, I gotta handle this the proper way. Junior heroes might be the lowest-ranking members of America’s spandex-snapping security force, but they’re still Supers, A- and B-class ones, at that.
“Watch the register,” I growl at Jav, pushing my peaked red Artie’s cap up my forehead. “I’ll get Matias.”
I march into the service corridor, past the line of lockers that leads to the dumpsters and the gloopy soup masquerading as an afternoon. Matias is in the stockroom, midway through inventory (manager-ese for slacking off on his phone).
“Riley?” he asks as I storm in with all the fury of—well, a storm, I guess, if it found itself crammed in a teenage-girl-size container. Even if that girl’s pushing 5′10″? “Where’s the fire?”
“Got us a bun lover.” I slam my shoulders against the door to the industrial freezer, arms crossed tight enough to constrict my breathing. “Not talking the whole-grain, seed-topped kind.”
I relay the basics—a customer stuck his hand up Jav’s skirt when she cleared his glasses. Matias’s face darkens like a Beanalicious Special™ that’s been left on the grill too long.
“Right.” He straightens the collar of his red polo shirt. “Don’t you girls worry. I’ll handle this.”
He barges back through the Staff Only double doors. Jav joins us for a team huddle by the napkin dispenser, wringing her cap between delicate hands.
“Told you to chill,” she hisses.
I shrug. I don’t see why I’m the one she’s mad at.
Matias scans the clientele. “Point him out, Jav.”
Jav dithers, suddenly fascinated by her Day-Glo–pink fingernails. I do it for her. Our hero’s a classic: white, late teens, jacked like someone stuck a pneumatic tire pump into each of his major muscle groups. Three other junior heroes share his table, bragging about their stats on the Superspotter app. Which Villain Council members they’ve fought, how many henchmen they’ve KO’d, that sort of thing. Like they’re comparing baseball runs, not battles that bulldoze entire city blocks.
All model the official Sunnylake Super Squad uniform: a formfitting white costume with navy accents, a single star on the left pec. They make skintight spandex look hot rather than heinous. Something must be coded into Super genetics, keeps them all effortlessly swole. Peak performance, that’s what they embody. Humanity turned up to eleven. Stronger, faster, sexier.
They’re better than us. They rarely let us forget it.
The blood drains from Matias’s face. “You never said he was a hero.”
Hero Handsy overhears. He twists to face us, biceps bulging like they’re about to pop, and flicks his honey-blond bangs from Pacific-blue eyes.
“Hey, dude.” His voice is as smooth as the almond-butter caramel on the dessert menu. “Matias, right? Name’s Cooper Hanson. Uncle Artie said my burger was on the house.”
His uncle could be president for all I care. Restaurant policy comes down hard on creepsters. Lifetime ban incoming in five, four, three, two …
“Hope the food meets your satisfaction,” Matias mumbles. Then he hooks me and Jav by our elbows and steers us into the staff corridor.
The fuck?
I break his grip soon as the doors swing shut. “Hope the food meets your satisfaction? You know there’s hygiene laws about kissing ass in front of customers?”
“Obscenity laws, too,” offers Jav. Quietly, though. Her heart ain’t in it.
For once, Matias doesn’t chew us out for lip. “Take an early break,” he says. He won’t meet our eyes.
Jav squeezes my wrist before I can give Matias a detailed rundown of which of his body parts I’d like to break instead. She shakes her head in silent warning. It’s not worth it.
Matias makes like he’s gonna say something else—an apology? An excuse?—but my glare dissolves whatever’s left of his spine. He tugs his sweaty collar from his neck and slinks off to do more inventory.
It’s warmer out here than in the restaurant. The peeling linoleum sticks to our shoes, a brick propping open the back door in the vain hope of enticing a breeze. Jav releases me, leaving me to do my usual thing where I pretend my skin doesn’t hypersensitize at her touch.
“Damn, Riles,” she says, shoving her cap in her locker and fluffing out her thick, bouncy ’fro. “You see why I told you to drop it?”
I wrench my own locker open, the door striking the metal frame. Who cares if I break it? That’s Matias’s problem, not mine. And, as I’ve decided, from this point forward I don’t give a sticky, backed-up crap about Matias’s problems.
“You’re doing that thing again,” I say. “The one where you’re always right.”
“Most people would see that as a positive quality.”
“Most people haven’t been victimized by your ‘I told you so’ look every day since pre-K. Yeah—see? There! That thing you’re doing with your eyebrows, right now.”
Jav aims those brows at the mirror taped to the inside of her door instead. She frowns at herself, digging a tube of liquid liner from her shirt pocket to touch up her faded left wing. “This is my usual face. I always look like this.”
“Exactly.”
I earn an eye roll: another Jav specialty. “Anyway, on the subject of that Super. I actually had a kid named Cooper Hanson in my homeroom class at Ralbury. We’re talking way back, though. Before…”
Before Cooper turned thirteen and started bench-pressing twice his weight. Before he got pulled from his regular classes to dedicate more time to the Super Squad training program.
Before.
