Table of Contents

Super Gone (Dragon Girl, #2)

Copyright © 2020 by Mel Woodburn

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

About Mel

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Copyright © 2020 by Mel Woodburn

Super Gone

Dragon Girl, Book 2

By Mel Woodburn

Cover Design by Dan Van Oss

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License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold.

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All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Published by Mel Woodburn. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, contact Mel Woodburn at Mel@MelWoodburn.com

For more information please visit MelWoodburn.com

#

To Cillian and Steven

Chapter 1

High school sophomore Emma Edgin was taking a break from being a superhero to learn how to be a better one and not get herself killed. Her biggest focus was on the not getting killed or kidnapped.

So, she sweated barefoot in the stuffy upstairs of the new gym with thirty other teens, including her best friends, hoping to learn something about defending herself and not draw too much of Agent Johnson’s attention.

Emma licked her lips as Sebastian climbed to his feet from the blue wrestling mats. His broad swimmer’s shoulders flexed, straining his gray PE uniform.

“What are we doing after school today?” Sebastian asked, his back still to her.

Emma choked and blushed, afraid he’d caught her ogling him.

Before she could answer, Ollie snatched Emma’s right hand and dragged her towards the middle of the room. Ollie’s loose gym clothes hid every curve as she stomped forward. Somehow, the spikes left in her her short hair looked angry.

“I’ve got rehearsal.” Emma couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice as she dug in her heels.

“Rehearsal for what?” Alex asked, waiting for Sebastian to attack him again.

Instead of answering, Emma used her free hand to pry up Ollie’s pinky and twist. Then, Emma slid her right hand to Ollie’s elbow and pushed, forcing Ollie to her knees in an arm bar for the dozenth time that class period.

“If I get ringworm from these gross mats, I’m blaming you.” Ollie stood and dusted off her knees.

“I’m sure someone cleans them.” Alex yanked Sebastian’s hand.

“I’m so over this class.” Ollie squared up across from Emma and ran a hand through her hair, making the spikes fuzzier. “Johnson’s not even a real teacher. He just makes us sprint at the track, and then do the same moves over and over again.”

“That’s so they’re automatic if we ever need them.” Sweat trickled down Emma’s back. Didn’t Ollie listen? The teacher had told them that on the first day of class.

“That’s right,” a deep voice said.

Emma spun. Johnson, Super Commission Agent and ex-soldier, stood right behind her. His brown eyes bored straight into hers. Eyes watering, she turned her gaze to her bare feet. As a super, she wanted to avoid his attention, not draw it.

The big man laughed. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You need to work on situational awareness.”

Emma’s cheeks burned. Ollie was half right. Johnson was teaching three periods of self-defense on an emergency credential until the school found a legit teacher qualified to teach the class.

“If you ever need these skills, your attacker won’t wait while you sit there and think of how to escape.” Johnson patted Emma on the shoulder. “By practicing them repeatedly, you’ll do them without thinking.”

Johnson didn’t stick around for an answer. As he walked off, Emma saw a sweat stain on the back of even his shirt from the lack of good air conditioning in the new gym’s second story.

“Suck up.” Ollie ran a hand through her short, spiky hair.

“I’m not trying to suck up. I’m trying to learn.” Emma grabbed Ollie’s wrist, trying not to think of how Ice Queen had almost killed her last year.

“That’s even worse.” Ollie made no move to defend herself.

Emma yanked the wiry girl close and hissed in her ear. “You know why I need to learn this.” No one but her bestie needed to know Emma was a super. And if she didn’t learn how to protect herself, she had no business playing hero. “Valerie Virgo said Chloroshot was arrested in Oregon.”

“I thought you hated her. Or is that only when the news makes fun of your uncle’s office?” Ollie leaned so close to Emma that her breath tickled Emma’s ear, making her heart race. “Besides, Chloroshot does plants, not fireballs. You’ll be fine. He doesn’t even fly.”

Emma’s stomach tightened. Her eyes shot wide open. She stepped back from Ollie, looking to see if anyone had overheard. Johnson was across the room, helping a girl with the finger pry. Thank goodness he hadn’t heard. He had no reason to arrest her yet, well no more than he had when he had arrested Ice Queen last spring.

“Give her a break, Ol.” Alex climbed back to his feet after Sebastian had arm barred him to the ground again. “Ms. Range kidnapping her last year was pretty freaky.”

If Alex and Sebastian hadn’t heard, she was good.

“Self-defense wouldn’t have kept her from being frozen solid.” Ollie stalked back to their corner of the mat to start over. “This class blows. I wish I hadn’t signed up.”

“No one made you.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I told you not to unless you were serious about learning self-defense.”

“Rehearsal for what?” Sebastian asked before Ollie started complaining again.

“I—uh—I got a part in the play.” Emma beamed at him. Thank goodness he’d changed the subject.

“Girl, that’s awesome.” Alex resisted as Sebastian pretended to attack him again. “You’re one of the best speechies we’ve got. I bet you got the lead.”

“Just a small part.” Emma choked on the compliment. No way she was one of the best actors on the speech and debate team. She struggled to remember her lines, and her acting could be better. Heck, her real-life day-to-day facial expressions could be a lot more normal.

“Why didn’t they give you a big part?” Sebastian winced as Alex tried to pry back his fingers.

“Only upperclassmen who’d been in a play before got big parts. I think Attwood wanted to see if I could handle a small part.” Truth was, Emma hadn’t wanted a big part. Besides, it was a wonder Attwood had given her a part at all since she’d almost failed his class last year.

Besides, the biggest roles were Abigail Williams, the vindictive ex who led the witch hunt and accused everyone who ever hurt her feelings. That wasn’t a part she wanted. And, as for the reserved Elizabeth Proctor, Emma didn’t want to play the jilted wife either.

Her friends looked at her like they were waiting for something. Why weren’t the others talking? Were they waiting for her to say something else?

“Goode Nurse is the right part for me,” Emma said, releasing Ollie who still hadn’t defended herself from Emma’s fake attack.

“If you say so,” Alex said.

“You should come hang out with me and Ollie at rehearsal,” Emma said. “I should have plenty of free time since it’s a small part.”

“All right, class.” Johnson’s voice boomed above all the conversations. “Just a few minutes left.”

“I can’t.” Alex blushed. “I’ve got things to do.”

“Okay. Tomorrow, we’ll be working on this.” Johnson made a nearby student pretend to grab his hair.

The kid’s hand slipped off Johnson’s salt and pepper buzz cut.

“Just hold your hand there. That’s why my hair’s so short. Though I expect most of you won’t want hair as short as mine.”

Face pale, the kid put his hand back on Johnson’s head.

“If someone grabs you by the hair from behind...”

“—things to do are busy until like five.” Ollie waggled her eyebrows. “When practice is over.”

Practice for what?

“You grab their hand where it is on your hair.” Johnson caught his volunteer’s hand.

Alex’s face glowed tomato red. “—promised you wouldn’t tell.”

Johnson kept talking, his words mushing together with Ollie’s.

“I just in-SIN-u-ated.” Ollie broke the word into syllables. Neither Ollie or Alex were religious, so sin seemed a strange syllable to emphasize.

“When you pull close, you can—”

“You seeing someone?” Sebastian took in Alex’s skinny form.

Emma blinked, trying to shift her focus back to Johnson’s demonstration.

“Elbow your attacker.” Johnson pretended to elbow his volunteer in the gut.

Alex mumbled something.

“Arm bar them.” Johnson twisted his volunteer’s arm, his voice drowning out anything Alex might have said.

“You are!” Sebastian gasped.

“Poke them in the—” Johnson jabbed his fingers at the student’s face.

“—not official or any—” Alex ran a hand over his face.

What wasn’t official?

“Knee them in the—”

“—like each other, okay?” Alex’s voice rose. “I can’t tell anyone yet.”

The bell rang, cutting off Johnson and Alex both.

Exhausted, Emma’s shoulders drooped. Bouncing between Johnson’s demonstration and her friends talking had made her feel like a ping-pong ball.

“Ooh, a mystery girl.” Sebastian grinned, flashing white teeth against olive skin.

Ollie snorted and joined the mob of students headed down the stairs.

“I’ve got to figure out who she is,” Sebastian said.

“So, rehearsal, Goode Nurse.” Ollie threw her sweaty arm over Emma’s shoulders.

“Yeah.” Emma freed herself from Ollie’s stinky grasp. “I don’t even know what I’ll do half the time I’m there. Homework, I guess.”

“Guys, she says she’ll do homework.” Ollie laughed.

Emma clutched the handrail as they made their way down the crowded stairs.

“Homework. While you’re out from under Nan’s thumb?” Sebastian asked.

“What else would I do during rehearsal?” Emma asked. They hadn’t said they’d come visit her. They’d gone off on the tangent of Alex’s mystery girl.

“We better visit you and find out, huh?” Sebastian winked.

“Well, I’ll already be there. I’m stage crew and we can always use more hands.” Ollie put her arm over Emma’s shoulders again. “Even Alex can help until his ‘things to do’ are free.”

Alex missed a step, but Sebastian steadied him.

“Thanks,” Emma said, matching steps with Ollie.

“And don’t worry about that plant guy.” Ollie’s breath tickled Emma’s ear. “I bet he turns up in Canada in a couple weeks. Even if he doesn’t, Johnson knows about you, and you haven’t disappeared yet. The commission isn’t going to steal you away.”

Ollie released Emma, but her whispered reassurances had the opposite effect on Emma than intended.

Emma glanced behind them.

Johnson nodded at her as he followed the last students down the stairs.

Her mouth went dry.

When he’d arrested Ice Queen, Johnson had insinuated he knew she was Geek Fire. Even though it was his job to arrest supers, he hadn’t arrested her. He’d even been the one to push that the school needed a self-defense class after Ice Queen had kidnapped Emma and her cousin.

He’d arrested other supers for using their powers. So why hadn’t he arrested Emma yet? What was keeping her safe from the Super Commission? She needed to find out.

Chapter 2

Emma sat on the edge of the stage with the rest of the cast. Her legs dangled towards the ground and she resisted the urge to kick them. Mr. Attwood would not appreciate the thunking noise, and none of the upperclassmen who had been in past plays were fidgeting. Emma settled for biting her tongue to settle her nerves.

Mr. Attwood stalked in front of the stage, staring the cast of the play up and down. Memories of freshman English came flooding back. Almost failing that class had led to the meeting with Nan and half the staff at the school, where they’d seen that thing in the sky that had given people powers. Emma had started gleek-sneezing fireballs and Ms. Range had become Ice Queen.

When he’d arrested her, Agent Johnson hadn’t said where Ice Queen would be held. Hopefully that didn’t mean that her former teacher had been executed in secret.

Emma didn’t dare ask him what had happened to Ice Queen, not when her own future depended on Johnson continuing to ignore her powers. If only she could figure out why he had ignored her powers.

And who knew where Connor had run off to when he’d smashed that police car? He had to be out there somewhere.

Mr. Attwood glared at her. Had she made a mistake already? No, he was glaring at everyone. True, Mr. Attwood didn’t like her, but he’d picked her for the play. Even if it was just a tiny part. Maybe she could show him she deserved to be in the play and that she really was a good student.

Sebastian waved at her from the far side of the auditorium. Emma smiled at him, pulling herself out of her memories of last spring and bringing herself back to the moment. Beside Sebastian, Alex leaned against the wall and stared at his phone. Was he waiting for his ‘things to do’ to text him?

“I don’t want anyone here under false expectations.” Mr. Attwood pulled off his blazer and draped it over his arm. “Everyone should know their lines by the end of next week, then we’ll work on blocking. Putting on a play is hard work and I run a tight ship.”

On the back wall, Alex stopped playing with his phone and started mimicking Mr. Attwood, waving his arms and copying the teacher’s gestures to a tee.

Emma couldn’t help herself. She snorted with a handful of the other underclassmen. Mr. Attwood was a hard-ass in English, but the rumor was that he let the drama students get away with murder. Apparently not.

“What are you laughing at?” Mr. Attwood spun to face the back wall. His eyes settled on Bash and Alex.

Emma bit her lip. They were in trouble because they’d come to see her.

Alex froze under the teacher’s glare.

“What’re you two doing here?”

Sebastian and Alex clearly didn’t fit Mr. Attwood’s picture of a tight ship.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Sebastian said, “We’re just here to support our friends.” His usual confidence wilted.

“I’m responsible for everyone here,” Mr. Attwood said. “If you’re not signed up for the play, you can’t be here. Get out!”

“Mr. Attwood,” a dorky upperclassman said from next to Ollie. “Since Adam and Dave graduated, stage crew’s down to me and Ollie. If they want to stay, I could always put them to work.”

After a moment, Mr. Attwood nodded. “Fine by me. If you want to help Vince, you boys can stay.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bastian said. He stepped away from the wall but didn’t seem to know where to go from there.

Alex excused himself and headed out the door.

“That means you get your butt off that back wall and you get on the stage with the rest of the crew. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Sebastian hurried across the room and hopped up on the stage between Ollie and the dorky looking senior.

Vince stood, his bowl cut bobbling, as he greeted Bastian. Vince towered over Sebastian—who wasn’t short—and next to him Ollie looked positively dainty. Emma swallowed. What had she gotten Sebastian into by making him visit her the first day of rehearsal?

#

THINGS WENT REALLY well the next couple weeks. She was learning to defend herself, so the thought of pulling her Dragon Girl costume out of the back of her closet didn’t make her hands shake. Ice Queen getting the drop on her and kidnapping Hannah had left her scared of playing superhero again.

But Ms. Ngo said she might get to drop the support class the following semester. She was still autistic, of course, but the strategies Ms. Ngo gave her worked. Emma had squealed with joy. Then the class phone rang to call Emma up to the office to get checked out for a dentist appointment.

The crisp, October sky was an impeccable blue with no hint of rain on the horizon. Despite the fact she was going to the dentist, Emma bounced and skipped to the office.

Emma fell in behind Agent Johnson as he walked towards the office from the parking lot with a phone to his ear.

Just wait until she told Nan, Nan would be so happy for... No, Nan would just ask her why she hadn’t gotten out of special ed earlier. Just like she always asked Emma why her grade wasn’t better, unless it was an A+.

Emma shook her head. She’d have to tell her friends as soon as she came back from the dentist. They’d be excited for her.

Johnson pivoted in front of her. She crashed into him.

Dumb Emma, she hadn’t realized he’d been pacing on the phone and not going into the office at all.

“Michelle, I’ve got to go,” Agent Johnson said into his phone, his other hand holding a clipboard he must have been studying as he paced. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Emma schooled her face into a closed-mouth smile, careful to appear friendly, but not too friendly. Etiquette was important for blending in.

“Emma?” Johnson laughed. “I guess we both need to work on our situational awareness.”

“I guess so, sir.” Emma looked down at her feet. She hadn’t meant to crash into the Super Commission agent.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” Johnson pulled open the glass door to the office and nodded to Emma to head inside.

“Got a dentist appointment.” Emma shrugged and stood next to Nan across the counter from the secretary and Summer, who sat at in the student assistant’s seat with an open folder.  Emma chewed her lip feeling guilty. Last spring, she had accused Summer of being Ice Queen which had put the popular girl under the microscope.

Smiling, Nan excused herself and turned to the door. Her eyes met Johnson’s and her smile vanished, replaced by a look of pure hatred. “What are you doing here?” Nan demanded.

Emma’s stomach clenched. Nan yelling at the Agent Johnson would get them both arrested.

Johnson’s ruddy face went white as a sheet.

“Uh, ma’am.” The secretary chewed her lip. “That’s—”

“John Edgin, you signed away all your parental rights! Whatever you think you’re doing here, you can just—”

Nan’s words stopped making sense to Emma.

John Edgin was her father.

Her dead father.

Johnson stood stock still, not saying a word. Emma glanced from Johnson to Nan. He didn’t say a word to defend himself, but he didn’t deny being her father either.

Nan couldn’t be right.

Emma’s dad was dead. Both her parents had died in a car accident when she was four.

She stared at her teacher, taking in his features. Summer and the secretary whispered. Down the hall, doors opened opened and the principals and counselors hurried to the front desk.

Nan stopped talking, whether to draw a breath or for Johnson to answer her, Emma didn’t know.

“Nanna Edgin, that’s John Johnson, the Super Commission agent assigned to Pueblo Lindo.” Summer came around the counter and put a hand on Nanna’s shoulder. She smiled, looking perfect as always. Her wavy hair even blew in the faint breeze from the open door.

Nan and Emma ignored her. Johnson looked like Emma. Either Nan was right or Johnson might be related to her father...maybe his cousin or brother? Not her dead father, no way. In the pictures, in her dreams, her father had been skinny like Alex.

He still said nothing. Instead, he stared at them with the same startled look Emma got when Nan caught her in a lie.

“No. No. No.” Emma’s voice shook. “A drunk driver killed both my parents.”

“She lied to you.” Johnson’s voice echoed the wobble in her own. “She lied to you.”

“Let’s go, Emma.” Nan grabbed Emma’s arm, and Emma could hear Nan’s teeth grind before she spoke again. “You need to go to the dentist.”

Emma refused to be dragged.

She peeled Nan’s hand off her arm, like Johnson had taught her in self-defense.

Words wouldn’t come.

She tried to catch the lie, the joke, whatever, anything in their eyes. Bile burned in her throat. She stared at Johnson’s—her father’s—tie. Black, patternless, designed to make him unremarkable.

A familiar ache rose in her jaw and her nose itched, threatening a gleek-sneeze.

Dang it. She hadn’t used her power in days. Not even to practice in Honda Hills because she’d worried about the lack of rain and the dry weeds. She couldn’t afford to lose control here.

“When your mom died...” Johnson paused, making the same expression Emma did when she struggled for words. He seemed to notice the people staring at  them for the first time. He tugged his name badge. “We shouldn’t do this here.” He moved to the open the door. “Please. This should be private.”

“Like hell it should.” Nan shoved the teacher away from the door. “You deserve whatever you get for pretending to be a Super Commission agent.”

Summer jerked back, her hair bounced. She seemed scared of Nan.

Principal Wale ran to pull her grandmother away from the teacher, but Johnson shook his head.

He turned to Emma, ignoring Nan.

“I’m not pretending. How I became Johnson is classified. But, Emma, I am your father. And I’ve grown up a lot since I was that kid.”

“What happened when my mom died?” Emma’s voice sounded far away.

“I couldn’t take care of you by myself, not and work a job to support you, but she wouldn’t help. I didn’t know what to do with you. My parents both worked full—”

“You. Showed. Up. Drunk. To. The. Funeral.” Nan punctuated each word by poking Johnson in the chest.

That had been real? Nan had told her again and again that her uncle was the one that had scared her at the funeral. She told her that, in her grief, Emma had wanted her uncle to be her dad. Nan always said the dreams that followed were just dreams.

Had the crying, scary man really been her father?

The pressure of the gleek-sneeze filled her jaw. Emma felt ready to burst. She had to keep control of her power.

Whenever she brought it up, Nan had told her her daddy had died with her mommy and her uncle had scared her at the funeral. Still, she’d dreamed the same dream again and again.

She’d trusted Nan. Nan’s straight forward telling had eventually taught four year old Emma to doubt herself and trust Nan.

“I wasn’t drunk! I was twenty-one, my wife was dead, and I had a four-year-old to take care of. I was distraught!”

“More lies.” Nan caught Emma’s wrist. “We’re going.”

“No.” Emma swallowed, fighting the gleek-sneeze trying to explode out of her. She shook off Nan’s hand a second time. “You lied to me.”

“After the funeral, she wouldn’t let me see you.” Tears streaked Johnson’s cheeks. “Started proceedings against me as an unfit parent.”

Emma clenched her mouth shut and shook her head, trying to clear all of this from her mind. She needed to stop the gleek-sneeze. Her stress hormones were high and that flight or fight response was literal in her case. Or rather, flight and fireball.

“Some father you are.” Nan shoved Johnson again. “Instead of comforting her, you scared her so bad that she ran to me. And I’ve kept her safe ever since!”

Her eyes watered. Either real tears threatened or the chemicals burning in her nose and jaw demanded release. Emma swallowed hard to break up the chemicals and stop the tears. She clenched her eyes shut. She couldn’t do this. This couldn’t be real.

“Your Nan tore into me so bad that I signed over my rights and left for the military. I wrote you every month,” Johnson said. “Barbara, give her the letters.”

Emma struggled to control the overpowering urge to open her mouth and release the gleek-sneeze. She dug her fingernails into her palms.

“I threw them out like the trash they were!”

Emma backed out the office door.

“But my checks were good enough for you to cash!”

They kept arguing behind her.

Emma sprinted, tears spilling down her cheeks. Her bag thudded on her back as she ran. Each thump of the heavy books was a reassuring pressure.

Agent Johnson was her father. No wonder he didn’t arrest her.

Chapter 3

Alone, Em paced from the lopsided section of fence to the broken board that Ollie’s mom needed to replace. The knee-high dead grass and weeds from last winter that Ollie claimed she’d mowed crunched under Emma’s feet.

No way could she go home, and going back to school was out of the question. Since Nan had already checked her out, they shouldn’t call her truant, even if she had ditched Nan and hadn’t gone to the dentist.

Emma refused to think about what had just happened. Instead, she counted how many steps it took her to walk across Ollie’s yard. Twenty-four, if she took normal size steps. She stretched it to almost forty when she took tiny steps and shrank to sixteen if she rushed back and forth, her arms swinging and her backpack bouncing.

Nan had lied to her again and again. Her whole life.

Nan hated liars. Taught Emma lying was the worst thing someone could do to a relationship. That it destroyed all trust. And Nan lied to her.

Emma hated lying to hide her powers from Nan. And she had been lying to Emma the whole time. Emma slammed her hands against the door of the empty house. Her palms stung, but the anger still grew.

Her jaw throbbed, sharp and insistent. Acrid, bitter snot stung her nose. It was full of the chemical that must combine with the gleek to make her fireballs. She had to get control of her power.

But the urge to sneeze overwhelmed her.

Catching half the chemicals might prevent a fireball and relieve the pressure. There had to be a something to put over her nose to catch the snot. Without a key to Ollie’s house, though, she needed to find something in the yard. Which gave her something to do other than deal with the torrent of emotions swirling inside of her.

Despite what Ms. Ngo said about naming emotions giving you power over them, Emma didn’t dare feel the emotions enough to name them. Not when that risked a gleek-sneeze.

Her butt vibrated. Ollie was calling her.

Her throbbing jaw made answering impossible. Blasting Ollie’s house with a fireball would be a bad way for Dragon Girl to make her reappearance.

Emma rejected the call, planning to text her friend instead. But her phone showed four missed calls and a half dozen texts from Ollie, another three missed calls from Nan, along with a handful of messages from Alex, Hannah, and Sebastian.

Both Hannah and Ollie had offered to let Emma sleep over tonight, understanding that she wouldn’t want to go home to Nan.

How would she face Hannah? Her cousin had known all along that Emma’s dad was alive.

All those times Hannah had asked if she remembered now made sense. Hannah never asked if she remembered her parents. No, she still asked if Emma remembered. Like there was a point to it.

Dang it. How had Emma been so blind? Nan and Aunt Beth must have threatened to punish Hannah if she ever told Emma about what had happened with her parents, but Hannah had dropped hints about Nan’s lies.

Still, Hannah’s house didn’t feel inviting, even worse than normal since they’d all kept the secret from her. Emma pressed her lips together, struggling to keep control of the growing pain in her mouth. She sent a text to everyone who had texted her.

I’m fine. I’m at Ollie’s.

Then she listened to Ollie’s voicemails. Half the school already knew Johnson was her dad.

Stupid Summer. The school staff wouldn’t have told. It had to have been Summer, gossip queen, telling everyone about the fight.

Since Summer’d told everyone, Emma was almost glad that she’d sent Johnson that letter accusing Summer of being the Ice Queen.

But then, Johnson wasn’t his real name, was it? His real name was John Edgin, and he’d lied to her, too. Everyone had.

Her phone buzzed again.

Ollie texting her again. OMW home.

Emma shook her head and started to message Ollie not to ditch school for her, but another text from her best friend came through.

RU Okay? 4 real?

Emma shrugged. What could she say? Too much for a text, but with the gleek-sneeze coming on, she’d better try.

Not really, Emma hit enter and continued. Need a jar.

Ollie didn’t answer.

Emma waited. Her eyes watered. She wasn’t an orphan. She had a father. A real-life father. What was she supposed to do about that?

Please. Enter. Anything. Enter. Where?

With the commission looking for supers, texting she needed it to stop a fireball was dangerous. Since Johnson was her dad, it made sense that he hadn’t arrested her when she’d faced off against Ice Queen. Still, if everyone knew he was her dad, the Super Commission might have someone else investigate her.

P in the grass if u desperate, Ollie texted.

It’s not that. The phone shook in Emma’s hands.

How could Ollie be so freaking dense? She’d seen Emma struggle with emotions and fireballs before. And there was nowhere safe to let out the gleek-sneeze.

Not when there hadn’t even been a hint of rain.

Almost there, Ollie texted.

Emma stood in the middle of Ollie’s yard. Her nose ran, but the acrid snot burned her top lip. Tears stung her eyes. She needed to deal with these emotions somehow.

The back door swung open, and Ollie, dripping with sweat, offered Emma an empty pickle jar.

Emma snatched it out of Ollie’s hand before she realized she’d crossed the yard.

“You look awful,” Ollie said. “You going to catch a sneeze in a jar?”

Em brought the jar to her nose. She hesitated. Should she cover her mouth or her nose?

Snot leaked out of her nose already. Emma wiped her face on her sleeve, rubbing away boogers and traces of the stuff that sprayed out her nose when she made her fireballs.

She put the jar over her mouth, making a tight seal in the space between her top lip and her nose. Like she’d practiced at the creek over the summer, Emma willed herself to make her smallest fireball, then opened her mouth.

As the blast took over, the force of the chemicals spraying into the jar pushed it. She wrestled the jar into place with shaking arms.

When the sneeze stopped, the jar and her mouth were full of a bitter liquid, but the pressure was gone.

And whatever happened, she wasn’t going home to her lying Nana. That was how she felt about being lied to all her life. Bitter. She’d had to explain her parents were dead, so she lived with her grandmother so many times. To so many kids. And it was a lie.

Slime coated the outside of the jar and stung her hands. Still, she pressed it toher face. How could the inside of her mouth and nose handle this stuff, when her hands already felt like she’d dipped them in acid? Her face stung, but nothing like her hands.

Ollie yanked off her sweaty shirt and, standing in her double sports bras, used it to wipe down Emma’s hands and the jar. Ollie always had her back.

Despite being called Dragon Girl, Emma was not fireproof. She didn’t want to find out how much of the gleek-sneeze needed to combine to make a fireball.

She pulled away the jar.

Nothing happened.

Jaw clenched, she shoved the jar at Ollie and ran to spit the last of the chemicals into the toilet.

“Dude, my mom’s going to be pissed if our toilet blows up.” Ollie stood in the tiny bathroom’s doorway. Her short hair dripped with sweat like she’d ran home.

“Thanks. I love you, too.” With the taste of the chemicals threatening to make Emma throw up, she turned the faucet to full blast and rinsed her mouth in the running water.

And if anything from her nose mixed into the toilet... Well, Ollie’s mom would never let her stay if she blew up their one toilet.

After the water rinsed away the remains of bile and acid, Emma scrubbed her hands in the sink. The water hurt. Hopefully, since they’d already wiped off her hands, she didn’t blow up the plumbing.

She patted her hands dry. They were bright red where the snot had touched them.

“Your hands,” Ollie said. “Do you need a doctor?”

Emma shook her head, even though they hurt.

“So, Johnson’s your dad?” Ollie asked. “That’s what everyone’s saying.”

Emma nodded, unable to use words to answer Ollie. This time, with her power not threatening to overcome her, her own inability to express herself kept her from talking.

“For real, Nan and him had it out, right there in the office?”

Em nodded again. Her eyes watered, but she wouldn’t let herself cry.

“That’s why he didn’t show up to self-defense.” With a hand on Emma’s shoulder, Ollie steered her to the beat-up old couch in the living room. Ollie headed to the kitchen while Emma sat in silence.

Alone on the couch, Emma kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up underneath her. She wasn’t an orphan. Her whole identity—her whole life was a lie. She stared at her hands. They looked scalded. A couple blisters had formed on the sides of her index fingers and the backs of her hands.

“What’re you going to do?” Ollie came back with two steaming hot chocolates.

Emma took a sip. Too hot. Emma didn’t understand the question. “Stay here,” Em said when Ollie kept waiting for an answer.

“I mean tomorrow. You’ve got to go to school and he’ll be there. At some point, you’ll have to go home... or since he’s your dad, I think you can move in with him if that’s what you want.”

What did she want? “They both lied to me.” Emma tried to take another sip of hot chocolate, but it burned her tongue. She set it down on the coffee table in front of her and picked it up again. Even with the dumb cup, she didn’t know what to do.

“I know.” Ollie sat beside her, not quite touching.

Emma stared down at the miniature marshmallows floating in her hot chocolate. Little bubbles oozed off them as they melted.

“I can’t go home to Nan. I can’t.” Tears pricked her eyes again. The words poured out of her mouth, unstoppable. “I can’t. I can’t.”

Ollie took the mug out of Emma’s hands.

It broke Emma’s flow.

Ollie had a gift for breaking Emma’s door down when she got like this. “My mom should be cool with you staying a night or two, but I don’t think they’ll let you stay forever.”

“They who?” Who would stop her? After lying to her for years, Nan shouldn’t get to decide what Emma did.

“I don’t know. Nan? Johnson? The courts?” Ollie shrugged. “Since you wouldn’t have to hide you’re Dragon Girl from Mr. Johnson, living with him might be the better choice. And he didn’t lie to you your whole life.”

“But I don’t know him.” And she’d screwed up pretty royally as Dragon Girl last spring. She’d gotten kidnapped and almost killed. Hannah’s feet were frost bitten and scarred forever. And who knew where Connor was? Even with self-defense training, Dragon Girl seemed like a bad idea.

“He didn’t know you last year, but he didn’t arrest you. He’s been teaching you self-defense.”

“So?” Emma chewed on her lip. What did teaching her self-defense have to do with living with the guy?

“Come on, Em.” Ollie put her hand on Emma’s knee. “You were the whole reason they put a commission agent here. By not capturing you, he risked his job and getting arrested.”

“I guess he cares about me.” Emma sipped the cocoa, the heat of it soothing instead of burning hot.

“Dude, he cares about you a lot. He took a job in Pueblo Lindo after being some sort of secret agent to be close to you. He’ll totally let you live with him.”

“I guess.”

“Well, do you want to live with your aunt or Nan?” Ollie asked, her mouth drawn in concern.

“No.” Emma was surprised by the force of her answer. “They both lied to me. And taught me not to lie. And then, if I lived with Aunt Beth, I’d also be living with Hannah.”

Ollie laughed. “That would be awful.”

A smile flickered over Emma’s lips. “It would.” Then she thought about that pointed question again. “But I think she tried to tell me.”

“Really?” Ollie asked. “Hannah Lee? Your cousin? Had juicy gossip and hinted at it?”

“Shut up. Yeah, she’s a gossip. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I always thought she was just being mean. Pointing out I didn’t remember my parents.” Emma fiddled with the mug’s handle. “I think she was trying to make me remember the funeral. Nan, she convinced me my uncle’s crying scared me.”

“What?”

“My dad scared me at the funeral—he didn’t look like he does now. He was skinny and young and had a beard.”

“Okay?” Ollie arched an eyebrow at Emma.

“And Nan told me again and again it was my uncle and that my dad was dead until I believed her.”

“Dude.” Ollie shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t believe my own memories. She told me so many times that I didn’t remember things right. That my memory of the funeral was wrong.”

“That’s got a name. It’s called gas-lighting.” Ollie squeezed Emma’s hand. “I won’t let you go back to Nan. But that leaves your dad or your Aunt Beth.”

“Aunt Beth was part of the lie. She could have told me the truth. Told me I wasn’t an orphan.”

“So, what are you going to say to your dad tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.” Emma drew her teeth over her bottom lip. “He said he wrote letters. I wish I knew what they said.”

“I could ask my mom to go get them for you and some clothes for tomorrow when she gets off work.”

“Nan threw them out.”

“Oh.” Ollie’s face fell.

“I could ask him if I could stay with him, but...” Emma trailed off. There were too many problems with this for her to sort out any one thing to say.

She sipped on the hot chocolate.

“But?” Ollie asked.

“He signed away all his parental rights to join the military.” That was a legal concern, wasn’t it? And he’d done it because he couldn’t deal with his autistic daughter when his wife died.

“Maybe he can get his rights back.” Ollie clapped her hands like she’d solved the problem. “If you ask to live with him.”

If Emma moved in with her father, then she wouldn’t have to live with Nan. But could she live with a man she barely knew?

Chapter 4

The next morning, Emma bounced on the balls of her feet outside the school office. She wore gloves to hide the burns on her hands. She didn’t need anyone to ask about those. Ollie stood beside her in the chill winter air, her hands stuffed into the pocket of her hoodie.

Emma needed to ask Johnson, her father. Nan hadn’t just lied to her, she’d also thrown out the letters meant for Emma. Worse, Nan had cashed the checks that came with the letters. If she’d thrown out the whole envelope, that would be one thing. Had she read the letters?

By law, Johnson didn’t need to send child support after giving up his parental rights. Emma’d looked it up. So, that and not arresting her for being a super, even though it was his job, meant he had to care about her at least a little bit.

But doubt filled her. Her grades, her swim times, nothing was ever good enough for Nan. Nan always asked her if she’d done her best with that tone in her voice and her lips pressed together. What if her father still didn’t want her? What if she wasn’t good enough?

“You got this.” Ollie shoved Emma towards the office.

Emma yanked open the office door, moving right past the secretary and straight to Johnson’s office. His door was shut, which might mean he wasn’t in. She knocked anyway. No answer. Emma wiped her hands on her pants again.

If she left now, no one would even know she’d tried to talk to him after the debacle the day before.

Across the hall, Principal Wale cleared his throat.

His tie had a cartoon Dragon Girl on it. Seeing a drawing of herself resting on the principal’s round belly was so weird.

“Sorry, dear, he’s not in.” Mr. Wale chewed his lip, as if debating if he should say more. “That was something yesterday. Eventually, we had another Super Commission agent in to clear up the question of Agent Johnson’s identity.”

“Edgin. His real name is John Edgin,” Emma heard herself say.

“Right, that’s the thing. Legally, it seems he’s been Johnson for some time now. He’s not here yet. And I doubt the commission wants him working here anymore because he’s related to a student. It might make people think—”

“No!” Dang it.

He’d left her again. He left her after her mom died because he didn’t want to raise an autistic daughter. Whatever he knew or didn’t know about her being Dragon Girl, risking his job to not arrest her, none of it mattered if he left her again. He still didn’t want her. The one who had taken her was Nan, and Nan always made her seem like a burden.

Why’d someone like Emma even get powers? Why did that UFO thing pick her? If it hadn’t been in the sky, Emma never would have met her father and would have gone on believing Nan was doing right by poor orphan Emma.

If only the world had kept going the way it had before.

She stumbled outside to Ollie.

“What’s wrong?”

Emma blinked back tears. “I’m not good enough.”

Ollie tried to comfort her, but when the bell rang, Emma didn’t feel any better.

She tried to make it through first period by factoring the clock: 8:16 a.m. Too easy. Eight factored into it leaving her 102, which was even, but the last two digits weren’t divisible by four. That meant a 102 was divisible by two, but not four.

He’d have to be there in time for PE, wouldn’t he? He had to be.

Fifty-one. Three times 17 made 51. Too easy. Not like the problem of her father. Even if he hadn’t come before school, even if the Super Commission didn’t want him working here anymore, he was still the teacher of record for the self-defense classes.

She poked at the blisters on the backs of her hands. They were healing fast. She wasn’t fire proof but maybe resistant to the chemicals in her gleek-sneeze. Her face wasn’t burned at all, but Ollie’s grass had disintegrated.

How could she make it to fifth period self-defense? And what if he didn’t show up?

For all she paid attention, she might as well have ditched. What did it mean that Johnson hadn’t arrived before school started? Her first instinct was to believe Mr. Wale, but Ms. Ngo kept reminding her to watch out for black and white thinking. Things were rarely all or nothing. Ms. Ngo would say life was a “yes and” not an “either or.”

