I followed Brian from the gym, out of the Boardwalk, heading North. We stopped and got coffee and pastries at this place he had been trying to get me to try, and I had to admit, it was good. We chatted about a group of friends he had who he wanted to introduce me to at a place they shared. I couldn’t help but start feeling a touch apprehensive about the neighborhoods we were getting into. We were headed to the pretty bad parts of town fast.

  Seemingly picking up on my wandering gaze and heightened alertness, Brian told me, “Yeah, I know it’s a bit rough, but the place is dirt cheap. It’s early, I’m a big guy, and you more than know how to handle yourself even if something did happen, but I’m confident that won’t be an issue in the first place.”

  I took a pull of my coffee and stuffed one hand into the pocket of my hoodie. “Yeah, fair. I got my own place that is in a part of town in the area here that is bordering on the rougher parts, but it’s not quite to this level.” I looked around at the state of disrepair of the city's infrastructure. The sidewalks were cracked, overgrown, and littered with broken glass.

  We stopped in front of a really quite large old factory building, back from a time when the city was still using a lot of red brick. A huge sliding bay door was chained shut, no doubt some kind of front access to a loading dock. The place was three stories, and as I looked back and forth and took in the full scale of the place, I was a bit flabbergasted.

  Redmond Welding, huh? I vaguely recognized it: from the air. It looked a lot bigger from the ground.

  “Don’t use this door; we haven’t bothered trying to get it back in service. Come around to the side.”

  My fingers drifted over my phone in the pocket of my hoodie. Brian had been solid since I met him a few weeks ago, but this place gave me the heebie-jeebies. I took another sip of my coffee.

  He doesn’t really have serial killer energy, but they say that the real ones never do, either.

  I sort of wanted to get a feeler before entering, and I looked up, over, and around the face of the building. “You’re living in this entire place? You could, like, fit an entire homeless tent city inside this place. And it doesn’t really look like it’s heavily trafficked or lived in.”

  Brian chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, hell no. Like, ninety percent of the building is empty, and we don’t do anything with it. It’s dirty as heck, and with the old machines left inside, it’s like tetanus waiting to happen. No, there’s old office space upstairs, over the factory that we’ve converted into a loft. That’s where we’re hanging out. I don’t want to brag or anything, but we have a pretty sweet setup.”

  Makes sense.

  I nodded my head and moved to follow him to the side entrance. This did look like it saw frequent use. “Sorry. I guess I can’t talk much, my place was converted over from an older place like this, but before I ever moved in there. Privately owned, the owners were saying they were trying to reclaim parts of the city that weren’t in too bad of shape and get people moving into them.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you beforehand, the first floor is rough,” Brian told me as he swung the door open.

  “Good on you for making something of this place, though. Honestly. Knowing it’s a work-in-progress, I won’t judge too harshly,” I said with a snicker.

  He wasn’t kidding. The first floor was rough: open, dusty, and full of mothballed machinery. Sheets draped in grime, cobwebs hanging thick. Dirty, dingy, and poorly lit by windows ringed around the ceiling. There was a footpath I could make out on a cleaned-through-traffic concrete floor leading to a spiral staircase in the corner. I-beams layered in thick old paint supported what I supposed were the living quarters above storage racks and shelving units.

  I let him lead, and we took the staircase up. “It’s a little messy inside. We’ve been working to try and keep it cleaner, but…” He dropped his voice some before continuing: “...some of my friends are giant slobs.” The loft was a whole different story. Way nicer, and I finally got a chance to take it all in. It was an open space for the most part, with some interior walls separating different areas, and there wasn’t a drop ceiling or anything; you could see clear up to the steel beams an entire story above.

  As he’d said, it was pretty clean overall; there wasn’t dirt, grime, cobwebs, or anything of the sort, but it was messy. A few trash bags waiting to be taken out, stacks of pizza boxes, clutter strewn about, and things like DVD cases and video games left scattered around. Some dirty laundry. A pair of well-worn and quite comfortable-looking big couches surrounded a coffee table on two sides, the larger of the two couches facing a very decked-out entertainment center.

  There seemed to be some bedrooms for half a dozen or so people, marked out by graffiti on the doors, bathrooms, and a kitchenette as well. It was quiet, the TV was on a local news station but muted with captions turned on. I didn’t get the impression that most of Brian’s friends were the early morning sorts like we were. There were water running sounds coming from one of the bathrooms down the corridor where the rooms were located. Each bedroom had tall walls but no ceiling, just open to the rafters above. Industrial loft chic, I guess.