Ralbury’s the best private school this side of the river. Their uniform has a coat of arms on the blazer, like some sort of Masonic youth division. Most kids who enroll there don’t need a summer job. They got their own Uncle Arties.
Javira Neita is the scholarship exception. We live on the same block, in the shrinking part of our district that’s more projects and police sirens than Insta-friendly restaurants. We used to be in the same class, too, until she skipped a grade ahead of me in elementary. She’s headed places—high as any Normie can get. Up, up, and away from Bridgebrook.
For now, though, she’s stuck here: busting ass to help cover her reduced-but-still-astronomical school fees. At least she’ll tip well, once she’s earning six figures.
“Didn’t recognize him,” Jav continues as I grab my noodle cup. “Guess he looked real different out of spandex.”
“He’ll look different outta his skin, too, once I get it off him. I’mma peel that boy like a potato.”
Jav fakes a gag. “Have some respect for lunchtime.”
“Cute you think I’m joking.”
“You better be.” Jav’s frown groove burrows deeper into her forehead. She glances at the open door, like she’s scared who’ll overhear. “This ain’t a game, Riley. Some fights you can’t win.”
Don’t I know it. Still, it makes me wonder what if …
I shake the noodles to ensure even powder distribution, the rattle drowning out my thoughts. “Let’s tell Twitter. I’m talking full callout. Name and shame.” Jav snorts like I told her to take out a hit on Cooper. Since that’s my next suggestion, I switch tactics. “C’mon. If you wanna be some big-shot journalist, you gotta care about the truth.”
“Journalists care about headlines. This ain’t exactly breaking news.” Jav cracks her own lunchbox. “I mean, damn, Riles. Next you’ll tell me to go to the cops.”
Bridgebrook girls don’t do that. But Bridgebrook’s been changing lately. “We could.”
Jav laughs. She stops when I don’t join in. “Shit, you for real? Don’t overreact.”
“How’s it an overreaction?” I soak my noodles and head for the microwave. “He got to second base with you, and Matias did nothing.”
Jav strokes the edge of her Tupperware. We get discounts on burgers, but Artie’s considers itself gourmet, catering to the gentrifiers whose mid-rise condos creep out from the new marina like glittering glass-clad siege towers. It’s cheaper to pack your own food—though Jav’s five sprigs of lettuce and a chopped tomato don’t exactly stoke my appetite.
“Only witnesses were his friends,” she says. “They won’t snitch, and the cops won’t do shit.” Sunlight streams through the open door, glinting off her inky skin. “He’s a hero, Riley. They work in the same department.”
“Okay, no cops.” My noodles turn slow revolutions, the loose microwave plate bonking the door. “But somebody. The Super Squad won’t let a junior hero initiate with sexual assault on his record.” I think. I hope.
What a shame, people like to say when asswads like Cooper throw away their future. He had so much potential.
Good riddance, I prefer.
If Jav squeezes her fork any tighter, it’ll snap. “Drop it.”
“But—”
She stabs a sprig of lettuce, glaring so hard I expect it to wilt. “My ass, Riley. Not yours.”
“Yeah, and if it was my ass, I’d make sure Cooper never did it to anyone else’s ass, even if it meant removing his hands.”
The microwave pings, saving us from further conversation. I stir, my back to Jav, and fork hot noodles into my mouth until my tongue’s a numb, burned slug. I can’t believe she wants to let Cooper get away with this. I can’t believe she wants to let him win.
Jav’s done with our conversation. She heads back on shift early. When I emerge five minutes later, she rounds one of the kitchen units too fast in her effort to avoid me and knocks a tray of uncooked patties off the edge. They clatter to the floor, loud as a pileup on the freeway.
Customers stare. Matias must feel guilty; he doesn’t snap. Just mumbles for Jav to sweep the burgers into a trash bag. She does like she’s told, not looking at me. Every time I glance over, she’s in full customer-service mode, laughing and smiling and yes, sir/ma’am-ing like a windup toy.
In the end, I spend too much time looking and not enough listening. I fluff an order—first in months. Matias does bark at me. During cleanup, he sticks me on dumpster duty in penance. I’m too busy trying to catch Jav’s gaze to shoot him the stink eye he deserves.
Okay, so maybe she has a point, much as it pisses me off to admit it. Not my ass. Not my fight. If Jav wants to lie low, dodge the drama, be the first Bridgebrook kid in a generation to aim for Harvard after graduating Ralbury with top SAT scores, then that’s her choice. Not mine.
And, as I realize way late, for all the venom I spat on her behalf, I never once asked if she was okay.
God, I’m an ass. I gotta apologize. I gotta take her out for our once-a-week after-work Starbucks (one frappe shared between the two of us, measured out sip by sip from the same straw, sugar spit clinging to each other’s tongues). I gotta find words for why I’m so prickly at the thought of Cooper, of anyone, hurting her.
First, though: my date with the dumpster.
I step outside, into the lukewarm sludge of a Sunnylake evening. I’m grateful our summers stay in the “boiling” range, rather than rocketing up to “instadeath” like they do farther south. Anything over sixty leaves me sweating like a politician in church.