Which translated into Johnson being late didn’t mean he wouldn’t come to school that day. It did not mean that Johnson would be replaced. It sure didn’t mean he’d been replaced already.

And what time did he usually show up, anyway? He didn’t have a set schedule other than the two PE classes he taught in the afternoon. Maybe some other obligation from the Super Commission came up this morning. Though she hoped that didn’t mean he was arresting another super.

Emma chewed her lip. There might be a lot of reasons her father hadn’t gotten to his office before school started. Reasons other than spiriting other supers away to secret prisons. Reasons other than being replaced.

The teacher talked about moles and calculating mass, but what did burrowing animals have to do with chemistry?

“Sit still!” the girl next to her said.

Emma couldn’t. Not and keep her head on straight. She needed to move. She raised her hand to go to the bathroom.

When the teacher acknowledged her, Emma hurried down the hall of sophomore and junior lockers.

Her father and a man she’d never seen before stepped into the hall. Johnson wore his typical rumpled black suit. The black tie askew over his potbelly. For a girl her brow was heavy, but not as heavy as her father’s. Not to mention the resemblance between the subtle play between the nose and the mouth.

“Emma, I’m glad to see you.” A tight smile crossed Johnson’s face but vanished with a glance at the man next to him.

That man wore the same black suit, but his was neatly pressed. His tie sat straight and disappeared into the buttoned suit jacket.

Big sunglasses hid his eyes, but that didn’t bother Emma since she’d never understood why people called the eyes the portal to the soul. For her, it was all about the mouth.

And, judging by the way his mouth puckered like a butthole, this man was a tight-ass. Fine lines radiated out from his mouth, telling her he almost always wore that expression. Both Johnson and the man wore their customary ear-piece like the Secret Service. But other than when he’d arrested Ms. Range, she’d never seen Johnson use his.

Emma swallowed hard. She needed to talk to him, but who was this other guy? What did he want? She didn’t want to talk to her father with him right there, but what else could she do?

“Hi.” Emma’s voice came out too soft, so she tried again. “Hello!”

This time, her voice bounced off all the red lockers and echoed back to her. She bit her lip. Did she disturb any classes?

The man beside Johnson winced. But Johnson—her father—smiled at her. What did that mean?

This man must be her father’s replacement. Still, she had to talk to her father to ask about living with him.

“What’re you doing out of class?” her father said. His voice sounded thick.

“I couldn’t sit still.” Emma swallowed and stared into the amber brown eyes that matched hers. She tried to ignore the other man. “But I’m glad you’re here, too. Before school, I went to talk to you in your office. I can’t believe you’re my father, and I’m trying to understand what happened, and I can’t live with Nan anymore. Not after knowing she lied to me.”

Emma’d practiced a short speech with Ollie last night, but all the thoughts that had been simmering in her head spilled out and mixed together.

He shifted his weight and her eyes flicked to his feet, to his mouth, back down to her own feet. She needed to ask him the burning question. “Can I live with you?”

When she dared look back at his face, his mouth hung open in a little ‘o’ of surprise. At least, she thought it was surprise. He might be drawing a deep breath, getting ready to tell her no.

“I can’t live with Nan. She lied to me for years.” Emma’s voice shook. She looked down and realized her arms were moving on their own, bouncing against her sides. She came to attention like in marching band, pinching the seams of her jeans.

“I’m just here to say goodbye.”

Emma’s eyes stung. Hot tears pooled in her eyes, making the men in front of her blurry. She wouldn’t let him see her cry.

“I requested this position to be close to you, and I never hid that from my superiors.” He drew a breath so loud Emma heard it. “After yesterday, Johana Sklodowska herself ordered me to give up this position and let Agent Mann here take over monitoring Pueblo Lindo for the Super Commission.”

Emma eyed the other man for a moment.

She wasn’t giving up. Emma rolled her shoulders back, smiled her most convincing smile, and eyes watering tried again. “I can’t go back to Nan. Just give me a chance. I’m a good kid. You’d hardly even know I’m there.”

“I’m leaving Pueblo, Emma.”

No. He couldn’t leave again. She’d just found out she wasn’t an orphan. She’d just found out she wasn’t alone. He couldn’t abandon her again.

“I can’t take you with me on my new assignment.” Johnson shook his head, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“Why not?” Emma asked. Her father should be able to take her with him. She didn’t want to leave Ollie and her friends behind, but she needed this. She needed someone she could trust.

The other man stood so still he may as well have been a statue.

Her father put his hands on her shoulders, so his face filled her vision. “You won’t have to worry about supers like Ice Queen and Strongman kidnapping you again. Gary is like a machine. He’ll root out all the supers, so you can feel safe.”

Had she misunderstood when he had arrested Ice Queen? Did he not know she was Dragon Girl? Why would this other guy rooting out supers would make her feel safe? That was like the opposite of feeling safe. She didn’t want to be rooted out.

Either way, she had to try again. This was it. If he was leaving, she’d never have another chance to have a real dad.

“Please. You’re my father, right?”

Her father—Johnson—nodded, his mouth a grim line. The other man stayed frozen. His mouth stayed puckered.

“Then, why can’t I go with you?” Emma tried a smile again. Friendliness might convince him.

She didn’t care she’d only just realized he was her father and until now had spent as much time as possible avoiding his attention. Not having parents sucked. Always correcting everyone, explaining her parents died, that she lived with her grandmother. And that woman had made her doubt her own memories.

“Emma, you can’t go where I’m going.” He stepped back, letting his arms fall to his sides. And she thought she knew the sour look that flickered across his face. Disappointment. Frustration. He hadn’t wanted her after her mom died and he didn’t want her now. “Besides, you don’t want to go there.”

“You’re my dad. I’d be happy being with you. I’ve never had a dad before.”

Her father drew in a sharp breath. “You don’t understand. I signed my rights over to your grandmother. Even if I wanted to bring you where I’m going, Barbara wouldn’t let me without a huge court battle.”

No, she understood just fine. He didn’t want her. Nan didn’t really want her. No one wanted her. She was worthless. She hadn’t even been a good superhero. She’d almost gotten herself killed more than once.

She pushed past them towards the bathroom where they wouldn’t follow her, and she could be alone.

Agent Mann caught her by the arm.

She struggled against his grip. He’d grabbed too high on her arm to do the wrist grab escape from self-defense. Instead, she stepped into him like Johnson had shown her for the hair pulling and shoved her elbow into his gut.

Her whole body jolted as if she’d slammed her elbow into a wall. Her fingers tingled in protest from the impact to her funny bone. Mann must have Kevlar or something under his suit.

“Miss Edgin,” Agent Mann said, drawing out the ‘S.’ “This is quite disrespectful. You smile at inappropriate moments and—”

“Screw you. I’m autistic.” Emma shook him off and ran to the bathroom. Angry at herself for reading things wrong. The smile had been to convince her dad to take him with her, not to weird out the other Agent.

How could she deal with this? Her grandmother lied to her her whole life. But now, her father had abandoned her again, and this new jerk would be watching her and rooting out supers at the school.

What was she supposed to do now?

Chapter 5

Emma hunched her shoulders and dragged herself across the stage, trying to seem like a pitiful old woman. After hitting her mark, she delivered her lines loud from the belly. Her voice echoed through the empty theater. “Let you fear nothing! Another judgement awaits us all.”

Emma stared down at Mr. Attwood, waiting for his judgement of her line. Bags had formed under the teacher’s eyes. His clothes hung off him like they were three sizes too big. Even though he’d given her such a hard time last year, Emma felt for him. Rumor had it his wife had left him.

“Much better, Emma!” Mr. Attwood said, clapping his hands.

“Thank you, sir.” Emma followed the real-life script. Compliment got a thank you, whether she deserved it or not. She could handle rehearsal. But what if she froze up the night of the play and her voice did that thing where it came out way too quiet or way too loud? Well, way too loud might not be a problem. Emma stood at her mark, looking out at the empty theater. Was he going to have her run her lines again?  Sometimes he did, even when he said she’d done well.

She rubbed the backs of her hands, they were healing nicely. In fact, during self-defense, they’d felt warm. By the end of class the blisters had finished drying out during. As curious as she was about why they did that, she was glad her hands were almost healed now.

“Don’t play fidget on stage,” Mr. Attwood said. “Marcus and Lily, you’re up.”

Emma hurried over to join Ollie and the others. “Hey guys.”

“Hey yourself.” Ollie handed the drill back to Vince. “How’re you doing?”

“Don’t know.” Emma shrugged, glancing at Vince. He was practically a stranger, even if Ollie and Sebastian spent rehearsals with him every day.

How should she feel? She’d found out Johnson was her father for him to tell her he was leaving the school and she’d never see him again. It sucked. Except for her friends, she was alone.

“Come on. That was a huge letdown,” Sebastian said. “And now this Agent Mann is teaching self-defense. That guy’s a way bigger—a big douche.”

Emma snorted. “Thanks, Bash. You can still call Johnson a douche. Since he’s ditching me the day after I found out he’s my father, I don’t care what you say about him.”

Lily, the girl playing Abigail Williams, shrieked, “Oh, Heavenly Father, take away this shadow.”

“Wait, what?” Vince asked, ignoring the outburst. “The Super Commission guy is your dad? And you didn’t know?”

“It is a wind,” Lily moaned.

Wow, her voice carried well. How loud could she be?

“Where’ve you been?” Ollie asked, ignoring the rehearsal. “He’s been reassigned and won’t take her with him.”

Emma shook her head. She was still trying to process. That all made it sound simple. It wasn’t.

It left out the fact that he never arrested her for being Dragon Girl. It left out that Nanna had lied to her every day of her life since she was four. It left out the question of what she was supposed to do now.

She still didn’t want to go home to Nan. That woman was a liar who’d abused her trust. Emma didn’t feel safe with her. But what choice did she have other than going back home?

“What is that dropout loser doing here?” Ollie pointed behind Emma at the lobby.

Green eyes sparkling and a flash of white teeth against his dark skin made Emma’s heart flutter. Andres, the Dredgetown Speedster, strode into the theater.

“Who’s this?” Sebastian asked. “And what’s got his panties in a knot?”

The speedster stopped at the edge of the stacks of wood bordering their construction area. His brow deeply creased.

“Andres did speech for Dredgetown last year.” Ollie shot Emma a look that asked if she was okay. “But now he’s a loser dropout.”

Ollie didn’t know that Andres dropped out of school to be the Dredgetown Speedster full time. That was a choice Emma could make, though she never would. No, she needed to get situated with her dad or Ollie or somewhere other than with Nan.

Emma dug her fingers into her palms and forced the flutter out of her heart. “I told him I never wanted to see him again.”

Last spring, they’d responded to screams for help. And Andres had stopped her from trying to save a little girl from her gun-waving dad. He thought supers should let families solve their own problems and bawled her out for almost getting herself killed. For weeks Emma kept thinking about the little girl. And it had taken forever from the scrapes from when Andres had tackled her to keep her from getting shot.

“Then what’s he doing here?” Sebastian stomped forward.

Emma put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “I’ll go see what he wants.”

No way was Andres here for something normal. He had to be here to talk about something related to supers.

Emma stepped over lumber.

“Five minutes, then we’re coming to get you,” Ollie said.

“Thanks.” Emma steered Andres away from her friends.

“Hola, linda,” Andres said, breathless. He must have run to the high school at super speed.

That Puerto Rican lilt to his voice sent quivers through her belly. Andres had always called her linda since before she started Spanish class and learned the word meant pretty.

But then the cold anger took over. She never did find out what happened with that family.

“What are you doing here?” Emma pushed him into the sparse lobby and closed the wide double doors. With her back pressed against the swinging door, she could back up if she needed to leave.

“I need a favor.” Andres moved in close, almost as if to kiss her, and her heart started racing.

“I’m not doing you any favors.” Emma shoved Andres back. “If I need to, I interfere in domestic disputes.”

“I get it, linda.” Andres licked his lips and ran a hand through his kinky hair. “But this is bigger than that. This is bigger than both of us.”

“I’m not helping you. You can figure it out yourself.” Emma turned, putting her hand on the door.

“It’s not for me,” he said a little louder than he had to.

Emma turned back to him. Did she care about that?

“I’ve been helping get supers out of the country, but my Pueblo contact vanished, and I need help getting supers to the—north of Dredgetown.”

Emma pressed her lips together, thinking. Another super needed her help? But she was still just a dumb kid. Yeah, she’d been learning self-defense, but what good would that do?

Besides, Agent Mann was going to be watching her like a hawk now that Johnson was gone. She couldn’t think of him as her father. Not again.

“I can’t draw any attention to myself.” Johnson had told her Agent Mann would hunt down supers like a machine. She needed to keep a low profile.

“Besides, I’m too young to drive, I don’t have my own place.” That was an understatement, Ollie’s mom had told her Nan insisted that she stay at her aunt’s house if she wouldn’t go home. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Take her north.”

Emma had to bike to her aunt’s house in the dark after rehearsal. How was she supposed to take someone anywhere outside of Pueblo Lindo? “Find someone else.”

“Please, linda. I need your help.” Andres gave her the biggest puppy dog eyes she’d ever seen, his lip quivering like he was about to cry.

“No, you don’t.” Emma stepped forward and crossed her arms. If she wasn’t good enough for her own father, how could she be good enough to help another super? “You need a car.”

“This girl... she glimpses the future.” He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “She said my guy would get kicked out of Pueblo, and now I can’t get ahold of him. Then, she says the government will catch her, if you don’t help her. You, linda. You.”

“She needs a grown-up who can hide her at their place and who has a car to drive her. Not a dumb fifteen-year-old girl.” Emma turned to go back in the theater, making the tiniest gap between her and the door.

He zoomed into the gap, his face almost touching hers. “You’re not dumb.”

She stumbled backwards. Stupid speedster, using his power to keep her from leaving the conversation. “I said no.”

“You.” Andres’ green eyes bore into her. “She specifically said you.”

“Why me?” Emma tried to step past him, but he stayed right in front of her, blocking her way.

“She loves you,” Andres said.

“She loves what she saw of Dragon Girl on TV.” Loving Dragon Girl didn’t mean the psychic girl knew anything about Emma. Besides, it wasn’t like Emma had the resources to take this girl where she needed to go.

“And she saw you in her vision. Por favor, linda. Por favor.” Andres put his hands on Emma’s shoulders, pulling her closer. He put his mouth to her ear, his whisper sending tickles through her body. “This niña said if Geek Fire doesn’t help her, she’s toast. The government will get her.”

Emma swallowed. She didn’t want the government arresting any more innocent supers. She wanted to help the girl, but it wasn’t like Emma was strong enough to fly carrying someone else. And without a car or a place of her own, she’d have to take the girl to Aunt Beth’s—if they didn’t try to send her back to Nan. Besides, Aunt Beth and Uncle Nate wouldn’t want a super hiding out at their house. “How could I help?” Emma asked, her voice soft. “I’m just me.”

“I don’t know.” Andres stared down into her face. “But she saw you keeping her safe in her visions.”

“Not being Dragon Girl is how I’m staying safe. I can’t protect this girl.” Emma shoved him, but he didn’t move. “Let me go!”

“¡Suéltala!” Sebastian shoved the door open. “What’re you doing grabbing her like that?”

“Please, Emma, please.” Andres cheek sucked in as if he were chewing on the inside. He whispered to her, “I can’t keep her safe forever.”

“Get out of here.” Ollie stormed into the lobby. “I’ll call the cops on you. I’m sure they’d be interested in what a runaway is doing at our school.”

“I’m going.” Andres released Emma and headed outside. “I just asked Emma for some help.”

“She’s got her own problems. She doesn’t need yours.” Ollie put herself between Andres and Emma, hands on her hips. “Go ask your mom for help.”

“My mom knows it’s not safe to be around me,” Andres said, shocking Emma.

“Then why drag Emma into your mess?” With the look Sebastian gave Andres, Emma thought her gentle friend might live up to his nickname of Bash.

“If you change your mind or if you need me.” Andres turned to go, looking back over his shoulder at her. “I ditched the phone, but you know where to find me.”

Whatever happened, she was not going back to the arcade to talk to him. When Andres left, Emma sagged against Ollie.

“That was not what you needed. Today of all days.” Ollie dragged Emma to a folding chair inside the theater. “Whatever he wanted, Em, don’t worry about it. You’ve got to take care of yourself.”

If only Emma things were that simple. What was she supposed to make of a girl who saw the future? How could she be any help when even her father didn’t want her?

Chapter 6

The sun sunk below the horizon as Emma biked to Aunt Beth’s house. She’d clipped lights onto her bike, but in the next couple weeks she’d need a ride home after rehearsal. Hannah would never want to wait that late to give her a ride.

Still, they owed her. They’d both known the truth about her father, and Hannah might even have recognized Johnson was her father. After being complacent in Nan’s lie for so long, Hannah should drive her home from rehearsal.

The wind shifted, becoming a headwind full of the earthy smell of cows.

Emma pedaled harder and tucked her head down. The wind pushed her towards the ditch on her right, so she angled her handlebars at the white line on her left.

The sound of cars approaching drew her attention. A half dozen cop cars barreled down the road.

Were they after her? Had Agent Mann found out about her already? Emma clutched the handle bars tighter.

The cars didn’t slow at all as they approached. Emma took a breath that whistled over the fear lingering in her chest.

They flew by. Even from the opposite side of the road, their wake buffeted her.

A truck like the one that had arrested Ms. Range followed the cops. As the whistling tightness in Emma’s chest grew, she brought her wheel onto the white line dividing the shoulder from the road.

The wind off the truck pushed Emma. The handlebars wobbled. She stomped down, but too late.

She pitched sideways. Her stomach seemed to hover in place, while the rest of her crashed into the ditch.

Something dug into her calf. Her knee scraped through the gravel. She leaned to the side to protect her hands, skidding on her right arm. After a moment, she came to a stop, a tangled mess of bike and girl.

Emma righted her bike and took stock. Nothing was broken. The knit gloves had mostly protected her hands. But the right leg of her jeans had torn, leaving her knee and ankle road-rashed and stinging. Her jacket was torn, too, but not the shirt underneath. Her bike seemed to be fine.

She kicked off, never feeling so grateful to reach Aunt Beth’s long driveway. At the house, she leaned her bike against one of the tall, white columns that kept the balcony from crashing down.

The ornate wood door hung open. Warm air gushed out as Emma reached the door. “Hello?” Emma called.

No one answered.

Whatever had happened, the new security system should have alerted the cops. Even if they were busy, at least one of the cop cars she’d seen should have responded to the alarm. Still, Emma kept checking behind her and inched into the foyer. No way would she let anyone get the drop on her a second time.

Her nose tickled as her body started preparing to blast her geek fire. Even it meant revealing her own secret identity, she’d blast anyone who came for her to smithereens. Okay, she’d probably blast something near them. She didn’t want to kill anyone.

“Hello?”

Still no answer, but she thought she heard someone crying inside.

Emma limped into the foyer, hissing at the stinging in her knee. In the living room, the white leather couch lay on its side.

On the stairway, the invaders had knocked some pictures to the floor, and others hung crooked.

The sobbing led her to Hannah, who lay curled on her bed with the blankets wrapped around her.

“What happened?” Emma perched on the edge of her cousin’s bed.

“Emma?” Tears had turned Hannah’s face blotchy. “You’ve got to save her!”

“Me? Save who? What’s going on?” Emma stood. As if Emma wanted to take on anything more formidable than her bike right now.

“Summer. They arrested her!” Hannah clutched Emma’s hand, making the nearly healed burns hurt again.

“Isn’t that something for your dad to fix?” A judge had a way better chance to fix a wrongful arrest way better than a high school superhero. Besides, Summer hated Emma and Dragon Girl both. And if Summer found out they were the same person, she’d bring the full force of her popularity against Emma.

Hannah shot from the bed and started pacing. Even in her bedroom at home, thick slipper socks hid her cousin’s feet. “Please.” She turned back to Emma. “You saw them leaving, didn’t you?”

The cops were headed for Pueblo Lindo or the freeway on-ramp. They could go anywhere. “Why would anyone want to arrest Summer?”

“That new Super Commission guy took her. They stormed into the house—I don’t know how they even found out she had a power.” Hannah sobbed. “I screamed and told them my dad would sue them all. But what can he do? She’s gone and no one even knows where they take them.”

Hannah flung herself back onto the bed.

“Summer’s a super?” Maybe Agent Mann had found the letter Emma had sent last year accusing Ms. Ngo and Summer of being the Ice Queen.

“Her power’s dumb. She can’t really do anything at all.”

“What is her power?”

“Who cares?” Hannah slammed her fists onto the mattress. “She’s gone and it’s all your fault. Yours and Nan’s. If Nan hadn’t told everyone that Agent Johnson was your dad, then he’d still be here—”

Emma’s face burned, but icy cold dripped down her spine and belly. Her power tingled in her nose and the pressure of the gleek-sneeze built in her jaw. “Did you know he’s my dad?”

“—and Agent Mann would never have been interested in Summer. You have to find her.” Tears streaked down Hannah’s face.

“Did you know he’s my dad?” Emma tried to hold still and to ignore the icy feeling in her belly.

Hannah blinked at Emma. “What’s that got to—”

“Tell me.” Emma crossed her arms.

“I knew he was alive, but I didn’t recognize him.” Hannah frowned. “You have to help her.”

“How?” Emma’s focus closed into a tunnel around Hannah’s mouth, watching for her answer.

“I don’t know!” Hannah threw her arms up. “Blow up the cops before they take her to wherever they hid Ms. Range!” Spittle flew from Hannah’s teeth just like when Nan got mad.

“Kill them?” Emma stared at her cousin. “You think I’m a murderer?”

“I...” Hannah shook her head. “No, of course not. Blow up the road in front of them. Like—like when you blew up the parking lot.”

“I don’t have super speed.” Emma dragged her teeth across her bottom lip. “How am I supposed to find her?”

“You can fly.”

Emma shook her head. Not that fast. Maybe, she could look. But where were they going? “If I even try—if Dragon Girl tries, what’s to stop Mann from arresting me too?”

Maybe Johnson had been trying to warn her to get out of town. Agent Mann seemed dangerous enough.

“You’re Dragon Girl, Geek Fire—” Hannah looked up at, eyes wide. Why change how she referred to Emma’s alter ego? Was Hannah trying to sweet talk her? “You can bring her home.”

“I can’t,” Emma said. “Event if I get her free, they’ll just arrest her again.”

“Please.” Hannah touched her slippered feet. “You owe me.”

A lump formed in Emma’s throat. If Emma as Dragon Girl hadn’t fought Ice Queen, their teacher wouldn’t have wanted to kidnap Emma and Hannah would never have gotten those scars.

“I do.” Still if Emma went, Agent Mann would see her face. “If I go, he’ll see my face.”

“Then save her.” Hannah’s voice stopped shaking and got louder and harder. “And both of you can run away to Canada.”

“If I do find Summer, can she help me?” Ragged nails dug into Emma’s palms. “What can she even do?”

“Move her hair.” Hannah shook her head. “Useless.”

“Move her hair how?” It had to be more than that. Why arrest Summer for something that small?

“Like make loose strands tuck themselves back in. She was trying to make it braid itself.”

Mouth dry, palms sweaty, and Emma couldn’t make herself stand still. For once, Hannah didn’t tell her to stop her stimming.

Mann had found out that Summer had a stupid, useless power. He would arrest anyone with powers. Even if they didn’t use them in public. Avoiding being Dragon Girl wouldn’t help Emma at all. She may as well try to find them. The truck had to be long gone by now, but she could try.

“I’ll try.” Emma took a reluctant step towards the balcony. Hannah was right. Summer hadn’t done anything wrong. A power that small wouldn’t hurt or help anyone. Well, except to help the popular girl keep her hair in place.

“Thank you.” Hannah wiped her face again.

Emma’s stomach churned. Her face, her clothes, everything was exposed and her costume was buried in her closet at Nan’s house. “Do you have anything to cover my face? Like a Halloween mask or something?”

The convoy been driving back to town or the freeway. If only she knew where they had been taking Summer. Where would she even look?

Chapter 7

The cold wind buffeted Emma as she swam through the sky. She scissor kicked against it, but flying towards the freeway felt like she was swimming upstream. Her glasses were zipped into the pocket of Hannah’s black jacket, so everything was blurry.

Below her, everything seemed to push away from the freeway. She felt like she was in an impressionist painting where all the brush strokes dragged her away from where she needed to go. A few tall trees threatened to hit her, and she struggled to sidestroke around them. Empty fields sat below her, and Emma felt jealous of the cows tucked safely inside.

If she weren’t kicking so hard just to move in the right direction, her legs would be freezing thanks to the cutting wind. Hannah had loaned her a pair of black yoga pants to help her hide in the night sky. Her cousin didn’t do sweatpants.

But the bright pink ski mask Hannah had given her didn’t help her blend in. It did, however, hide her whole face and had holes for her mouth and eyes. Which meant Emma’s face was actually hidden for once.

When she made it to the freeway, Emma carefully unzipped the pocket holding her glasses. Her legs pumping in a hard egg-beater kick to keep her treading air just above the freeway. She shoved the arms of her glasses through the knit material over her ears.

Big rigs and cars zoomed along. But the convoy of police cars and the weird truck were long gone, like she’d known they would be. By the time she even got to Hannah’s, they probably had already hit the freeway.

Should she even fly north or south to look for them? And what if she were wrong and they’d crossed the freeway and taken back roads to avoid anyone noticing the big truck? Were the police even escorting the truck past Pueblo Lindo?

The world became a white blur as her glasses fogged up. She pulled them off and stuck them back in her pocket.

The wind pushed her away from the freeway, she floated east and then turned her focus north, breast stroking back towards town. Hannah wouldn’t want to see her again. Not after she’d failed to find Summer.

Looked like she was spending the night at Ollie’s again.

As for Summer, why would the Super Commission arrest someone with such a small power? And how many other people had tiny, useless powers like that?

What was even the point of a power so useless?Why would aliens give anyone a power like that? What were they even trying to do giving people powers? Maybe it really had been an EastTech launch.

But even so, what was the point of moving hair?

Moving hair. By the end of the day, when her hair spray wore off, Summer always fiddled with her hair.

When they saw the UFO, Summer kept tucking a stray hair behind her ear while Hannah gave Emma a hard time.

Could that be wear Summer’s power came from?

But, did that make sense for Andres, Ms. Range, or even Emma?

She had wanted to fly away from Hannah’s cruel teasing. And the pollen had made her nose itch like a sneeze coming on.

Ms. Ngo’s classroom had been really cold. Emma had thought about having a fire to get warm. And if Ms. Range had thought her hands felt like ice, then maybe it made sense for her powers.

Too bad she couldn’t ask Andres what he’d been doing when that thing flew over.

Still, it could be true. People might have gotten powers based on what they were doing or thinking when the UFO flew by.

But what did that mean? Did their powers come from aliens or something else?

#

EMMA’D KNOCKED ON OLLIE’S window well after midnight, shivering and wishing she’d just gone straight there. The next day, Emma avoided Hannah and pretended everything was normal. Or as normal as it could be when you had barely slept, your cousin’s best friend had been arrested for being a super, and you were probably next but didn’t know where to run.

Maybe she should go to Andres, but Emma would just be another kid to take north without a car. A burden. And what would she do once she got up to Canada? Still, she could ask him and that girl what they had been doing when the UFO flew by.

After delivering her lines, Emma headed over to where her friends were cutting some planks to lengths Vince had already marked for building the set. Emma didn’t see Vince’s vision, but she supposed it didn’t matter. He had plans and paints and two workers.

“Give me a saw. I can cut some pieces too,” Emma said, wanting to feel useful.

“Yeah, right,” Ollie said. “I wouldn’t trust you with one anyway, but not after last night.”

“You’ve got too much going on.” Sebastian began sawing again.

“And you jump anytime anyone mentions Summer. It’s not your fault.” Ollie cut through her board, making the small end thud to the floor. “She must have used her powers where someone saw her. Don’t worry about the letter. He left her alone, didn’t he?”

Frustrated, Emma sat on the cold tile next to her friends. She pulled out a Sharpie and started drawing swirls connecting the hearts Ollie had drawn on the whites of her shoes.

Ollie was wrong. She had to be. Why else would Mann have even looked into Summer? Johnson must have kept that letter in his office, even though he’d already found the Ice Queen.

“Let’s talk about something else.” Sebastian grabbed a new board. “Anything you want.”

Emma could kiss him. She needed to talk about anything other than the arrest. But it was all anyone had talked about all day.

“I want to know about Alex’s ‘things to do.’” Emma said. Alex had been tight-lipped about his dating life and who the mystery girl was. Emma wasn’t even sure there was anyone, except he got all flustered when they asked about him dating.

And thinking about that was better than wondering if Agent Mann would arrest her next.

“I promised not to say anything else.” But Ollie waggled her eyebrows, like she might drop some hints.

“So, he’s dating someone that’s got sports practice?” Sebastian grabbed another board. He nodded to Vince, who was returning from the storage area with another sawhorse.

“Practice for what is the question,” Ollie said, smirking.

Emma drew a looping daisy with one of Ollie’s hearts as its center, thinking about who Alex might be dating and why he’d want to keep it secret.

Had he ever been interested in anyone before? The only one he seemed to get flustered around was that jerk who always picked on him, Blake Brewer.

Emma shook her head. That didn’t make sense, did it? Blake was always on Alex’s case. But that got her thinking, did Alex even like girls? Could that be why he was keeping it a secret? Was he not ready to tell them?

Rather than say anything else, her friends just sawed in steady rhythms. And Emma liked it that way. No one thinking about powers and supers and the commission.

“It’s a shame about Summer,” Vince said as he approached.

Emma clenched her fist around the marker. No, not back to Summer.

“I can’t believe she was a super,” Vince said.

She studied the hard tile floor. There had to be a pattern, a face, or something in the flecks on the tile. Even if she’d been surprised at Summer’s powers, wondering how Summer hid her powers would get people wondering about Dragon Girl and who she might be all over again. That Vince was bringing up the question meant others wanted to know, too.

People would start wondering about Dragon Girl’s identity again. And what if Vince asked them if they had powers? That was just a few questions away.

If she knew how to get to Canada and run away from the Super Commission, she would do it. Except what about her friends?

“Hey man, you want to chill with that.” Sebastian picked up a drill. “Summer got arrested from her cousin’s house minutes before Emma got there.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Vince frowned at Emma.

Sebastian lined up some wood and the drill.

“It just makes you wonder who else has powers—”

The whine of the drill on wood cut off Vince. Thank goodness for Bastian. But icy cold filled Emma’s stomach.

Vince was looking right at her. The whole school would be wondering the same thing. And someone who had seen something last spring might rat her out to Mann. Whether or not she had a way to travel, she needed to leave.

Mann would be onto her. Everyone wondering about small, secret powers like Summer’s would lead to people noticing her hiding her powers. It would lead to Mann finding out she was Dragon Girl. She couldn’t let that happen. She’d find Andres and then... What? Be all alone in Canada?

“I have to pee.” She bolted to her feet. In her rush to escape, Emma crashed into Sebastian.

He cursed. Tugged on his hand, but it was stuck tight to the screw.

Crap! She had to fix this. How could she fix this?

Sebastian reversed the drill with a sickening crunch and squelch.

But Bash seemed calm. Too calm. He was in shock. He had to be in shock.

Sebastian shook his hand free and blood spattered from his ruined glove.

“Mr. Attwood!” Vince waved his arms for the teacher’s attention. “Help!”

“I’m fine!” Sebastian’s blood dripped on the floor.

“There’s blood everywhere.” Ollie dropped her saw.

Bits of something pink clung to the screw sticking out of the wood.

Emma’s stomach lurched. As the cast turned to stare at Sebastian, Mr. Attwood ran backstage. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

“The glove got the worst of it.” Sebastian clutched his wounded hand with his good one. “Don’t worry about it.”

No more blood shot out. Maybe Sebastian was telling the truth, and one big spurt of blood had shot out at the beginning. Or else he was squeezing it tight enough to slow the blood flow.

Why was Sebastian so calm? Maybe the pink stuff was just bits of his work glove.

“Oh my God!” Lily put her hand to her head and fainted.

The teacher sprinted back from the greenroom with a first aid kit in hand. “Lily, stop being so dramatic. Run to the office for the nurse and have them notify the janitor.”

Lily sprang to her feet and ran outside.

“No nurse,” Sebastian shouted after her, but she was already gone.

Why was he so insistent that he didn’t need help? Clearly he wasn’t fine.

Unless... Emma pressed her lips together.

“No need to be afraid.” Mr. Attwood stopped hard, narrowly avoiding running into his patient. “I’m going to disinfect it and bandage you up. If you’re right and the glove got most of the damage, then you won’t even have to go to the doctor.”

“Seriously, it’s nothing.” Sebastian backed away from the teacher. “I’ll wash it off in the bathroom and take a little bandaid.”

Mr. Attwood opened the first aid kit and pulled out a pair of latex gloves.

Eyes wide, Sebastian’s lips moved in a silent prayer. Emma poked the pink stuff with her marker. The stuff hanging from the screw was definitely skin and something stringy and yellow like gristle.

“You drilled into your hand. Blood’s dripping down your arm. I’d hardly say it’s nothing.” Attwood held out his hand.

Oh no. When he saw the UFO, Bash had fallen and hurt himself. The scab had healed in a couple days.

Mr. Atwood was right. Blood ran down Sebastian’s arm, but it had stopped dripping.

“It doesn’t even hurt.” Sebastian tensed as if to run.

“If he says he’s fine, he’s fine.” Emma knocked the wood over, kicking at the screw to hide the evidence. The wood crashed to the ground.

Hand outstretched to Sebastian, Mr. Attwood glanced at Emma and shook his head. “That might be a bad sign.” The teacher took a step towards Sebastian. “Could mean you cut a nerve.”

“I said no!” Sebastian shoved the teacher, leaving two bloody handprints on his crumpled white shirt.

“What the—” Mr. Attwood cut himself off, avoiding cursing in front of his students.

“Just let him look at it.” Ollie’s voice shook.

Bash stood frozen, like a deer ready to bolt.

Everyone stared at him.

Vince caught Sebastian’s arm and pulled off the work glove.

“Don’t,” Mr. Attwood said. “Not without gloves.”

“Where’s the cut?” Vince turned Sebastian’s hand over. “I see the blood, but not...”

Sebastian yanked his hand free and ran out the double doors. She had to help him. Tell him he wasn’t doomed.

“Bastian!” Emma chased him outside with Ollie right behind her. Since he was so fast, she almost missed him turning past the ceramics classroom.

Revealing his powers was an accident, but she could try to get him some place safe. And then she wouldn’t have to run by herself. She’d at least have one friend.

Sebastian huddled under the big tree next to the band room. Between the tree and the wall to the parking lot, he was almost hidden. As he talked on the phone, he pressed his hands to his face, smearing it with blood.

“Mamá, ¿qué hago? Me vieron todos.” He sobbed into his phone until Emma put her hand on his shoulder. “Go away. Someone will tell Agent Mann, and I’ll be arrested just like Summer.”

“It’s okay.” Emma held out her hands like she had approached Sniggles that time he’d hurt his paw. “You’re going to be okay.”

“That’s the point.” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “I am okay. The cut is gone. All healed up. Not even a scar.”

“Bash. We’re going to get out of here.” Emma stared past Sebastian, tracing the gaps in the bark with her eyes as she spoke. She needed to slow down her thoughts. How much should she say in front of Ollie? “I’ve got a friend who knows how to get supers to Canada without getting caught.”

“You what?” Ollie stepped closer to Emma. “Who?”

Emma shook her head as Sebastian started talking rapid fire Spanish to his mom, running his hands across his face, smearing more blood on himself. If his goal was to blend in, he was failing miserably.

“Sebastian,” Emma tapped his arm, interrupting his conversation with his mom. “You need to get cleaned up and go. We’ll meet you.”

His eyebrows knitted together, lips parted. Was he afraid? Confused?

“Leave your phone here.” Emma reached for it. “They can track you with it.”

“Mamá, I’ve got to go. Te quiero. I’ll call you when I can.” Sebastian dropped his phone.

It bounced off the tree roots and under a bench. The bright red stuck out. Emma kicked leaves over it.

“Wipe your hands and face. Get out of here. Bike to my house.” Ollie pulled off her shirt, revealing her subtle curves and ignoring the fact that she stood there in her double sports bras. “We’ll meet up with you when we get you a ride.”