  Besides Brian and me, and the person in the restroom, there was one other occupant present.

  “Introductions are in order,” Brian said.

  At the same time, I was blinking rapidly. I knew the girl on the smaller sofa, watching the news. I really hadn’t expected to see her of all people here, but as shocked by it as I was, I was also relieved.

  “...is Taylor,” Brian and I spoke at the same time, and this time around, it was his turn to be confused.

  Taylor, for her part, seemed a touch surprised but was giving me a look that I read as intense. I was starting to think that was just sort of how she was in general.

  “You know each other?” Brian asked, incredulous.

  Well, I’m glad to know that this isn’t an elaborate trick to get me into a serial killer dungeon in a questionable part of town. And that Taylor actually has friends.

  I rested one hand on my hip, the other holding my coffee at chest height, in a sort of sassy but playful pose, and gave Taylor a look of my own: just a touch of disdain.

  “I can’t believe I tried to get you into the gym, and now here’s my new sparring partner, introducing me to the friends he wants me to train, and you’re one of them.”

  I moved my hand from my hip to my chest for dramatic effect: “You wound me, Taylor.”

  “I mean…” she started, her brow wrinkling slightly, “I have been thinking about it, just been busy.”

  I hid a grin with my coffee.

  “Please, have a seat, make yourself comfortable. Just going to be the four of us, as far as I know.” Brian said, gesturing at the large sofa. I made my way over to the smaller one and took a seat next to Taylor. I threw an arm over her shoulder, and she stiffened up on me. This girl was wound up tighter than an old-time alarm clock, I swear.

  Brian dropped onto the big couch with a shrug and shot us a look. I mimed socking Taylor in the gut four or five times, tapping her with the backs of my knuckles, my hand wrapped around the paper coffee cup.

  “I see you, Brian,” he was grinning at the two of us and the bit. “I hear you. We need to tag-team the peer-pressure approach on this one. We’ll have Stoneface McGee here begging for mercy while doing reps in no time at all.”

  I glanced over at Taylor, still pretty stiff, but marginally less so. “And if she doesn’t, I’ll bust out the Kung Fu on her.”

  That, of all things, got her attention. Taylor’s expression shifted into something skeptical but genuinely curious. “Do you really know Kung Fu?” I gave her the tiniest of shakes through her shoulder, then let up on harassing her.

  I sighed. “No, I wish. And I doubt I have the time to learn, now. Not that I’d trust anyone to actually teach anything approaching the real stuff in Brockton Bay of all places. But I’ve got about a half dozen others under my belt that I put to good use, especially in the gym.”

  The water cut off and, a door opened, and a fairly attractive-looking blonde came out and took a seat next to Brian. She waggled her fingertips in my direction and grinned in a decidedly mischievous manner. The smile complemented the freckles on her face quite well. I gauged her age to be about my own, or close.

  “Hi, I’m Lisa! And you are…”

  Brian held out an open hand and said, “This is Morgan, she’s the one I’ve been telling you all about at the gym. I finally convinced her to pay us all a visit over here.”

  “That’s me! Brian was telling me you all were taking an interest in some self-defense lessons with everything that’s been going on. Never a bad time to learn, but I will warn you, you really shouldn’t try to get involved or dragged into any fights with those ABB scumbags. A lot of them carry weapons, and I’m not even talking about the bombing shit.”

  Lisa’s eyes widened marginally, and she nodded slowly. “So you have encountered them before, then?”

  Huh. That was a pointed question. Curious.

  I tapped my finger on my coffee cup and bobbed my head. “Yeah. More than a few times, a bit of history there.”

  “You must be either very good or very lucky. You don’t look horribly maimed.” She replied.

  I tilted my head a little and thought about the question and how to frame a response. “Bit of both, probably. I’ve been shot before, by one of them, actually. Not too bad, thankfully. Got treated right away.”

  Lisa gasped, and Brian said, “Really?”

  I looked down at my coffee cup and tried not to frown at the memory. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

  “Did you get a cool scar out of it, at least? Can I see?” Lisa asked.

  Oh, shit. Is she flirting?

  “It’s in an awkward place; I wouldn’t feel comfortable showing it. Sorry.”

  She waved a hand and shook her head. “No, don’t sweat it at all! I should have thought before asking. Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “Not a fan of the ABB myself,” Taylor murmured next to me.

  I turned to face her a bit more directly. “History with them yourself? I heard they’ve got a pretty decent presence over in Winslow.”