An idling car blasts something whiny by Drake. Our radio retorts with Tim McGraw, “Humble and Kind.” I hum along as I lug the stinky black sack down the steps, into the alley that snakes around Artie’s redbrick backside.
The notes die when I see the hero.
He leans against the wall of the organic store opposite, vaping in cotton-candy puffs. Matias must’ve asked him to smoke outside. No e-cigarettes on Uncle Artie’s property, but you’re welcome to fondle the staff.
My stomach smolders like I’ve swallowed hot coals. I clench my teeth to keep the sparks locked behind them, Jav’s words a reverb scratch in the base of my mind. Some fights you can’t win …
I don’t look at Cooper as I hurry to the dumpster. Shame he doesn’t return the favor. A spandex-wrapped arm shoots past me, lifting the heavy lid.
“You’re welcome.” His sweetened breath strokes my cheek. “Daily act of heroism, free of charge.”
I can’t reply, not without cussing. My fists squeak, knotted in black plastic.
“Forgotten where to stick that?” Cooper could hold the lid up for the next three years without suffering a spasm. But he’s a hero—places to be, Normies to save. This is a quick ego boost, like catching a door for a pretty lady.
I lift the bag onto the dumpster’s edge. As my skirt rides up my thick thighs, Cooper’s eyes drift down.
I know that look. Not attraction; just a power trip. He knows he’s the hottest person to act like he’s interested.
“Want an autograph?” His stare smears my chest like grease from the fryer. “Some Supers have this policy against signing bare skin, but I figure, hey, if it’s what the public wants…”
There’s that handsome, cocky grin again. The one that says, I can do anything.
Fuck that.
I expect him to dodge—that’s my excuse. Turns out, enhanced reflexes or otherwise, a surprise attack can still catch a hero off guard. Cooper’s eyes have time to widen before a stinky sack of burger bits slaps him round the chops.
His jawline isn’t just sharp in the figurative sense. The bag rips, dousing Cooper in a tidal wave of pureed veggies. The resultant splat and squeal are satisfying for all of five seconds. Then reality sinks in.
Holy shit. What have I done?
For Normies, our thirteenth birthdays follow the same basic pattern. Once the tears have been dried and the tantrums defused, once the kid has been consoled that no, they don’t have Superpowers; no, they won’t fight bad guys on TV; and yes, they’re still just as unique and beautiful as everybody else, their parents sit them down for a little talk.
Not the talk (the one about birds, bees, flowers, trees, ding-dongs, hoo-hahs, and other awkward mumbles). This talk’s about being Normie. About what it means to grow up powerless in a world run by supermen. About how we have to pick our battles, and why those battles should never, ever pit us against people who can warp reality with a wave of their hand.
Hernando, my sister’s dad, had that talk with me, since Mom never bothered. I boiled it down to three core rules: a Normie’s guide to staying alive in Sunnylake City.
Keep your head down.Don’t make enemies.Strictly no heroics.Nowhere on this list does it mention beating up-and-coming heroes with a trash bag full of beans.
I stagger, torn bag slithering from my grasp. Is Cooper a Shaper? A Surger? A Summoner? I don’t know—which means that right now, there are a hundred potential Ways for Riley to Die. My brain thumbs through them like a flipbook: fried by a lightning bolt, the earth opening to swallow me whole, my blood boiled out of my veins.
I stand paralyzed as Cooper stares at the trash bag bleeding mush on my thrift-store tennis shoes. The same mush cakes the left side of his face in a gooey Rorschach of beans and yam. I’m waiting for him to react. Waiting for him to decide. My life’s in his hands. No cameras in this alley. If he says he acted in self-defense …
Cooper laughs. Frowns. Plucks a butter bean from his thick blond hair. As he stares at it, his expression smooths over. Like he’s realizing exactly the same thing I am. Like he’s running a hundred Ways for Riley to Die through his head, too.
He crushes the butter bean between his fingers, pale pulp mashing out the sides. Then he turns to me.
CHAPTER 2
“FIRED.” JAV GLARES at me. Like this is my fault. “Seriously? I can’t believe you.”
I storm through Bridgebrook’s new shopping quarter, shouldering aside pedestrians, slaloming between strollers and yappy teacup dogs. Jav has to jog so I don’t leave her and her glare behind. Matias confiscated my cap: a ceremonial rank-stripping. Dishonorable discharge.
My stomach aches, I’m that furious. I hate that Cooper got me fired. More than that, I hate my relief he didn’t do worse.
Artie’s diner recedes into the distance, ringed by the usual congregation of Hozier lookalikes. One more kitschy eatery among all the others that sprout from the sidewalk like giant weeds. Why would I even want to keep working there? Deep down, though, I know this isn’t about what I want. It’s about what I need.
Anger’s so much better, so much safer than panic. Wind whips my blonde hair into my eyes. I try to pretend that’s the only reason they sting.
“What was I supposed to do?” I snap as Jav hurdles a pug and narrowly avoids trampling a mother of three. “Let him grope me, too? He’s a hero! No one would’ve done shit.”