“Us. Us a ride,” Emma said as Sebastian wiped his hands and face on his own bloody shirt.

“Only Bash needs to run.” Ollie handed Bash her clean shirt.

“I should run north with Bash.” Tears pricked Emma’s eyes. She didn’t want to leave. To be alone.

“You can’t leave.” Ollie’s bottom lip quivered.

Emotions circled guilt and fear. She didn’t want to leave Ollie. She didn’t want to be alone. But Agent Mann was hunting down supers. How long would it be until she was in the back of one of those trucks? “It’s only a matter of time before Mann catches me.”

“You?” Sebastian stared at her, his mouth open. “You’re a super?”

“I’m the one the commission’s been looking for.” Emma caught Bash’s arm and pulled him away from the tree. They needed to get going. Still, now she owed him after cutting his hand. After she’d revealed to the whole drama class that he was a super, he deserved to know about her powers.

“What’re you talking about?”

“Dude, this is the one, the only, Dragon Girl,” Ollie said with a little flourish of her hands. “Which is why you can’t leave. Pueblo needs you.”

“Quiet!” Emma hissed.

Sebastian said, “No way!”

He looked at Emma, then at the patch of sky over the English trailers where she’d flown out of the drama room and rescued Hannah, and then back to Emma.

Bash nodded once.

“With Canada’s Sanctuary Act.” Emma swallowed over a lump in her throat. “With the act, I’d be safe from the commission, and I wouldn’t have to deal with Nan or Johnson.” Of course, she’d be a teen runaway. She wouldn’t have any grownups in her corner. She wouldn’t have a place to stay.

“It wouldn’t fix anything. You need to make up with Nan and talk to your dad. Besides, you can’t just leave me here. Bastian’s been outed, but you—I—” Ollie chewed her lip, her cheeks flushed. “You’re more than my best friend in this little hick town. Without you... I need you.”

“And I don’t want to go to Canada,” Sebastian said. “I don’t know anyone there.”

“You would know me,” Emma whispered. If Bash didn’t go, she’d be all alone. “If you don’t go—”

“So? Where else would you go?” Ollie asked, cutting off Emma’s quiet protest.

“My mom says I should go to Mexico, meet my cousins and grandparents.” Bash shrugged, pulling ahead so that Emma couldn’t see his face. “I never could before because, how would I get back into the US?”

“What do you mean, how would you get back?” Ollie asked.

“Now, being stuck there.” Bash shook his head. “I’d be safe with my family.”

“But Canada has the Sanctuary Act.” Emma protested. Bash had to go with her. Someone familiar did.

“For American supers.” Sebastian frowned. “But I was born in Mexico. That thing didn’t fly over Mexico. No one got powers there.”

“Come on,” Ollie caught Emma’s arm, pulling her away from Bash. “I need to get a shirt out of my gym locker and we need to figure out where we’re going.”

“Dredgetown.”

“What?” Ollie asked. “Why are we going there?”

“Because that’s where my friend is.” Emma sighed. “Bash, meet us at Ollie’s. We need to figure out a ride.”

Sebastian took off running the rest of the way to the bike racks.

“Who do you know that runs supers to Canada?” Ollie asked. “It’s not that loser, is it?”

“Andres isn’t a just runaway. He’s...” Anxious, Emma rubbed her tongue along the inside of her bottom teeth. Should she or shouldn’t she say it? It still wasn’t her secret to share. The year before, Emma and Ollie had fought over Emma keeping the speedster’s secret, and Ollie had barely forgiven her then.

“He’s what?” Ollie barred her teeth, demanding an answer.

“He’s...” Emma hated secrets, but didn’t know what to say.

“So, yesterday, when he wanted your special help.” Ollie folded her arms across her chest.

“He wanted me to help get a girl to Canada.” Emma wiped at her eyes. Everything was falling apart. “Without a car, I wouldn’t have been able to help. And now... Now we need someone to drive us to Dredgetown.”

“No problem.” Ollie power walked towards the gym.

“No problem? Who’s going to drive us?”

“Hannah, of course.” Ollie grinned.

“She won’t give us a ride. No way.” Not after last night. She might have considered it, if Emma had gone back to her and admitted her failure. But after avoiding Hannah all day. No.

“Of course she will.” Ollie jogged to the gym, not giving Emma a chance to put all the reasons that Hannah wouldn’t drive them into words. “Her car is big enough, she should be out of tennis practice soon, and she’s your cousin. She won’t want you or Bash to get arrested for being...”

“Shh!” Emma grabbed Ollie by the shoulder. “We’ve got to find a way to get out of this mess. And I don’t think Hannah’s it.”

Chapter 8

At tennis practice, all the girls stood in a line and a machine shot the yellow balls at the same point. Hannah wasn’t with them.

“Where is she?” Ollie studied the line of girls as if she could make Hannah appear.

Choosing her phone over guessing, Emma texted her cousin.

“We don’t have time to wait for her to answer.” Ollie folded her arms across her chest. “You should call her.”

“Let’s check her house.” Emma didn’t have any classes with Hannah this year, but she hadn’t seen her all day. “Maybe she stayed home?”

“Just call her.”

“I hate the phone." Emma crossed her arms. The phone was never loud enough, except when it was too loud. And she felt like her words got even more garbled when she tried to talk on the phone.

But Ollie was right, even if Hannah wouldn’t want to take them, she was their best choice.

“How do long you think it will take Mann to look for Sebastian at my place?”

Instead of calling Hannah, Emma texted Aunt Beth. The answer was almost instantaneous: Summer’s house. An address in Lindo Gardens followed. As Emma and Ollie biked from the high school and passed the shaggy lawns of working-class homes, the houses grew larger and farther apart. When they reached neighborhoods that neither girl had visited before, the homes lost their cookie-cutter feeling.

One large brown home with arches guarding a Spanish-style patio had a yard filled with white gravel and huge cacti.

Another stood upright with huge white columns. This was the house Hannah’s house wanted to be. Naked trees filled the yard. The pomegranate tree’s fruit clung to branches along with a few scraggly leaves. Two citrus trees with fruit in a sickly shade of orange-green stood apart from the other trees, their green leaves shocking compared to the leafless trees around them.

Emma pulled her jacket tighter, wanting to fit in better than the citrus trees, and pedaled harder.

As they approached Summer’s address, Emma saw Hannah’s pink Escalade parked down the street.

Emma stopped her bike in the gutter at the boundary between driveway and street.

The driveway, a big fancy arc, cut through the yard with room for at least a dozen cars. It held five.

The massive one-story house sprawled for what seemed like forever. Three huge piles of leaves dotted the yard, but the leaves from the enormous maple tree still smothered the lawn and two of the cars. Window boxes adorned the house with sad, wilted flowers.

What gave Hannah the right to demand that Emma rescue Summer from a bunch of armed police officers? A family like Summer’s could invite their senator over for drinks and get their daughter back right away.

“What’re you waiting for?” Ollie zipped past Emma up the driveway and coasted to a stop near the front door. She dropped her bike on its side and waved Emma on.

Emma scurried after Ollie, who rang the doorbell as Emma reached the porch.

A crumpled, older version of Summer answered the door. Even though she was probably as put-together as her daughter on a normal day, tangles snarled her black hair and red lines branched across the whites of her eyes. She stared down at Emma and Ollie, her mouth working like she struggled with words. “I’m sorry, I don’t—we don’t—”

“Mrs. Sestina, we’re so sorry for your loss,” Ollie said. “We’re here to—”

“She’s not lost. She was stolen!” Mrs. Sestina snapped. “We don’t need your pity.”

Ollie stuck her foot in the door before Summer’s mom could slam it. She grunted when the door closed on her foot.

“Sorry, I—we—I...” Emma stammered. “I came to talk to my cousin Hannah.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Sestina attempted to fake a smile, but before it even brought a curve to her mouth, the corners drooped again. “Emily?”

Emma nodded, not bothering to correct the woman.

Mrs. Sestina gestured at Ollie. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“Just a friend,” Ollie said, voice gruff. “We’re sorry again about your daughter.”

If things weren’t so serious, Emma would have laughed about Ollie’s man voice.

Mrs. Sestina let the door swing back open and gestured them inside. Summer’s house wasn’t quite as overdone as Hannah’s. Cut roses adorned most surfaces. Emma’s nose tickled, but with the need for a regular sneeze.

The sitting room felt full, even though two armchairs were empty. One giant man and two older couples sat on three couches around the huge living room.

“What are you doing here?” Hannah shot to her feet and pointed at the front door. “Get out!”

“I need to talk to you.” Emma never had the right words. And, with Hannah blaming her for not running off to save her bitchy friend from the government, the right words would not come.

“I don’t need to talk to you. Summer is gone, in case you didn’t—”

“I got that. But I still need to talk to you. In private. Please.” Emma paused. Heart racing, palms sweaty, breath didn’t seem to reach her lungs.

That meant something. All these things together, she’d been working hard at naming emotions with Ms. Ngo. She needed to name the feeling to get control of it.

As much as she hated naming this one, she told her cousin, Ollie, and the four strangers. “I’m scared.”

“You’re what?” Hannah asked, her voice rising in volume.

Emma winced. This was a mistake.

Ollie put her hand on Emma’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Please, Hannah, I’m scared.” One rejection wasn’t a failure, was it? “Talk to me outside for five minutes. Then... if you won’t help me, I’ll figure out something else.”

Hannah rolled her eyes but followed Emma back to the porch.

Struggling and searching for the right words, Emma bounced up and down. Her hands moved on their own accord, tracing the rough fabric of her jeans. She shook her head as if that would clear it.

Didn’t Hannah realize that if a tiny inconsequential power got her friend arrested, Agent Mann would go crazy when he found out Emma was Dragon Girl? And Bastian was in trouble, too.

“You’ve already wasted a minute.” Hannah frowned at Emma.

“I’m scared.”

“You said that already.” Hannah put her hand on the door to go back inside.

What could she say? Emma wiped her palms on her jeans and tried again.

“I need to leave and so does one of my friends before Gary Mann and the Super Commission find us.”

“You’re not leaving. We’ll figure out a way to keep you safe.” Ollie grabbed Emma’s shoulder. “Only Sebastian’s got to go.”

“Another one of your little friends has powers? And you want me to help him?” Hannah turned the handle. “After you bailed instead of helping Summer last night?”

Emma felt her fists clench. She wanted to hit Hannah. in the end, she hadn’t refused. Instead, she imagined playing scales on her saxophone. The low C with every button pressed and peeled her fingers up until she played middle C by pressing down the middle finger of her left hand. Emotions under control, voice tight, she said, “I looked. I didn’t find her.”

“I don’t think so.” Hannah shook her head. “You said you’d look so I’d stop asking, then you went to Ollie’s.”

“Emma didn’t get to my house until after midnight.” Ollie frowned. “So cold, I had to dig out all the extra blankets for her.”

Hannah blinked. “Then why didn’t you tell me you looked? Why not come back to my house? Why avoid me all day today?”

Emma shrugged. “Please, drive us to Dredgetown, so we don’t get arrested like Summer.”

“Because you need me to drive you and your friends to Dredgetown, you expect me to leave my friend’s house where her parents are freaking out about her being arrested for a stupid power.” Hannah’s voice was flat.

What would convince Hannah to help her? After running the next part of the scale from middle C to high C, Emma realized Hannah didn’t need convincing. She wanted Emma to admit she was imposing.

“Yes.” Emma ground her teeth together, watching her cousin’s mouth. “You’re right. This is a huge thing to ask for. But please.”

Hannah sighed. She wanted Emma to grovel.

But could she? “It’s my fault anyone knows he’s a super.”

“Your fault?” Hannah snorted. “And now I’m supposed to bail you out?”

“Please.” Emma didn’t know what else to say.

Hannah’s mouth pinched like Nan’s when she was angry. Emma didn’t dare tell her cousin how much she looked like their grandmother.

“I told you she’d never help. This was dumb,” Emma told Ollie, her voice cracked. “We’re screwed.”

Hannah sighed. “I don’t want you to get arrested. Just don’t expect me to drive you anywhere ever again.”

If Emma left for Canada, she’d never see Hannah again. If she did this, she’d never see Nan, Aunt Beth, Ollie, or anyone she knew ever again. But if she didn’t go, she’d never see them again anyway because Mann would arrest her.

“If you do this, I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

#

EMMA TRACED THE ROUGH fabric of her jeans, not daring to say a word as Hannah drove them to Ollie’s house. Hannah’s flashy car fit in Summer’s neighborhood, but not here in Taco Flats.

Wherever he was, hopefully Mann wasn’t watching them somehow. Hopefully, he hadn’t found out she was Dragon Girl yet. If he’d found the letter about Summer, then he’d probably find hints about Emma’s secret identity in her father’s office, even if it was her absence in his files.

Hannah seemed focused on the drive and didn’t talk to Emma or Ollie. When they reached Ollie’s house, Emma threw open the door, nearly hitting Sebastian who stood at the edge of the kitchen.

He jumped back, and a pear splatted onto the floor. He was ashen and stammered an apology, saying he’d clean it up.

“Not your fault.” Emma frowned. What was wrong with him? Why apologize to her, when she had almost hit him with the door, and worse, ruined his life.

“Don’t worry about it.” Ollie squeezed past them into the hallway. “First, we disguise you, you prep, then—”

“What do you mean, disguise him?” Emma asked, trying to keep the panic from turning her voice into a squeal.

“You’ll see.” Ollie dragged Bastian to her room and started digging through her drawers.

Emma dumped out her backpack and, hands shaking, stuffed it with her clothes. Both she and Sebastian had to leave behind everything they’d ever known. At least he might get to be with family in Mexico. If not, Emma refused to think about it.

“Now change.” Ollie shoved a bunch of clothes, including a blue sweatshirt at Bastian.

“What? Here?” Sebastian’s cheeks flushed red. His eyes darted from Ollie to Emma and back. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Dude, you wear a Speedo for swim team.” Ollie waggled her eyebrows. “Unless you’re going commando?”

“It’s down the hall.” Emma pushed him out of the room. Her cheeks felt warm, too. “I’ll show you.”

She pointed out the bathroom on the way to the front door, then she and Ollie piled into Hannah’s car.

After he changed, Sebastian slunk outside.

Between the sagging pants, the blue hoodie, and the blue beanie, he looked like a gang banger.

“Ol, that outfit is not a good idea,” Emma said as Sebastian climbed into the back of the SUV.

“What?” Ollie asked. “It’s a great disguise.”

He slammed the door.

“We’re going to Dredgetown.” Emma’s voice shook. “Dressed like that, he’ll get us all shot.”

Chapter 9

In the front seat, Emma’s heart raced and her throat felt dry. They were almost to the arcade Andres liked. Was it only 4:32? Emma took a deep breath, using the time to get control of herself. That was divisible by four to make 108. The math blocked the fear, kept it from overwhelming her. One-oh-eight could be divided by four again to 27. She’d lived in Pueblo her whole life. What would it be like to leave? 27 came from nine times three, which was the same as three to the third. She had all the primes, but peace eluded her.

“My car better be in one piece when we’re finished.” Hannah pulled into a parking lot.

The lot was empty except for a handful of beaters clustered around the liquor store three doors down from the arcade. So, Hannah’s Barbie car stuck out like a princess in a flea market and, even worse, it had the GPS phone for help thing. Mann was going to find them as soon as he thought to look for Hannah.

Still, the back windows were tinted limo black, which hid Bastian from prying eyes as long as they stayed in the car.

Three men wearing conspicuous amounts of red, sitting on the hood of a rusted Honda blasting rap music passed around a paper bag wrapped tight around a bottle. Ollie had dressed Bash like a Crypt, and here were three Bloods.

Emma waved her hand at the opposing gang members. “I told you that outfit was a bad choice.”

“He’s fine.” Ollie tugged on the camera around her neck as if it would protect her from the mistake of dressing Sebastian like a thug.

The car thumped over a speed bump.

“If you didn’t notice, you dressed him in blue.” Emma’s jaw ached, signs her body was ready to defend them all with a blast of geek fire. What did it matter if she revealed her powers now? She smiled, knowing she could protect them.

Hannah pulled into the space in front of the only lit letter in the arcade’s sign, the C. The D flickered on and off like it was having a seizure. Parked crooked, she backed out and tried again.

“Hurry your butt inside and you’ll be fine.” Ollie unbuckled her seatbelt. “Andres will get you wherever you’re going, right?”

Emma shrugged. Not like Andres was old enough to drive either, but then again, he was faster than most cars, so maybe he had something worked out. Or else he drove illegally.

As soon as Hannah put the car into park, Sebastian rushed out.

Emma wrapped her arms around herself and followed at a good clip. In her hurry to get inside, Emma plowed into Sebastian’s back where he’d stopped just inside the door.

“Sorry.” Emma tried to sidestep around Sebastian before Ollie and Hannah ran into her.

The aroma of sweaty gym socks and stale popcorn hit Emma’s nose, making her eyes water. The mishmash of music and sound effects soured her stomach and made her want to cover her ears. She glanced around at the decrepit video games with a half dozen out-of-order signs right by the door. Screens flashed in dozens of different colors all around her.

Andres had to be around here somewhere. If not, she did not want to wait here for him to show up. But where else would she go? If only he liked to hang out somewhere nice and quiet, like the library. He could have left her a way to contact him, instead of saying that she to find him at the arcade.

“Man, this place has really gone downhill.” Ollie pushed Emma and Sebastian out of the way.

“No, it hasn’t.” Hannah sighed from behind Emma. “Pretty sure they even fixed a couple machines since the last time I was here.”

“No way.” Sebastian followed Ollie. “This place is awful. What does that Andres guy like about it?”

“Don’t know.” Emma began weaving her way through the games after Ollie. She caught herself biting her nails. She tried to stop, but her hands kept making their way back to her mouth.

Somehow, Emma wound up in front with the others close on her heels like she had a clue where she was going. She didn’t. And she wasn’t even tall enough to see over most of the games.

A grand total of one customer—a goth girl with purple and pink streaks half grown out of her dark hair—played an ancient racing game. Noise cancelling headphones covered her ears.

How this place stayed open when it had so many broken games and a complete lack of clientele was beyond her. They had to turn a profit somehow, didn’t they?

They reached the far wall and headed back to the middle. Ollie leaned back against a game, shaking her head. Opposite her was a bare wall next to a door labeled management. Emma tried it, but it was locked. Emma leaned against the wall beside the door. She wasn’t up to this. The dissonant game music made her nauseous.

They’d searched the whole place and no Andres. She wanted to go home. Or, if not to her home because she still didn’t want to see Nan, at least to Ollie’s home and just curl up in a ball and not move.

“Who would come here for fun?” Hannah whispered, glancing back at the lone customer. The girl leaned as she spun the wheel to her racing game.

“I would,” Andres said, almost hitting Emma as he opened the office door.

Emma stumbled back, knocking a gun off a shooting game.

“Why?” Sebastian started tucking in the blue plaid shirt, but Ollie slapped his hands.

“Cause my uncle lets me play for free and I get to rank up the highest of the high scores on all the machines.” Andres smiled.

“This is your uncle’s place?” Emma had thought he just liked the arcade.

But staying at the arcade might protect his mom from anyone who might have it out for the speedster.

“Yeah. Now that you’re done talking crap on my uncle’s shop, what are you guys doing here with Emma? I thought you—” Andres poked Sebastian in the chest, then glared at Ollie. “—and you hated me.”

“I didn’t mean to talk bad about it, it’s just...” Sebastian patted the nearest game with an out-of-order sign on it.

Ollie didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed.

“I’m supposed to be fixing those, but most of them need parts my uncle can’t afford.” Andres sighed. “But you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here? I thought I was a ‘loser dropout.’”

Even though Ollie knew he was getting supers to Canada, she nodded as if agreeing he was still a loser dropout.

“We need your help.” Emma hated asking for help, but what could she do? Both she and Bastian needed to get out of here.

“You’re not here to help me get—” Andres paused. Given his power, it had to be for dramatic effect rather than needing time to come up with an appropriate euphemism for the girl he’d talked about earlier. “—our friend north?”

“Sebastian wants to head to Mexico. And I need to go north. Can you connections help him?” Emma took a breath to explain.

Andres’s mouth turned down, then he started talking. “So, you won’t help me, but then you decide you’ll come ask me for help when it suits you? That’s not how it works.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Emma’s cheeks burned, but she glared at Hannah. “Both of you. How am I supposed to help you or Summer or your that girl? Yeah, I’ve got powers and can fly, but I’m just a kid.”

“I’m the same age as you.” Andres looked down his nose at her. “I help.”

“I’m not you.” Emma watched Sebastian slink towards the entrance.

“I’ll keep watch,” he muttered.

Emma turned her glare back to Andres. “I don’t run a million miles an hour and I’m not strong enough to lift a person when I fly.”

Hannah looked down at her feet. Even Ollie’s brow furrowed.

“Am I supposed to ride the bus with her?” Emma demanded. “I had to beg Hannah to drive us here today because...” Emma’s voice petered out.

Andres stared into her eyes. And her dumb eyes started to water. She didn’t want to cry. She’d been making a point. Why did he have to look her in the eye so hard?

After a moment of silence, Hannah said, “She’s scared.”

Emma stiffened, not sure how to react to Hannah’s interruption. Was Hannah on her side now or throwing her under the bus for being scared? Hannah wasn’t wrong, but there was so much more to it than that.

“If you’ve got powers, you should be scared, too.” Hannah stepped in front of Emma and looked Andres in the face. “Mann arrested my friend for being able to wiggle her hair. He’s looking for every super he can find.”

Eyes extra wide, Andres looked from Emma to the others and back again.

Emma stared at him, not comprehending what he was trying to say.

He waved his hands as if this explained his weird expression.

“We all know about Emma,” Hannah said bluntly.

“Oh!” Emma gasped. That’s what he’d been trying to get at with that weird look. She glanced back at the goth girl and her racing game. The headphones were still in place. “Yeah. I’m Dragon Girl.”

“What happened to Johnson?” Andres asked. “One moment, he’s keeping secrets from his bosses. The next, I can’t reach him and there’s this new guy.”

“You had a deal with Johnson?” Emma’d thought Johnson had been hiding her because he was her father, but what about Andres? He should have turned in Andres because the Super Commission was hunting the speedster.

Andres’ generous mouth pinched tight.

“You can get ahold of him?” Emma asked. If Andres could contact her father, and her father might work something out for them. At least delay Mann a little.

“Just the phone number on his card.”

“Oh.” Emma tried not to let the disappointment show on her face, but her shoulders drooped. When she’d tried his number, Agent Mann had answered.

“He was a decent guy. I call the number now and Agent Gary Mann’s voicemail comes on.” Andres rolled his eyes. “G Man. Even faker a name than John Johnson.”

Emma hadn’t thought of that before. But Andres was right, and her father had used a fake name. Did all the Super Commission’s agents use fake names?

“Mann’s a dick.” Hannah slumped against a racing game.

“That’s what I hear. He’s like a machine. No compassion at all. No nuance. And he hunts supers non-stop. Soon as he finds out you’re a super—bam—you’re disappeared to wherever the commission’s taking supers. I hung up quick the first time I got that voicemail.” Andres shuddered. “Good thing I was calling from a payphone across town. Too bad about Johnson. They must have figured out he was hiding supers.”

Emma blinked. So Emma wasn’t the only superhero hadn’t arrested. Her father had helped supers escape in spite of his job. He had risked himself for more than just her. What did that mean? Was she special or not?

Still, she should tell Andres the real reason he’d been reassigned. “It got made public he’s my dad.”

“What?” Andres did a double take like she was playing a bad joke on him. When she didn’t say anything else, he asked, “Seriously, like your dad your dad?”

“Come on!” The goth girl stamped her foot. On her screen, a timer counted down in the middle of flames. She pulled off her headphones.

“Can we take this somewhere a little more private?” Emma asked.

“Private from who? The shamaness?”

“Who?” Ollie asked.

At the same Emma said, “I don’t want that goth girl listening in. What if she turns us in?”

Andres groaned. “Don’t call her that. She hates being called goth. If I have to listen to her explanation of rainbow punk aga—”

“Oh, my God!” the girl shrieked.

Emma spun towards the high-pitched squeal. No way that shriek and valley girl voice had come from the goth, but now she was running at Emma.

Her shirt, though printed on black, was Dragon Girl merchandise. It showed Emma—well, a cartoon of Emma in costume—surrounded by rainbow flames. Her pants had bright pink and purple cutouts checkered down the front of them. “This is her, isn’t it? When you guys walked by me, I didn’t realize—even though I knew you would be here today.”

How did she know that? Not like they’d planned on coming.

“I just want to squee meeting you,” the girl continued. “And who are these people? Oh, don’t tell me. I saw this one in my dreams.” The shamaness raced to Andres.

He jumped when she threw her arm around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said before releasing him.

“Sorry for what?” Sebastian asked.

She skipped back to Emma and the others, then stage whispered, “He is so much cuter in real life.” She turned back to Bastian as he returned from his so-called lookout. “You heal, right?”

The squealing fan girl had to be the psychic that Andres had asked her to help. But what was Emma supposed to do with her? No way Andres expected her to actually deal with this girl, did he?

The girl turned back to Emma and squealed again. “Oh, my God, I still can’t believe I get to meet you.”

As the girl surged forward, Emma took a step back. She caught Emma’s hand and pumped it up and down. “Geek Fire! I’m Shamaness Rose.”

Emma froze up. She'd never had to talk to a fan before. The only person she’d seen wear her apparel was Principal Wale. And this girl was squealing over her like she was something special. How could she live up to this girl’s expectations? She couldn’t save the girl, despite whatever crazy visions the shamaness had had.

Andres groaned. “She gave up the whole Geek Fire name, remember?”

“Actually, I wish Geek Fire had caught on.” Emma stammered, trying to pull her hand back. Was this what celebrities felt like? “But I’m done playing superhero.”

“Shamaness Rose?” Ollie asked, looking the girl up and down. She did not look impressed.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Emma.” Emma yanked her hand free and stepped back from the grinning teen. She took a deep breath. She felt a touch better once she was free of the girl’s clutches. Far enough away to see the so-called shamaness, Emma realized the girl was even younger than she’d thought. Middle school for sure. Which meant the kid was braver than her, running away on her own to get away from the Super Commission. Or more desperate.

“Oh, my God! She trusts me with her real name!” The girl grabbed onto Andres, who rolled his eyes.

“You’re the one that wanted my help to travel north?” Emma asked, making sure she understood who this kid was. There couldn’t be another girl that saw the future and was in love with Emma’s alter ego.

“Yes! Without you...” Rose licked her lips. “Without you, I’m doomed.”

She probably meant to sound dramatic, but the sudden changes in pitch left Emma reeling. “Right. Well, I need to head north too, so you’ll have me the whole way.” But how would she make it without this crazy fan girl driving her nuts?

“I’m so excited. Didn’t I tell you she’d be here today?” The girl shot a pointed look at Andres, who sighed and nodded.

“Shamaness Rose.” Ollie looked down her nose at the girl, eyes narrow. Ollie looked mad. “What can you do? Make plants do your bidding?”

“What? No? Why plants?” The girl chewed her lip.

“Because rose is a plant.” Ollie toyed with her camera. Was Ollie still mad about Emma leaving? Or just annoyed with how over the top the girl was?

“Oh, no. I hate plants. I see the future.” The girl smiled, showing all her teeth and a lot of gum.

“Why Rose?” Emma asked, hoping the girl would tone it down.

“Uh... It’s my name. Rosalinda Robles.” The girl held out her hand again, but Emma kept her hands to her sides. she didn’t need another squealing handshake. No one else took her offered hand either.

“Robles is an oak, too,” Sebastian said.

“So?” Rose dropped her hand. “It’s not my fault my powers don’t match my name. My parents named me for a plant. Rosalinda Azucena Robles. They hate me.”

“What’s your other last name?” Sebastian asked.

“Flores.” She rolled her eyes. “Can you believe it?”

“For real?” Bastian’s eyebrows shot up. His mouth kind of quirked to the side, surprised?

“So, call me Rose or Rosie. Don’t mention any other plants. Please.”

“And you’re going to Canada?” Bastian asked. “With a name like that, don’t you have family south of here?”

“Do you know what’s happening in Guateca right now?” Rose’s nose crinkled.

Emma thought that meant disgust.

“That place is horrible. There’s war and stuff. My parents came here as refugees.” Rose fiddled with a ring on her hand. “I’d never go there. And I was born here.”

Sebastian blanched at her comment about being born here. His voice got real soft as he answered her. “I’m going south to Mexico.” He glanced at Andres. “If you’ll help me.”

“North is where it’s at for me. Though it doesn’t matter.” Rose sighed. “So, Emma will take me north, and Andres can take the healer south?”

“Umm...” Emma hadn’t expected Andres to saddle her with someone so over the top.

“I’m not driving you two to Canada.” Hannah’s voice took on a biting edge.

“Emma’s not running,” Ollie blurted. “You don’t have to take her to Canada. No one’s ratted her out yet. She’s safe.”

“I have to go,” Emma snapped. What had she done to make Ollie think she was staying? Why wouldn’t Ollie listen to her?

The others stared at them. Emma studied her feet, embarrassed.

“Andres must have a way to get you to the next town.”

“We can’t go with him if he’s going south and we’re going north.” Rose grinned.

“I never agreed to take anyone north.” Hannah put her hands on her hips. “I brought Emma here so she wouldn’t get arrested. She is my cousin after all.”

“You don’t have to drive them all the way to Canada.” Andres smiled. “Just to Liberty Junction.”

“I wasn’t supposed to have to drive her anywhere after this.”

“You’d be helping your cousin and Rose.” Andres eyed Hannah’s posh coat and designer jeans. “I bet you’d have time to stop at the mall before it closes.”

“Am I dropping them off close to the mall?” Hannah asked.

“That’s the thing.” Andres chewed his lip. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Emma asked.

“I used to be able to reach Johnson. The people south of me have a way to contact me. More than that.” Andres shook his head. “We keep our identities secret so we can’t rat each other out if we get caught.”

“Well... then, how are we do we find Johnson’s friend in Liberty Junction?” Emma asked.

“Friends. It’s an older couple and they’re both supers hiding their powers.” Andres’ whole body sagged. “But I don’t know their names or how to find them.”

“You guys don’t have any secret symbols like they used to do for the Underground Railroad?” Hannah asked. “A candle in the window or something?”

“Wasn’t that Paul Revere and the redcoats? ‘One if by land, two if by sea’ and all that.” Emma bit her tongue, but too late to avoid sounding like the know-it-all Hannah accused her of being.

“They’re up in Liberty Junction. Once or twice, he met them at the mall. Other than that... Oh! He mentioned a connection with Shadow Walker once. I don’t think either of them is Shadow Walker, but he might find them for you.”

“Shadow Walker?” Rose squealed. “Oh, this is more exciting than meeting Car Shifter and Spectral Glow.”

Two more supers Emma had never heard of, but Rose kept chattering.

“Not as exciting as meeting you, Emma. You know you are the first superhero that had a legit battle with a super villain, right? Still, Shadow Walker is fascinating. How does he just pop in and out like that?”

“Shadow Walker? What’s his schtick?” Ollie asked, her eyes boring into Emma.

Emma frowned. She followed the disappearances more than the actual supers.

“He blends in, hides in the shadows,” Andres said. “Jumps from the shadows or something.”

“So, does he even have a super power? That sounds like creepy stalker material.” Ollie mock shuddered.

“Oh, you’re funny.” Rose turned to Emma. “I get why you like him.”

“Her. Ollie is a her.” How could Rose not see Ollie was a girl? It was obvious, wasn’t it? Even if she had short hair and wore guys’ clothes that hid her curves, you could just see that she was a girl. Though... she would make a cute guy. She was a cute girl.

“Whatever you say.” Rose nodded to Ollie. “The four of us are going north together then?”

“If Sebastian wants to go south, then we’ve got to get to Humilde and somehow find my contact there. And these two—” Andres gestured to Emma and Rose “—need to get north.”

Chapter 10

“All right,” Andres said gruffly. “Rose, get your stuff and lock up the front. Sebastian, I’ve got a car out back.” Andres gestured to a door marked emergency exit on the back wall of the store. “Besides, less chance of running into any Bloods if we go out the back door.”

Rose headed into the office, while Andres and Sebastian ducked outside.

As the door swung shut, Emma thought Sebastian said, “Crap!”

No one else seemed to have noticed. So, Emma hoped she’d imagined it. She probably misunderstood, or else Andres’ car was a total clunker. She stared at her feet while they waited for Rose. What a disaster. Instead of helping her, Andres had dumped this fangirl on her. With Hannah already pissed at her, and now... Emma rocked on her feet. She didn’t want to talk to Ollie or Hannah, and definitely not both together. But she had to figure out how to get things settled.

Why had Agent Mann arrested Summer? For her inconsequential power of moving her hair without touching it? No. He arrested every super he ferreted out. He was nothing more than a frightened bigot, then.

Emma’s fingertips itched, calling her to chew them, but she’d already gnawed them down to nubs after finding out about her dad. After finding out about Nan’s lies.

“What’s taking so long?” Hannah yelled. She must have been excited for the mall.

“Sorry,” Rose called from the office. “I’ve been staying here a while. Things are a little messy.”

Emma kept studying her shoes, pretending like she didn’t see Ollie trying to catch her eye. She kind of wanted to wipe of the hearts and flowers from her chucks. What was Ollie’s deal with telling her that she shouldn’t go to Canada? And if the commission were onto them, wouldn’t they be leading them right to this Shadow Walker guy? Could the commission be following them to find out who else they might reveal?

Rose emerged with two backpacks slung over her shoulders and the keys to the shop in one hand. She held out a unicorn backpack to Ollie, as if it was her job to help the girl carry her stuff, but Ollie didn’t protest.

“Thanks, I knew you’d be a gentleman,” Rose said.

Emma raised an eyebrow at Ollie when she didn’t correct Rose, but Ollie just shrugged. Oblivious, Rose walked to the front door, bouncing her remaining pink plaid backpack. At least the thugs outside had left.

Hannah grumbled as the girls piled into her car. She warned Rose not to dirty up the seats and griped at Ollie to keep her sticky hands to herself. As for Emma, she just glared, but Hannah’s griping didn’t stop Rose from chattering.

“I love the pun of your name, your real name, not the name the media gave you. I get it now. You’re geeky like me.”

“I’m not like you.” Emma buckled her seatbelt as Hannah backed up. “You’re perky.”

The sun, which. Had been setting when they arrived was a distant memory now. The street lights had come on, the ones that weren’t burned out.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Emma caught a flash of red and blue light out of the corner of her eye.

“What?” Hannah snapped.

Emma bit her lip. She must have made a noise for Hannah to ask her anything. “I saw something around the back.”

“Not stopping. We’re going to Liberty Junction and when we’re done—”

“Cops,” Rose said from behind Emma. “Behind the shopping center.”

Emma cringed. She should have said something when she heard Sebastian curse. But if they’d all run out there, they’d have walked right into whatever was going on back there, too.

“We should make sure they don’t have Bash and Andres.” A knot grew at the base of Emma’s throat. Hopefully, the guys were gone before all those cops showed up. Rose had taken forever leaving. They should have been fine driving south to Humilde. Even if Andres didn’t have a license, being a speedster should make him a good driver.

“Fine. Whatever. Today is all about whatever Emma wants to do. Helping Emma. Forget about Summer getting arrested—”

“That’s why we’re running, Hann.” Emma pulled her fingers out of her mouth. When did she start chewing her nails? “I’m not forgetting Summer. I’m terrified of the man who took her for no reason.”

Hannah groaned.

“I’m just a kid. Am I supposed to go up against a trained government agent by myself?”

“You can spit fireballs!” Hannah pounded the steering wheel. “If he’s that bad, blow him up.”

“Then I’d be a murderer.” And she’d deserve whatever she got.

Hannah circled around the block. Emma strained her to see. They passed a bus stop with a homeless man sleeping under a blanket. Then they drove past the alley behind the strip mall.

This time it was clearer. A weird truck about the same size as the one that had blown her off the road blocked in by a ton of cop cars with flashing lights. She couldn’t really see what was going on past the truck. Was it the same truck that had arrested Hannah?

“I told you the blue outfit was a bad choice.” Emma fiddled with her belt. Could they do anything to free Sebastian and Andres? Did the cops even have them?