  “Yeah.” She said, with nothing further added.

  “Hey, can you take this off mute, low volume? I want to see this.” Brian asked, gesturing at some news coverage of the latest bombings. The news covered the latest in this string of bombings, and some of the images were terrible. Anomalous physical effects occurred with a number of bombings, things like flash freezing, huge temperature spikes, electrical discharges, and more. Tinkertech perverted specifically to make explosives and terror devices.

  We all watched, but some of it got to me. I tapped out after a few minutes, asking: “You mind if we change the channel or something? I hate seeing some of that.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Brian replied easily.

  We got into some speculative discussions about how things were going to wind up going down with the military moving in, and the steps the Wards and the Protectorate were taking to try and maintain the peace. That spiraled out into a bigger discussion of cape presence in the city generally. PRT, Protectorate, and Wards were talked about quite a bit. I tried to weigh in my opinions in a number of places without revealing anything too detailed.

  Taylor mentioned my PRT background, and suddenly Lisa and Brian were firing off questions about the capes I’d met. I took them to be fans with their energy and interest. I came up at one point, or rather, I should say former me, in the form of Phoenix Strike. I did my usual bit of lightly trash-talking her, and Lisa and I got into a bit of a debate about the who’s who of the Wards, and Phoenix's 'graduation' being unfortunate timing.

  I really couldn’t help but agree. I felt, not just because I knew her inside and out, but also from an outside perspective, that any extra hands would have been priceless at PRT HQ right about now.

  Between questions and chatter, the three of them kept checking their phones, me too, if I’m being honest. It felt like everyone in the city was running a rolling group chat right now. We were all trying to stay one step ahead of the next bomb going off.

  Brian glanced at his phone and nodded at something, then sent a reply.

  Lisa and Taylor were glancing at each other intermittently. I figured it was a friends thing. Banter. Maybe they were gossiping about me. Something I’d said, probably.

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  Taylor asked me if I wanted anything to eat or drink, and I shook my head. I had just drained the last dregs of my coffee when she got up and headed over to the restrooms.

  “How have your families been holding up so far? No close encounters, I hope?” I asked Lisa and Brian.

  Lisa waved a hand, saying, “My family doesn’t live in the area, no worries there.”

  Brian sighed and admitted, “No, no close encounters, and I hope it stays that way. People in some of my extended friend circle have been impacted by the terrorism.” Taylor came back into the room, and she was holding a big chunk of plastic or something. When I looked up, her lips turned up just slightly, and she brought it over and handed it to me.

  It was solid, heavy, and cool to the touch. Amber. Looking inside, there was a dragonfly, and its wings reminded me of my own. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “This is awesome,” I told her, then asked: “Where did you get it? Aren’t these sort of expensive?”

  She looked over at Brian, who rubbed the back of his head.

  I know he dresses nicely sometimes, and he’s leasing this place. I didn’t realize that he was that well off, damn.

  I handed it back to her, carefully, and she took it back. “Damn, forgot my drink.” “Be right back.” She disappeared behind the couch, and I turned my attention back to Brian, who started to explain the story behind the gift. She clicked her tongue and said quietly, “Alec, always leaving his clothing lying around.”I looked back over at Brian when he started talking: “It was a sort of spur-of-the-moment purchase, and we were all in a celebratory mood, so I figured why not, you know?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him he really knew how to give killer gifts, then something heavy slammed into the back of my head. I barely registered, slumping forward and face-planting on the floor.

  Everything was spinning, and I was trying to get my hands under me while blinking away the stars in my vision.

  Taylor? Wh–

  I didn’t get a chance to finish the thought. A second blow landed, and I went limp.

  My eyes were open, but I couldn’t focus them; everything was blurry. I tasted blood. Thinking was unbelievably difficult, and I was suddenly extremely sleepy. A thought popped into my head that no matter what, I couldn’t go to sleep. It seemed like a good thought, and I fought to keep awake.

  “Take her downstairs, get something to tie her up with. No, not rope, use a chain. Brute rating.”

  I was picked up and tossed over Brian’s shoulder. That sent my entire perception of the world spinning, and it wasn’t stopping. I thought I was going to throw up. I didn’t, but I think I was drooling. Maybe it was blood.

  He set me down, gently, propped me up against something cold and hard. Probably one of the I-beams. Someone else approached, chains rattling. My hands were bound behind my back in a chain, and another wrapped around my chest in an X pattern, over the shoulders, crossing over, and under my armpit. I heard locks snapping shut.