“Exactly!” Jav tries to pull me around. Her weighing eighty pounds wet, it’s not all that effective, but her touch thrills under my skin, and it’s hard to keep powering forward at the same velocity when your knees have turned to Jell-O.
Yup, that’s right. I’m the dumbass who lost her summer job, pissed off a hero, and is low-key crushing on her straight best friend. In case anyone was under the assumption that any part of my life is under control.
“D’you hear yourself?” Jav continues, oblivious to my suffering. “He’s a hero! He could’ve seriously hurt you.”
The worry in Jav’s voice pours vinegar into my belly, sours all my wrath to shame. What would it have been like, for her to overhear Cooper call in a civilian casualty? To see me, mushed up like an old beanburger, tossed out with the rest of the trash?
“Look,” says Jav, softer. “The world’s a shitty place, and there will always be an asshole with a power looking for an excuse to make it a shittier one. You wanna change things? You gotta reach the top. And you reach the top by playing their game.”
“Sorry we don’t all wanna be president.”
“I’m serious. You need to start thinking about the consequences of your actions.” Her pink nails bite my wrist. “You had plans this summer, Riley. Now you’ve thrown them away. For what?”
“Uh, for landing a swing on a Super-perv? For avenging your honor—”
“Which I didn’t ask you to do.”
“—which you didn’t ask me to do. Yeah, sorry about that. But I was also avenging my own honor! Not to mention bravely martyring myself in the face of blatant nuh … uh, nephewism…”
“Nepotism. You really think that was worth it?”
“You really think you’re my therapist?”
She doesn’t laugh. Shame. That crack was hilarious, since those grand summer plans of mine revolve around actually talking to someone about how it’s been five years since the accident, but I still wake up screaming. Only those talks rack up forty dollars per session, minimum, and that’s without mentioning meds. Which means—shit.
Without this job, I can’t afford therapy.
Jav must see that realization hit. She lets circulation return to my fingers. “Hit me up at the library tomorrow,” she says—orders, more like. Nothing makes Jav enter drill-sergeant mode faster than research, even if it’s just hunting down another dead-end summer job for her dead-weight best friend. “I’ve written so many essays, I spout résumé talk in my sleep.”
I appreciate it. But what I want isn’t me and Jav at opposite ends of a library table, the scratch of her pen filling the air with jagged lines. What I want is …
What?
Her and me, bumping hips all summer? Bitching about customers as we wait in line for our frappe (three shots of hazelnut and enough sugar I feel it eroding my teeth)? Listening to her locate that balance between the bougie voice she puts on at Ralbury and the voice she uses around Bridgebrook kids? Something else?
I shut my eyes. I’m not gonna cry.
Jav bobs closer. We’re magnets, her proximity pulling me in and pushing me away all at once. “Riles? You up for that?”
On top of running her podcast, she has to write her personal statement for Harvard this summer: a scalpel-sharp dig into gentrification in our district. It’s her ticket to the future. Which makes it way more important than babysitting me.
God, I don’t want her to go. Every step she takes up in the world is another one away from me. But I’d never forgive myself for being the thing that held her back.
I breathe her in one last time: a cocktail of citrus deodorant and coconut oil, offset by our matching eau de bean burger. Then I pull away. “Sorry, I…”
“Riley?”
I fake a smile so big it threatens to fall off both sides of my face. “I gotta head out.”
Jav looks unconvinced. But she nods, gaze soft as the parting squeeze she gives my hand. “Message me, okay?”
I promise. I smile some more, though Jav’s too smart to be fooled. Then I turn down a side street and study the dazzling window display of the latest department store until I can blame the moisture in my eyes on the glare.
As afternoon sinks into evening, the city ceases its impression of a microwave oven. The air no longer cooks me; the sidewalk doesn’t bake through my worn-out soles. I don’t know where I’m walking. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
I’ve clocked after-school shifts at Artie’s three nights per week since it was legal (plus a bit before, as Matias never bothered to check). Some kids get to worry about exams and colleges, but most days, I have money on my mind. If I do this, can I still afford that? I can’t imagine what it’s like to live without that question etched on my brain.
This summer was supposed to be different. Hernando’s new job would cover the rent and the Super damage insurance, while my money went toward my own problems. But I guess I’ve never been good at dealing with those.
Fifty paces before I can control my breathing. One hundred and fifty before my heart stops pummeling my ribs. Before the adrenaline drains, before the trapped scream inside me ebbs, leaving a void that’s worse than this whole day combined.
My feet carry me to a 7-Eleven. Don’t know why. The other outlets on this street have cute, bright, eye-catchy logos: pastel-green circles for boba tea, red spirals for a new boutique. Their floors are squeegee-spotless, QR codes integrated into every window display. Guess the 7-Eleven vibes more with me, with its Sharpie-on-scrap-paper price signs and plastic crates piled high with newspapers and overripe fruit. It looks lost, crammed between a florist and a delicatessen. Left behind by the world. Like I’ll be, if Jav gets into Harvard.
But the 7-Eleven also looks like salvation. Because there, propped in the window between lotto stickers and spatters of whitewash, sits an advertisement board.