“They don’t know Bastian and Andres are supers,” Ollie said. “They might be harassing them cause they’re afraid Bash and Andres will pick a fight with those gangbangers.”

“The guys in red might’ve given them a hard time because of Bash’s disguise, and someone called the cops.” Emma watched the guys vanish from view again as they circled around the block.

“Not what it looked like to me.” Rose’s voice shook. “I think they were waiting for us.”

“Either way, once they find out Bastian’s real name, he’s screwed.” Emma swallowed against the bitter taste of bile.

“We didn’t see either them handcuffed,” Ollie said. “Andres might have run off and ditched Bash.”

“He might try to get them both free.” Emma’s stubby fingernails hit her front teeth.

“What about you, Em? Can’t you Dragon Girl them free?” Ollie asked.

Emma’s stomach turned icy cold. “But then they’ll be looking for me, too. And I already told you all, I’m not strong enough to fly anyone.”

“You’ve got to try,” Rose said. “Those are your friends, aren’t they?”

“But I might wind up trapped or clue the cops in to their powers.” Tears pricked Emma’s eyes. “Besides, I’m not blowing up a bunch of cops for doing their jobs.”

The clock read 5:09. Odd, and it missed being divisible by five, too. The numbers didn’t add up to three or a multiple of three. So, not divisible by three.

Hannah glanced at her, swerving as she looked away from the road. “Last night you said you couldn’t catch up and didn’t know where they’d take Summer. Right now, your friends are in that alley, and—”

Seven. She needed to try seven. Seven by seven gave her 49. Which left 19. Nope.

“I don’t have my costume. I’d be as screwed as Bastian and Summer if I reveal myself.”

Eleven maybe? Eleven into 509. Four in the tens lpace gave her 440. Which left 69. Not divisible by 11 then. She couldn’t save them. Cops meant guns.

Ollie kicked her seat. “You should try and save Bastian.”

Emma looked up as Hannah pulled back into the parking lot for the strip mall that housed the arcade.

“What do you expect me to do? I can’t—”

“Dude, what’s the point of that self-defense class and blowing up the creek?” Ollie’s voice had a hard edge.

“I—” Emma wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. Thirteen into 509?

“What kind of superhero are you?” Ollie asked.

She wouldn’t divide it by unlucky thirteen. She swallowed down the bile and the lump of fear. “The kind that wants to live.”

Hannah made a noise. Emma looked at her, but couldn’t read her cousin’s face at all.

“You’re not who I thought you were at all.” Ollie kicked Emma’s seat. “You’re a coward.”

Rose sucked air in through her teeth before Emma registered Ollie’s words.

Emma’s cheeks burned hot and her throat closed tight. If she didn’t get shot, she’d get caught for sure. She’d gotten Hannah’s feet frozen when Ice Queen kidnapped her. Dragon Girl didn’t have a lot of success, no matter what her fan girl in the backseat thought.

But now, Ollie calling her a coward—Emma wasn’t a coward. At least she wouldn’t be. Emma pulled Hannah’s pink ski mask out of her backpack.

“Emma,” Hannah said, looking out her with wide eyes.

Mann was going to get her, too. Emma bit down on the thought before it escaped her mouth.

This was it. Her moment of truth. She’d played at being a superhero last year. But this time, she understood the consequences. If she failed, she’d be disappeared with Bastian and Andres. If she didn’t try, Bastian and Andres would disappear, and she’d feel guilty for not trying.

Her breath whistling, Emma climbed out of the car.

“Wait!” Hannah said.

Emma dug her nails into her palms. Half blind thanks to the ski mask, she pushed off the ground and scissor kicked into the air. She hurtled over the buildings.

Emma squinted. The mask fogged up her glasses again.

In self-defense class, Johnson always harped on situational awareness. Be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to the exits and potential threats.

When she touched down on the roof, Emma yanked off the ski mask and her glasses. She dropped onto her belly. Her heart pounded and she was all too aware of the faint whistle of her breath—of all the days to not have her inhaler. She waved her glasses in the crisp air.

“Sebastian Miguel Muñoz y Becerra.” The cold voice biting out Bash’s full name made Emma shiver. “How’d you get from Pueblo Lindo to here? It sure wasn’t Uber.”

The lenses of her glasses were still half fogged over, but she wanted to see the guy interviewing Bash. With her foggy glasses on, Emma army crawled to the edge of the roof. Twigs and gravel dug into her knees. Her knee stung, and her jeans felt damp. The scab busted open. But, situational awareness meant looking before she leapt, right?

Before, she had only glimpsed the police cars in the back alley. A truck like the ones that took Summer and Ms. Range, and five—no, six—cop cars crowded into the narrow space between the buildings and a concrete wall.

A wall and a dumpster blocked the far end of the alley. Andres could be hiding behind the dumpster.

The three gangbangers from earlier clapped police officers on their backs. What the heck? Real gangbangers would never be so friendly with cops. They must have been staking out the arcade, pretending to drink. Had they been watching Andres and the arcade? Or was something else shady going on in that shopping center? Either way, they’d seen Emma and everyone go into the arcade.

The truck itself looked kind of like a U-Haul or one of those trucks they used for transporting prisoners in movies, but it had weird equipment on top.

And Sebastian stood handcuffed behind it.

Agent Mann stood over Sebastian, waving a cell phone. A weird light reflected off his high forehead and sunglasses, making it look like his eyes glowed. Who wore sunglasses in the dark, anyway?

Despite her heavy sweatshirt, goosebumps prickled Emma’s arms.

Mann straightened his tie.

The gangbangers being friends with the cops meant he’d already known about Andres and his road north. But then, why hadn’t they come into the shop for the girls?

Had her father played Andres by pretending to be part of a secret way to Canada and arresting the supers Andres brought to him? What if there was no road north? What if there was no couple in Liberty Junction?

Emma wheezed.

Mann glanced up.

Holding her breath, she jerked back. Stupid forgetting her inhaler. She held her breath, trying to fight the urge to gasp for air.

Mann and Sebastian remained silent. The voices of the cops celebrating their successful stakeout echoed from beside the dumpster. The gangbangers had been there to watch Andres all along.

Emma sucked in a tiny bit of air. The breath whistled in her lungs, but not so loud. Quiet. If she kept quiet, Mann might think the whistling was a bird or a mouse squeaking. She’d be fine.

Her nose tickled, threatening a sneeze. Emma’s eyes watered, and she scrunched her face. No fireballs. No sneezes. Blasting her friends was out of the question.

“How did you find the Speedster?” Mann asked.

Emma gasped for air.

Silence followed. Her lungs burned. Still, yay Bash for keeping his mouth shut.

“Do you know any other supers?”

Yeah, Bastian! He wouldn’t rat her out. No way he would compromise her. He was a good friend.

Not like her.

Not like Andres. Where was he anyway?

Emma inched back to the edge.

Mann’s big sunglasses stared into Bash’s eyes as if he could read answers there, despite her friend’s silence.

Emma scanned the alleyway from the row of cops and fake gangbangers in front of the cars, past the truck, to the graffitied dumpster.

No sign of him.

Andres must have ditched Sebastian when the truck had shown up.

Even if Andres was the expert at this, maybe Sebastian should have just taken a bus to Mexico with a fake name.

Especially since her dad probably arrested everyone Andres sent north. That would make sense. But if that were the case, why was Mann busting up her dad’s operation now? G-Man.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me now. When you get to the Stocks, you’ll be glad to tell us who you're hiding. Mind control always works.”

Emma’s nose tingled. She rubbed it with the back of her hand. Something flickered by the dumpster.

She blinked, trying to focus on the spot where she’d seen the flicker. But it was already gone.

“What the—?” Andres shouted. And there he was, two strides away, running—regular speed running—towards Sebastian with bolt cutters in one hand. What was he doing? Why did he slow down to normal speed just as he got close?

In one smooth movement, Agent Mann turned, caught hold of Andres wrist, and twisted until Andres dropped the bolt cutters.

No. Why did he slow down? Why did he let that jerk catch him? Was this some sort of weird plan Andres hadn’t told them about?

“What the heck? How?” Andres stammered, trying to worm out of Mann’s grasp. “I was going full speed and then—and then...”

“Then you hit the truck’s nullifying field.” While Agent Mann pinned Andres’s arms behind his back, he scanned along the roof’s edge as if searching for something. Had he heard Emma wheezing? “No powers. Only normal human everything for you.”

Before Mann’s sunglasses turned to her hiding spot, Emma scrambled away from the edge of the roof. Was she close enough to the truck that her powers wouldn’t work?

She curled on her side, trying to quiet the squeak her breath made deep in her chest.

No way would she stay here or follow them and risk getting caught in the field. She’d fall out of the sky like a rock and, unlike Bastian, she wouldn’t heal.

Without powers, she couldn’t bust them out. She couldn’t protect herself if the cops climbed up on the roof.

Only thing she could do was run.

Chapter 11

“Drive!” Emma slammed the door behind her. Cold tracks ran down her cheeks and dribbled off her chin. Poop on a pretzel. She was crying.

“Where’s Bash and Andres?” Hannah asked.

“We. Got to. Go. North. All of us—before—before—” Emma gasped for air. The whistling deep in her chest filled the whole car. She dug her fingernails into her palms.

Darkness made a tunnel around her. Breathe. She needed to breathe. The air barely made it past the tightness in her throat, let alone into her chest.

Emma threw back her head and gasped.

Panic. This was panic, wasn’t it? Name the emotion to get it under control. And practice breathing deep. Isn’t that what Ms. Ngo told her? But Ms. Ngo’s mindfulness stuff never had an asthma attack.

“Calm down.” Ollie bumped against her seat. “I’ve got my inhaler.”

The car lurched as Hannah peeled out of the parking lot. “Are the cops after you?”

“Think.” Wheeze. “Agent. Mann.” Wheeze. “Saw me.” Wheeze.

“Are they following us?” Hannah checked the rear-view mirror.

Gasp. Emma clutched her chest.

“Don’t see anyone,” Rose said. “No cops on the road. No sirens. They must hav stayed in the alley.”

Ollie kept bumping against Emma’s seat as Hannah’s pink Cadillac flew down the road, leaving the decrepit strip mall behind and heading back to the freeway.

“Then we’re okay,” Hannah glanced at Emma.

“They’re going—” Emma’s breath squealed. “To rat us out.”

“No way.” Rose leaned across the gap from behind the back seat to touch Emma’s shoulder. “Andres could’ve turned me in anytime during the last two weeks.”

Another gasp. Emma jerked away from Rose’s hand and turned on the air conditioner. The window would kill her, but air might help. She gulped down another breath. “Asked. Bash. Who. Drove. To. Arcade.”

“Is your friend that crappy?” Hannah asked.

“No.” Ollie thrust a blue inhaler and a crushed toilet paper roll over Emma’s shoulder. “Albuterol for you.”

“Mind. Control.” Emma shook the inhaler hard.

“Mind control?” Panic tinged Hannah’s voice as she turned onto Hammer Lane, where all three lanes crawled along. Rush hour.

“TP?” Emma held up the roll. She’d do without a spacer rather than use that.

“Half a paper towel roll.”

Emma stuck the dubious cardboard in her mouth.

“Dude, with mind control, they’ll learn everything the guys know.” Ollie kicked Emma’s seat.

Inhaler at the end of the roll, Emma exhaled as much as she could, sealed her lips around the cardboard tube, and pushed down on the inhaler. Tchh the inhaler puffed. The sweetest sound in the world. Emma sucked the medicine deep into her lungs.

“They’ll learn about Andres’ whole operation. Every super he ever helped.” Rose’s voice shook.

Emma was supposed to hold her breath and count to ten. The sound of her heart racing pounded in her ears and she couldn’t count.

“Agent Mann asked. Who helped. Bash. If he.” Gasp. “Knew any supers.”

“But it’s just Bash, right?” Ollie asked.

Emma shook her head, eyes fixed on the clock. She needed to wait one minute to use the inhaler again. 5:23. They were all in it now. The fake gangbangers had seen Hannah pull up in her car. The time was odd but didn’t end in five. Add the digits. Five and two made seven, plus three. Ten. Not, three, six or nine. Couldn’t divide by three, then.

“He caught the speedster?” Hannah stomped the brakes. They stopped just short of rear-ending another car. “How’d he do that?”

“Truck turned off powers.” Emma’s breath hit a hitch in her throat, but the whistling had eased.

“For reals?” Ollie asked.

5:23 still. If mind control weren’t an issue, Hannah and Ollie could have claimed they didn’t ask why Emma and Bash needed a ride to the arcade.

Seven times seven gave her 49. Which left 33.

No. Seven didn’t work. And neither did Hannah and Ollie lying. Bash and Andres would spill under mind control that Hannah and Ollie had known about Sebastian and Emma’s powers. And that they were trying to help them run away.

5:24. Thank goodness. Emma shook the inhaler again.

“Need to run north. All of us. You’re helping fugitives.” Cardboard tube back in her mouth, Emma took another puff.

If not, Hannah and Ollie would be arrested as accessories.

“I don’t think so,” Rose said. “That’s not what Geek Fire would do.”

Emma held her breath the whole ten count this time. No one answered Rose.

“It is what Geek Fire is doing.” Emma twisted to hand the inhaler to Ollie. “I can’t save them.” Shame for it being true. Then anger surged at Rose for making Emma admit it.

“But you’re the first superhero to fight a super villain.” Rose’s voice was still too perky. “The battle was amazing!”

“Getting kidnapped by my geography teacher sucked.” Emma’s throat tightened again at the thought.

“So did getting frostbite on my feet.” Hannah shivered. “Emma’s right. We’ve all got to run. But we’ve got to do it right. What if we can’t find this Shadow Walker guy? What if he can’t reach Andres’ contacts?”

“I’m not running,” Ollie’s said voice husky.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Emma put her hand on Ollie’s knee, then pulled it back. What was she doing? Did Ollie want Emma to touch her like that?

“Ollie,” Hannah said, oblivious. “You and I need clothes. Emma, we’ll stop at Nan’s to get your superhero costume and inhaler.”

“I—”

“Just in case you need them,” Hannah said.

“How would we find Shadow Walker without Dragon Girl?” Rose clutched the oh-shit handle as Hannah tore onto the freeway and slammed on her brakes again. Rush hour.

“Besides, it’s their movie night. My mom always drives, which means we can borrow Nan’s car. Then, at my house, we’ll take my mom’s emergency cash.” Hannah checked the rear-view mirror again. “This is way more of an emergency than any of the junk she buys.”

What about Hannah’s dad? Wouldn’t Uncle Frank be there?

“What about my mom?” Ollie said.

“What about her?” Emma asked. Not like she was home enough to miss Ollie, anyway.

“What do you mean what about her?” Ollie asked.“Bastian’s like one of a million kids, lives with his mom, dad, and his grandma. They’ll be fine without him.”

Emma thought they’d still miss their son. He was tight with his parents.

“Your Nan is mean and after the last few days, used to you not being around.”

Emma blinked. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like that. Except it kind of was. Emma craned her neck, trying to see Ollie’s face.

“Besides, she’s got your Aunt Beth right there to take care of her. And, Hannah, your mom has got Nan and your dad.”

Hannah made a choking sound, but said nothing.

Ollie closed her eyes. “My mom is just... my mom. She doesn’t have anyone but me.”

“What are you saying, Ol?” Emma asked. Her throat so tight it choked off the words.

Ollie met Emma’s gaze. “I can’t leave her.”

“If you don’t leave, they’ll arrest you for helping Bash.” Emma touched Ollie’s leg again.

Ollie moved Emma’s hand so it fell. “I’m staying here. Even if Bastian rats me out, I’ll tell them can say I didn’t find out anything until Bash cut his hand. I won’t roll over on you, but my mom needs me.” Ollie’s lips curved, but her cheeks didn’t even rise. “Hannah, when you stop... I’ll just take my bike and go home.”

Emma couldn’t let it go. “Ollie, if you don’t come with us, you’re putting you and your mom in danger.”

“Rose, you see the future, right?” Ollie asked.

“I see things. If they’re the future...” Rose waved her hands. “I don’t know. I see a future. Some futures. Possibilities. And I hope some of my nightmares are just dreams.”

“If I stay home with my mom, what will happen?” Ollie asked. “Will I get arrested?”

Rose sighed. "I don’t see everything all the time.”

Ollie turned to the window. “I’ll take my chances.”

Chapter 12

When Hannah pulled up in front of Emma’s trailer, Emma swallowed down her shame at Rose, her fangirl, seeing her home. Most people considered trailers trashy, and the beaten up double wide on the edge of Hannah’s property was falling apart.

Even though Emma struggled with reading people’s faces, Rose’s didn’t give any hint she was judging Emma.

“I’m so excited to see where you live.” Rose bounced out of the car. “This is way bigger than my family’s home.”

Ollie went to the back and unloaded her bike, but Rose stuck right to Emma.

“He’s so noble, staying behind for his mom.” Rose pointed at Ollie as Emma unlocked the door.

“She!” Emma said. “Ollie is a she.”

“If you say so.” Rose waved at Ollie and followed Emma into the empty trailer.

Emma stepped over Nan’s shoes. Only Nan got to leave her shoes by the front door. If Emma even thought about it, she’d get told off and called Little Ms. Happy Trails, even though Emma couldn’t see any difference between leaving her shoes by the door and Nan’s leaving hers.

This was her home. It didn’t matter she’d been avoiding it since she found out about her father. The smells of Sniggles’ litter box, coffee, and—she realized—old woman filled her nose. Something was off. Or was it her? Emma flipped the light switch, her gaze zooming to the imprint of Nan’s body in the worn leather recliner. She glanced down, finding the spot on the carpet that had looked like a dead squid. Nan had scrubbed it, a circle of crushed carpet near her chair.

Rose swept past her into the living room, leaving footprints in the brown shag carpet. She moved past the coffee table and the couch towards Nan’s chair.

Emma moved to stop Rose from seeing—what? Nan’s imprint in the chair? The place where Sniggles had shredded the side of the chair and the couch instead of using his scratching post?

“What a nice mug.” Rose picked up a cup from the end table next to Nan’s chair. “Did you give it to her?”

Emma took the mug from Rose to find it was half full of old coffee. A cartoon lady ate a banana underneath the words, “Best Nana.” In grade school, she’d given it to Nan for Mother’s Day.

Emma swirled the coffee around the cup. She should wash it out before Nan complained about someone leaving a mess.

But it was Nan’s mess, not hers. And Emma hadn’t been home for over a week. So, she set the cup back on the end table.

In the hallway, smiling pictures of her family tried to tell her not to leave behind a happy life full of love. Nan, Beth, Emma, and Hannah smiling fake smiles clustered together around a carpeted pedestal with the year on it. In one picture, as she dove, her eyes had locked on the camera for a moment before she’d tucked her head down to splash into the water. Another showed her and Hannah smiling back-to-back in front of a vineyard. The vineyard wasn't even the one that separated Hannah’s mansion from Emma’s trailer, but some photo studio’s sheet pulled down with a stranger’s vineyard printed on it.

Someone had shut the door to Emma’s room, which—like leaving her shoes by the door—Nan never allowed Emma to do. The desk sat bare because Nan always made her clean it, and she swept everything into the top drawer before going to bed. Lofted over the desk, the bed sported hospital corners. Her favorite Cabbage Patch, Elna Gabby, sat on her pillow, accusing Emma of abandoning her.

Everything was how she’d left it, as if Nan hadn’t been in there at all, but Nan’s flowery perfume lingered.

Emma stood on the desk to tuck Elna Gabby into bed before the Cabbage Patch demanded a space in her swim bag or backpack. Still, the dozens of others in her collection watched her from the shelves that ran below the ceiling.

Emma cleaned out her dresser, then turned to the closet. She’d buried the old suitcase she used to hide her costume behind stacks of papers and thrift store books.

Hannah and Rose were right. She needed it. She had to figure out how to find the un-findable Shadow Walker. Besides, Nan shouldn’t find out Emma was a super. Not by finding the costume.

After collecting it, Emma lifted the papier mâché Saturn off the shelf. Nan had helped her plan it and paint it. Now, it held every bit of change she’d gotten since she was nine. While it wasn’t as much as Hannah would get from Aunt Beth’s emergency stash, it was hers.

And she hadn’t planned a way to get the money out.

Emma set it on the floor. Her throat felt tight again. So, she grabbed her own inhaler and spacer out of the desk drawer and shoved them into her sweatshirt pocket.

She turned back to the innocent planet and stomped it open.

The rings tipped sideways and bits of straw from Nan’s old sun hat poked through. The green balloon that had been the base remained crumpled and stuck in bits on the inside of the papier mâché.

A droplet fell on the rings, and Emma wiped it, realizing it was a tear. Emma rubbed her face, then gathered the change into her backpack. When she turned to justify her tears to Rose, Emma couldn’t find her.

“Rose?” Emma shouted. “Rose!”

“In the bathroom.” Rose’s voice more muffled than a voice should be in the bathroom that joined Nan and Emma’s rooms, but Emma didn’t pay it any mind when the toilet flushed. “I’ll be right out.”

While Rose washed her hands, Emma wiped her face on a shirt and tossed it towards the hamper in the corner. How could she be sad about leaving without saying goodbye to Nan? That woman had lied to Emma forever. But she was the closest thing to a mom Emma had.

Rose slid open the pocket door, then shifted her backpack to her other shoulder.

“You have everything you need?” Rose slid the door shut, but not before Emma noticed the door to Nan’s room was ajar. Still, Rose didn’t mention the open door, so neither did Emma.

“I think so.” Emma shrugged.

“Then you probably want to say goodbye to your friend. He seems like a good guy.”

“She! Why do you keep calling Ollie a he?” Emma demanded. “You’ve known her like five minutes. It’s not like there’s a lot of time to forget that she’s a she.”

“Ask Ollie why you’re the only one that’s corrected me.” Rose headed back out the hallway. “I like your place, by the way.”

Emma looked for Sniggles, but the ancient cat must be hiding. Out front, Ollie stood alone outside, holding her bike. Hannah’s Escalade was empty.

“Hey,” Ollie said. “This is it, huh?”

“I guess so.” Emma didn’t want it to be. “I can’t stay here.”

“But I can’t leave.” Ollie put her hand on Emma’s shoulder, then dropped it back to her handlebars.

“I...” Emma didn’t know what to say. It was like her mouth had started talking before she had the words. “You’re my best friend. You know that, right?”

“I know.” Ollie’s lips curled at the edges like she was trying to smile. Again, her cheeks failed to mound into little hills.

“I try to stand up for you. Even though you don’t. Rose said I should ask you why you let people talk about you like you’re a guy.”

“It’s easier than arguing.” Ollie chewed her lip. After a moment of silence, she said, “Besides...”

“Besides what?”

“I’ve never been a girlie girl.” Ollie studied the shifters on the handlebars.

“So? That doesn’t mean that they should call you he. It’s rude.”

“I guess, but...” Still staring down, Ollie rolled her bike forward. “It doesn’t bother me anymore than being called she.”

“But you are a girl.”

“Sometimes, things would be easier if I were a guy. You know.”

“What?” Emma asked, confused. What was Ollie trying to tell her? What would be easier?

Ollie’d complained about being a girl before, but Emma’d never heard her say anything about life being easier if she were a guy. At least, she’d never understood it that way now.

Now though, Ollie’s short hair, her boy clothes, how she always covered up in a baggy sweatshirt and swam with jammers over her swimsuit, made sense.

“I never really felt like a girl. Besides, some things would be easier. More obvious, if I were a dude.”

“Like what?” Emma asked.

“Well... I mean. I just...” Ollie stammered and played with the shifter on her bike. It was hard to tell in the dark with nothing but the porch light, but was Ollie blushing?

“Ollie?” Emma asked.

“You’re—you’re my best friend too, and I don’t want to screw that up. Okay? I don’t... I don’t want to complicate things. Especially not now that you’re leaving.”

“You can tell me anything. What could you tell me that would change things? I’ll still be able to message you and call if I make it up to Canada. If we don’t... If Agent Mann or someone else... I don’t want... I don’t want to think my best friend kept secrets from me.”

Ollie fiddled with the bike’s headlight, not saying anything.

“Don’t keep secrets from me, not when I’m leaving.” Emma grabbed Ollie’s shoulders.

“Fine. I just....” Ollie met Emma’s eyes for a second.

The look sent a jolt through Emma before Ollie looked away again.

“Sometimes,” Ollie said. “It bothers me being called a girl. I don’t always feel like a girl.”

“Are you... are you telling me you’re trans? Do I... do I call you he?” Emma asked. She knew trans people existed, but she hadn’t ever really talked to anyone who was trans before.

But this was Ollie. Her best friend ever since seventh grade when she—he?—transferred to Pueblo Lindo Middle. Ollie had always been there for her.

“Maybe.” Ollie glanced at Emma’s face before looking away again. “I don’t know that I am a guy either. I’m just... I’m just me.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” Emma asked. “I tell you all my secrets. You know everything about me. You knew as soon as I did that I had powers.”

Ollie stared down at her—his?—bike pedals. She—he?—hooked a foot under a pedal and pedaled it backwards.

“Ollie?”

“I guess... I guess because I like you. Like... Like you.” Instead of meeting Emma’s eyes, she turned on the light on the front of the bike.

No. Not she. He. Ollie, Emma’s tomboy best friend, wasn’t a just tomboy. She was trans. He was trans.

And liked Emma. Crap. How did she miss this?

A dozen touches, glances, the way Ollie hated Andres and sometimes got mad at Sebastian for no reason at all, all swam up into Emma’s mind. Warm feelings she’d squashed down rekindled in Emma’s belly. “What? Me?” Emma’s voice did that thing where it came out louder than she meant it to.

How could Ollie be telling her this now? She was running away, and Ollie liked her?

“You’re mad.” Ollie rolled her—his?—bike backwards a step.

“Sorry, I’m not. I’m not mad. I’m...” Emma struggled to name the emotion. What did she feel? Mad? No, she didn’t think so.

Mad didn’t describe the warmth in her belly or hollowness in her chest.

“I think I’m surprised. I didn’t...”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Ollie swung a leg over the bike.”

“Ollie, don’t—” Emma shook her head. What was she even trying to say?

“It’s okay. It’s my fault.” Ollie rocked backwards. “I’ll go home to my mom and live a normal life, and you’ll go off and stop being scared and have superhero adventures up in Canada.”

“Don’t go. Come with us.” Emma grabbed Ollie’s arm.

Ollie shook his head and brushed Emma’s arm away. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Go with Hannah and get her stuff, and then... Messenger me when you get someplace safe. All right?” Ollie scooted the bike around Emma, then pedaled down the driveway.

“Ollie!” Emma shouted, but Nan’s car started, the engine drowning out Emma’s voice.

“Let’s go!” Hannah shouted out the driver’s window.

Emma stared down the driveway at Ollie’s retreating form. She touched to her face, crying again, and hurried to Nan’s Oldsmobile. She slammed the duffel bag into the trunk.

“What about your car?” Emma asked, setting the backpack by her feet.

“They can track the GPS. And I left Nan the keys and a note.” Hannah glanced in the mirror. “What’s up with you two, anyway? Ollie finally tell you she’s gay for you or what?”

“What? No. It’s not... What?” Emma stammered. How did Hannah know? Did Hannah know everything about everyone?

“It’s obvious.” Hannah stared at Emma. “She follows you around like a puppy dog. Does everything you do.”

“He.” Emma buckled her seatbelt. How had both Hannah and Rose known when Emma hadn’t? Emma’d always thought Ollie was the one person she could read.

“She did, didn’t she?” Hannah asked.

“He,” Rose said, her voice not as chipper as before.

Emma rolled up the window before Hannah started backing out of the driveway. Her face burned.

How could Emma set things right with Ollie after they got to Canada? How could she fix this? A text wasn’t enough.

Nan’s engine whined as Hannah drove like a mad woman. They still had to figure out a way to find Shadow Walker and get to Canada. If Aunt Beth’s emergency stash was big enough, maybe Hannah could just drive all the way in Nan’s car.

And Agent Mann and those cops had to know about them. Why had they let them get away?

Chapter 13

A thick lump formed at the base of Emma’s throat. She swallowed hard, but that made her ears pop and did nothing to fix the choking feeling. She was still trying to wrap her head around what had happened with Ollie. What was Emma supposed to do with that information now?

Hannah pulled into the long driveway leading up to her house. The big columns and massive front door glowed as if they had a light of their own. Emma glanced around for signs of the cops or the truck they used for hauling off supers, but no other cars passed by.

“You live here?” Rose said in awe.

“Yeah,” Hannah said. The way Hannah bit off the word almost sounded defensive, but why would she be uptight about her enormous house? Hannah’s home was perfect, just like Hannah.

Emma was the one who wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t brave like Ollie thought. She wasn’t a real superhero like Rose thought. Emma was just a kid who didn’t know what to do next.

Emma trailed behind them into the house. Even though Rose prattled on, the words washed over Emma in a big incomprehensible wall of sound.

Emma followed them into through the sitting room where Uncle Frank had left a glass of scotch on the coffee table, and no one had picked it up. If the maid didn’t pick it up, Aunt Beth would. So, either Frank had been home and gone after Aunt Beth had already headed out for movie night, or Emma didn’t know.

When Emma reached the stairs, the overwhelm grew.

Hannah would go to her room first. Emma didn’t want to go back there again. She should have waited in the car.

But when Emma turned to go back in the car, Rose caught her by the arm.

“Where are you going?” Rose asked, a firm smile on her face.

Emma shook her head

The maid had straightened the pictures, and the broken glass was gone. Smiling, perfect people filled the neatly aligned pictures. Even the pictures of Emma made her seem as perfect as the rest of them. Maybe none of them were perfect, though. Maybe that was the secret. Emma sure didn’t have things figured out.

Outside the door to Hannah’s room, Emma pulled off her glasses and rubbed them on the soft material inside her sweatshirt.

Hannah shoved past Emma during a pause in Rose’s chatter. Even Rose must need to rest her mouth for her brain to catch up. Hannah rushed into a spare room on the opposite side of the house from the master.

Emma followed her cousin to the spare room. Or what used to be a spare room. Now the bed was rumpled, the drawers were ajar, and the whole place smelled like Aunt Beth.

Hannah pulled out a folding step stool from under the bed and used it to climb up into the closet, full of Aunt Beth’s clothes. Why was all of Aunt Beth’s stuff in here?

“What are you doing?” Emma asked as Hannah snatched a ceramic jar from the top shelf.

Hannah gave Emma the jar. The brown jar had the word ‘hunny’ painted on it in childish letters.

Emma smiled. Hannah had loved Tigger and Pooh as a kid.

“My mom keeps her emergency stash in her room.” Hannah climbed down off the chair and took back the jar. “Usually she uses it for extras Dad’s not supposed to know about.”

“Her room?” Emma asked.

Aunt Beth shared the master bedroom with Uncle Frank on the other side of the house. How was this Aunt Beth’s room?

“Yeah. Her room.” Hannah tugged on the lid of the cookie jar. “I swear Mom got this because I couldn’t open it when I was little.”

The half-open drawers tried to tell Emma something. When was the last time Uncle Frank had come to the Monday night dinner? A massive canvas showing the winery at night decorated the wall facing the master bedroom. The bed didn’t meet Nan’s standards, let alone Aunt Beth’s. The maid was gone. Beth was sleeping here.

“That must be tough for you.” Rose ran her hand through her thick, pink and black hair, making her look frazzled. “You must not want to leave your mom either, not with...”

Hannah sat on the end of the bed holding the ‘hunny’ jar. “What choice do I have? I drove you guys. The commission will use this mind control crap to make Sebastian and Andres tell them I helped you. Then... what am I supposed to do. My mom and dad are...”

“They’re grown ups,” Emma said. “They should have everything figured out.”

“Yeah, well... My mom doesn’t deserve his crap. She does everything for him. Everything. She should’ve earned his love a million times over by now, but he’s always gone, and she’s given up.”

How was Emma supposed to react?

“I don’t want to go, but I don’t have a choice. I’m not staying to get arrested, not like Summer did.” Hannah clutched the cookie jar to her stomach like a baby. “My mom... That would break her.”

Emma wanted to say something, do something, but she felt frozen to the spot. Her mouth glued itself shut. Her mind started racing down a million paths. Ways she might comfort Hannah, but they were all stupid.

“The Sestinas, they’ve got a good marriage. They’re always holding hands, helping, smiling, laughing. He’s home all the time... and well... look at them.” Hannah slammed the jar down onto the bed. “Look how they’re reacting to Summer being snatched out of their arms for something dumb. Something she never asked for.”

Rose pushed Emma towards Hannah, but Emma stumbled.

“She could almost braid her hair without touching it. Smooth flyaways. That’s it. Why is that such a big deal?” Hannah glared at Rose and Emma. “It’s not like either of your powers.”

Hannah was right. Summer didn’t deserve to get arrested and neither did Bash. Neither of their powers affected anyone else. So what if he could heal? Whatever the commission was doing, someone needed to stop them. Just that someone wasn’t Emma.

“I’m sorry.” Rose padded over to the window and peeked out the curtain.

Emma felt so... she didn’t know. If she could name her emotions, Ms. Ngo said that they’d be easier to manage. Her cheeks were warm. Her belly fluttered. Tears pricked her eyes. Whatever these things meant together, these feelings were too big to get a handle on, too mixed to even try to name. She bit the inside of her cheek, hoping to slow the whirlwind.

“And you. I’m just supposed to be nice to you. Poor orphan Emma.” Hannah stood, spitting the words into Emma’s face. “She needs you to take care of her. Be like her big sister.”

Emma shrunk away from her cousin, biting harder on the inside of her cheek. The sour taste of blood welled into her mouth.

“Never mind all the times you insult me without even realizing it. Even now they tell me I’m older, I should know better. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Then Ice Queen kidnapped me because of you.” Hannah swung her finger into Emma’s chest, knocking the jar off the bed. It crashed to the floor. “Am I supposed to forgive, that too?”

“I’m sorry.” Emma knelt to pick up the hunny jar. The lip had a small chip. She ran her finger over the sharp spot. Was that why Hannah was so mean to her?

Hannah snatched the jar back. “It’s mine.”

“I think...” Emma swallowed. “I think you’re mad at me because you need to be mad at someone and you can’t be mad at your parents.”

“Now you’re the expert at emotions?” Hannah snapped.

“No.” Overwhelmed, Emma started to to sit on the bed, but the grime on her clothes. “I’m just trying to figure out my own feelings. I don’t want to run away either.”

“I thought you already did that.” Hannah snapped. “Left me alone to deal with my parents and Nan.”

“I’m sorry.” Emma pressed her lips together, thinking. “I wish there was a way for us to stay and not get arrested. The commission shouldn’t be kidnapping people.”

“You’re a superhero,” Rose said from her spot at the window. “We can take down the Super Commission.”

“What? The three of us?” Emma laughed. “Did you have a vision?”

Rose shook her head. “I know it’s crazy. But you’re the real deal. You fought Ice Queen.”

Emma pressed her tongue against the cut in her cheek. She unfocused her eyes, searching the wall’s textured plaster for faces and shapes to pick out. A clown. A demon. Something, anything. If only there were a way to take on the commission and win. Three teenaged girls. One who could see the future, but hadn’t. One who could sneeze fireballs. And one who could call a judge. What good was that?

“Come on,” Rose said. “You can’t leave your friends and make your cousin run away with you. You’re better than that. You’re Geek Fire.”

Emma shook her head, not knowing what to say. A shape started to take form in the plaster, long wavy arms stretched out from a central hub. How were the three of them supposed to stop the Super Commission from arresting anyone else? This was a huge organization.

“You’ve got to be better than that,” Rose said earnestly. The kid was serious. “If I run alone—you keep me safe. I saw that. If I stick by your side—”

“I can’t keep you safe. Especially not if we try to... We’re just kids. Even if I sneeze fireballs.” Emma frowned at the cartoon version of herself on Rose’s shirt. “It’s my fault there’s scars all over Hannah’s feet.”

Hannah made a noise.

“I’m the one who got Bastian caught. I couldn’t find Summer the other night, even though I looked.”

Rose put her hands on Emma’s shoulders. “We can attack their prison—you said it’s called the Stocks.”

“We’ll be caught for sure.” Emma shook her head, feeling defeated. “How can we take on a prison designed to hold supers?”

“If we do...” Rose studied Emma’s face. “You can do more than message Ollie from Canada.”