  My chin was resting against my chest. I tried to pick my head up, it rolled around, and I banged it against the beam. Agony. I let my head fall forward again. I wasn’t going to repeat that.

  I tried to speak. It was unintelligible. My ears were ringing, and I couldn’t really tell the voices apart well in my head.

  “Shit. She’s not going to die, is she?”

  “Probably not. She’s a Brute, has regeneration. She’ll bounce back.”

  “I panicked. She started to get up I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “That second hit? Not great.”

  “You’re sure-sure? Not maybe sure?”

  “One thousand percent that’s Phoenix Strike. Congrats, Brian. She knows everything now. Names. Faces. Where we operate out of.”

  “We talked about this! How was I supposed to know? I don’t read minds!”

  “I’m going to check her.”

  “Finally, someone’s thinking.”

  I was frisked down, my pockets rummaged around and dug through, it felt like everything was taken. Footsteps leaving, then coming back.

  “Let me see that?”

  Rapid tapping of buttons, then my phone unlocking. Menu scrolling and navigating like crazy. Someone put a dark cloth over my head. As much as I didn’t want to get blackbagged right now, the darkness really helped with my head.

  “It’s not a sting. And… damn. Phoenix Dyke got canned hard. Gotta give it to her, she’s smart. Contacts are all coded. A lot of juicy stuff, but harder to decipher.”

  I tried to talk again. “Buh. Bluh. Hehh hurr.” Something was wrong; my jaw and tongue weren’t cooperating. My head felt like it was splitting open.

  “I brought tin foil if you want to wrap it up.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Even if she’s not PRT, she knows every Ward in the city. That’s an issue.”

  Humming for a moment, then: “We’ve got a problem: leverage. She flips this on us; she’s back in the PRT. Especially after the bank.”

  I didn’t care about any of that. My thoughts were muddy, tangled. I couldn’t even tell who was talking. My limbs twitched, unresponsive, and just staying awake felt like a herculean effort.

  I needed help. “Hehh. Hehh Muhh.”

  My nose was running. It was irrational how much that bothered me.

  “Check on her.”

  “Take that shirt off her head and I’ll take a look.”

  Brightness assaulted my senses. There was a figure squatting in front of me, but I couldn’t make them out. A hand lifted my head by my chin.

  “She’s not healing. That’s… she’s not okay.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Hey!” The raised voice rang in my head. “Hey! Morgan! Use your power to heal yourself! Come on!”

  My power…? Oh right. But I’m me, will me being me be… bad for me…?

  “Go on, do it! I know you can fix yourself!”

  Okay…

  I tried to focus. Waves rose: towering whitecaps. My power surged like crazy. Somewhere deep down, I was still holding on to me.

  I let go.

  Warmth bloomed in my chest, traveled up my spine and into my head. With it came an almost immediate relief of some of my worst symptoms. I started to change, I could feel pushing, tugging, shifting. My head was clearing, my thoughts starting to catch up as my head became progressively less befuddled and buried in mud.

  I didn’t feel safe right now, and I wanted to feel safe. My vision was obstructed as my hair started to wrap around my face. The darkness brought solace, and I let out a low groan of relief. I was feeling better. Way better. Constricting tension and pressure was gripping my chest and arms. I pushed my power harder to compensate. Things accelerated rapidly in response, and with that came some unpleasant sounds and some sensations ranging between uncomfortable to moderately painful.

  I closed my eyes and did my best to relax and endure through it. The pressure went away, and I took a deep breath, let it out. I grew, and in more ways than one. My consciousness and awareness expanded, my head was well on the way to being clear and thinking normally.

  Things had gone from zero to a hundred, fast. The situation was fucked, and with what was happening to me now? My transformation? Making me better, but throwing gasoline on what was already a dumpster fire.

  I didn’t care.

  My vision snapped back into existence, and I could see everything, hear everything. I was back. Apex was back. Brian–Grue was standing in a cloak of darkness. Tattletale had a handgun aimed directly at my face. Taylor… Skitter… Had a knife in her hands, and a small swarm of bugs swirling around her like a menacing halo. I felt and saw many were all over me as well.

  Sitting upright, I rolled forward onto all fours, and I reached out with my tail and looped it around Taylor’s thin frame, hoisting her up before any of them had a chance to react. I was fast when I wanted to be, scarily so.