I peer through my reflection. The board is crumbly from overuse, pinholes freckling the cork. First up: The indie phone shop wants a new techie. Pass. I can’t even replace the cracked screen on my thirdhand Samsung. I could stack shelves at the mini-mart, bike take-out bags across the city, or wash dishes at the Beijing Bar, our local Chinese restaurant—but they all demand prior experience and references. Who needs references to rinse sweet-and-sour sauce off plates?
I scan the last scraps of paper clinging to the board. They want me to scrub toilets, take out trash? I’m not fussy. Hernando works eighty-hour weeks between his three jobs. I won’t make him pick up a fourth; he’d never sleep again. But the only remaining offers are this crumpled thing in the corner and a fry cook position at Artie’s, so the crumpled thing it is.
I can’t see the job title, because of how the paper’s folded. But a phone number smushes the glass with three magical words below it, at the point where the poster contorts: We Hire Anyone.
Sounds promising. I extract my phone from my cleavage (nature’s pocket) and save the number. A few paces down the sidewalk, I duck beneath the awning of a boutique dedicated to designer handbags. After an obligatory grimace at the price tags, I hit call.
The line cuts to an automated voice. “If you’re interested in hiring our services, press one. To reach reception, press two.”
Guess I’m two. I poke the requisite button. Five brrngs later, someone picks up.
“You’ve reached Hench. How may I help?”
The woman’s Southern drawl is dredged out of the Mississippi. She makes sticky noises between her words, like she’s snapping gum. I squash the phone tighter to my ear.
“Uh, hi. I’m calling about a vacancy?”
“Sure. Congrats, you’re hired.”
No job’s that easy. Horror stories bombard me: human trafficking, organ trade. Gullible young girls ground up into dog food. “Am I gonna wind up gagged in the back of a white van?”
A moist chuckle. “Not unless you really piss off the boss. Got a free slot on one of our summer intake courses. Swing by tomorrow; paperwork’ll be waiting.”
This still seems suspish. “No interview?”
“No point. Have you seen our flyers? We Hire Anyone. Kinda our brand.”
“Yeah, but … hire them for what?”
A brief pause. “You don’t know?”
I swallow my instinctual response of no shit. “’Fraid not.”
“Well … We are called Hench, sweetie.”
My throat closes like I’ve chugged from a saltshaker. Hench, as in henchmen. The bad guys.
This is Sunnylake City: hero-versus-villain central. The Super gene was first documented in a small Japanese town, near Fukuyama. They have a museum, guided tours, the whole shebang. Even talk of a theme park. Sunnylake has the less glamorous accolade of being the birthplace of the Villain Council, where Brightspark first drove his lightning-wreathed fist into Moleman’s fugly mug. Every other week, a new stand-off occurs between dorks in tights.
A- and B-class heroes are the frontliners, while C- and D-class sidekicks provide backup and cover for civilians on the ground. Then you have the henchmen. Minions who scamper after the villain of the hour—though from what I’ve seen, none carry the Super gene.
I’ve never given them much thought. They’re just … there. In the background, part of the scenery. An army of nobodies who the heroes mow through like they’re trimming the lawn.
Guess they have to recruit from somewhere. I just never expected it to be a flyer in a 7-Eleven.
I should hang up. Hernando raised me and Lyss right. Both of us. He didn’t need to (he’s not my real dad, as my sister loves to remind me when she’s in a pissy mood). But he did it anyway. Cooked, cleaned, packed us off to school on time, grounded us when we got detention. He’d kill me if he knew I was considering this.
Which I’m not. Or, at least, I shouldn’t be.
“Still interested?” the receptionist drawls. I open my mouth, not sure what’s gonna come out of it, and—
Boom.
Fire punches the sky. I drop on instinct, same as every other Normie on the street.
I smack the sidewalk. Pain stabs. Skinned my knee. No time to cry over it. I curl, making myself small. Phone tight to my hammering heart.
The explosion swells on the far side of Bridgebrook, over by the Shadder Creek estate, where me and Mom used to live. It banishes the twilight, bright as a second sun. Windows blow on a nearby block, a bell peal of crackling glass. Screams, barks, car alarms. The wail of a baby—wah, wah—too small to understand that the Super Squad protects our city, that our heroes keep us safe, that it’s all gonna be okay.
I wait for the flash streaks to fade from my vision. Then I stand, brush blood and grit from my stinging knee, and lift my phone.
Fucking superheroes.
“Sure,” I tell the receptionist. “I’m in.”
CHAPTER 3
HOME. PAST THE abandoned lot piled high with the skeletons of rusted cars, wildflowers winding into empty wheel arches. Past the lofts and studios, the crusty tenement houses with their graffiti-bright walls, the overflowing dumpsters, the thump of bass from a smoke-washed window.
My knee pangs at every step. I relive my words to the Hench agency receptionist, over and over: I’m in. I’m in. I’m in.
Why did I say that? My breath quickens at the thought of ever facing a hero again. That moment, when I knew Cooper could do whatever he wanted, that no one was coming to save me … It was the second-most scared I’ve been in my life.
At least I have the night to talk myself out of this. If I don’t show for tomorrow’s training session, Hench can find someone else.