Emma’s heart thudded in her chest.

“So what if you’re scared, and you screwed up before? You can fix things.” Rose asked.

Was that possible? Could they fix this? Emma swallowed the bitter fear in her throat. Taking on the commission seemed like a suicide mission.

“I don’t know how, but I’ve seen you and Ollie and the healer and Andres all laughing and eating together at a restaurant. With me. With her. Somehow, we do fix this.”

Emma collapsed onto the bed. Rose believed in her. Or maybe she believed in the cartoon Dragon Girl plastered on her chest. But now Rose waited for Emma to say something new. To try something new.

“They say being brave doesn’t mean not being scared.” Rose sat next to Emma.

The cartoon Dragon Girl on Rose’s shirt seemed to stare at Emma. Could she live up to the cartoon image of herself?

Rose smiled at her. “They say it’s being scared and doing something about it.”

“What can I do?” Emma ran a hand over her face. “The commission will arrest me, too.”

Just because someone stopped the commission, just because Rose saw some future, didn’t mean Emma was the one to do it.

“So what?” Rose took Emma’s hand in hers. “Do something. Set your friends free and stop the commission from arresting anyone else—well, anyone else who doesn’t deserve it.”

Emma’s eyes pricked with tears. That didn’t mean Emma couldn’t try. Rose was right. Maybe she could save her friends. Just not all by herself. “I guess we need to find this Shadow Walker guy and get some help.” Because that might be their only chance at success.

Chapter 14

On top of Farmer’s Bank, Emma shivered as she tucked her clothes into her backpack. This was not how she’d pictured her Friday night. Rose and Hannah had concocted a plan to find Shadow Walker while they drove north to Liberty Junction. As plans went, it was super crappy. Worse, Emma had to do all the legwork while the other two hung out at the mall. If Hannah got her way—and she usually did—they’d be trying on dresses and getting free makeovers.

Rose and Hannah thought the best way to find Shadow Walker was for Emma to stop some crimes in his territory, and, if they were lucky, he’d turn up to stop them, too.

Since Emma had ditched her phone and didn’t have her stupid police scanner app, she got to fly over Shadow Walker’s territory, look for crimes, and try to stop them.

In November.

At nighttime.

In her stupid, thin spandex costume.

Hence leaving her backpack stuffed with clothes on top of the bank at the edge of the bad part of town nearest the mall.

And Hannah and Rose were snug and warm at the mall, trying on dresses and having fun. Emma rolled her eyes. Not that that was the best way Emma thought of spending her night, but this was supposed to be them stopping the Super Commission. And so far it was Emma taking all the risks. It would be Emma and her powers leading the attack, too. How were the other two supposed to pull their weight?

Across the street, a guy about her age wrestled a statue of the Pickle King back inside the Pickle Palace. She’d never understood the Pickle King. Was he a king because of the crown or a chef because of the apron? It made no sense. Either you were a king, or you weren’t.

The guy must be getting ready to close up shop or be bored out of his skull. He didn’t have a single customer, but at least he got paid to be inside, warm, and safe.

Emma chewed her lip, her stomach rumbling. Doubt started to creep in. Yeah, she’d like to stop the Super Commission and save her friends, but what odds did they have?

She could buy a sandwich and hang out for an hour before going to the mall to tell the others she’d had no luck. Then they could drive Nan’s car to Canada and she’d be safe.

Except then, she would be a coward. Bash, Andres, and Summer would still be in prison. She wouldn’t have a chance to figure things out with Ollie.

If things were different, Emma might even have asked for a job application. Trading in her Dragon Girl leggings for a dull green apron would be nice and safe. She could be working somewhere like that, some place warm if she didn’t have the dumb luck to get superpowers.

Whatever. She didn’t do good with people, anyway.

And as much as she wanted to hang out somewhere warm and eat a sandwich, she hated lying more. Before she could tell Rose and Hannah she’d tried, she had to patrol for crime.

If she didn’t find Shadow Walker, they’d run away to Canada. Try to find supers up there to take on the commission. Lobby against the way the US treated its supers from the safety granted by the Sanctuary Act. That was the safer plan. But this way, the commission wouldn’t be expecting them either.

Emma tapped her gloved hands to the freezing roof and dove, arms squeezed against her ears in a tight streamline. She looked up to break the streamline and sailed over the Pickle Palace, deeper into the rough side of Liberty Junction.

This way, she could be with her friends and family at home. Figure out what to do about Nan. The cold cup of coffee and the stain on the carpet bothered her. They hinted Nan was more upset than Emma had imagined. Fix things with Hannah. Have a real talk with Ollie.

Despite everything, she felt free for the first time in months. She hadn’t flown since she’d buckled down on learning self-defense and hadn’t swam since the summer.

A huge full moon rose over the horizon. Maybe this was what they called a harvest moon. The orange-ish glow illuminated the town little better than the occasional porch light. Since this part of Liberty Junction lacked street lights, Emma struggled to see anything beyond the small bits of that shone through mini blinds and barred windows.

The cold winter air stung her eyes, making them water. She needed better gear for winter. Better gear altogether if she was going to keep being Dragon Girl in cold Canada.

For her eyes, goggles might work. If Nan chipped in for a prescription pair, Emma wouldn’t need to worry about a mask over her glasses. Plus, they’d work as a disguise and wouldn’t get knocked off her face.

The realization of what she’d just thought hit her in the stomach. She sucked in cold air. She didn’t want to go back to Nan.

She was fighting the Super Commission and probably getting arrested, or running off to Canada if she couldn’t find Shadow Walker and convince him to help. Either way, no more swim team, and Nan wouldn’t buy her anything.

A shot rang out.

Emma shuddered at the sound. Was that a gunshot? That was exactly what she’d been hoping for, but still fear filled her belly. Stopping someone who’d already fired a gun would be dangerous. But she might be able to tackle the gunman from behind.

She should check it out. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Shadow Walker would get there before her and stop the gunman first.

Emma banked to investigate the sound, enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair. She scanned the three-block area near where the sound had come from.

False alarm. Some kids’ video game was cranked way up, or else the ancient pizza delivery car pulling up to a hoarder’s house had backfired.

Emma yawned. She was running out of steam. Despite the gloves, her fingers burned with cold, so she tucked her hands in her armpits and turned back to the bank.

This was by far the dumbest plan ever. Of course it didn’t work. All she’d accomplished was possible frostbite in her hands and nose. She was freezing her butt off in her paper thin spandex, getting more and more tired, and ready to give up.

She bet Hannah and Rose were having fun and eating corn dogs or pizza. Warm. Comfortable. Without freezing cold snot running down their faces.

Heavy clouds drifted in front of the moon, making it even darker. With her luck, it would start raining while she flew back to the mall. Emma wiped her nose on her sleeve. She’d wasted enough time. Tomorrow, she’d figure out a warmer, brighter, safer way to contact Shadow Walker, or else tonight Rose might have a dream about how to find him.

Emma waved her hands in figure eight patterns, sculling down onto the bank’s roof. Shivering, she fought the zipper on her backpack. Stupid thing had caught on her hoodie.

Across the street, someone shouted. Screamed. A man in a ski mask waved a gun in the sandwich shop guy’s face.

Emma groaned. She’d just spent forever patrolling for crime, and some creep robbed the sandwich shop across from where she’d started?

With numb hands, Emma checked to make sure the headpiece Ollie had made her was still in place. She dropped her backpack and dove off the roof again.

Andres was right. She didn’t have bullet proof anything and didn’t want to blow up the poor teen with the gunman. Her best bet was the element of surprise.

At the last moment, she spun, hitting the swinging door with her right shoulder. The door chimed as Emma sailed through it. She didn’t bother telling the gunman to drop his weapon.

As he turned towards the sound, Emma scissor kicked for extra speed. She crashed into him, grabbing for the gun and twisting like she’d learned in self-defense class. They slammed into the chip display. With the gunman stunned, Emma pried the gun from his hand and threw it at the door.

This was stupid. The guy was huge. Still half stunned, he started wrestling her. Emma squirmed as he tried to pin her beneath him. He was stronger than her. But she knew to fight dirty now.

Knee to the groin wasn’t cheating. He collapsed on her, grunting in pain.

Emma shrimped like Johnson had taught them in self-defense, popping her hips up to shove him off of her with the strength of her legs. He toppled sideways, but he still had her wrists pinned. The gunman struggled to bring his hands to her neck.

Surprise attack. Dumb. Should have tried to hit his jaw with the base of her hand. Or grabbed something heavy to smash his head with.

Now, he’d choke her out if she didn’t blast him with a fireball. A little one might not bring the Pickle Palace down around them.

The gunman growled like a wild animal. She kicked and writhed and clawed at his wrists, when one of his hands jerked away.

The man grunted in surprise.

A gloved hand pulled his other hand away from hers and pinned it behind his back. Then someone yanked him the rest of the way off of her.

Emma pushed herself to a sitting position. Her rescuer had his knee pressed into the gunman’s back. His face hidden behind a ski mask, the man had some kind of padding or armor that hid beneath a simple, black shirt with the image of a gray, walking man in the center. Shadow Walker.

Their plan had worked.

The gunman’s wrists were zip-tied together behind his back. Zip ties, that’s what she needed. If she’d tackled him and tried to zip-tie his wrists together behind his back, then things would have worked out better.

“You should stay home, little girl. You could have been hurt.” Despite his words, his voice sounded reedy and young.

What right did he have calling her a little girl? “I had it under control.” Emma rolled her eyes. Shadow Walker missed the eye roll, since he was busy zip-tying the gunman’s feet together.

“Sure you did. A fireball in here would have destroyed the whole place.” Shadow Walker grunted as he climbed to his feet, then held out a hand to help her up. A faint openness of his vowels belied an accent that Emma couldn’t place.

“Hey, uh, I called the cops and said there’s a super here.” The shopkeeper said, straightening his green apron. “They’ll be sending the Super Commission. You might want to—”

Powerful strides carried Shadow Walker across the sandwich shop to the door.

“Wait!” Emma said, scurrying after him. “Speedster told us we needed to talk to you, but didn’t know how to get—”

“Shut up and follow me.” He shoved the door open to the sound of wailing sirens.

How had they gotten that close without her hearing? Crap on a stick. There was no way she’d get out of here before the Super Commission showed up. She scrambled outside after Shadow Walker just as the first cop cars pulled up. She bit down on her tongue. The pressure of her canine digging into the side of her tongue comforted her.

Emma squatted to push off the ground when Shadow Walker caught her wrist in his iron grip. She pushed off anyway, but he held her fast.

Was he trying to get her caught? Was he working for the Commission? Was the whole underground railroad a sham to catch more supers?

The cop climbed out of his car and shouted at them to freeze.

Emma fought the panic clawing its way up her throat and struggled to escape his grasp. She had to get away from him. Whatever was happening, this wasn’t what they’d planned.

Down the block, one of those trucks with the dampening field careened around the corner.

Emma screamed.

Shadow Walker clamped his free hand over her mouth.

Everything went black, but she hadn’t shut her eyes. A strange pressure filled her ears, like they were going to burst.

Emma blinked, trying to clear away the darkness, but there was nothing. No light. No sound. The sirens were gone. She didn’t even feel the November chill, only Shadow Walker’s vice-like grip on her wrist and his hand pressed to her mouth.

Then the flashing lights were below her and a good block away. Emma blinked again, trying to focus her eyes, trying to make sense of what had happened. To get a sense of where they were.

“Sorry about that.” Shadow Walker released her and took a step away. His feet crunched on the flat roof. “I knew they were close, but not that close. Now, what is this about Speedster telling you to find me? Why?”

Emma took her time answering. She needed to get her bearings and avoid a full-on meltdown. This roof was about a block away from the Pickle Palace and the bank where she’d stashed her clothes. She hadn’t even been in the store long enough to warm up. Her fingers felt numb. She crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her hands in her armpits.

“I’m not waiting all night, little girl.” Shadow Walker stared at her eyes.

Emma’s eyes stung. She tried to tell herself it was the cold, but it wasn’t. Stupid autism. At least now she knew why she hated eye contact. She studied the shapes she and Ollie had drawn in class. This is what she’d wanted. A chance to talk to Shadow Walker.

Look him in the face. “We need your help fighting the commission.”

“You’re going to take them on?” Shadow Walker laughed. “Tell me another one. You couldn’t even stop one gunman.”

“Then we’ll all have to run north.” Emma stammered and looked for the creases of his mouth. Mouths told her more than eyes, but the ski mask hid his face except for the tan skin around his dark eyes.

“What we?” Shadow Walker stepped closer, and Emma scooted backwards.

“Me, my cousin Hannah, and another super that Andr—Speedster was hiding. Calls herself Shamaness Rose.”

“So you almost got yourself killed attacking a gunman because?”

Emma dug her fingernails through her thin gloves and into her palms. She wanted his help, not to get interrogated or caught or killed.

“Answer me or I’m gone. You’ll have almost got yourself killed for nothing.”

“Because I didn’t know how else to find you. And he was going to shoot that kid at Pickle Town.”

“Not likely. The kid would have handed over the cash in the register and hit the silent alarm. Pickle Town is a national chain. I’m sure they’re insured.” Shadow Walker sat on the ledge that circled the flat roof. “Why didn’t the Speedster send you to Johnson?”

“Johnson’s been reassigned. His number goes to Agent Mann now.”

Shadow Walker sighed, powerful shoulders slumping. “This whole thing is falling apart. Now they’ve gotten to Johnson. He was the inside man—”

“They didn’t get to him.” Emma swallowed hard. Her fault.

“Then why’d he vanish?”

“They found out he’s my dad.” The hearts and swirls on her shoes took on a new meaning. Ollie’d see she wasn’t a coward after all.

That got Shadow Walker’s attention. His head snapped up. “What?”

Emma’s words fell out of her mouth in a jumble as she explained what had happened. “I’m an orphan—or at least I thought I was. My grandma always told me my parents died in an accident when I was little, but then we were at school and Johnson had his office there. When Nan saw him, she flipped out and started screaming at him. And he was my dad and then he had to leave Pueblo Lindo because everyone knew he was my dad, and someone would put two and two together and figure out I’m Dragon Girl. And then my friend cut himself and healed. So, now I have to run, and he got caught, and..."

“Slow down, kid, and quit floating like that. Get your feet on the ground.” Shadow Walker ran a hand over his face.

Emma stared down. Somehow, while she spoke, she’d started hovering above the rooftop. Six months without flying and now she was flying on accident? Twirling her hands, Emma sculled herself down to the roof. She focused on feeling her feet planted on the concrete, but her shoes were almost worn through. The press of the cold rooftop under her big toe sent a chill through her.

She needed fancy boots like the supers in the comics. Where did they get money for their costumes?

“Johnson is your father and got reassigned because it’s a conflict of interest?”

Emma nodded, not trusting herself to say anything else without her tongue getting ahead of her. Why did she do that? Either she couldn’t say anything, or everything spilled out. Not to mention, taking turns talking the right way was so hard.

And she wanted to get somewhere safe. And this rooftop was still freezing cold. At least when she was—

“What’s this about your friend getting caught?”

Emma stammered, staring at her feet. How to explain it? “It’s all my fault. I didn’t even know he had powers until he cut his hand and then he healed, and we had to run and he wanted to go south and—and—Speedster dumped Rose on us and then they both got caught and I wanted to save them, but the commission can turn off powers and—”

Emma realized that Shadow Walker was holding up a hand like a crossing guard.

“All right, kid, you can’t seem to stop with the verbal diarrhea. Where are the people with you, so they can tell me what happened in a way that makes sense?”

“The mall.” Emma swallowed back any more words that might spill out.

“I’ll meet you at the food court. I’ll wear a Green Sox cap and a leather jacket. Calm down.”

He grumbled something about dumb kids, then vanished with a faint pop, leaving her alone on the rooftop.

Emma cursed. He’d left her a block away from her stuff. Now, she had to go back to the commotion in the middle of the block for her stuff.

Below her, cops shoved the gunman into the back of a cop car. Agent Mann stood in front of the Pickle Palace kid. Emma would recognize him anywhere in his crisp suit. His slender form with the receding hairline, and the strange way he stood.

Mann was chasing her. Fear and doubt coursed through Emma. Had he meant for them to get away at the arcade so they would lead him to other supers? Did they even stand a chance if they couldn’t even ditch one commission agent?

Chapter 15

Emma circled above the mall, waiting to land on the roof of the parking garage. Since the roof was only a quarter of the way full, the holiday shoppers must not be super desperate yet. Otherwise, shuttles brought them in from the overflow parking at the fairgrounds over a mile away.

After dropping between two cars, Emma walked out as if she’d been there all along. At least her black sweatshirt hid most of the grime. Not much to do for her jeans except slap at the dirty spots. She pulled Ollie’s beanie down over her hair and wiped at her face.

She pushed the button for the elevator. Wordless holiday tunes jangled through the elevator’s speakers. Emma shoved her hands into her pockets and braced herself. The elevator’s warmth began to defrost her body, making her nose run again. She dug in her backpack for tissues, but the cold made her hands clumsy.

Inside the mall, the music was even louder and contained words. Her hands and feet burned from the relative heat. Red and green lights twinkled, seeming to chase each other across every surface. Wreathes, golden balls, and other Christmas junk covered the glass wall over the atrium that kept shoppers from falling to their doom. A giant tree rose past the third level and almost brushed the glass roof over what must be Santa’s Village.

On each level, shoppers packed the main corridors between the stores. Their voices echoed, mingling with the music, shouts assaulting her ears. Emma stood at the edge of the glass partition, one hand on tinsel garland, the other on a thick ribbon, and stared down into the masses of people. Her cousin and Hannah were down there somewhere. Overwhelm made it hard to think, but she struggled to push it aside.

A thin man in a crisp suit and aviator sunglasses stalked across the bottom level of the mall from the entrance nearest the jewelry store. Agent Mann. Her heart pounded and she looked again. It looked like him, but he was interviewing the Pickle Palace guy, not following her to the mall. He didn’t know she was here, did he? No way he could have followed her here.

Emma chewed her lip. That guy had to be security. The security guy wore the same suit and sunglasses. And he was also balding and walked the same stiff way. That was all, wasn’t it?

Finding Rose and Hannah in all this would be worse than fighting the gunman without a plan.

Emma tried the smelly shops first, since Hannah loved smelling perfume and getting made up at the mall. The fake fruity and flowery scents always left Emma reeling. Today, though, pine and sweat overwhelmed the sweet perfumes.

When the fifth saleswomen tried to spray her, Emma tried to push her away and the cold hit her again. A shudder passed through her and her heart felt like ice. The Man vs. Wild guy talked about this in his show. The after drop. All the cold blood from her limbs had made it to her heart. So, now in some ways she was colder than she had been before.

Hannah might have moved on to the clothing stores already. So Emma stumbled towards Nineteen4Eternity. She passed awful kiosks full of yapping dog toys, flashing toys that shot into the sky, and cars with whining motors.

My father will start to worry, the holiday music proclaimed.

Then a man brushed passed her. Someone announced that she needed a special planner and shoved it in her face.

At Nineteen4Eternity, Emma hesitated in front of the entrance. The shoppers parted around her. Even though she couldn’t see them, this was Hannah’s favorite shop. Hannah had to be here. Emma went straight to the glam stuff in the back.

Hannah’s controlled giggle drifted from the fitting rooms. No snorting from her.

“Excuse me.” The saleswoman tried to catch Emma.

Overwhelmed and frustrated, Emma rushed to the dressing rooms while the saleswoman fluttered beside her, trying to convince her to leave the store. While Emma risked her life and Agent Mann hunted them, Hannah had taken Rose shopping.

Emma stalked into the closed off area by the fitting room and glowered at the two shut doors.

“Excuse me, you can’t be back here.” The saleswoman said. She must think Emma would steal something since she was so grimy.

Hannah emerged from her fitting room wearing socks and a sleek black and red dress slit up to her thigh. The laughter died away when she turned to Emma.

“Could I get some help in here?” Rose asked. “This dress is defeating me.”

Didn’t they know the danger they were in? Emma couldn’t make sense of the man she’d seen at the mall. He looked too much like Agent Mann, but he couldn’t be. And here were Hannah and Rose, giggling while being hunted. “What are you doing?” Emma shivered again.

“Trying on dresses.” Hannah crossed her arms. “Killing time.”

Emma glared at her.

“It’s fun to pretend I’ll get to go to the winter ball,” Hannah said.

Rose emerged from the fitting room. “I’m having fun for the first time in I don’t know how long.”

She wore a midnight blue dress, with sparkles that looked like stars. The thick black ribbon that must have been meant to lace up the back hung down to Rose’s ankle. Rose held up the front of the dress. Despite the neon pink streaks in her hair, Rose looked elegant.

“Whatever.” Emma turned on her heel. “He’s meeting us at the food court.”

“Emma, wait!” Hannah shouted after her.

The saleswomen hushed her.

But Emma hurried off, leaving the other girls to change. If they wanted to try on dresses and giggle and pretend like their friends hadn’t been arrested, then that was their prerogative.

The cold in her heart seemed to double.

“Emma!” Rose shouted, but Emma was already power walking into the mall.

They’d find her and Shadow Walker when he got there.

Eyes watering, Emma raced through the mall to the food court. She darted past what felt like hundreds of shoppers, and a few knocked into her, like she was the one in the wrong.

Her view narrowed, turning into a single bright point of focus on the up escalator. She needed to sit down and chill some place quiet. Other than freezing her butt off tonight, she hadn’t been alone, not really alone, since she’d found out Johnson was her father. Ollie’d been by her side the whole time.

Her stomach rumbled. And she needed dinner.

The escalator carried her up to the food and Shadow Walker. As much as she loved Ollie—and that was a whole ‘nother can of worms—but as much as she loved Ollie, she needed time to herself to deal with things and this stupid mall was too much.

Assaulted by a mishmash of smells from corn dogs to Mexican food to dim sum to pretzels and pizza, Emma got in line for pizza and searched her backpack for the cash from her piggy bank.

She didn’t need or want Hannah’s money, anyway. She’d figure this out on her own, and stupid Hannah should go back home to her stupid perfect house and her stupid perfect mom, and her stupid dad.

Emma took a deep breath, trying to calm down. She was hangry and scared. Food would help. She needed to eat before Shadow Walker found her.

Then, she’d go look for Hannah and Rose if they didn’t find her in the food court. If he found her before they met up, she had to be able to tell him something coherent about their desire to attack the Super Commission. The only place they had any idea of was the Stocks—which was where her friends were being taken anyway.

“Excuse me.” Someone tapped Emma on the shoulder.

She jumped and spun at the same time, knocking her backpack into the guy who’d tapped her shoulder.

He was a few years older than Hannah, early twenties maybe, and absolutely gorgeous. His broad shoulders stretched the shoulders of his unzipped leather jacket, his abs popped through the gray t-shirt on his chest, and he had a stunning smile. He wore a Green Sox cap like Shadow Walker said he would, but Shadow Walker had sounded like a dweeb and called her a little girl. This guy couldn’t be him.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, but didn’t mean it. Why did this stranger touch her?

“I tried to get your attention a couple times, but you seemed to be in your own world.” He smiled again and she melted.

If he wasn’t so much older and hotter than her, she’d almost think he was flirting with her. But he was way too old for her. What did this guy want with her?

“Are you...” He paused, circling his hands in the air between them like he was trying to think of a name. “Ms. Johnson?”

“What? Who—” Emma struggled to take the man in and why someone would ask if she was Ms. Johnson. “How did you know my dad—”

“It’s just you, then? What about the other people you mentioned?” The cute guy tugged his Green Sox cap down over his eyes. He had an openness to his vowels. He held out his hand as if to shake hers. “I’m Toureq.”

Emma looked him up and down. This was Shadow Walker? Without the padding, he looked vulnerable. Still, he’d rescued her from her mistake of attacking the gunman.

Her words froze in her belly. Her mouth glued itself shut. Not enough time to think about what she would say. Where were Rose and Hannah? Hannah was so much better with people and words than she was. They had to explain everything because she couldn’t do it. She stammered, searching for words that wouldn’t come. Stupid.

Shadow Walker lowered his hand. “You’re headed north, right?”

“Uh, well... We were... and then...” Emma hated talking to new people and doing new things. She needed to eat somewhere quiet and warm. Then she could think. Then she would be able to talk.

Then, somehow, Rose and Hannah appeared.

“Not anymore. We’d like to talk to you about that someplace a little more private.” Hannah smiled her perfect smile that showed just the right amount of teeth.

Emma had practiced that smile a thousand times in the mirror, and she always looked like a baby trying to fart or a crazed ax murderer.

He shrugged and gestured for them to follow him to the cold parking a garage where they would have the privacy to talk about taking on the Super Commission. Something so foolish that Shadow Walker had thought she was joking.

Chapter 16

Emma crossed her arms and tucked her hands back into her armpits. The concrete of the parking garage brought back all the cold she’d escaped by going inside.

While they waited for the elevator, Hannah talked about Summer, Bastian, and Andres. Emma’s hands started to escape from where she’d crossed them around herself, but Emma squeezed her hands into fists and stuffed them in her pockets. This was it. Her chance to do something to save her friends. And she needed to rely on Hannah to explain and get this guy to help them. She hated it.

If she listened to Hannah, she’d lose it. She went back to staring at the elevator light. For the longest time as Hannah talked, it didn’t change.

Emma focused on keeping her feet pressed to the floor, the feel of the cold through the soles of her shoes. She didn’t want to float off, not like she had started to on the rooftop. Her mind felt like it was shutting down. Fog clouded her thoughts.

Hannah and Rose had stopped talking, and Shadow Walker was staring at her. Their expectation was so thick that it trapped her. They were waiting for her to say something. She swallowed hard. She didn’t know the last thing Hannah had said—or even anything Hannah had said.

“Please,” Emma said. The elevator number winked out as the elevator moved between floors. “You see why we can’t go north, why we have to try and save our friends. We have to take on the commission together.”

The elevator pinged as the number switched to their floor. The doors opened, and a family spilled out. A little girl tugging on her father’s hands and squeezing a doll in the other while her mother trailed out of the elevator holding some bags. The perfect family. Something she’d never been good enough to have.

“I don’t buy it.” Shadow Walker’s mouth pressed into a thin line as soon as he finished talking.

“What’s not to buy? It’s the truth.” Emma’s hands felt all flappy again. The jacket pockets weren’t enough.

Shadow Walker watched the family cross the parking garage towards their car. Emma chewed the inside of her cheek and crossed her arms and pinned her hands into the creases of her elbows, fighting the urge to bounce, to move, to do anything that didn’t seem normal. Either way, they needed his help. She wanted to save her friends. She wanted to make it so they would all be safe.

“If you were really so torn up about what happened, you’d look it. Instead, you’re stone-faced and cold—”

Ice Queen. Robot. Stone faced. Years of pain tore free. Hannah’s teasing ended when Emma revealed her diagnosis and what it meant for how she expressed emotions, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t come across wrong to other people.

“I told you this was a stupid idea,” Emma growled at Hannah. “Running away, that would have worked. This—this is dumb. No one will help us.”

Emma stormed off towards Nan’s car.

Stupid, perfect Hannah. Stupid Shadow Walker and his refusal to believe that she was serious. Why wouldn’t Shadow Walker believe her? He didn’t know anything about anything, anyway. His power was great for hiding, staying in the shadows and popping out at the right moment.

Emma’s power was big and flashy and didn’t fit her at all. Emma’d been struggling with it since she’d blown up that tree last spring. Of course she wanted to save her friends. Just because her face didn’t move the same way as other people’s didn’t mean she didn’t care.

Just because she wanted to bounce or flap her hands or whatever else. None of it meant that she didn’t care.

She brushed past a gaggle of girls with bags hanging off their arms. Her breath came in short little hitching gasps.

She needed to be alone. Her head pounded. She needed to be alone and somewhere dark. Nan’s car was the best place for her. Hannah had locked it, but that didn’t matter.

Emma knew how to open the ancient Oldsmobile’s trick door. Then, she’d be inside and alone, and no one would bother her. She should never have wasted anyone’s time asking for help. There was too much going on. Too much change. Too much break from routine. She pushed into the parking garage, then she noticed the near quiet. Nothing but the sound of a car or two heading through the garage in search of a space.

Much better than the ever-present press of people, voices, and music in the mall. She could almost breathe again. She hugged her arms against her stomach, trying to trap the burning rage there. It bubbled up from her stomach and spilled into her chest. Worse, since pressure built in her jaw, she was on the verge of shooting out fireballs. She couldn’t lose control.

Her feet skated along the ground and she had to focus to keep herself from levitating as her rage fueled her powers, making her want to lash out even more. She could feel the meltdown coming on. Either meltdown or shutdown. She was hoping for the latter, angling for the latter because if she didn’t, she might level the mall in her rage.

How dare he accuse her of being the one who had betrayed Sebastian? It might have been her fault, but it was a stupid accident. And as for Sebastian and Andres getting caught—that wasn’t her fault, was it? And she had nothing to do with Summer.

She just needed to get them out. She needed to stop the Super Commission from arresting supers anymore, and then she could figure things out from there.

She could try to have a normal life.

Nan’s car was right there. She just needed to get to the car, then she could lock herself in and have time to shut out the whole world and figure out what to do next. She would open the door and make herself at home in her burgundy refuge.

Stone-faced. He’d called her stone-faced, which meant it was her autism again. So what if her emotions didn’t look like he expected?

She was terrified and scared and wanted to help her friends. She didn’t want Ollie to think she was a coward. She didn’t want to be a coward.

But Mann was going to catch her, just like her friends. He’d gotten to the Pickle Palace, and... that had to have been a security guard that she’d seen earlier? Didn’t it?

If he did find her, she’d be trapped, and useless, and she wouldn’t even have her powers to fight back because Mann’s truck turned off people’s pow—

A car horn blared. Emma half-jumped half-levitated away from the center of the aisle, smacking into a parked car.

Her mouth filled with a bitter taste as one of the chemicals for her fireballs oozed from under her tongue, but she held in the sneeze. No blowing up the parking lot because she was having a meltdown.

She hadn’t even seen that car, she’d been so focused on getting to safety. Emma swallowed the bitter taste down and took care to stay on the side of the aisle. Privacy. She needed some privacy to think.

Nan’s car beckoned her. She wiggled open the trick handle, collapsed into the passenger seat, and slammed the door behind her. She put the sun shade in the windshield like that would protect her from something and closed her eyes. The car was quiet.

Tears streaked her face. Had the others seen her crying? Rose wouldn’t even like her now, not that Rose knew her or that she trusted Rose’s judgements. Rose was just a dumb kid. How had Emma wound up being her hero, anyway? Emma was a dumb kid, too.

This was all stupid. She was stupid for wanting to ask for help. She was stupid for thinking she could try to save them. Last night, she’d been right when she’d told Hannah no, she wouldn’t try to rescue Summer. There was no way to get her friends back. Not when the government already had them.

What was she supposed to do? They didn’t even know where the government was keeping the supers or where the Super Commission was headquartered. How was she and a couple people she hadn’t even met yet supposed to rescue them without getting themselves killed or captured?

Of course Shadow Walker thought it was a stupid idea. It was dumb. It was so dumb. She was so dumb. She was dumb for thinking anyone would help her or care about her. A broken autistic girl. Her own dad hadn’t even bothered with her after her mom died. Being a superhero didn’t make her worthy of love, help her earn anyone’s help or anything. She deserved nothing but pity.

Emma circled in on herself, rocking in her seat, letting the near dark of the parking garage envelope her. Something pressed into her back. She shifted, trying to get comfortable, but the hard spot followed her no matter how she moved.

She leaned forward and reached behind her. Rose’s bag hung on the back of Emma’s seat. Something inside of it had a sharp corner.

Emma didn’t mean to snoop. She didn’t mean to look. She only meant to unhook the bag, but dozens of envelopes fell out when she tried to untangle it from the headrest. They were all addressed to her in a chicken-scratch that almost looked like her own handwriting. All were open.

Emma tugged a small letter out of the first one. A wallet-sized picture of a young man in a green military uniform fell out. His face was bright, but he looked familiar. It took her a moment to recognize the blocky face, the squared chin and the brown eyes. Johnson. Or rather, her father before he’d started calling himself Johnson.

She clicked on the overhead light and unfolded the letter. It was dated two months after her mother had died. Two months after Nan had claimed Emma’s father had died. Emma skimmed through the letter. He talked about how much he loved her, why he had left, and signed the letter, “love, Daddy.” There was a P.S. addressed to Nan asking her to read it to Emma just like he’d written.

Her father hadn’t abandoned her when she was a toddler.

She tugged the next letter out of its envelope. Dated a month later, it talked about how he was doing, that he was struggling still and that he missed her. He actually missed her. Emma flipped through the stack of letters, checking the dates. There weren’t enough to be one a month until Johnson came back to Lindo. Where was the last one? When did they stop?

She tugged them out, checked the date, and dropped them on the floor. The last one was dated a week before her seventh birthday. It said he missed her and hoped she had a happy birthday and how he hoped one day he might spend her birthdays with her. Nothing showed this was the last letter.

A second note addressed to Nan that said the money was for Emma’s birthday and she should spend it on a toy or whatever she wanted. If she was like her mom, she’d probably buy a book, he wrote. That was it. The last words from her father and then nothing.

Why had the letters stopped?

This letter was the same as all the rest. What happened that drove him to stop writing?

Someone banged on her window, not once, but repeatedly. She turned to the banging on the window and gasped. There he was. Shadow Walker himself, looking all hot and holding the baseball cap in his hand.

She cracked open the door. The sunshade fell.

“What?” Emma’s cheeks burned. How embarrassing getting caught crying like this.

“I wanted to apologize. I was walking back to my car and saw you here, crying alone. And I—”

“You what? You’re sorry?” Emma laughed. “I’m sorry. I never should have asked for your help. It was stupid.”

“Little girl,” Shadow Walker said. The faint accent making his words sound even more patronizing. How dare he call her little girl? “Asking for help is never stupid.”

“The plan was stupid.” Emma snorted. “If you can even call it that. Speedster said to have you lead us to the next people to go north. But, we figured since you knew other supers, we could ask you for help. We don’t even know where the Stocks is.”

“I should just go to Canada.” Emma sobbed. “Not like anyone wants me here, anyway.”

“Don’t say such things.” Shadow Walker knelt beside her.

“Why not? It’s true. Even my own father abandoned me and my grandma... I’m not good enough for her either.”

“Is that why you think you should go to Canada instead of going through with your friends’ crazy scheme?” Shadow Walker asked. “You think you’re not good enough? Who taught you that?”

“I...” Emma stared up at Shadow Walker. “What do you mean who taught me that? I try and try, and it never works out right. I’m just nothing and I can’t—”

“Hush, child. Your cousin explained how you’re... different. And even if I don’t understand you, everyone is worth loving. Your father and your grandmother must love you.”

“He abandoned me. Again.” Emma’s voice came out flat. Cold. Not her fault that others didn’t recognize the flatness as her pain.

“Kid, you don’t have to be good enough to earn love. Your parents should love you for being their child. There is no more to it. Your parents love you.”

Emma sucked in a breath. Was that true?

Her mom was dead, but everyone who had known her said Emma was her whole world.

As for Nan, the trailer had been a mess. Well, a mess as far as Nan was concerned. Maybe Nan did love her, just showed it in a strange way.

And her father—what did these letters mean? He must have loved her, at least at some point. He had hidden that she was Dragon Girl. He had taught her self-defense. With half the school.

“I spent my whole life thinking my father was dead, only to find out he was alive and had abandoned me. Now... He ran away again as soon as I found out that he was my father.” Emma wrapped her arms around her legs. Her nose itched, and she rubbed it with the back of her hand. She wouldn’t lose control of her powers.

“You’re right. That’s harsh. Maybe there’s another reason he left.”

Emma considered that. Her father had come back to say goodbye. Told her he didn’t want to be reassigned. Still, he was just gone and she had no way to reach him. That was the same as running away, wasn’t it?

“What if I help you save your friends? It won’t earn you love—because you shouldn’t need to. But it might help you see yourself better.”

Emma nodded. Had something good just happened? Was he really volunteering to help them?

“I know some supers who might be able to help us. You girls can come back to my place, make some calls, and eat a good dinner and get a good night’s sleep. Then... if we come up with a plan, we’ll try to save your friends from the Stocks.”

Emma smiled. He was going to help them. Things were looking up. So long as nothing else bad happened, they’d be all right.