  Brian took a step forward, a chunk of pipe in his hands. Lisa’s hands were trembling, the gun in her grip wavering. I felt sharp poking at my tail and brought Taylor in closer to my face. She was doing her damn best to stab or cut her way out of my grip. Her knife wasn’t doing shit. I reached out with one long lower arm, plucked it from her grip, and flicked it over by the shelves.

  “Stop that,” I said, my deep voice rumbling in my chest.

  Her bugs were swarming over my eyes, blocking out my vision, and trying to find ways into my mouth, which was more annoying than anything. I had her in a firm grip around her midsection.

  I opened my mouth to speak, and bugs flew in. I spoke anyway. “Quit it with the bugs, or I’ll smack you.” I tightened my tail around her just a touch. I smashed up the bugs in my mouth with my tongue and swallowed them down. It was gross to think about, but the taste wasn’t actually terrible. I had other, more important things to focus on at the moment.

  “Do it,” Grue said, raising his hands in a slow, placating gesture. A moment later, my vision cleared, though she left a number of bugs clinging to me. I wasn’t going to press the issue.

  As a show of good faith, I squatted down and sat, but didn’t release my hold on Taylor. I wanted to, but the Undersiders had proven themselves both slippery and cunning.

  I opened up to you. Let my guard down. And just like with Armsmaster, I get smacked down for it.

  I was mad. I’d let myself reach out and connect with them, and they’d betrayed that trust by smashing me in the head with tasteful decor. The physical pain was a memory, but the betrayal stung.

  Literally, what the hell was that all about, anyway?

  “Why?” I asked. I focused my vision on Taylor’s face without moving my head a millimeter. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

  Her face was stormy, tense, but not panicked. Not like she should have been. Not like I had been just minutes before.

  “I came over here, I trusted you, Brian,” my voice oozed malice. “We were chatting and having a good time, and then you just cheapshot me out of the blue.” I punctuated you with a shake of the girl in question.

  “We can talk this out,” Brian started to say.

  “WE ARE TALKING!” My voice tore free in a barely restrained roar–guttural, raw, and far too loud for the space. My jaw snapped shut with the wet, bone-deep clack of many teeth. Two sharp breaths followed, back-to-back jets of hot air escaping under the beak of my helmet.

  I did another take, my voice less feral than a moment before: “We are talking. I’m pissed, but I’m still talking. I could level this building in seconds if I wanted to.” There was no edge in my voice, just cold, hard truth. Let them stew on that for a moment.

  Tattletale didn’t answer right away. I watched the gears turning behind her eyes, the rapid-fire calculations running into brick walls and dead ends. Her hands were still trembling. She finally spoke, words tumbling out in a half-breath:

  “Look, braining you with a paperweight wasn’t Plan A. Wasn’t Plan Z, either.”

  She wet her lips: “You walked in as Brian’s gym buddy, and halfway through, I realized you were Phoenix Strike. That changed the math. You were a Ward, in our base, knew our faces, names.”

  She slowly lowered the gun, slipping it into the waistband of her jeans with careful deliberation. “So yeah, maybe we panicked.” Her voice cracked. “It’s been a week.”

  Taylor’s voice cut in, quieter and sharper than I expected: “How are you… How are you both? Phoenix strike, and this?” She waved a hand vaguely at my body. “They’re not even remotely…”

  I raised one of my upper arms, black claws gleaming in the warehouse light, and pointed the curved, machete-sized tip inches from her face.

  “I’m going to be nice.” My voice was low, dangerous. “Do not make me regret it. ”

  She froze, her eyes locked on the claw. Her jaw clenched. I held the pose a heartbeat longer... then set her down and uncoiled my tail. She staggered slightly as my slick skin slid off her shirt.

  “It’s complicated,” I said to her directly, my voice still rough. “And I’d be more willing to talk about it if you hadn’t just nearly killed me.”

  Guilt carved through her expression like a blade. That had landed, and hard.

  I didn’t think it had been intentional. Any of it. I didn’t get that sense from them. As far as I knew, the discussions we’d had in my apartment, the only person the Undersiders had done any real damage to was Lung, and he’d earned it.

  The move worked; some tension bled out of the room like air hissing from a slashed tire. Grue let his darkness dissipate and tossed his pipe onto a sheet with a muted clang. Taylor’s bugs retreated, although they weren’t entirely gone. They lingered in rafters, behind shelves. Watching. Available.

  Smart.

  “Well, we’re in a bit of a pickle here, aren’t we?” Lisa said lightly. Before anyone could respond, she plowed ahead: “You know our identities and the location of our lair. You’ve got a very good reason to try crawling back into the PRT’s good graces. And you’re a good guy.” She laced that last part with theatrical disdain, like it physically offended her.