My building, 26 Sloan Street, is one of those skinny three-story mid-row houses that are somehow even smaller on the inside, like a reverse TARDIS. Still, compared to Shadder Creek—Shit Creek, to locals—the row of crack dens by the sewage works where I had the dubious honor of being born, it’s a palace.
More importantly, it’s home. The first place Hernando made me chilaquiles. The first place I fell asleep feeling safe. Which is why it sucks so much when I punch our door code and step through, only for my foot to land on a fat, official-looking envelope. I lift my shoe and read the return address, then stomp down harder.
Blair Homes. Just what I don’t wanna see.
As the elevator’s out of order (it breaks whenever a Super battle occurs close enough to make the ground shake), I crumple the letter and head for the stairs. We live on the top floor. The ground floor is vacant. Mrs. Adorna, our landlady, only stays here a few months of the year since she started doing up another property on the city’s far side. Which means she’s missed all of Blair Homes’s polite inquiries, asking to buy this lot and convert it to luxury studios. The same sort of polite inquiry as the one I intend to introduce to our garbage can.
The walls of 26 Sloan Street rise up around me, my fortress, the brickwork strengthened by the roots my family have put down over the years. But no walls stand forever, and roots mean as little to a property developer as they do to whichever Super was working through their rage issues on my walk home.
Mrs. Beauvais waves as I pass the second floor. She always leaves her door open when somebody’s in. The Beauvaises are a nice family, Haitian: mom, dad, and two young kids, plus a cousin who hangs around so much he might as well move in. They’ve been in this building a long time—though not as long as Hernando, who jokes he’ll be interred in the foundations. I return the wave, showing her the letter. The smile shrinks off her round face.
“Assholes,” she says, then claps a hand over her mouth, in case her kids heard.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’m putting this where it belongs.”
“You give it here. We got a shredder.”
I fork over the letter before heaving myself up the last echoing flight. My key gums in our lock, but I lean on it until it surrenders, swinging inward to reveal my home.
Sure, our apartment isn’t exactly lush. Two dinky bedrooms stand dead ahead—one for me and Lyssa, the other for Hernando and his wardrobe of work uniforms. We don’t have room to swing a kitten, let alone a full-grown cat. But the damp smell is masked by lingering traces of garlic and onion, and every surface blooms with clutter. The main room is a cheery garden of thrift store ornaments and broken gadgets Hernando swears he can fix. Our apartment should feel cramped, but it doesn’t. Just stuffed to overflowing with family.
Would it be better if our ancient peeling wallpaper was replaced with urban whitewash and quirky light fixtures? What would faux-marble countertops and parquet flooring really improve? If Blair Homes buys us up, they’ll fix the elevator and the drafty duct-tape insulation around the windows. But will they notice what they’re breaking?
Lyssa grunts hello as I relock the door. My baby sister hits thirteen in two-and-a-bit weeks and swears she’ll turn Super (Wind-Type Summoner, to be precise) despite multiple assurances that our family has never seen a single occurrence of the Super gene. She sprawls on the patchwork-quilted sectional, legs poking from her boxer shorts. One is skinny and brown, the other skinnier still and made of plastic and lightweight metal below the knee.
Amputees are a semi-common sight around Sunnylake, thanks to the Villain Council. But it wasn’t a Super who caused the accident that cost Lyssa an eighth of her body mass and me my ability to get in a car without hyperventilating, ribs locking down on my lungs. That one’s all on Mom.
You should forgive the dead, Hernando says. It’s in the Bible. But I’ve never read that, and if the Big Man gives out such crap advice, I don’t plan to.
I return Lyssa’s grunt, dump my lunchbox on the messy kitchenette counter, and start checking the dinner veggies for fur. Saturday means enchilada day—the real kind, since none of us start crying if you dice a jalapeño. I prep everything the way Hernando taught me: browning the cheap death-date beef and onions with the sauce simmering away in the corner of my eye like a cauldron of tomatoey blood.
I’ll never get it tasting like he does. He claims the secret ingredient’s love, and I lack that tonight.
Jav will clock in at Artie’s on Monday, greeting customers like nothing’s amiss. I’m pissed Matias fired me, but the thought of not spending our summer together hurts more. It’s our last chance, if her Harvard app goes through.
Does that make me selfish? Maybe. All I know is that 1) the thought of not seeing her every day makes me feel like Cooper Hanson punched a hole in my chest. And 2) I can never, ever tell her. Not without ruining our friendship.
Joining Hench sounds like a surefire distraction from queer teen angst. I’m just not sure that’s enough of a reason to dress head to toe in rubber and make nice with literal Supervillains.
The Villain Council gathers the biggest and baddest eggs into one evil basket. We’re talking A- and B-class defectors from the Super Squad: the sort of power that makes surface-to-air missiles look like Nerf guns. The VC bond over tacky aesthetics, an abundance of eyeliner, and one common goal: take over the world.
After that? Far as I can tell, they haven’t figured out much beyond make all Normies kneel. Possibly make all heroes kneel, too (they have this weird obsession with kneeling. Kinda kinky). Still, despite their growing body count, property damage bills, and new chapters in major cities around the globe, the VC hasn’t taken over anything larger than Montana, and that was only for three very miserable days. (Did anyone even notice? I mean … Montana.)