Chapter 17

Shadow Walker had parked far away in the lot, so he claimed shotgun.

That forced Emma to share the back seat of Nan’s car with Rose, who dug a cell phone out of her backpack. Emma chewed her bottom lip. They all ditched their cell phones already, so why did Rose still have one?

Hannah started the car. “So, Shadow Walker, what do we call you?”

“Please, call me Toureq.” He buckled his seatbelt.

“Toureq,” Hannah purred. “What a lovely name.”

“I didn’t mean to laugh when you said you needed help. We need to fight the commission or else there won’t be any supers left, but...” Toureq shrugged. “I just don’t see how one little girl can make a difference.”

“She’s Geek Fire—the first super to fight a supervillain.” Rose powered on the phone.

“And that turned out great.” Hannah flicked on the headlights so they illuminated the wall in front of Nan’s car. The parking garage seemed so small. “I’ll never wear open-toed shoes again, thanks to you and Ms. Range.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” The purple, ropy scars on Hannah’s feet gave Emma nightmares.

“You do have a plan for how to save your friends, don’t you?” Toureq asked as Hannah backed out of the space.

“Not yet, but we’ve got to save them.” Emma tugged on her ponytail. “They’ve taken away so many supers. I just... It’s not right how people are just disappearing with no trial, no nothing.” If Ms. Range hadn’t been arrested, she would have been railing against the disappearances in class and protesting.

“Believe me, I get it. That’s why my family left Khalwat. But no plan, no attack.” Toureq shook his head. “Do you even know where the supers are being kept?”

“It’s called the Stocks,” Emma said.

“You said that already. I want to know where it is.” Toureq asked.

In the dim light of the parking garage, the shapes she and Ollie had drawn on her Converse were barely visible. She had to earn those hearts and prove she wasn’t a coward.

“No.” Hannah put the car into drive. “We were hoping you’d have some information. Or are we supposed to do with everything?”

“If only Mamman and Papà would do more than take supers to the next step on the way to Canada.” Toureq sighed. “Papà won’t even use his powers to help the people fleeing because he’s afraid of getting caught.”

Beside her, Rose opened a game on the phone and a cow mooed.

Toureq pivoted in his seat, craning to see what made the sound. “Have you used that phone before? Is there a SIM in it?”

“I got it from Speedster, okay? So far, I’ve only used it for games.” Rose tossed her hair. “The SIM’s in my pocket. I’m not stupid.”

Toureq sighed. “If you do call, remove the SIM card and battery right away. Then, toss the SIM in case the commission monitors that number for calling your family.”

“That’s paranoid,” Hannah said, cranking the wheel to take the narrow corner on the parking garage ramp.

“Going behind the government’s back to run supers to Canada is dangerous. My parents do everything they can to avoid...”

On the ramp below them, flashing blue and red lights lit the parking garage exit.

Hannah stomped on the brakes. Emma’s head hit the back of Toureq’s seat.

Shadow Walker cursed.

“Crap!” Hannah slammed her hands against the steering wheel. “I bet they reported Nan’s car stolen as soon as they got back from the movies.”

“Stolen?” Emma stared at the flashing lights. She hadn’t even thought about how Nan or Aunt Beth would react when they got home from the movies. Was Nan worried about her or just Hannah? “We traded her your nice car for her piece of junk. And you left a note explaining why.”

“We’re also both minors.” Hannah laid her head on the steering wheel. “They probably reported us as runaways and car thieves.”

“Teleport us out of here,” Emma said, grabbing onto Shadow Walker. She didn’t want to go back to that dark nothingness again, but it had to be better than arrest.

“I can’t. Not all of you.” He turned to the back seat. “I’m already pretty tired from carrying you earlier.”

“What are we going to do?” Hannah started to back up. “There’s cops ahead. We’re in a stolen car. We’ve been reported as runaways. The commission is looking for us. There’s three of you supers and I’m aiding and abetting.”

Behind them, a car honked its horn.

Hannah stopped hard again. “We’re going to get arrested.”

“No, you won’t.” Rose spoke with conviction. “Only I will. Hannah, Toureq’s going to take you somewhere safe and you’re going to find your dad.”

“My dad? I can’t go home. I won’t be safe there.”

“You need to find your dad.” Rose slid the phone into her pocket as Agent Mann began walking up the parking garage ramp, flanked by police officers “Emma, you and I are going to make a run for it. When they grab me, you fly away. Stay away from the parking garage entrance. Mann wouldn’t be here without their special truck. Go up the stairwell.” Rose pointed behind them, and Emma turned back to the door at the top of the ramp. “Then fly off the roof or something.”

Emma had caused all the problems. Not Rose. Rose didn’t deserve to be arrested, but what choice did she have now? “I don’t like this.”

“You can get arrested with me.” Rose grabbed one of her backpacks. “Or you can follow the truck and find out where they’re taking us.”

Emma opened her door a crack. Chill November air slapped her face.

“This could work.” Toureq pulled the baseball cap down low.

The sound of footsteps echoed through the parking garage. Emma’s throat tightened as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Text my mom where you are.” Toureq handed Emma his phone. “Don’t follow them into the actual Stocks. Wait outside for me and my family will help. I’ll make them help.”

Emma bit the little nub of flesh in the corner of her mouth. She winced at the sudden pain. Had she been chewing it that much again? She swallowed the blood, grabbed the backpack from her feet.

Beside her, Rose opened her door. The police stopped walking and drew their guns.

Agent Mann walked steadily forward. The sound of his feet echoed as he approached.

Toureq and Hannah vanished with a faint pop.

“Where’d they go?” A cop shouted.

Emma stared at Rose’s ashen face. The girl had sounded so calm as she explained her plan, but the color had drained away from her face. Emma hadn’t even thought of how scared Rose must be.

“Stick to the plan and we’ll be fine.” Rose gave Emma a wan smile and opened her door.

The little goth girl was sacrificing herself to give them a lead. Rose could have asked Toureq to take her instead. Hannah might get arrested, but she wasn’t a super and her dad was a judge. She’d get out, eventually.

Rose stepped out of the car with her hands up. “I’m turning myself in. She’s not a super.”

Emma stumbled over her backpack, getting out of the car. She sprinted up the ramp, throwing the backpack over her shoulder.

“Freeze!”

Emma ran past the car that had honked at them. Inside, the family from the elevator stared at her.

The crack of a gun echoed through the parking garage. In her head, Johnson shouted, “Slalom!”

In real life, the kid in the car screamed. Emma threw her hands over her ears and zig-zagged.

“Tasers only.” She barely heard Agent Mann’s shout over the ringing in her ears. “We need them alive.”

Rose shrieked.

Agent Mann’s footsteps pounded towards Emma. She pumped her arms, and her world narrowed to the metal door to the stairwell. Emma’s quads burned. Mann’s footsteps grew louder.

Her hood bounced behind her. The door was right there. She could almost reach it.

“He’s right behind you!” Rose shrieked.

Skidding to a stop, Emma yanked the door open.

“Got you!” Agent Mann shouted, his hand closing on Emma’s sweatshirt hood.

Emma spun and kneed him in the crotch.

He should have let go. He should have doubled over in pain, but he didn’t. He didn’t grab his groin or even wince.

He smiled, showing too many teeth, and grabbed Emma’s shoulders.

What was wrong with this guy? Emma threw herself backwards into the stairwell. Mann stumbled in with her. He threw himself on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

The air whooshed out of her lungs. Emma gasped to catch her breath. She bent one knee and shoved with all the strength in her legs and back. He barely moved. She couldn’t breathe.

Cold air filled her nose and mouth. But it didn’t go to her lungs.

She flailed, trying to hit his face, but he caught her wrists.

She gasped again.

Agent Mann pinned her arms over her head. “Emma Edgin, you are under arrest for unlawful use of superpowers.”

If she didn’t blow him up, she’d be joining Rose in the back of that nullifier truck after all. If she did, she’d be caught in the fireball.

#

THE FIGHT DRAINED OUT of Emma. Even kicking him in the nards had only made him smile and her foot hurt. The jerk must be wearing a cup or something. All the things she’d learned in self-defense hadn’t worked on the agent twice her size. She was too small to be a real superhero.

Her nose tickled. The gleek-sneeze fought to escape. She could blow him up.

Tears trickled down her face. She wasn’t a murderer. She wanted to control her power. She wanted to be a hero. She wanted to be the person Ollie thought she was.

But her jaw ached. Her nose tickled. No one else seemed to be in the stairwell. The blast would be contained.

“You’re going to the Stocks.” With one bony hand on her wrists, Agent Mann reached inside his suit jacket and unbuttoned his shirt pocket.

Terrified, Emma took another ragged breath. She couldn’t go to the Stocks. What were they doing to the supers there? What if they were doing horrible experiments on them? What if they were killing them?

She couldn’t go there. Emma blinked the tears away.

Mann pulled out a needle.

She turned her head. Even if her fear got away from her. She didn’t want to kill him. This close, it would be hard to miss Agent Mann. He was literally on top of her. No one else’s footsteps echoed through the stairwell.

Her nose itched. She scrunched it, trying to forestall the gleek-sneeze. Even if she was a crappy hero, she wasn’t a murderer.

He put his thumb on the needle’s plunger.

Her heart hammered so hard it felt like it was trying to escape. She clenched her teeth against the ache. The sneeze was coming. She couldn’t hold it back anymore.

Body shaking, she tried to keep the sneeze small—but her power took over.

Ah-

Her tongue lifted. The pressure in her jaw released as liquid sprayed from under her tongue.

Choo!

Her head slammed forwards. Thick, ropy chemicals shot out her nose.

With her head turned to the side, the snot-stuff splattered the wall and hit Agent Mann in the face. The stuff from under her tongue plastered his shirt to his chest.

They hadn’t exploded. Thank goodness, they hadn’t exploded.

Since she wasn’t fireproof and didn’t want to be a murderer, this was good.

Agent Mann took off his slimy glasses. Thick slime dripped down his chin. Emma thrust her hips to the side and knocked him off balance. He tipped, smashing the syringe on the concrete.

She kicked off the ground and flew up the stairwell. At least her gleek-sneeze had served as a distraction to help her get away. And, despite her loss of control, she wasn’t a murderer.

She had to get out of here. Follow the truck and call Toureq. He’d save Rose. He was a real superhero. Not like—

Boom.

Below her, the stairwell burned white hot. A fireball surged, blue and white in the middle with orange tongues of flame reaching for her.

Emma pinned her arms to her ears in a tight streamline and scissor-kicked for a burst of speed. Her left shoe fell off.

Flutter kicking, she passed one, two, three landings. At the fourth landing, she grabbed the bar to push open the door, scissor-kicked one last time, and burst free.

The fireball followed behind her. She flew up and over the parking lot. The door slammed shut, cutting off the explosion.

The thick clouds glowed from the light of the parking lot, and blue and red flashed from the entrance to the garage.

She’d lost control and killed Agent Mann. All because she was afraid. All because she’d wanted to save herself. She’d risked hurting anyone else who opened the stairwell in that moment.

She was a murderer.

In the dark winter sky, Emma gagged. Sour vomit poured out of her mouth and splattered on someone’s car far below.

“Stick to the plan and we’ll be fine,” Rose had said.

Becoming a murderer was not fine. Her stomach heaved again.

The plan? The plan had been to follow the truck. But plans were for good people. Heroes. Not terrified losers like her. Not murderers. Not people who abused their powers. But she needed to do something. She needed to go somewhere.

Rose had believed in Emma. And they were probably taking her the same place they’d taken Sebastian, Andres, and Summer.

Emma should follow the truck. Well, she couldn’t fly as fast as the truck drove. But if she climbed on the truck before it left the parking lot, she’d know where it went. She still had Shadow Walker’s phone in her pocket.

With nothing left in her belly and the sour taste lingering in her mouth, Emma flew towards the parking garage entrance, then thought better of it. She didn’t need to fall out of the sky like a rock when she got too close. She landed in the flowerbed decorating one side of the parking garage. And, hiding behind the thin trees and bushes, she snuck closer to the truck.

The perfect family’s car sat behind Nan’s abandoned Oldsmobile. A police officer leaned into the driver’s window. The other cops stood on the ramp, with the bravest souls approaching the metal door.

Emma didn’t look any more. Instead, she darted to the modified Mack truck. Rose must already be inside. With the cops looking inside, and only a handful looking out, Emma snuck onto the ladder on the back of the truck.

Equipment took up the whole middle section of the roof. The strange equipment had to be what caused supers’ powers to short out. Part of her wanted to study it and find out how it worked, but there was no way to do that while on the back of a moving truck. In fact, she wouldn’t be able to lie down in the middle of it either.

So, she climbed over some sharp looking equipment, crouched down, and wedged herself between a large box with knobby bits that dug into her back and a thing that looked like a satellite dish crossed with a duck. She hugged the satellite dish with her left arm and secured her waist to the box with her belt. She crouched down, praying she was hidden from the cops.

By the time driver gave up looking for her crispy remains and returned to the truck, Emma’s neck ached and her legs shook from the strain of maintaining her position. But she lowered her head and struggled to stay as quiet as possible. Tethered to the truck and unable to fly, she would be screwed if they saw her.

Chapter 18

Emma was pretty sure her ribs were permanently molded to the shape of the duckbill-satellite thing. With each bump, it jabbed her in the chin and her eyes watered with the pain of it. Her hands felt like blocks of ice despite her knit gloves. Her legs had turned into beaten piles of jelly, making her collapse onto the knobby box. Not to mention her shins burned from being stretched in such an awkward position. The knobs scraped her back.

The truck kept driving. When they’d left the city, the clouds lost the white glow and instead blotted out the moon’s light. As the truck careened down country roads, the belt slid around, catching on a knob for a moment or slamming into her side.

Tiny droplets speckled her glasses. Not quite a true rain yet. Just a droplet, then a few minutes later another. The splotches on her glasses bothered her. Not being able to see made her feel vulnerable.

She stared at the lenses, focusing on each droplet, which made her feel cross-eyed. She wanted to take off her glasses and dry them, but that was a two-handed procedure, and she didn’t dare stop hugging the duck-satellite thing. Her gloves felt colder and colder. Wetter and wetter, she thought, but wasn’t sure.

The truck turned a corner, and Emma reached into her butt pocket and pulled out Toureq’s phone for the third time.

At least he’d given her an old flip-phone. She didn’t know if she’d have been able to unlock a smartphone. Besides, she never would have managed taking off her gloves to text his mom updates on a smart phone. And her icy fingers probably wouldn’t even have worked the touch screen. As it was, she struggled not to drop the phone while she pressed the buttons to send a third text. This one said they were now heading south on Ione Road.

No one had texted her back, not even once. Toureq and his parents must be avoiding the Super Commission’s radar. Why else would his mom ignore texts from her son’s phone?

Whatever happened, Emma didn’t have any choice but to stick to the plan... Well, her other choices were falling off a moving vehicle or shouting for help until the driver arrested her and made her sit with Rose inside the warm, dry truck. That option sounded better and better the worse the weather got.

For the second time this school year, Emma lost control because of her emotions. It meant every horrible thing Nan said about supers was right. It meant Emma was a dangerous menace who couldn’t control her powers. To protect everyone from her out-of-control powers, she should turn herself in.

But what happened at the Stocks?

Did Ice Queen get a death sentence? At least Connor had run away before they found out about his powers.

And Emma had become worse than Ice Queen. Yes, in the pursuit of justice, Ms. Range had attacked people. But she never killed anyone.

Even if it led to death, getting arrested would get her out of this cold. Even being inside the truck with Rose would be better than freezing until she fell off the truck. Her damp hoodie soaked through to the t-shirt underneath.

This was no good. She was spiraling and needed to get control of herself. She never had gotten to eat and any rest either.

Emma needed to think about anything other than the cold. Anything other than Agent Mann with gleek-sneeze slime dripping down his sharp nose. It must have dripped onto his shirt or else he wiped his hand on his shirt.

For a moment, she focused on the rolling hills, the barren grapevines, and the fields. Toureq needed her to find the Stocks to rescue Rose and the others. She had a job to do, and she would do it.

The clouds unleashed themselves. Stinging rain pelted her face. Her shoulders and head got soaked. The knobs jabbing into her lower back formed little dry spots.

Warm-ish snot dripped onto her lip from the cold. She felt no hint of her powers right now. She wiped it with her wet sweatshirt, but her sleeve smeared the rain on her already wet glasses. Toureq needed to get there before Emma froze to death.

Okay, since it wasn’t snowing, it was too warm to freeze to death. But that didn’t make her any less miserable. A sneeze, a real sneeze, rocked her head forward and the duck-satellite hit her throat. She stifled the resulting cough. Pain radiated from her temples.

She’d never been out here, but she was on the way from Pueblo Lindo to Ione, where Ollie’s father lived. Too bad she couldn’t text Ollie that she wasn’t a coward. If only he knew she wasn’t running away. What good would telling him do? He’d kept secrets from her, too. Just like Nan. Just like Johnson.

Everyone kept secrets. Emma didn’t want to have secrets, but if she revealed she was a super, the commission would take her too. Her friends... Why did they need to keep secrets from her? Emma would never hurt them.

Even if Ollie had told her how he felt, Emma didn’t know how to respond or what to do about it. She... she’d sometimes wondered what she’d do if Ollie were a boy, but this... this felt different. Emma lifted her head from her crouch and stared out at the rain-soaked fields.

The truck turned into a small town, and Emma curled her head down to shelter the phone. She squinted through her glasses, struggling to make her stiff fingers work well enough to text the next update. She’d never be able to stand after this.

The phone vibrated for the first time the whole drive.

We think we know where you’re going. Get off the truck.

Soaked through and from all the jolts and bumps, her belt seemed to have shrunk, and her clumsy fingers slipped on the buckle.

She was stuck. If she didn’t do something, she’d ride the truck straight to the Stocks. But Rose said Emma was part of keeping her safe. If she stayed on the truck, they’d find her and arrest her for sure.

Flying wasn’t an option since the truck took away her powers. But she was smart. Maybe she could wriggle the belt over the box and just get herself free that way. She pushed her feet down against the roof of the truck, sucked in her belly and tried to stand. Her legs burned worse than squats in dry land swim practice.

The belt lifted with her. Horrified, she realized it would have done nothing if they’d gone over too big of a bump.

Emma swallowed over the dryness in her throat. Grateful not to get thrown off, she crawled towards the back of the truck, her numb hands clinging to the equipment bolted to the roof. She inched her feet onto the ladder. Her legs ached as she tried to straighten them. When the truck stopped, she jumped off.

Her one shoe squelched on the ground. Sharp gravel jabbed through her wet sock. A cold jolt shot through her legs before they collapsed. She whimpered, struggling to pull herself to her feet. Her body didn’t want to work right. Her limbs felt glued into the position they’d been in on the truck.

Emma half hoped no one saw her in the rain and half hoped someone would run out to rescue her with a hot chocolate and a heater.

But no one near was dumb enough to go out in this downpour. She wriggled on the ground until she realized the truck was long gone. She could fly again.

With her limited motions, she pushed off the ground and sculled to the top of a nearby store. A small overhang from the taller neighboring building protected her from the driving rain. The rain hammered onto the tin roof and cascaded down just outside her hiding spot, splashing her once in a while. Still, this was nowhere near as bad as the soaking she had gotten on the truck.

Emma rolled onto her back and willed her legs straight, but they stayed half-curled. Her teeth started chattering. She needed to warm up and now. She struggled to send another text to Toureq with her frozen fingers, telling him where she was.

Emma sobbed, wrapping her arms around herself. She knew she needed to get out of the cold, out of the wet, but she’d draw attention wherever she went. All she had was the phone Toureq had given her, the belt tied around her waist, and her soaking wet clothes.

She gave up on texting and scrolled through the contacts until she found Mom.

“I’m on top of a roof of some store. Across the street there’s a feed store and—”

“We’re coming to get you,” Toureq said. “We’ll be there soon.”

“I can’t—I can’t do this. I’m just cold and wet and hungry and—” Emma stopped talking.

Toureq had hung up when he said they’d be there soon.

She was alone on the roof and just had to wait. If soon didn’t mean like two minutes, she was going to turn herself in. If Toureq knew where they were taking Rose, he could find the prison without Emma. She could give up and go get warm. If she called her father and turned herself in, she’d get what her murdering self deserved.

Chapter 19

Emma clutched the phone in her right hand. She forced her legs straighter, but the muscles screamed in protest and the water cascading off the taller building poured onto her legs when she straightened them. No good. She curled them back into her hiding spot, promising herself to stretch them after she got out of this awful rain.

Her teeth chattered. Since learning Johnson was her father, she’d tried dialing his number dozens of times. She knew it went to Mann now. The number was programmed into this phone as John, no last name. But turning herself in would get her out of this cold. Her finger hovered over the button with the green phone logo. As she pressed down, the phone rang.

“We’re pulling up to the feed store now.” Toureq sounded groggy like he’d been napping. “The back of the van’s open and the heater is up to full blast.”

Hot tears poured down Emma’s cheeks as she peeked over the edge of the roof. They were here. An old VW bus backed into one of the parking spaces. She didn’t have to turn herself in.

Still curled on her side, Emma flew straight into the open van, over a row of seats in the far back and into an empty flat area in the middle. Behind her, the door shut itself. A man sat in the driver’s seat and Toureq rode shotgun. Neither of them had touched the door. Emma flicked on the flashlight on the phone, then rang out her hair. Cold water splattered onto the van’s floor.

“You poor thing,” a woman’s voice said. “You need to get out of those wet clothes.”

Emma didn’t see a woman in the ancient van.

“Toureq, dear, show her the sweats and the thermos.” It almost sounded like the voice came from the speakers.

“Yes, Maman.” Toureq twisted in his seat to point out a reusable grocery bag.

“Toureq, darling, face front. You too, Michel.” She said it like me shell.

When Emma’d bumped into Johnson before the dentist appointment, he’d been talking to a Michelle. Or had it been this Michel, and they were planning to meet up after he picked up Rose from Andres?

With numb fingers, Emma pulled bright pink fleece pajamas out of the bag. They were way too big and not at all stealthy, but they were loose and dry. She’d have to change into something more appropriate before they tried to rescue the others. For now, though, the pajamas would have to do.

“Who—who’s talking?” Emma stammered as shivers wracked her body. She was still too cold to focus, but she tried to look at the occupants of the vehicle again. Toureq was familiar, but the driver looked like an older version of him.

“My mother,” Toureq said, as the woman said, “Call me Miriam.”

The woman had the same openness to her vowels as Toureq. “Right now, I am the van.”

With the man and Toureq both facing forward, Emma ached to put on the warm, dry pajamas, but she hesitated.

First, part of her believed she deserved to suffer. But more important, did Miriam see everything that happened inside the vehicle? Emma didn’t want some stranger seeing her naked, frozen body. Even after swim practice, she changed in a bathroom stall, instead of with the other girls in the locker room.

“Go on and change, dear.” The voice over the speakers seemed warm.

That didn’t make Emma feel better.

“I promise I won’t look.” The woman’s voice quieted.

Rain pounded the roof of the van.

Emma glanced at Toureq and Michel, but they both faced the windshield which was a blur of water. The wipers weren’t going.

Emma peeled off her wet clothes, each movement making her muscles protest, and struggled into the pajama bottoms first. Then she yanked on the shirt. Soft, warm fleece chased away the cold. She climbed onto the seat. Even if she was still halfway frozen, the heater was going full blast and the leather seats were warm to the touch.

“You said you know where they’re taking Rose.” Under the pajamas, Emma found pink unicorn slippers. She slid these on her feet and then tried to straighten her legs. Her shins ached and her quads refused to move.

“Unfortunately,” the driver, Michel, said. His accent was much thicker than Toureq’s. He shared his son’s thick dark hair.

“What’s that mean?” Emma dried her glasses on the fleece jammies, but streaks still blurred her vision.

The man sighed. “Since no one has complained about construction out here. They must be taking all the supers to Stockton Castle.”

“Where?” Emma had never heard of Stockton Castle. She shoved her hands in the pants’ pockets, delighted the dry pants had somewhere to warm up her hands other than sitting on them.

“It was a prison for children and teens from the early 1900s,” Toureq said. “They say it’s haunted. And it’s like a fortress. Since my ex-girlfriend liked ghosts, we went on a tour.”

“She was a keeper.” The man looked pointedly at Toureq, as the van pulled out of the space.

“Papà.” Toureq stifled a yawn. “That was high school. I couldn’t even drive yet. It didn’t work out. Okay?”

“How are we going to get my friends out of the Stocks?” Emma’s stomach rumbled. She unscrewed the lid on the thermos to find a folded up spork inside.

“My father is Spectral Glow. And they’re going to help us rescue your friends.” Toureq turned to his father. “Without any more comments about my love life. Right, Papà?”

Emma’s fingers struggled with the thermos’s inner cap. This was the father who helped supers north and avoided using his powers. Toureq’s parents had fled Khalwat when the dictator took over. Were they going to be any use in attacking the castle or would they run away?

Then Rose’s comment about meeting Shadow Walker being more exciting than meeting Car Shifter and Spectral Glow echoed in her mind.

“Miriam, are you Car Shifter?” Emma asked, unfolding the spork.

Miriam confirmed that was her super name, making Emma wonder how much had Rose seen.

The wind shook the van, but Miriam kept driving. Emma spooned the hot soup into her mouth, moaning in pleasure.

“I’ve never seen someone so excited for microwaved soup,” Toureq said. “I’m glad you like it.”

Emma blushed. Trying to ignore the commentary, she asked, “Where are we going?”

Miriam’s disembodied voice filled the van. “I’m taking you home. We’ll warm you up and plan—”

“No!” Emma shouted.

Toureq and his father stared at her.

She hadn’t meant for her voice to be so loud. “I can’t let my friends or Rose spend a single night there.” Not when Rose trusted Emma to come rescue her.

“Do you have a plan then?” Toureq’s mother pulled up to a gate that led to a pasture. The headlights turned off, leaving them in near darkness.

“No, but we can’t leave Rose there. Or Sebastian and Andres.” She refused to let the girl feel alone and abandoned like she did. She couldn’t risk the Super Commission hurting her friends anymore. Her friends—and Summer—didn’t expect a rescue, but Rose did. She shoveled another bite of soup into her mouth.

“Sweetheart,” Miriam said. “It’s late. We all need rest. In the morning, we can try to rescue your friends with a solid plan.”

“I can’t leave them there. What if—what if they’re killing supers? What if they’re doing experiments on them right now?”

No one answered her.

“I just need... give me some time to think.” Emma stared at the clock on the dash.

11:24p.m. Tens place was even, ones place was four. She could divide by four. That gave her 281. A murderer. She was a murderer. No, it was an accident. Manslaughter at worst. Emma shook her head clear. She needed to focus on the number game.

Two-eighty-one was trickier. It was odd, the digits didn’t add up to a multiple of three, and it didn’t end in five. What would they do about the guards? How would the guards respond to an attack?

Seven was the next number to try. That gave her 40 remainder one. Eleven? No.

Stealth might work. Toureq could teleport after all. He’d sounded groggy on the phone. Had he napped on the way out here? Could he teleport them both in while his parents provided a distraction?

Emma waded through primes, but couldn’t find one that worked. That was a bad idea, anyway. They’d both be in one place. That meant they’d get discovered easier. If she snuck in the back, he could teleport in.

Dissatisfied, she wondered if 281 was a prime number. But what about the nullifiers? They had to have those things in the castle. They’d have to find out if they everywhere in the castle or only part of it?

Click. 11:25. Divisible by 25, since it ended in 25. But big enough to require long division. She had to break it into pieces. Kind of like attacking this castle place.

So, 25 by four gave a hundred. Which left 125, times five. So 45 by 25 made 1125. Yeah, that was right.

Now, she needed a plan for getting supers out of the castle. She wanted to take stop the commission, but tonight had to be about freeing as many supers as possible. Then, they could have the supers go to the press, go to Congress, whatever it took to stop the Super Commission.

Forty-five was all that was left to factor, and that was easy. Nine times five. Satisfied with her numbers game win, Emma closed her eyes. The rain seemed to have slowed to a drizzle, but the wind still howled.

“I think she’s asleep,” Miriam said.

“Just thinking.” Emma opened her eyes.

“We all need to rest,” Miriam said. “I’m not driving anywhere until we’ve all had a chance to sleep. One of you can set an alarm and we can attack the castle in a few hours. When the guards are at their most tired.”

Emma shook her head. She had to finish the plan. She didn’t want her friends stuck there longer than they had to be. “You’ve all been there. Do you remember how the castle is laid out?” The layout was key to knowing where to sneak in, where the diversion needed to be, if she and Shadow Walker went together or separate.

“Upstairs there’s a hospital—”

“No, upstairs they kept the boys.” The three started arguing about the layout.

“Okay. Stop.” Emma couldn’t focus on any one thread of the conversation. “We need to find a map or a floor plan. It’s a tourist spot, right?”

“It was until they closed it ‘for repairs’ after supers started popping up,” Miriam said, driving slowly through the wind.

The voice coming from the speakers creeped Emma out. She knew the voice belonged to a woman who had powers, but it felt like a dream. Emma yawned. She was tired. “What about Hannah?” Emma asked, horrified she hadn’t thought of her cousin or what had happened to her when they’d split up.

“I sent her home in my car,” Toureq said, stifling a yawn. “She did not like Rose’s suggestion she go look for her father, by the way.”

Emma shrugged. Rose had told Hannah to look for Uncle Frank. Emma hoped that meant things would work out if she were with her dad. If it didn’t, they would be stuck and things might fall apart.

Whatever Hannah was doing was her business. She would either find her dad or not. She either had to trust Rose’s power was for real or not.

Emma had more immediate fish to fry. Finding out what part of the castle the other supers were being held, rescuing them without getting caught, and figuring out how to get everyone somewhere safe.

To do that they needed to know so many things they didn’t, but leaving and regrouping wasn’t an option.

“We need to know how to get around the castle, where the supers are being held, and how they are controlling people’s minds. Plus, how many prisoners we have to rescue.”

“That’s a lot of moving parts,” Toureq said.

She liked moving parts. If she had more time to focus with enough pieces of the puzzle, she’d figure out this whole thing.

“I thought we were saving your friends,” Toureq’s father said.

“And leave everyone else there? How can we save some and not the rest?” Emma asked.

Maybe she’d be good enough for someone to love. Or maybe Toureq was right and she just needed to prove to herself that she was good enough.

Rose believed in her. If Emma believed in herself, she might earn her father’s love and Nan would care too. If this worked, it might convince them that despite her autism she was useful. She was good. She was whole.

Maybe she’d believe that if she figured this out. Of course, nothing would bring back Agent Mann and take back her accidental gleek-sneeze.

“So, what? How will we find all that stuff out?” Toureq asked.

“First, we’re going to see if we can find the castle’s floor plan online. Then...” Emma tried to copy Hannah’s perfect smile. If she did it right, it would be the kind of smile that convinced other people to do what she wanted. It would make other people think she knew what she was doing. “You can pop in there and pop back with no one the wiser. You don’t have to go inside the castle. Get near enough to see how many guards there are, where the prisoners are being kept, and how many there are of each.”

“That is not a good idea,” Michel said. “Our son can only shadow walk so many times.”

“Just in and out, then he can rest. And we’ll all think of a plan to attack the castle.” Once Toureq told them where the nullifiers were, she would have to fly in through the back by herself. She needed more information about how his parent’s powers worked.

“You said the castle’s haunted?” Emma asked.

When Toureq nodded, she asked his father, “You’re Spectral Glow. What’s your power?”

“I can make glowing images.”

Emma clapped her hands. “Your power’s the perfect distraction for a haunted castle.” She drank the remaining broth from the thermos. “We can break out if I free enough supers or disable the fields. I’ll blast holes in the walls if I need to, and the other supers there should be able to help.”

Emma asked for a piece of paper and wrote steps. Andres and some of the others that had been arrested should be a big help. The words poured out of her as the rest of her plan crystalized. Where were the guards? Did Toureq’s parents have more powers? If she knew all that, then she’d have the perfect in and out plan. And Toureq could rest where his parents would hide to attack the castle.

Since Toureq’s father wasn’t under Mann’s suspicion, she demanded he find the castle on his smart phone and start looking for floor plans. He found maps of the basement and the first two floors. Toureq and his father said they thought most of the cells of the reformatory had been on the third and fourth floors, but they weren’t sure since it had been a few years since they had visited the castle.

Then, that was what they needed to find out.

“Toureq, I was wrong. You might have to Shadow Walk right into the heart of the castle. I would pick someplace out of the way, like on the second-floor.” Emma chewed her lip. “How does your Shadow Walking work? Can you go somewhere you’ve never been before? How do you choose where you’re going? When you took me along with you, all I saw was total darkness and when I tried to blink, I didn’t even feel my eyelids move. I mean—you must have some way of—”

“That’s how the Shadows are, but I skim through where I’m going. I can only step into a dark place. There’s a reason I call it shadow walkings.”

“Could you jump—or sorry, sorry shadow walk to the stairwell by the second-floor dorm? And see if anyone is there? First, head somewhere outside the castle—like across the street and find out where the guards are stationed.”

“How many jumps do you want me to make?” Toureq asked.

Emma opened and closed her mouth. She wasn’t sure.

“I’m tired. Taking you and Hannah along wore me out.” Toureq yawned. “If I rest, I can do another two or three jumps, but even that’s pushing it. The further I have to jump, the harder it is.”

“We’ll have to drive closer to the castle,” Emma said, certain of her plan.

“What if he jumps into that field that turns off powers?” Spectral Glow asked. “What happens then? Son, I don’t want you doing this.”

“Don’t think I can Shadow Walk into those spots. The truck felt like daylight. I couldn’t touch it.”

Emma pressed her lips together, thinking. After a moment she asked, “If they have the field running in the cells, can you tell where they are without Shadow Walking into the castle?”

“I’d confuse them with a bright spot. Things aren’t the same as in the real world. Light breaks the Shadow World into bits and pieces.”

Emma chewed her lip. They wouldn’t be able to find out what she really needed to know then.

Wrapped up in the next phase of drafting out her plan, Emma didn’t even register the doubt flicker across his face.

Chapter 20

Miriam had been right. A couple hours of sleep and some dried fruit from Miriam’s purse had helped them all to to be more ready to attack. Even at three in the morning, Emma’s enthusiasm for the plan burned away the aches in her body. Vaguely, she knew her body was still cramped and bruised. But she felt like a different person when she solved things like a puzzle. All the pieces came together, and she knew what to do.

It felt like she could turn off her achy body and focus so deeply that everything else fell away. With a diagnosis in hand, she knew this was an autism thing, but she didn’t care. Sometimes, this felt like her real superpower. Quiet moments like this were when she felt most alive.

Everything else shut away, and she picked out the different threads of the pattern to see how each of their powers could help drive off the guards. In addition to transforming, Toureq’s mom could control one or two other cars from a distance like remote control cars. She just needed a line of sight on the other vehicles.

As she planned, Emma wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve every so often. After her time in the rain, it wouldn’t stop running. Even after the nap. Ignoring her nose, she sketched out the floor plan. The area on the second floor that had been closed to the public, the third and fourth floors must be more housing or a recreation area for the prisoners.

Also, Stockton Castle must have the same equipment the trucks used to turn off superpowers, or else they wouldn’t be able to hold that many supers all in one place, but no way it covered the whole castle. At least not the whole castle grounds, or else how would the mind control work?

In her seat, Emma bounced up and down as she explained her plan, drawing arrows and marking where she thought the guards would be.

Michel corrected her and pointed out how he would arrange the guards. He told her that these were trained guards who shouldn’t be frightened off by things like ghosts.

Emma disagreed. This was a haunted castle. Spectral Glow’s power would play with their heads and unsettle them. And if Car Shifter attacked the far side of the castle, Emma and Michel could sneak in to free the others.

Still, everything hinged on Toureq finding the prisoners. If they were divided between floors, her priority was saving at least Sebastian, Andres, Rose... and as much as she hated her, Summer.

Despite her desire to free all the prisoners and earn the respect of her friends and family, those four were the key prisoners as far as she was concerned. Since she’d gotten them all arrested, it was her responsibility to save them.

After getting Toureq and his parents on board, they drove to a field about half a mile from the castle and pulled off on the side of the road. Outside, it was still chilly, but at least the rain had stopped. Emma floated over the wet ground to keep her slippers dry. She didn’t need wet feet again, or she’d be distracted by the cold the whole time.