The good guys win and the bad guys lose. That’s the way it is. The way it’s always been. Us Normies don’t get in the middle.
After softening the tortillas, I arrange them at the bottom of the baking dish. I lose myself in it: the warm aroma of braised meat and onions, the tang of Hernando’s secret sauce. After shunting my concoction into the oven, I treat my legs to a much-deserved rest, collapsing beside Lyssa and flicking on the TV.
Local news prioritizes hero activity, so it’s no surprise to find the fireball from earlier topping the headlines. The screen shows a bird’s-eye view of a hollowed-out building. Twisted rebar, crushed concrete. Smoke creeps skyward, a red paper lantern teetering down the street like tumbleweed. Lyssa doesn’t look up, more invested in her latest TikTok compilation.
Two Super Squad members strut across the rubble, one boy and one girl. Dusk looms over the distant mountains, but our heroes shine in their angelic white spandex, all rippling muscles and flexing hair (or is it the other way around?). The villain, caught mid-monologue, waves at the laser he used to magnify his powers and level the place, touting the glories of global domination.
Yawn. I scan the crowd behind him. Sidekicks clear civilians from the area. I spot a few yellow San Fran outfits among the Sunnylake navy. They must’ve been vacationing here before the Super Squad alarm went off. Then you have the henchmen. Their uniform’s different: a formfitting bodysuit in a green so dark it’s almost black, topped off with a sock mask and black goggles. No visible skin.
I pull a face. Can’t be fun, wiggling out of that after a sweaty summer night.
Suddenly—action. The hero tires of the villain’s speech. He conjures a crackling sphere of lightning, siphoning power from overhead wires. The henchmen take aim and fire, launching glowing pulses from their oversize guns.
Can’t they see he’s a Surger? His mojo feeds off heat and electricity.
The hero grins. After absorbing every bolt (none of which looked primed to hit him anyway), he tosses the resultant supercharged orb back into their ranks. Henchmen fly like bowling pins. They topple to the floor, seizing before flopping limp.
I work my fingers into a knot. They’re just unconscious. Right? The Super Squad always brag they keep the city’s fatality count low, but do their statistics include the bad guys?
Another reason not to join that green wall of cannon fodder. I add it to my list.
Today’s villain is a Summoner. Flame-Type, judging by the fluorescent-orange hairdo. Of course, he could be a Surger or a Shaper or even a Water-Type Summoner trying to throw everyone off—but I don’t think villains are capable of that much forward thinking.
“Fools!” he cries. Fire—called it!—spurts from his fingertips. “You will never be a match for the Ferocious Flamer!”
I wince. “The Ferocious Flamer? Scraping the barrel much?”
Lyssa grunts. I take it as agreement.
The hero backpedals, but he can’t outpace the villain in reverse. They trade blows and one-liners. Supers have great stamina—makes it easier to keep wisecracking while you’re having the crap kicked out of you. But all too soon, the villain’s thick fingers fasten around the hero’s throat.
He doesn’t see the heroine, sprinting in from stage left. Her jump gains more elevation than the best Normie gymnast (reminding us all why, after the sudden mutation of the Super gene at the end of WW2, powerless people stopped competing at the Olympics). At the peak of her parabola, she sweeps her arms up and over like a swimmer doing the butterfly.
Six snowflake prongs crackle into existence, haloing her head, so cold they steam. Frozen oxygen. Shaper, then. She can mess with the state of substances, converting solid to liquid, liquid to gas.
She points at the Flamer. Her javelins dart forward. A fireball intercepts, ice bursting on contact. Shards pepper them both. The Shaper heroine shakes them off, landing lithe as a lynx, crouched on the Flamer’s broad back.
A clench of her fist. The air melts. It drenches the Flamer, hissing with hideous cold. The Flamer bites back a scream. He pits his powers against hers, fire vaporizing the liquid off his bare arms …
All in all, just another Saturday. I’m about to turn the TV off when—wham! A turquoise bolt blasts the heroine from her perch.
I only realize my ass is half off the couch when I scoot forward and wind up squatting. A henchman shot a hero? No fucking way.
The heroine rolls to a halt against a pile of rubble. She doesn’t get up again.
The camera whips around, focusing on the henchmen. One outstretched gun glows.
I don’t get a good look. The sidekicks stampede into the henchmen, and the camera returns to the central conflict, hero versus villain. It takes about ten seconds for the steaming, snarling Flamer to reinstate his grip on the Surger hero’s throat.
“Pathetic!” he bellows. “Is this the best Sunnylake has to offer?”
Did he bring his own mic? Or are people with operatic lung capacity just drawn to evil? We may never know. I crane my neck at the screen like that’ll help me see around the corner, to where the henchmen and the sidekicks fight.
“Hardly!” booms a new voice. Seriously—where do these guys take their projection classes? “Let’s be real, though. You’re not exactly A-class yourself.”
A new hero mounts the debris. His white spandex glows against the drifting dust. He’s a junior—only one star on his chest. Must’ve been helping the sidekicks shepherd pedestrians to safety.
Or, muses a cynical voice in the back of my head, he was waiting for the right moment to swoop in and save the day.
His mask covers his upper face and hair. I’m sure fangirls can tell who he is by his jawline, but I’m too busy following the skirmish between sidekicks and henchmen to care.
The camera crews resist me. They insist on a slow, exalting pan up the junior hero’s body. His quadriceps taper into the trim cut of his waist, with a bulge between them that rivals a medieval codpiece. He probably doesn’t even have to stuff it with a sock. They say the Super gene enhances every part of the anatomy.
“Kneel!” shouts the Flamer, shaking his captive hero. “Unless you want your compatriot to perish!”
The new kid smirks. “Sorry. I don’t put out on the first battle.”
It’s cheesy, but that line will still bounce around Tumblr until another hero spouts something snappier. There’ll be gifsets and shippy nemeses fic (which I totally don’t read, if anyone asks. Ignore my browser history).
Our hero raises his hands, palms up like he’s praying. Wind plucks him into the air. That catches Lyssa’s attention. She drops her phone on her lap and leans forward, eyes shiny.
The villain’s face reddens like a burn scar. “You’re a Wind-Type Summoner! You blow on a fire, it gets stronger!”
“Or,” says the hero, “it goes out.”
I don’t care about the remainder of the battle. I just scan the background for my henchman as the hero blasts the Flamer with a jet-stream-force gust, extinguishing his flickering handful. No luck. Fleeing the sidekicks, the henchmen meld into a black-and-green sea.
The Flamer skids over smashed concrete, rolling to a halt. He snarls at the hero, struggling to stand—then shakes his head and lumbers onto the street. The henchmen pile into the rear of a waiting semi, hooking the laser in its trailer to the tow bar. Soon as the Flamer heaves himself aboard, off they vroom.
The sidekicks don’t chase. Re-engaging endangers civilian life—that’s the official line. Like we aren’t in danger every minute of every day.
For now, the battle’s over. Nothing more to see. With that in mind, I level the remote, intending to switch to something more interesting. Before I can punch the button, the junior hero strikes a victorious pose and rips off his mask.
The remote clatters to the floor.
“Riles?” Lyssa nudges me with her foot. “You having a stroke?”
Might as well be. My throat zips up tight from my belly to the base of my tongue. Because there, shrunk down to fit on our secondhand flat-screen, stands Cooper Hanson. Beaming, scrubbed free of bean slime. King of the whole fucking world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A CONFESSION: I have never been to the US.
My goal was to develop a fantasy version of this country, informed by the IV-line of US pop culture I’ve been hooked up to since childhood. Obviously, all mistakes are 100% intentional, and are actually a clever illumination of how the US has established a worldwide cultural hegemony, which has shaped a flawed simulacra of the country within my imagination, and …
Have I covered my arse yet? Anyway.
There aren’t enough words in the English language to express my gratitude to the brilliant Beth Marshea at Ladderbird Lit. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be my guide as I venture into the world of authorship. Thank you—and Annalise!—for encouraging me to take the secateurs to this novel, and for (gently) slapping my wrists when I tried to snip away too much. You guys are hereby dubbed the Sherman Defense Squad.
To my editor, Holly, at Feiwel & Friends—thanks for the wonderful conversations about cats and cosplay and everything in between. Working through your suggestions helped me see the true potential of this novel, and your enthusiasm made me fall in love with Riley’s character all over again! My thanks to Brittany, too, for your marvelous insight—and thanks to Avia Perez and Jessica White for wrestling the time line into shape.
My sensitivity readers have asked not to be named publicly, but I remain eternally grateful to them. Thank you for the effort you poured into educating me. This story shines so much brighter for your input. My especial gratitude to the wonderful writer of that letter. Your kind, insightful words resonated deeply.
I holler appreciation across the Channel and the Atlantic at my entire beta crew. You guys caught the most heinous of my Britishisms and liberally showered me in memes. This is for you, Linked (speed-reader extraordinaire; French, but I’ll forgive you), Christina (my love to the Peep!), Ally, Max, Callista, Audrey, and Dahlia. Special shout-out to Lisa—the best friendships are built on bones. May our skull collections continue to grow. And another shout to Jess, my nemesis—you listened to my gripes and groans, teased me for going to bed disgustingly early, and reminded me of my awesomeness whenever I started to doubt. Stay villainous.
Thanks, Mum and Dad, for smiling and nodding as I blathered to you about this project. For popping the bubbly before I’d even signed the contract. For always loving me, even when you didn’t understand. Especially then, I think. You guys are my rocks.
It takes a village to raise a kid, and a megalopolis to write a book. For my brother, John, the SheSizzles girls, the ACC crew, the Avosquado, and the Fourth Legion; for those who helped me through my own Mental & Physical Health Bullshit (you know who you are) and all those I’ve forgotten—you guys make me who I am. I don’t know if the world should thank you or flip you off for that. Let’s find out together.
Copyright © 2023 by B. L. Radley