Miriam didn’t want her son to vanish while she was in van form. She said she needed to hug her son goodbye. So once everyone and everything was out of the van, she transformed into a middle-aged woman.

“I’m sorry we don’t have other clothes for you,” Miriam said. “We planned on returning home for the night.”

“We can’t leave them. What if—”

“You’ve already made your point, dear.” Miriam smiled, and silver moonlight reflected off the round hills of her cheeks. “We’re going through with your plan.”

The full moon shone above them, letting Emma study the others before they set about implementing her plan.

Toureq licked his lips.

Emma mirrored the motion, then dragged her top teeth over her bottom lip, the rough sensation soothing her.

“In and out.” Miriam put her hands on Shadow Walker’s shoulders, staring into his eyes. “No more than twenty minutes inside the castle, then come right back to us, no matter what.”

“You’ll be all right.” Spectral Glow rubbed Toureq’s back, an intimate gesture of fatherly support.

Emma turned to the field across the street. Too bad there was nowhere to go to give them real privacy.

“Thanks, Papà.”

In the dark, the oak trees dotting the field looked black. They stood alone. Even if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, the oak stood alone. Toureq was an apple. Emma was an oak.

Nan had never rubbed her shoulders or told her she’d be all right. And her father disappeared the day after she found him.

Emma swallowed down a jealous lump in her throat.

There was a quiet pop, and when Emma turned back, Toureq was gone.

While they waited in the darkness, Emma thought over the elements of her plan. The distraction would start with Spectral Glow sending wind currents and phantoms through the castle, running them past the guards. Orbs. Children playing. Boys working. Simple glowing images that matched the stories Toureq’s family heard when they visited the castle.

Miriam would put two cars into motion at a time. After drawing the guards’ attention, she’d use the cars to ram the castle entrance. Then, she’d do it again and again, as if she were trying to break in.

While they provided a distraction, Emma would sneak into an upper-level window, disable the nullifiers, and then rescue the prisoners. Car Shifter would have to start one more car—maybe a big bus—and they’d floor it. With that many supers, they should be able to avoid the commission.

Emma thought about taking a plane from the skydive center or they could switch vehicles a lot. Somehow, they’d make it from California to Canada and its sanctuary laws.

Some prisoners must have powers that would help them escape. Something more useful than Summer’s ability to wiggle her hair.

After reviewing her plan, Emma drifted through the cool air. She pinched the seam of the soft pajama pants, tracing a tiny circle. Toureq was taking too long.

“Where is my son?” Miriam said. “He should be back by now. Twenty-five minutes have passed.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, dear.” Michel pulled the woman into a hug.

Emma shook her head. Everything had to go according to the plan. Shadow Walker should have returned. Her plan was already falling apart.

“I can’t leave our boy alone,” Miriam said. “We’ve got to go get him.”

“Maybe he overshot where we are,” Toureq’s father whispered.

“He doesn’t do that.” Miriam rubbed her arms, despite the thick jacket she wore. “Especially not outside at night.”

This had to work. If Toureq didn’t come back... Emma didn’t even want to think about it. That was one of the threads of the plan she hadn’t wanted to consider. Still, she had two options. She put it to the others.

“If Toureq’s not back in ten more minutes, do we head back to regroup and hope he finds a way home, or do we attack the castle?”

“We find our son.” Toureq’s mother’s mouth turned down, fine lines noticeable, even in the light of the full moon.

“That’s what I want, too.” Emma said.  She hoped her guesses about the layout were right. She hoped she hadn’t gotten their son captured. If so, that made four people in three days. All because she had bumped Sebastian while he was using a drill. She had to save them. Or die trying.

“He’s our son, but should we go in tonight if he got caught?” Toureq’s father asked. “They’ll be expecting us. Besides, maybe he’s just too tired to come back to us with his powers.”

“No matter what we do, they might expect us.” Emma shrugged. “They might have forced Rose to talk already and...” She didn’t want to get bogged down in the debate. To her, it made more sense to press onward.

She was with Miriam. She’d been willing to attack the castle herself if she needed to, even though it looked like a suicide mission.

“We stand the best chance if we stick to the plan. I’ll delay my attack while you two run the distraction. I’ll look in the windows as best as I can and find the prisoners. I was just... it would have been simpler if Toureq had found the prisoners and told us where they are.”

“Let’s save Toureq before it’s too late,” Miriam said.

Chapter 21

North of the castle, Emma sat in the branches of a huge live oak near the fence line between a farm and Stockton Castle. A short, barbed wire fence separated the pasture and the three story brick building. The imposing castle looked gray in the light of the moon. Its wings branched around a courtyard. And a clock tower stuck up high over the building. She knew from the map online that there were outbuildings, but the castle itself was the focus of her attack. She picked out the dark-roofed dorm room where she thought the prisoners would be held.

A chill wind rustled the leaves of the tree, splattering her with drops left from the rain. Unlike the field they’d parked by, dozens of oaks, bushes, and trees clustered along the banks of a small creek.

Emma shivered. Even though she didn’t have any other dry clothes, she didn’t have much to lose. She was sure the commission knew her secret identity, that Dragon Girl wouldn’t be able to continue, and that Emma Edgin wouldn’t be back at school on Monday.

Either she’d get caught, or she and the disappeared supers would run away to Canada. Still, for the sake of the plan, she hoped no one would see the bright pink pajamas and unicorn slippers while she waited in the tree.

To avoid the long driveway and the guards’ attention, Toureq’s parents had waded through waist-high weeds to get to the castle’s main entrance and parking lots. Although Michel didn’t need to see anything to make his holograms walk through the castle and its walls, Miriam needed the parking lot and the castle in full view. Besides, it made the most sense for them to stay together outside the fence since Emma was the one infiltrating. If she got caught, they could still escape.

Once Emma got inside, however, she would text them if she got the prisoners and were on their way out. Miriam would need to be ready to transform back into the VW Van in order to get everyone out of the area fast. Emma fingered the cell phone stuffed into the pants pocket of the pajamas. So long as it didn’t fall out during the attack.

Inside the castle, a man screamed. Their distraction had started. Michel was projecting his ghosts into the castle. Boys and youths working, reading, playing, holding knives. He could do a few at once.

Still, Emma waited. She wanted the guards to be on edge. Even though Michel had argued that these were trained guards, and probably ex-military, this plan needed to be the best. Otherwise...

A car engine started across the way. Once the cars plowed into the castle, she would head over the fence. The guards would start by locking down the front of the castle. And, with Miriam on the far side of the fence and outside the castle grounds, she would be as safe as possible.

Boom!

The first car must have hit the castle. Guards shouted.

Emma nodded to herself, not daring to peek around her tree. Everything was going according to plan. Well, everything except Toureq disappearing. Still, she could do this. She would find her friends and rescue the other captured supers.

Emma counted slowly. She didn’t want to rush out before the guards responded to the attack. She was going to wait a minute.

Another crash sounded.

Thirty. Despite her racing heart, she kept counting at a slow, steady pace. Her breath caught in her throat. Emma forced down a cough. Runny nose or not, she could do this. A little cold wouldn’t get in the way of her rescuing her friends. A little cough wouldn’t stop her from fixing her screwups.

Fifty-three. Emma fought the urge to rush—rushing led to mistakes—and finished counting. She side-stroked to the castle at cool-down pace, clutching the phone in her pocket so she didn’t lose it during the attack. If she dropped it, she’d be lost. She flew to the dark roofed dorm room, glad her powered still worked.

That was her first guess as to where the prisoners were being kept. Her nose tickled. She thought it was from her runny nose, but it could be nerves. After Agent Mann, she needed to control of her powers. She pretended she was swimming, taking a quick breath in and blowing out the air for a slow count of five.

She couldn’t see any guards on the ground behind the castle. They all must have responded to Miriam’s attack.

Her plan had been right. She would fix this. Well, most of this. Agent Mann’s family wouldn’t get him back. But the supers might go free. Her friends might go free.

Emma flew to the window and peeked in. Bingo! All kinds of people lay in small cells with two or three bunk beds stacked along one side. Some paced their cells and peeked out of the doors. Seemingly agitated by the sound. They were here, but there were way more supers than she had expected.

The news had shown about two dozen supers who had disappeared, but at least fifty people crowded into the dorms. How could she get in without winding up in a cell?

As Emma jiggled a window, an ice ball exploded the rough brick inches from her hand. Chunks of ice and brick peppered her face.

Emma spun.

Ice Queen hovered behind her. Her former geography teacher wore an orange prison jumpsuit, and her braids waved behind her in the wind. Half her face was slack, the other half contorted.

“Fly away, Emma. I can’t fight her,” Ice Queen slurred. “Get away!”

Emma’s stomach roiled. She who?

Her teacher’s face drooped into a zombielike deadpan. Ice Queen raised her arm to hurl another blast of ice.

Emma darted up, zooming back towards the fence.

As Ice Queen sent another blast, Emma stopped flying. She dropped like a stone.

The ice sailed over Emma’s head as she plummeted towards the earth. She caught herself hovering inches above the ground. She flew full speed at Ms. Range’s feet, trying to disorient her.

Emma needed to evade Ms. Range and rescue the prisoners at the same time. Unlike most of the disappeared supers, Ms. Range deserved to be here, but this was something else. This was the mind control.

Ms. Range was hurling ice at her nonstop.

Emma hadn’t thought about supers guarding the castle. She’d assumed they were all prisoners and wouldn’t help the commission.

This... her former teacher under mind control. The commission must have known Emma was coming and had chosen Ms. Range to unsettle her. That or thought about how well matched their powers were.

Emma flew for the safety of the trees. Think. Plan. Find the pattern. Hiding was a first step. Get Ms. Range to chase her around the trees.

Emma zigzagged for the fence. Ice hit it. Stupid bright pink pajamas.

Another car hit the castle. Toureq’s parents didn’t even know Ms. Range was chasing her.

If she got Ms. Range looking for her in the field, Emma’d circle back, blast open the stairwell, and fly in there to get the other supers out.

But Ms. Range didn’t even try to follow Emma to the trees. She stared slack faced.

Something cracked.

Thwack!

The oak slammed a thick branch into Emma’s side, swatting her from the air like an annoying fly.

Emma crashed to the ground, her ability to fly softening the impact. Wet grass slapped her face. Thorns caught in the pajamas.

Emma gasped for air. Her ribs ached. Her face stung. Tears trickled down her face. The oak’s branches crackled as they moved.

Chloroshot had hit her. Emma’d seen that superpower take out bad guys up in Portland. That meant that supers from all along the coast were here and either working with the commission or being mind controlled.

The world spun. But Emma shoved off the ground to retreat to somewhere safe.

She only hovered a few inches when something smacked into her, knocking her back down. The tree hadn’t cracked and moved this time. What had hit her?

Her body protesting, Emma climbed to her feet. She straightened her glasses.

Something tackled her from behind. Handcuffs closed on her wrists. Then she hit the ground. Before she could move, someone tied a mask around her mouth and nose.

Emma blinked, trying to make sense of it all. They didn’t want her to spit fireballs, which meant for now she had powers.

Someone yanked her to her feet by the handcuffs. She yelped in pain as her arms jerked up behind her back.

She turned to face her captor, wanting to scream at him.

Andres stared blankly ahead.

She swallowed.

Tears blurred her vision. Her friend was being mind-controlled to defend the Super Commission he’d worked so hard to undermine.

Ms. Range flew over the castle to the parking lot where Toureq’s parents continued their attack. Chloroshot walked stiffly back to the castle.

With her glasses halfway down her nose and foggy, Emma waited for the mind control to take her, but nothing happened.

She tried to fly away, but Andres caught the cuffs, making them cut into her hands. Pinned behind her back, her shoulders screamed.

It was useless.

She ached everywhere, but her side throbbed where the oak had swatted her. Her breath came in ragged gasps. She fell in the slippery weeds.

She’d failed.

She’d failed them all.

Chapter 22

Andres dragged her to the front of the castle. Every rock and thorn stabbed through the unicorn slippers. But whoever was controlling Andres showed her no mercy.

Emma gasped for air, still unable to catch her breath. Whenever she took a deep breath, pain shot through her side. The tree might have done real damage.

She looked over the white lenses of her glasses into the blurry night. The cars had hit a white concrete barrier like the ones they used during road construction. But one had been pushed aside from a pedestrian walkway leading to the steps of the castle. She stared at the car for a moment, then Andres jerked her cuffs.

Emma walked carefully, turning her foot to the side to avoid the thorn as she climbed the red bricks up to the castle doors.

“Ms. Edgin,” Agent Mann’s metallic voice said.

Emma froze. It felt like Ms. Range had made Emma into a block of ice. This wasn’t possible.

She looked at the source of the voice. Moonlight glinted off the polished, black leather shoes. The black slacks brushed the shoelaces.

Emma bit down on her tongue. Even if her father’s suit always had a rumpled appearance, all the commission agents wore the same one. Still, she scanned upward, avoiding the face. The suit jacket was unbuttoned, revealing aviator sunglasses peeking out of the shirt pocket and a black tie pinned in place with a Super Commission pin.

A lump formed in her throat. This was not possible. She stared at the knot in the tie. Emma forced her eyes higher, her heart fluttering in her chest. She might not be a murderer after all.

Agent Mann’s mouth puckered like the first time she’d met him. His hawklike nose jutted out of his face. He’d slicked back his dark brown hair, revealing his receding hairline.

Emma blinked as if that would clear her eye so she would see what he really looked like. But it didn’t work.

She’d gleek-sneezed all over Agent Mann. The fireball had shot out the top of the stairwell. Her fireball must have cooked him. She’d been blaming herself for murdering him all night. Yet, somehow, he was alive. Not only alive, but more put together than he had been when he chased her through the parking garage.

“How?” Emma stammered.

Her nose itched. She worked her mouth, trying to release the pressure in her jaw without bringing on a sneeze. The vile-tasting gleek liquid pooled in her mouth.

“What a pleasure.” His mouth turned down, belying his words. “Here we were searching all over for you and you drop right into our laps.” Mann turned to Andres. “Thank you for your service. Please return him to his cell.”

Andres let go of the handcuffs and shuffled up the steps into the castle.

Emma tried to fly, but Mann grabbed hold of the handcuffs with one hand and her shoulder with the other. His hand was like an iron vice.

She tried to kick off the ground. But with his grip, she may as well have been pretending to fly.

“Please, Ms. Edgin, no funny business while we get you inside the castle.” Mann released the handcuffs. “You and your friends will take some time for processing. We haven’t yet had the pleasure of so many supers arriving in one evening.”

Emma raised her tongue, trying to hold back any chance of a sneeze. If the snot spilled into the mask, it would blow her up first.

She’d failed everyone. Not only had she not rescued her friends, she’d gotten so many other supers captured, too. Poor Rose. She never should have trusted Emma to keep her safe.

Emma wallowed in her worthlessness as Agent Mann marched her up the steps. Johnson was right not to love her. Whatever he’d seen in her as a seven-year-old... whatever it had made him stop writing those letters, he’d been right. Emma wasn’t worth loving.

And Ollie. He was wrong. Emma was worse than a coward. She was a failure. She’d done everything a superhero was supposed to do. She’d followed all the rules for being the best superhero. And it had blown up in her face.

She’d tried to plan this attack and had tried to use her powers to save the day. She’d tried being what Ollie had wanted. She’d tried being what Rose thought she was. She tried being the superhero Sebastian and Andres needed to rescue them.

And she failed. She was no good. She never did anything right. She wasn’t good enough to save anyone, let alone to earn their love.

As she stared up at the red brick towers, Agent Mann pushed her inside the lobby.

A horrible buzzing assaulted Emma’s ears, making her nauseous. Mann didn’t react to it. Emma wanted to cover her ears to block the sound. This noise was worse than the sound Nan’s TV made when she turned off the cable but forgot to turn off the screen. It was worse than the sound the fluorescent lighting made in the old gym at school.

The creeping nausea made it difficult to pay attention to her surroundings the way her father had taught her in self-defense. The entrance was a mess of contradictions. Pale green paint peeled off the plaster walls, but chairs with the plastic on the legs sat at three shiny new desks.

The thorn in Emma’s slipper dug into her foot as Mann steered her to two holding cells behind the desks. These were also new. Their metal bars were shiny, but they imprisoned her allies Rose against the peeling green walls. A thin bit of metal ran along the joint between the roof and the wall connecting to the cell bars.

Miriam sat primly on a bench inside one cell. On the floor, Rose lay on her back playing on her phone. Toureq shared the other cell with his father.

Agent Mann slid the women’s cell door open.

When Rose saw Emma, tears started pouring out of her eyes. “This isn’t what I saw. In my dream, you kept me safe.”

When Emma stepped forward, the buzzing grew even louder. She tried to back up, but Mann’s iron grip held her firm, reminding her she was a prisoner. She had no choice.

He unlocked the handcuffs before shoving her deeper into the cell. The door slammed shut behind her.

Emma crumpled onto the hard bench beside Miriam and untied the mask from her face. The sides were elastic. It was soft but metallic, almost like an emergency blanket. She had no doubt it would have caused the chemicals from her fireball to mix right away.

She spit into it and tied it carefully. Maybe the gleek would come in handy. Emma had to try something. She wasn’t beaten yet. She wasn’t Dragon Girl, the superhero everyone else wanted. She was Geek Fire, the superhero she wanted to be. Rose trusted Geek Fire.

“Let’s break out,” Emma said. “You said you don’t see everything.”

“We can’t break out. We can’t.” The pink stripe in Rose’s hair fell forward, covering her face in what might have been an effort to hide her tears.

Emma’s shoulders hunched up and her nails dug into her hands. She ground her teeth into her tongue to fight against the overwhelming emotions and the nausea caused by the painful buzzing. “Why not? I should be able to blast a fireball at the wall and—”

“Try it.” Rose returned to her game.

Miriam moved to the far end of the cell.

“Don’t you want to move?” Emma asked.

Rose just shook her head.

Emma limped to the far side of the tiny cell, then focused on the itch in her nose. Like on the truck, the familiar ache in her jaw wouldn’t come. She willed the gleek-sneeze to happen. But nothing came. After a few moments of trying, she raised her tongue and forced herself to sneeze. Nothing happened.

Emma’s stomach churned. Of course the cell had its own nullifier.

How could they escape if they had no powers? Emma swallowed her sour fear, willing it out of her mouth. There had to be a way out.

Emma squelched across to the bench, the thorn jabbing her with each step. She pulled off the no-longer-fluffy slippers and threw them across the cell. With her head in her hands, she started to cry.

Rose was right. They were stuck. No one would rescue them. Whatever commission did to supers here, Emma was about to find out first hand.

Heavy footsteps clumped down the stairs. Emma turned, hoping maybe someone new, another guard bringing a new hope. Instead, Agent Mann came into view—but it made no sense. Agent Mann was sitting at the desk right across from them doing paperwork.

“How’s it going, Gary?” the new Agent Mann asked the other. Twins. No triplets. And they didn’t know she’d killed their brother. They had to be identical multiples. That was it.

It wasn’t the same Agent Mann.

“Good, Gilbert. I’m working on Rosalinda Robles’ intake paperwork.”

“Why are you doing it by hand? Didn’t Gordon sync up before the fireball?” the new Agent Mann asked.

They didn’t care about the fireball? They weren’t upset? Emma stared, trying to make sense of it all. What did they mean sync up?

“Mother said we should do things the analogue way, so as not to unsettle the humans.”

Emma blinked, staring at the two copies of Agent Mann.

When she’d asked Johnson to live with her, had he said Agent Mann was like a machine or that he was a machine?

“They’re androids!” Emma gasped.

“Yes,” Miriam said. “Three of them walked out, eyes glowing, and caught us both.”

“I didn’t know.” Emma ran a hand over her face.

She hadn’t killed a person. She had destroyed an android. Tears of relief spilled down her cheeks. “I’m not a murderer.”

Miriam rubbed her back.

“Don’t touch me.” Emma scooted to the far end of the bench and hugged herself. Touch was both what she wanted and hated. Maybe no one ever rubbed her back because she couldn’t handle the sensation. Maybe they had tried when she was a kid.

Emma shook as she tried to get ahold of herself. She had failed at everything. Instead of saving Andres, she’d fought him and failed. Instead of keeping Rose safe, she’d gotten them both arrested. Worse, she’d dragged Toureq and his family into this, too. She even ruined building the set for the play. She’d hurt Sebastian and started this whole thing.

At least she wasn’t a murderer.

“If we’d known they were androids...” Emma shook her head. “We could have done things differently.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Toureq’s voice had lost the musical rhythm and only the openness of his vowels remained. His voice sounded hollow. “They’ve got us now. More supers to fill their prison. More supers for them to experiment on.”

The two Agent Manns—the androids—went upstairs to deal with some problem.

“But we did everything right,” Emma said. “We did everything superheroes do in the comics. We made a plan. We had a solid distraction, and I tried to sneak around back. What else could we have done? We did it all! We tried to be brave and strong. We were the perfect superhero team for the job.”

“Well, it didn’t work,” Rose said. “No matter what you did, even with my vision, nothing worked.”

Emma collapsed on the bench. The aches of the day came back to her. Piercing pain in her side made her wince. Sour bile rose in her throat thanks to the horrible buzzing.

Emma covered her ears, pressing her palms flat against them, trying to block out the painful sound.

With no powers, what could she do, but give up?

Chapter 23

Emma ran her hand along the wooden bench and squeezed her eyes shut. Ms. Ngo had said Emma didn’t need to be perfect. She just had to try. Rules should help. So, if they hurt you and breaking them wouldn’t hurt anyone else, you should break them.

You didn’t have to follow other people’s rules all the time. Part of being autistic meant struggling with the unspoken rules. Once she knew the rules, she could flout them.

Ms. Ngo always said not to give in to her frustrations, to name her emotions, then to think about what resources she had and to ask for help.

Emma rubbed the soft pajama material between her fingers. Everyone who could help her was locked up with her and it wasn’t like she—she still had a cellphone.

Calling on a cell phone wasn’t what a superhero would do, but it was what Emma could do. Even if she wasn’t the perfect super, asking for help was always a good choice.

Mann hadn’t searched her before he’d shoved her into the holding cell, so Emma imagined that part of the processing would come later. Rose still had her phone and was playing with it right in front of everyone.

“Do you still have your phones?” Emma asked, pulling Toureq’s phone from her pocket. Toureq’s parents pulled out their own phones, smiles forming on their faces.

“Not going to work,” Rose said flatly.

“Why not?” Emma asked, the hopeful smile frozen on her face.

“You think those robots forgot to take our phones? They’re robots.” Rose pointed at a back-pack sized machine next to the door with a bunch of antennas sticking out the top. “They’ve got a jammer.”

Emma looked down at the phone. No service.

“I tried to call as soon as I got here.” Rose laid back down on the floor. “The guy who drove me here showed it to me then gave me headphones. He didn’t like my music.”

For a moment, Emma doubted herself. They’d tried their powers. They’d tried working as a team. Nothing had worked, but help might come from outside. If they just asked. But they had to break the jammer first.

She picked up the silvery mask. The thick liquid inside was congealing. She considered throwing it herself, but while she was a good swimmer, she’d never played softball. That wasn’t her sport.

Toureq, though, had worn a Green Sox cap.

“Toureq?” Emma held the mask gingerly by the back. “You like baseball, right?”

He grunted.

“Did you ever play?” Emma reached through the bars connecting the cells, her eyes on the stairs in case one of the Agent Manns returned.

He eyed the mask warily. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“There’s a little bit of my gleek stuff in there. If we’re lucky, my gleek will break the machine. If not...” Emma swallowed. Hopefully, the nullifier didn’t break down the chemical once it had been created. Hopefully, it worked by stopping her from creating more. “If not, I’m out of ideas.”

He pinched the very top between his fingers. “This is too light.”

What could they use to weight it down? She glanced around the cell, no rocks or anything. Just the unicorn slippers and people’s shoes. “What if you tie it to the slipper or maybe your shoe?”

She didn’t state the obvious that it had to be able to spill out onto the machine. If the stuff didn’t actually drip onto the jammer, there was no point.

“Use this.” Rose pulled a portable cell phone charger out of her pocket. “It’s dead anyway.”

Toureq slid the charger inside the mask. The stuff Emma had spit in it crackled.“You spit this stuff?”

“We don’t know how long until someone comes back.” Emma chewed her lip, trying to remember anyone usefull’s number. “Be ready to call.”

The others all held their phones up, preparing to dial. Who should she call? Who wouldn’t the commission just arrest? Ollie couldn’t help. Nan or Hannah. But Emma didn’t want to tell Nan. Better she learn what happened from Hannah or Ollie.

But Rose had told Hannah to find her father, the judge. Maybe this was why.

Fingers shaking, Emma dialed Hannah’s number.  She nodded to Toureq, who threw the mask at the machine. It arced towards the machine, then tangled in the antennas.

Still no service. Emma’s finger hovered over the send button. Footsteps and muffled voices echoed down the stairs, but no one had come back down, yet.

Emma stared helplessly at the mask. This had to work.

Slimy gleek liquid dribbled down one side. It landed on the machine with a smacking sound.

Would it work? Breathlessly, Emma stared at the phone. Still no service. Not even one measly bar.

“I have service,” Miriam whispered.

A second later, a bar showed up on Emma’s phone. She hit the green phone button.

The call was rejected.

Hannah had to answer.

Emma called again, and it barely rang before her call got rejected again. Heart pounding in her throat, Emma reminded herself that getting free was more important than whatever Hannah was doing. It was okay to annoy Hannah.

If she kept calling, her cousin should answer.

Emma called again.

“Who is this?” Hannah asked. “This is not a good time.”

“Did you find your dad?” Emma asked, her voice quiet. The words felt small inside her mouth. Did Hannah even hear her over the nausea-inducing buzzing?

“Him and his girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Emma repeated. Yeah, her aunt and uncle were having major problems. But a girlfriend?

On Hannah’s end of the line, a man and a woman argued in the background. The woman’s voice tickled Emma’s memory.

“Yeah. Girlfriend.” Hannah snarled. “This better be important.”

“We’ve been captured.” Emma kept her eyes glued to the stairs. If the Agent Manns came back they were screwed. “All the supers are here. All of the disappeared supers are here. Your dad needs to do whatever judge-y things he can do to get us out of here. Call everyone he knows. Isn’t he friends with like our senator or something?”

Hannah snorted. “That didn’t work for Summer.”

“We’re at Stockton Castle.”

“What?” Hannah asked. “Stockton Castle? That old haunted place?”

“Yes! They’ve got like fifty or sixty of us here. Get the news out here.”

“The news?” Hannah half laughed half sobbed.

“Who is this?” the woman demanded. Uncle Nate’s girlfriend. Why did the voice sound so familiar?

“Why’d Hannah give you the phone?”

“I don’t know. It might help if I knew who you were.”

“Em—“ Emma caught herself before she said her name out loud. “Geek Fire. I mean Dragon Girl.”

“Dragon Girl?” The woman said incredulously. “I’m getting an exclusive with Dragon Girl?”

“Who are you?” Emma asked again.

“Valerie Virgo.”

The local news anchor always ragging on the courts.

Emma burst out laughing. The others turned to stare at her, ignoring their own conversations. Uncle Nate supposedly hated Valerie Virgo and he’d been sleeping with her for how long?

“Listen,” Emma kept her voice as quiet as possible. “I’m being held at Stockton Castle with fifty or sixty other supers. Not one of us got a fair trial. Conditions are terrible. I don’t know if they’re doing experiments on us or what, but they’re holding us against our will and...”

Emma trailed off when she realized Valerie was talking to someone else.

“Breaking news!” Victoria shouted. Her voice muffled like she was covering the phone with her hand. “Get as many news cameras out to Stockton Castle as you can... Yes, I know it’s in the boondocks. That’s where they’ve been taking the superheroes they arrest. We need to get out there now, start broadcasting. I’ll be on my way soon. No, I’m halfway there already.”

Emma started crying. They would get out. It was going to happen. Not because she was an awesome super who did what supers do, but because she stopped trying to be the perfect superhero, and instead asked for help.

“You still there?” Valerie didn’t wait for her answer. “I’m going to patch this call through to the station so they can broadcast what you’re telling me. Can you switch to video mode?”

“No. I’m on a flip phone another super gave me, in case the Super Commission was tracking us.”

“I can do video,” Rose said. “I’ve still got a smartphone.”

Emma relayed the number to Rose, who grinned as she dialed. As soon as Rose started filming, footsteps pounded down the stairs. One of the Agent Manns stared at them, mouth open.

“How did you do it?” The android’s eyes glowed as he took in the mask tangled in the jammer’s antennas. “Who have you called?”

“The news, judges, senators,” Rose said. “They know where we are and they’re broadcasting what’s been going on here!”

That might be a little generous, but let the androids think it had been going on longer than a few moments.

Eyes still glowing, the Agent Mann stalked to the cell and slammed open the door, yanking the phone out of Rose’s hands. Emma crept to the open door, her own phone still connected to Hannah’s phone. Even if it didn’t have any video.

“All on film!” Rose said triumphantly. “They saw all of that!”

Mann crushed the phone and dropped it. He blinked his eyes shut.

Emma retreated to the far side of the cell.

“I’m filming, too,” Michel said in the other cell.

Instead of attacking like a killer robot though, Mann crushed Miriam’s phone. When he turned to Emma, she threw her phone at him and ran for the open cell door, but another Agent Mann stepped through a side door and blocked her way.

Emma backed up. Her father’s warning made sense. He hadn’t abandoned her after all. He’d been forced to relocate to make room for this machine to hunt down supers.

If only she’d been able to understand what he’d told her, if she’d understood his warnings, she would have run as soon as Agent Mann had taken Summer. She wouldn’t have tried to come up against this machine.

Even though she was stuck in this cell, help was coming. They needed to hold on. It might take a while for the news teams and the government officials to make a difference, but there was no question the supers were American citizens with rights.

But Sebastian was undocumented. He wasn’t a citizen. Would news coverage help him? Would it help any of them?

Worrying wouldn’t help. She needed to have faith that help would come. When she stopped trying to be perfect, things had worked out. This would work out, too.

Emma and her cellmates squeezed against the back wall while Agent Mann stormed into the men’s cell.

“Help is coming.” Emma swallowed. “Help is coming.”

Chapter 24

Emma settled onto the floor after the phones had been confiscated, pulling her legs underneath her. The pressure against her legs soothed her nerves. She traced her fingers over the worn tile floor. The little flecks in the tile shifted in and out of focus. She would find a shape in the pattern. She would find a way out of here.

When the mangled plastic from Rose’s phone caught her attention, Emma turned around to search for patterns in the flaking green walls instead.

High heels clacked on the stairs. An angry woman’s voice echoed through the room.

“I told you this isn’t your world.” Her father’s voice followed the woman’s.

He was there. Really? Her father was there. Of course, he knew about the secret prison. He’d ferreted out supers for the Super Commission. But from what she’d learned, he’d spent more time running supers to safety. Which might mean he was there to save her.

Then Emma registered his words. What did he mean it wasn’t ‘your world?’ Who was this woman?

“It doesn’t matter if it’s my world or not,” the woman hissed with an odd rhythm. “We need the supers and this is the way.”

As the woman descended the stairs, Emma saw her outfit first. Warm leggings and a long-sleeved dress. And finally, chunky purple glasses and wild, short, dark hair.

Johana Sklodowska, eccentric inventor and billionaire, founder and owner of EastTech AstroWatch. She pulled out her phone, then as she came to stand in front of Emma’s cell. The phone rang in her hand. Emma tried to be defiant, but she didn’t really know what was going on.

Ms. Sklodowska grimaced slightly and answered with a flourish. “Yes, sir, Mr. President, sir.” She studied Emma and the other supers.

Emma forced herself off the bench and stood inches from the woman, meeting her eyes. Was the president being involved a good thing or a bad thing? Would the media be enough?

“I understand, sir. Our agents acted without proper authorization, under misunderstood orders.”

That sounded like good news for Emma and the other supers.

Ms. Sklodowska stared Emma in the face as she waited for the president to stop speaking.

Emma dug her nails into her palms, but refused to look away. How could she, high school student and failed superhero, be toe to toe with someone who was talking the President of the United States?

“Of course. All supers will be granted due process, and those who have not committed major crimes will be released within thirty days.” Ms. Sklodowska ran a hand through her hair. “Yes. We will recruit supers and maintain our ultimate purpose secret from the public.”

Ultimate purpose? What was going on?

“You’ll be all right,” her father mouthed and gave Emma a thumbs-up.

Rose put an arm across Emma’s shoulders.

Emma drew away from the touch.

“I understand, sir.” The woman smoothed the front of her sensible dress. “Of course, I will be held responsible. I have already made the appropriate arrangements.” She hung up and slid the phone into a pocket.

Were they getting out of there?

“I apologize for my sons arresting you.” Johana Sklodowska ran her hand through her hair again, making Emma think of Ollie. “It was without empathy. I’ll review their programming and push a patch.”

“Excuse me?” Toureq asked.

Ms. Sklodowska’s piercing blue eyes bore into Emma’s.

“You’re apologizing to me?” Emma asked, shocked. Why would this powerful woman apologize to her?

The woman had come out of nowhere to build one of the biggest companies in the world with the biggest vision. Emma glanced from Ms. Sklodowska to her father to one of the flustered Agent Manns.

How could those things be her sons? They were androids—unless she made them. And if she made them...

“You’re an android?” Emma’s brain leapt ahead, making connections in the puzzles plaguing her. Puzzles she hadn’t realized connected formed one clear image. “If you’re an android and Mann is your son, who made you? Where do you come from?”

“You told me she was smart.” Ms. Sklodowska turned to Johnson, a disapproving look on her face.

“Give her a few moments. She’s never seen you in the flesh before and has had a difficult couple days.”

“He said this isn’t your world,” Emma said. “Does that mean... You’re not from Earth?”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” Ms. Sklodowska said, putting her hand on the cell door. “Please, come with me. We have much to discuss. The others... they’ll be freed shortly, but the two of you are necessary for our mission.” Ms. Sklodowska nodded to Rose.

Emma stepped forward as the door slid open. Rose followed close on Emma’s heels. When Miriam tried to leave the cell, Ms. Sklodowska shoved her back and slammed the door in her face.

As Emma followed her up the stairs, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. Her heart thudded in her chest. Even with her father there, Emma felt unsettled dealing with an alien android renowned as a genius, inventor, and business owner.

Why did an android from another world want to talk to two high school girls?

They entered a room with two large windows, and a long table with a small platter of pastries and a pitcher of water. Breakfast—a real one. One window looked onto a courtyard and beyond that the fence of the field Emma had hid in. The other showed the sun just starting to rise over the cars Miriam had attacked the castle with.

They sat at the table in an awkward silence. Rose’s eyes were wide, taking everything in.

Emma poured herself a glass of water, then devoured a donut. “What arrangements did you make?” Emma asked after a few minutes of silence. “How will you play this off and not go to prison for arresting people illegally?”

“My second-in-command is an inferior version of myself. He will be responsible for this whole program, including the orders given to my sons and the community liaisons like your father.” Ms. Sklodowska shrugged, somehow making it an elegant motion.

When the android didn’t say anything more, Rose stared at Emma like she had all the answers. Ms. Sklodowska wanted her to play smart and put everything together herself.

Johnson walked to the window facing the courtyard, turning his back to them.

Too many questions ate at her. Emma had to ask what was happening and why.

The morning after the rocket launch, a disheveled Ms. Sklodowska had claimed responsibility for the UFO that seemed to have given people powers. Emma had thought the government was using EastTech as a scapegoat to hide alien activity. Given Sklodowska’s involvement and that she was an android from another world, that meant Ms. Sklodowska had launched the UFO in order to make the supers. But why did she want to make superheroes? And why arrest people for having the powers she had given them?

“You made the UFO that made us into supers.” Emma rubbed her palms against the pajama bottoms. She struggled to make a connection.

It hadn’t been a question, but Ms. Sklodowska nodded ever so slightly, her blue eyes glowing.

“And you’re arresting us, sequestering us here, but it’s not to keep the public safe from us. If that were the case, you wouldn’t arrest supers like Bastian and Summer. Their powers can’t hurt anyone.”

“Don’t be so sure about the hair thing,” Ms. Sklodowska said. “Once she gains sufficient control, moving her hair may be quite useful.”

Johnson kept his back to her, but his frame stiffened as she spoke. Emma was on the right track, but why not tell them?

Ms. Sklodowska was testing them, and Rose wasn’t answering. Emma had to pass.

“Okay, but Bastian—how can healing be dangerous? My power, I get it. Super dangerous. But here you are, talking to me. You made us, an army of supers. The only possible explanation for that...” Emma’s voice trailed off.

She felt like she was channeling that ancient alien theorist guy with the hair even crazier than Ms. Sklodowska’s.

She had made an army of supers. Emma’s ex-military father called himself an early adopter. He must have become an empath before the thing in the sky.

Emma was part of an army of supers. And armies fought wars.

No, that couldn’t be it. Emma studied the fake wood pattern again. It couldn’t be real.

And denial wasn’t a river in Egypt.

“Keep talking, dear.” Her lips stretched and cheeks mounded into little hills. A smile even more perfect than Hannah’s.

“You want us to fight some threat. You’re from another world, and... You needed the supers to fight something androids like you and Mann couldn’t beat.” Emma swallowed hard over the lump in her throat. If she was right, then Emma and all the supers were in for a world of hurt. “You need us to fight something only supers can defeat. Because you can build as many androids as you want.”

Johnson turned around, smiling. “I told you my daughter’s smart.”

“Why me and Rose? Why are you talking to us with the press outside and the Senate and the Congress making the President roll over on you? Why two teen girls?”

Emma’s blood ran cold. Her mind screamed at her a reason. A reason that terrified her.

“You’re right. She’s not dumb.” Ms. Sklodowska fiddled with her glasses.

A tinge of pride hit Emma. From Ms. Sklodowska, this was a huge compliment.

“Although, I don’t appreciate playing a sounding board.” Ms. Sklodowska turned dour.

“She’s confirming her hypothesis.” Her father clasped his hands behind his back in parade rest, like she learned in band. “She knows the answer. Don’t you, Em?”

Emma chewed her lip. “You need my power and Rose’s visions to defeat whatever is coming. My power...” Emma dragged her teeth across her lip. She’d already failed so much. Her power couldn’t be the linchpin. Not her. She could not be the key to this whole thing, could she?

“Is your father right? Do you know the answer to your own question?” Sklodowska asked.

“Please tell me I’m not the only one who can stop—whatever it is you need us for, can it?”

“Only the most effective. As Rose is aware, we have others with similar powers.” Ms. Sklodowska shot Rose a pointed look. Emma needed to ask Rose about that later. “I believe you were at that gas station, correct?”

Beside her, Rose shrank into her chair.

Emma didn’t know anything about a gas station. She would have to ask Rose later. She needed to focus on the android in front of her.

Ms. Sklodowska waved her hand, making a globe appear in front of the window. The continents were in the right places, but the rivers and cities weren’t. Webs of light spread across the dark parts of the world, like satellite images of Earth at night. But where major cities should be, small towns shone. Massive collections of light appeared where none did on Emma’s Earth.

“When this threat destroyed my world, I escaped through a dimensional rift into yours.”

The lights flashed out. City by city, connection by connection. The world went dark. On the parts in daylight, the green swathes turned into brown deserts.

The globe grew until a single web of light filled the room.

Emma’s chair sat on a cobblestone street. An alien skyscraper towered over her. Masses of people flowed around them. Thousands of people who looked Native American filled the streets, commuting somewhere.

“These creatures travel from one dimension to another, biding their time, letting our worlds grow fat and rich with life before they come to feast on—for want of a better word in your pitiful language—all the souls available to them.”

In the vision, the sky tore open in a circle of golden lightning and creatures poured through. Terror filled the faces of the people in the surrounding streets.

Emma’s nose itched.

“If you don’t lead the way and let us build weapons from your powers,” Ms. Sklodowska said, “they will devour your world as they did mine.”

Some of the creatures waved and contracted squid-like tentacles. Others resembled jellyfish. Transparent balloons throbbed and shimmered like living oil-slicks with dark tentacles writhing underneath. They all swam through the air. Small ones latched onto people’s ears, mouths, and noses. Tiny ones seemed to burrow inside.

The people raced past Emma now. Her jaw throbbing, Emma clutched the arms of her chair. A giant tentacle impaled a stocky man inches from her.

Rose hugged Emma, and Emma didn’t stop her.

The creature jerked the man to its gaping mouth.

Emma clamped her jaw shut. Her powers seemed to work here.

The city, the people disappeared, and all but a walnut-sized creature vanished. Something floated inside the shimmering, puffy part of it. Emma didn’t want to know what.

The remaining monster’s body contracted and expanded as it swam towards the ceiling. Then it floated down. Its tentacles drifting towards Emma’s hand.

She jerked her hand away from the snarled tendrils, and it contracted to swim up again.

Ms. Sklodowska turned to Emma. “These creatures will come to this world, and you two must help stop them.”

Chapter 25

“I can’t. I can’t.” Emma stammered and wiped away hot tears. No way she would ever be good enough to stop monsters like those.

“Us? We’re just kids.” Rose released Emma. “What do you expect us to do?”

Ms. Sklodowska smiled. “We have time to prepare. My world had several years from the time the dimensional walls thinned this much.”

They were already thin?

Standing at the window, Emma’s father ran a hand over his face. “I don’t care how important her power is. It’s too dangerous.”

“I won’t risk a child’s life.” Ms. Sklodowska chewed on the end of her glasses. “Instead, Emma, I will create weapons that mimic your power. But you must cooperate with my experiments.”

Even though she didn’t have to fight the monsters, it all came back to her power. The stupid power she never should have gotten in the first place. That was all they wanted her for.

But she didn’t need to learn to fight those things off. She just had to let them do some experiments. At least her power was good for something.

“Did you know?” Emma spun her chair to face her father. “Did you know my power was so important?”

“If I’d known those things were coming...” Her father shook his head. “If I’d known, I’d never have helped the others go to Canada.”

“You would have arrested more people?” Emma asked incredulously. Even though he was her father, she didn’t need his love or approval if he were willing to arrest people who had done nothing wrong. And his letters could go hang.

“No. That was wrong.” Her father glanced at Ms. Sklodowska. “That’s why I helped supers flee to Canada.”

Relieved, Emma blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. But she was confused.

“I arrested them because we must defeat the creatures.” Ms. Sklodowska set her glasses on the table with an audible click. “Every last super must help.”

“Why?” Emma asked. “If the two of us are so important, why do you need everyone?”

“You are smart.” Ms. Sklodowska narrowed her eyes at Emma. “I fear that we are not the only ones with the ability to control people’s minds. If the creatures take control of our supers.” She shuddered.

“Then we need to convince them to come to us and block the mind control somehow.” Her father’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

“But the creatures must remain secret or people will panic.” Ms. Sklodowska pressed her hands down on the table.

Emma stared down at the parking lot and the damaged cars. What would bring supers here?

No, not just any supers. If she wanted people to come, she had to think about what would convince her to turn herself in to the commission. What would make her willingly go to a prison? Even if they promised freedom eventually, this was a huge risk.

“I want help learning my powers.” Emma had spent countless hours trying to practice her powers with Ollie in Honda Hills. “What if we make this a safe place for us to learn? Make this prison into a school.”

“That’s brilliant.” Her father’s teeth flashed in a quick grin. “We can license superpowers. Like gun licensing programs, you need training before you use your powers in public. We can even pay those who get additional training to keep their towns safe. And when we develop a way to ward off the creature’s mind control, we can give it to all registered supers.”

Her father turned to her. “Emma, please cooperate with Johana’s experiments.”

Cold filled her belly. What kind of experiments would an alien android run? Would they hurt? Were they dangerous? Would she still have powers after they were done?

“Okay, so you need Geek Fire’s power, but I’m the one who asked what you expect us to do.” Rose twirled a purple lock of hair around her fingers. “What about me?”

“Your power will tell us when and where they will appear.” Ms. Sklodowska picked up her glasses and chewed on one arm. She was an android. Were they just for looks? Another layer of lies?

Rose frowned. “My power isn’t precise. And, I don’t usually know when.”

Emma frowned. Rose had said she knew she was going to meet Emma the day before.

“I can teach you to use your powers to their fullest.” The android smiled like a shark with too many teeth. “Rose, once you learn to lucid dream, you’ll be able to call visions to you while you sleep.”

Rose nodded, but she didn’t commit to anything.

“And we can go home?” Emma wasn’t sure exactly what they were agreeing to. “You’ll teach us, but let us go home, right? We’re a bunch of high schoolers, but you’ve got us locked up here. Bastian and I are working on our school play. Summer’s parents want her home. I can’t—I don’t want to give up my life. I understand these—” Emma gestured to the misshapen creature drifting over the table. “—things are coming, but we don’t know when or where. Why do we have to stay here?”

“Supers can come and go as they please.” Her blue eyes glowing, Sklodowska paused. “They should get better at using their powers, help their communities, make a difference, and be ready to fight the coming invasion.”

Emma traced the smooth surface of the table. She couldn’t look at the tentacled creature anymore. How long would it take for the press to get here?

“Please, help us recruit other supers,” Ms. Sklodowska said.

Emma rolled her eyes. “How can I help you recruit anyone?”

“As Dragon Girl—Geek Fire, many people trust you do what’s right,” Ms. Sklodowska said. “They know you from your battle against the Ice Queen. The public loves you.”

Emma snorted. They could do experiments on her, train her to sneeze fireballs at monsters, whatever it took to harness these powers. But, despite the merchandise, she wasn’t a real hero.

Besides, should she be helping Sklodowska? Until about five minutes ago, she’d been determined to arrest and control each and every super.

In the distance, the sound of a helicopter approached. Was that the press? Or was it coming to take Ms. Sklodowska away?

“It’s true,” Rose said. “I’d love to be you. To have your powers. To be as strong as you.”

“I’m a screw up.”

“You’re not.”

How did Rose not see it? Despite what she’d seen of Emma tonight, the fan girl held onto the image of Dragon Girl fighting Ice Queen. “When things got tough tonight, I gave up and cried for help.”

“You didn’t give up,” Rose said. “You asked for help because help was stronger than us. And because you trusted me.”

Emma blinked. Rose really thought that? “I didn’t break us out like a superhero. It worked but—”

“You’re what we need,” Ms. Sklodowska said. “You improvised when necessary. We need someone with your power and your intelligence. I will train you, and we will be ready when they come.” She pointed, and the creature grew to the size of a rat, its tentacles writhing beneath it like a nest of snakes.

“You don’t need me.” Emma dug her nails into her palms and rocked as she spoke.

The android was still showing one of the horrible creatures to convince Emma to share her powers. She didn’t want Emma, she wanted the fireballs.

“Of course, we do.” The android smiled.

Emma recognized it as the same as Hannah’s convincing smile. Calculated. Planned. Fake.

“You need my power for your experiments.” Emma pressed her lips together. As for her, no one here really wanted her. She shot a look at Johnson. “He didn’t even stick around to raise me.”

Johnson made a strangled noise, but Emma knew the truth.

“You left me with Nan when mom died because you didn’t know how to deal with me.” She pushed away from the table and paced as she spoke. “You saw me as a nothing. A broken, autistic nothing.” She was more than that. But that didn’t mean they saw it. “You’re only interested in me now because I’ve got a power you want. I’ll help you, but don’t have to like it.”

“You can’t believe that, can you? You’re smart. You’re strong. You stood up to your teacher and saved your cousin.” Her father approached Emma as he spoke.

“All things I did because of this stupid power.” Emma stopped pacing and stared up at her father. “It’s the real reason you care about me now. Whatever I did when I was seven and didn’t even know you were alive—whatever I did, I never changed. I’m still the same kid.”

“Emma, your grandmother punished you every time I sent a letter.” He put his hands on Emma’s shoulders and stared down into her eyes. “Every time.”

Eyes burning, Emma studied her bare feet, chipped nail polish and all. All those times Nan had sent to her room as soon as she got off the school bus. All those times she’d been punished and hadn’t understood why. All because Nan got angry about letters Emma hadn’t even known existed.

“Beth wrote me after your seventh birthday because when your grandmother got my letter, she took away all your presents and your favorite Cabbage Patch.”

That was why Emma’d had to rescue Elna Gabby from the trash?

“So, I stopped writing and begged Beth to get her to give you your things back.”

He’d stopped writing because he loved her. Not because he didn’t care. “But you didn’t let me live with you.”

“You thought I was dead.”

“I’m not talking about when I was a kid.” Emma studied her father’s face. “Stockton Castle’s not even that far from Pueblo Lindo, and you vanished.”

Johnson chewed his lip, and Emma saw herself in his face. The square jaw, the shape of his mouth and nose. His face was like watching a funhouse mirror as he struggled with his feelings.

“Why not take me with you?” Emma asked.

“To here? Ask Geek Fire to keep her powers secret at a prison for supers?” Johnson laughed. “Johana gave me a chance to say goodbye. That was it.”

“I realized he was helping supers escape.” Sklodowska fiddled with her glasses. “So, I brought him back and told him about the creatures so he understood what he—what we’re all fighting for.”

“I’ve been on lockdown here in the castle ever since.”

Emma studied her father. He looked earnest. Had he been a sort of prisoner here as well?

“The creatures must remain secret. We cannot panic the masses.” In her seat at the table, Ms. Sklodowska frowned.

“The two of you should volunteer to stay to maintain the secret. Your friends who don’t know about the creatures can go home. But you two—”

“No.” Emma wasn’t letting this woman go back on her word in a space of minutes. “We’ll keep your secret. I won’t be your prisoner.”

“We must find a way to keep this secret.”

The helicopter grew louder. Emma looked for it outside the window across from her. There were only stars and a hint of purple on the horizon.

“You don’t understand humans at all, do you?” Emma asked. “Rose, my father, and I know. Who else? The president? How many others?”

Not like Emma was the best judge of people or how others thought, but there was no keeping a secret like this. A secret of this magnitude with that many people involved would spread like wildfire.

“Despite overreaching herself tonight, Puppet Master can control many people at once,” Ms. Sklodowska said.

“Even if you keep us here and bind us with mind control,” Rose said, “the people will find out.”

“We need to get ahead of it,” Johnson said. “We announce the solution before anyone finds out there’s a problem. Tell the press we’re not alone and can meet alternate Earths.”

“If they try to reach other dimensions, the creatures will come.” Ms. Sklodowska held out her hand to the creature drifting over the table.

It swam to her and wrapped its tentacles around her wrist. The skin bubbled, then blackened. Bitter smoke filled the air.

Emma’s stomach churned.

“We must destroy them.” Sklodowska crushed it in her delicate hand and dropped its corpse on the table. After a moment, it vanished like the other projections and her wrist returned to its normal, pale color.

“I’ll help.” Emma put a hand to her roiling stomach. “I’ll help and keep the monsters secret. But one kid won’t do much when you need to recruit supers everywhere. And make things right with all the supers you never should have arrested.”

“With your help,” Ms. Sklodowska said. “We’ll get them on board.”

“Rose and I can go home?” Emma asked.

“Yes.” Her father glared at Ms. Sklodowska before turning back to Emma. “We need you. You’re my daughter and I love you and I want to keep you safe, but you are the key to our survival.”

Whether or not Emma believed it, others did. Which gave Emma power here. “If that’s true, then there’s one other thing.”

“What is it, child?” Ms. Sklodowska asked.

“I want everyone who hasn’t committed a crime to go home tonight.” Emma walked to the window.

Three or four sets of headlights shone at the end of the driveway.

“And I want to see Bash and Andres, to make sure they’re all right.” Emma paused. Summer was Hannah’s friend. She should ask about Summer too, even if Summer was always hard on her. “And Summer Sestina.”

“Is that necessary?” Ms. Sklodowska stood. “You heard me promise the president to release them all within a month.”

“If they haven’t committed any crimes, they should all be free to go right now.” Emma focused on Ms. Sklodowska’s mouth.

The android had told her that she had the power here. Like they had talked about so long ago in Ms. Range’s class. Power should be used to help others. Whether it was a superpower granted by a UFO or if it was bargaining power like Emma had here. And the best way Emma could help was by refusing to let any innocent supers stay in prison.

“Your president was fine with thirty days.”

The woman tried to capture Emma’s gaze.

She didn’t allow it. “I don’t care what the president said.” Poop on a popsicle! Had she really just said that? She needed to get ahold of herself. Emma focused her gaze just behind Sklodowska’s head. She needed to be firm. Confident.

And crying because she looked into the woman’s eyes would ruin the effect.

Ms. Sklodowska shook her head. “It will take time to process the release of that many—”

“Most of these people committed no crimes. Free everyone innocent tonight.”

“I can’t.” Ms. Sklodowska crossed her arms.

“Fine.” Emma let her power build with an itch in her nose. “Then, I’ll blow up this window, go to the press that’s got to be here by now, and tell them everything you told us.”

Ms. Sklodowska moved to block the window.

Emma pivoted and stood in the doorway. “I can leave this way, too. Release them or I’m gone.”

“Don’t let her leave,” Ms. Sklodowska commanded.

“I’m her father.” Johnson frowned for a moment but came to the door. “If my daughter thinks she can get the world on board with stopping the creatures, I’m with her.”

Emma’s eyes darted from her father to Ms. Sklodowska and back to her father. Was he going to stand with her?

“Fine.” Ms. Sklodowska slumped into her seat. “I can’t send them all home right this second. But we’ll let the ones who are awake mingle in the mess hall. Then we’ll begin sending them home.”

“Emma, I’m proud of you,” her father said. He smiled, but made no move to hug her. Maybe he paid attention to what she needed, after all.

“Thank you.” Emma studied Johnson and the familiar set to his face. She needed to say it. “Thank you, Dad.”

Chapter 26

Sunday morning, Emma and Rose picked up trays at the counter in the mess—that’s what they called the cafeteria there, like on a pirate ship or something. The room buzzed, setting her teeth on edge. But if she wanted to eat, she had to deal with the sound and the lack of powers.

“The nullifier sound really doesn’t bother you?” Emma asked as she slid her plate along the metal track. She grabbed a bowl of fruit from the refrigerator. This set up reminded her of when Nan had taken her along to that Swedish furniture store to pick out a new bed frame.

“Nope. It’s way better than someone losing control of their powers in the cafeteria.” Rose shuddered.

Emma clenched her teeth, hoping that would help her ignore the sound. “Even though I hate the idea, maybe the wearable nullifiers Ms. Sklodowska is working on will be quieter.”

An older black man wearing an orange jumpsuit ladled scrambled eggs onto Emma’s plate. His face scrunched like he might cry, then he said, “Believe me, I need a bracelet like that to go back home.”

“Why?” Emma asked.

“Emma,” Rose hissed and elbowed her.

What? Had she said something rude? Emma ducked her head, hoping the man hadn’t heard her name.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Rose said. “You don’t have to tell her. I was there.”

The man cocked his head to the side. “You that girl who stole all the ketchup packets, aren’t you?”

Rose nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

Emma blinked. The way Rose’s voice cracked made it seem like she was apologizing for something a lot more serious than stealing ketchup packets.

“At least you helped those people.” He set down the ladle and offered his hand over the sneeze guard. “I’m Charles by the way.”

“Rose.” She shook his hand. “This is—”

“Dragon Girl.” To help people keep their powers secret, they’d agreed to use pseudonyms or their superhero names at the school. Emma didn’t know if she needed to keep her identity secret still, but for now, she’d keep it quiet.

“You don’t want one either? Just in case,” Charles asked.

No, she didn’t want a just in case nullifier. Even without a full plate, she was ready to leave the line. Emma cast her eyes around the room for someone she knew. Sebastian and, thankfully, Summer had left Saturday morning.

Andres wasn’t anywhere in the mess yet. He must be asleep. When given the choice, he had decided to stay to become a licensed—and paid—superhero. It turned out his uncle and the arcade were struggling, and even if Andres provided free labor, he was a very hungry mouth to feed.

Ms. Range waved at Emma from across the room, but Emma wasn’t ready to talk to her old teacher yet.

Her father and a couple other human Super Commission employees sat together at a table.

“I’m going to go talk to my father.”

As Emma approached his table, he excused himself from his conversation and stood.

“Hi.” Emma set her tray down at an empty table, disappointed at the lack of food.

“Hi.” After looking at her plate, he offered her his fruit. They sat in awkward semi-silence with short questions and even shorter answers passing between them.

“You belong at your grandmother’s house,” he said.

“I don’t want to see her. Why can’t I just stay here with you?” Emma pushed her eggs around her plate.

“Emma, I work full time. You need to be in school, to do normal teenager things. It’s one thing for you to come on weekends, or even while you’re on break, but you need to go home.”

Her mouth felt dry. As much as she wanted to disagree, she wanted to to go school. She needed to fix things with Ollie and Hannah and Aunt Beth.

“Andres is staying here.” Emma pushed the food around her plate.

“Andres dropped out of school and is a full-time superhero. Staying here, getting his GED, and becoming one of the first licensed superheroes gets him back on track.”

“I don’t want to go back to Nan.”

“Then we’ll figure something else out.” Her father met her gaze.

“Can’t you just take custody of me?” Emma studied her father’s square chin. “I’m old enough to decide what I want.”

“I don’t know if I can.” He sighed. “When I enlisted, they made me sign away my parental rights.”

Emma looked down at her food.

“I didn’t want to, and I’m not leaving you again. I’m here for you.” He put his hand on hers. His rough fingers covered her hand completely.

“For now, what about your Aunt Beth?”

Emma shook her head. “I think they’re getting divorced. Uncle Frank has a girlfriend.”

“I hate to say it, but Nan might be the best, most stable home for you until I can get custody.”

He was right. And she couldn’t go back to staying with Ollie, not after Ollie had revealed his love for her.

“I can’t tell her I’m a super.” Emma pressed her lips together. “I’m not a liar, but she thinks supers are abominations. She follows everything on Eagle News.”

“All the more reason to convince her they’re wrong.” His lips curved slightly. “I’ll call a custody lawyer after breakfast.”

“Thank you.” Emma hesitated. “What do I call you?”

As soon as she said it, she realized it was a total subject change, but she couldn’t take it back.

“I’d like it if you called me Dad, but I understand if you’re not comfortable with that. You can always call me John.”

Was she comfortable calling him Dad? Should she call him John? Emma chewed her lip. Not sure how to even refer to him in her own head anymore.

John. It wasn’t that different from calling him Johnson, but at least it was his real name.

“All right, John, it’s Sunday morning and I guess I need to get back to Pueblo. How are you sending me home?”

“I’ll drive you, if you want. I’d like to get to know you better, as your father, not as... a Super Commission agent.”

“I would like that.”

#

A MONTH LATER, EMMA clasped Lily’s smooth hand in her left and Ollie’s calloused one on her right as they bowed. Sebastian bowed on Ollie’s other side. The lights came up on the audience, and Emma searched the crowd until she found her family sitting together.

Nan sat at one end of the row, then Hannah, Beth, and finally John. Her father held a bouquet in one hand and clapped and cheered.

Rose sat between Andres and her father. After Andres, sat his mother and uncle. Emma’s friends had come to see her, too.

Her eyes stung, and she wanted off the stage. As most of the audience filed out, her family rushed the stage.

“Way to go, Em.” Ollie looked straight at the wooden floor and turned away, disappearing backstage.

With her family right there, Emma couldn’t follow. Things still weren’t the same between her and her best friend. Emma hadn’t known how to acknowledge that Ollie liked her, so she’d ignored it.

Emma had been proud of Ollie’s bravery when Ollie had come out as non-binary after Emma came home. Now, Emma knew to call Ollie they or them.

But now, the confession of love festered between them. Especially since Sebastian and Emma disappeared together every weekend and refused to tell Ollie about what they did. Or where Emma went to visit her father.

She still didn’t know if she felt the same as Ollie, but she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened anymore.

John handed her the flowers, which looked a little worse for the wear after he’d flung them around applauding her, but Emma didn’t care.

“Thank you... Dad,” Emma said, hesitating over the name. She was starting to understand what it meant to have a father.

John smiled, his cheeks raising into large mounds.

She believed the smile. “I was wondering,” Emma glanced backstage to where Ollie had disappeared and back to her family. “It’s closing night and... tonight’s the cast party. Everyone’s going to eat and then to Lily’s house. Can I—”

“No,” Nan said. “It’s only been a month since you and Hannah ran off. I haven’t seen you at home and—”

“Good thing it’s my night.” John pulled out his wallet. “It’s the cast party. You have to go.”

Nan wilted under his glare.

“Thank you.” Emma wiggled her toes against the hard stage. It felt strange having bare feet on the stage, in front of everyone. She needed to get her shoes on and talk to Ollie.

“Here’s some money for food. Now, you’d better get backstage,” her father said. “You don’t want to get left behind.”

Emma hurried to the greenroom and found Ollie packing up their backpack.

“Hey! Can I walk over to Denny’s with you?” Emma tugged on her socks. “I—We—I miss you. And... I want to talk about things.”

“It’s a free country, I guess.” Ollie stomped towards the door.

“Wait!” Emma looked up from the hearts on her shoes. She didn’t know how to say things. She wasn’t good with words. But... Ollie was Ollie, and Emma needed to fix things.

Ollie hesitated in the door, then stepped out into the cold December night.

Leaving her shoes untied, Emma yanked a sweatshirt over her costume and ran after Ollie. When she caught up with them, the words wouldn’t come. She matched their brisk pace and searched for the right thing to say.

“Don’t.” Ollie stopped walking on the far sidewalk.

“I think...” Emma shook her head. That wasn’t right. She didn’t think. She thought too much about everything. But this wasn’t a thinking thing. “I don’t know if I can be your girlfriend. Nan would never approve.”

“Nan never approved of me, anyway.” They stomped across the parking lot between the car wash and Viva Market.

She grabbed Ollie’s hand. “You’re still my best friend. I can’t lose you.”

They jerked their hand free. “Dude, don’t tell me I’m your best friend. Don’t tell me Nan wouldn’t approve. I tell you I like you and, and, and you run off to save Bash. Then you two sneak—”

“I’m not dating Bash.” Emma planted herself in front of Ollie.

“You say that, but you two sneak off every weekend.” The parking lot lights shone off stripes running down Ollie’s cheeks. Were they crying?

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone yet.” Emma glanced around, making sure they were alone. Most everyone else had gotten a ride to the restaurant. “But we’re getting licensed to use our powers.”

Ollie wiped their eyes. “What?”

“I’m getting a sweet, new suit, too. Bash is learning to heal other people.” Emma pressed her lips together.

“What about me?” Ollie asked.

“Will you still be Dragon Girl’s best friend and exclusive photographer?”

“I want more than that.” Their green eyes stared her straight in the face.

Emma’s heart leapt into her throat. “I know, but I need...” What did she need? Time? Did she like them that way or not?

“If you don’t like-like me, let me go.” Ollie stepped around Emma.

Emma caught their hand again. They tried to pull free.

Despite the cold, Emma’s cheeks warmed. “I didn’t say that I don’t like-like you.”

Ollie’s lips parted ever so slightly. Their lips soft, inviting.

Her heart pounding, Emma leaned in for a kiss. At the last second, she chickened out. Her lips brushed Ollie’s cheek, damp and salty from the tears. Emma’s breath caught in her throat.

Ollie stood frozen.

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” she whispered, scrambling to see if she’d seriously messed up.

“Me neither.” They ran a hand through their short hair. It stuck up, reminding Emma of Ms. Sklodowska. That was an association Emma wanted to avoid.

“Maybe we can take things slow.” Emma squeezed Ollie’s hand.

About Mel

About Mel

Hi! I’m Mel Woodburn and I write about geeky superheroes.

Growing up, I started my superhero obsession with the Ninja Turtles in the first grade. Even though I loved Michelangelo, I’m really more of a Donatello because I love learning and making things.

Lately though, I’m less Geek Fire or even Super Mom, and more Super Tired. Okay, sorry, sorry. ;-)

Jokes aside, if you like your superheroes with an extra dose of geekiness, join my team of Super Readers to get Rose’s origin story, find out when my next book is coming out, and more.

MelWoodburn.com/SuperReaders

Sneak Peek

For the most part, Emma Edgin balanced part-time superhero and high school pretty well. This week, though, was rough since she was busy studying for the SATs while dealing with her cousin being home from college for winter break, and filling in for Andres, the Dredgetown Speedster.

Emma crouched on top of an apartment building in Andres’ usual patrol area. The faint whine of her new suit’s headphones set her teeth on edge, but she couldn’t turn them off. They filtered the sound and were supposed to protect her hearing or something.

On the other side of the street sat a few fast-food joints. When they’d ordered at Steve’s California Tacos, Emma’d been shocked that the drive-through window had included a bulletproof plexiglass box that slid in and out, allowing her to pass her money through and get her greasy Americanized tacos with no risk to the fast food worker.

People from the two low-income complexes jay-walked over to the liquor stores on either end of the block and the three check-cashing places turned off their lights within moments of each other—closing down for the night.

All of this activity reminded her she wasn’t in Pueblo Lindo and needed to be on edge. At home, things were slow, and she could listen to the police scanners, but Dredgetown was huge and full of crime and she was nowhere near as fast as Andres. But he’d asked her to cover this block in particular because there were lots of kids in those apartment complexes.

A handful of scantily clad women huddled together near the corner, not too far from Nan’s Oldsmobile.

Emma didn’t envy them standing out in the December chill like that. Only her mouth and nose felt a little cold thanks to her new super-suit courtesy of the Super Commission, but the poor hookers just crossed their arms over their half-shirts until a car pulled up.

Whenever that happened, they took turns leaning into the car, offering their services. But she wasn’t there to stop the hookers from earning their bread. Even if that didn’t happen in Pueblo—at least not like it did here in the Dredge—they were probably the moms of the kids who needed protecting.

No, she was there to stop armed robberies and any gang activity. No strong arms in Andres’ turf.

Emma glanced at Nan’s-beat up Oldsmobile parked away from the corner. Hopefully, Ollie could get the pictures they wanted from inside the car or at least without getting too close to the action theirself. Last year, Ollie had come out as non-binary and decided their pronouns were they/them.

Nan thought Emma and Ollie were studying at the Liberty Junction Library and had barely let Emma take the car herself, but Beth had talked her into it.

A skinny guy in a hoodie thumped the Oldsmobile’s trunk. Ollie’s head jolted up in the back seat. They glanced around, looking for the source of the sound.

The man didn’t notice. He crossed the street diagonally, coming towards Emma and the center of the block. He grabbed something in his pocket, nodding to himself that it was there. His hands disappeared into his hood and he rolled down his beanie, revealing it was in fact a ski mask. It covered his whole face except for his eyes.

Emma’s pulse quickened. She balled her hands into fists and tried to dig her nails into her palms before realizing that the gloves on the suit were far too thick for her to get the satisfaction of her normal stim.

Emma levitated off the roof, staring as he darted into the liquor store nearest her car and Ollie. This could be it. But she couldn’t barge in because the guy had pulled a ski-mask over his face.

Instead, Emma hovered over the street, watching where the guy in the ski mask had ducked inside. She tried to see through the windows without coming in too low. If anyone on the street noticed her now, she’d blow the whole thing. Ski Mask was nowhere to be seen.

He was hecka sketchy, but that meant nothing.

Emma breathed in, counting slowly to four, then blew out, trying to take even longer to exhale. She needed to be calm and ready for anything. Maybe she would get lucky and this would be a waste of time. Maybe this was a false alarm, and this block would stay safe while Andres was at the Stocks for training.

Her ear buzzed. A new text.

“Ruth, read me the latest text,” Emma told her new suit. She hoped the voice commands would work right this time. Johana Sklodowska was working on a visual interface, but Emma didn’t trust that.

“Dude, this is boring. Get in there already,” the computer replied in a feminine monotone.

Emma glared at Nan’s Oldsmobile. She shouldn’t have even brought Ollie, but they wanted some new pics of Dragon Girl in action to sell.

Emma had caved like she always did with Ollie, but she’d told them to stay put in the car—but now the car was right across the street from the potential crime.

Potential, Em. Potential. That’s the key word, she reminded herself.

From the back seat, Ollie gave her a thumbs-up and lifted their camera with one hand. Could Ollie be any more exposed? They were way too excited about this and way too interested in Emma’s new suit.

What if the guy had a gun? What if a stray bullet hit Ollie? No, she couldn’t think like that. She needed to focus on the store and the potential robbery inside.

She turned back to the liquor store. Her suit’s system hadn’t picked up any silent alarms, but she had a niggling feeling—

The clerk’s face turned chalk white. Emma swallowed. Ms. Sklodowska said the new suit was bullet proof and fire proof—but if push came to shove, did Emma trust her?

The android liked to pretend she knew everything, but she always seemed a bit lost to Emma. Like the all-knowing bit was an act—but then again, Emma was horrible at reading people. Least of all an android from another dimension. She had to trust the suit. What other choice did she have now that she was wearing it?

Emma flew down across the street and through the door, slamming it open with the force of her entry.

The cashier and the sketchy guy turned to her. The cashier held out a shaking fistful of cash and the ski-mask guy had his hand in the pouch on the front of his hoodie, pointing something at the cashier.

It could be a gun, a toy gun, or his finger. Emma didn’t know, but as far as arresting him went, it didn’t matter. She was a provisionally licensed hero, and he was committing a crime.

“Hands up!” Emma’s voice hardly shook at all.

“You won’t blow up the whole joint.” Ski-mask yanked a real gun out of his pocket and aimed it at Emma.

“I said put your hands up.” Emma flew in closer, reaching for the gun. She raised her chin to keep her face out of the line of fire. Hers was the only suit with an open face. And her face was not bullet proof. Her hands closed on the gun.

The man yanked back.

She pushed her arms down, the barrel of the gun smashing into her belly. Her heart pounded as she tried to wrestle the gun away.

“Sweet,” Ollie said from behind her.

What were they doing there?

The gunman and Emma both pushed the gun back to Emma’s gut. If the new suit didn’t protect her, she was toast. The man’s fingers moved under hers, squeezing the trigger.

The gun roared.

Emma stumbled backward, clutching the gun.

The suit’s earpiece blocked most of the sound.

Pain radiated through her stomach, spreading in fractals through her belly. Somehow, she remained upright and clung to the gun in the robber’s hands.

Vomit forced its way out of her mouth and onto the gunman. Bits of lettuce, meat, and tortilla spattered on his sweatshirt and pants. So much for those tacos.

He dropped the gun.

Emma watched horrified as his mouth opened under the ski mask.

He heaved and gagged. Vomit spilled out of his mouth, making the ski mask bulge before it leaked out the bottom.

Gross. Emma tucked the gun into a small pocket on her thigh side of her suit, then reached into another pocket for a zip-tie.

The gunman didn’t resist as Emma flipped him facedown and zip-tied his hands behind his back. She pulled off the ski mask, smearing vomit all over his face.

“Holy crap!” Ollie said. “That new suit is totally badass. You barely stumbled when he shot you.”

Emma spun, half covered in her own vomit, to find Ollie snapping pictures on their DSLR.

“I thought for sure you were a goner—but there’s only some black marks on your stomach... and puke.”

“Ruth, call the cops,” Emma whispered, before turning to Ollie and snarling at them, “What are you doing?”

“These pictures are awesome. I bet they pay the mortgage and two whole quarters of photography classes at Dredgetown Community College.”

Did Ollie have no sense of self-preservation? Or did they do everything just to send Emma into a panic? They were totally going to blow Emma’s cover if they didn’t get back in the car.

“My own personal paparazzi.” Emma dropped the vomit-covered mask onto the floor. “I’m sorry about the mess, sir. The police should be here soon to take him away.”

Click. Was Ollie seriously taking more pictures?

“I didn’t need your help,” the cashier said. “I ain’t no hero and the insurance would have covered the money.”

Emma didn’t know what to say. She froze, struggling with coming up with an appropriate response.

“She saved your ass, and that’s how you thank her?” Ollie snapped more pictures of the puke covered would-be robber.

“I didn’t need no super to save me.” The clerk’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he looked at Emma. “I had it just fine.”

“How dare you!” Ollie’s face turned pink with anger. Ollie dropped their camera, making it bounce against their chest.

Emma swallowed a second round of bile. Her throat tight. Her belly aching.

If Ollie fought the guy Emma’d saved, Emma’d lose her license for sure. No more Dragon Girl. Emma tried to shove Ollie out the door and slipped on the puke.

#

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— Mel

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Dragon Girl

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