  She started pacing. Taylor trudged over to retrieve her knife in silence. Brian stood frozen and awkward.

  “But,” Lisa went on, “we know a dirty little truth about you, too, don’t we?” She cast a look in my direction, mock sweetness. “Or should I say… not so little?”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t blink.

  “Nobody knows Apex is Morgan. That Morgan is Phoenix Strike. That you’re all three. Or maybe it changes by the day.” Her grin widened. “You were right before! It is complicated.”

  My claws sank into the concrete with a sharp crunch. I hadn’t meant to do that.

  Mutually assured destruction.

  “Maybe you’ve told a few people. Trusted ones. But have you told them everything?” She asked. My tail hissed softly across the floor as I shifted.

  She leaned in, her voice dipped to a lower, knowing tone. “Do they know the real truth? The one you keep so close that you haven’t whispered it out loud?”

  “Lisa,” Brian warned. His tone was barbed. Serious.

  She looked smug. The cat with its paw in the fishbowl. Her grin full-on Cheshire.

  “And you do, Tattletale?” I asked, voice flat and dangerous. There were blades just under the surface. The implications that she’d make this personal.

  I didn’t know precisely what she was hinting at. I hated that she might be right.

  “There’s someone. A friend. A teammate. A sibling, maybe? Someone you love–” Her voice was a scalpel, her words making incisions. “...And you haven’t told them that the you sitting upstairs earlier? That’s not the real one.”

  I felt my tail flick behind me, stirring dust, the hiss of my skin on concrete speaking in ways I couldn’t. My wings vibrated along my back, nearly replicating the sound of my tail. I didn’t trust myself to speak in this moment.

  If I had lips, I’d be sneering.

  “Lisa! Stop!” Brian barked. Commanding.

  She raised her hands, placating. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I poke too hard sometimes.” She turned and met my many eyes. “But you didn’t maul us. Didn’t fly off. Didn’t scream about justice and morality.”

  She paused, adding in a softer tone: “That tells me a lot.” I heard inflection, or maybe reflection in her voice.

  I drew a deep, slow breath.

  Just another fighter. Her words are her fists. Getting in your head because that’s what she does, and she doesn’t have an alternative. I have to stay centered.

  “You’re not out for revenge. You’re not here to throw us in tentacle cuffs.” She ventured.

  “You sound awfully sure of yourself,” I commented.

  Her voice didn’t waver: “You’re looking for purpose. A second chance. A do-over. And you know what? So are we.”

  Double-speak. That could’ve meant the bank job, or what they just did to me. Maybe both.

  Lisa’s smile thinned. “So here’s my pitch, Apex. Let’s quit pretending this is a hostage situation. Nobody here wants a fight. And even if we did, none of us would be standing at the end of it.” She nodded to Brian and Taylor.

  She took another step towards me, spreading her hands wide: “You’re smart, you’re strong. You want to help people.”

  Don’t. I didn’t speak it, but I thought it with everything I had.

  “You don’t need a cape to do good,” she added. “Sometimes all it takes is being in the right place, at the right time, and with the right people.”

  I scoffed: “Yeah? Where’s the altruism in robbing a bank, terrorizing people, and traumatizing people? I had friends there.”

  Lisa didn’t flinch, didn’t miss a beat: “You don’t know half, hell, a third of what we do. You’re in the dark. So is the PRT. That bank job? It was a contract. A job. Not some personal thrill for us.”

  “Yet you still did it.”

  She pointed straight at me. “If this world was black and white, you’d be working with the Protectorate right now. Not here like this, with your dreams shattered on the floor like a dropped snow globe.”

  I flinched.

  Brian spoke up, surprising me. He’d been quiet since my outburst, like he was keeping the temperature low. “We’ve been fighting the ABB. Disarming bombs. Getting people out. The night it all started? They hit us . Declared war.”

  He nodded in Taylor’s direction. “She got hurt. Badly.”

  Taylor didn’t say anything, but her expression darkened, and she nodded.

  Brian folded his arms. “While the army and the PRT is running crowd control, we’ve been in the streets. You want to make a difference? You could be doing it with us.”

  “I have been out there,” I said, more defensive than I meant to sound.

  But I’m only one person. Or pretending to be. I don’t even know anymore. And I’ve been trying to follow the PRT’s lead. Trying to watch, to help. Maybe… maybe I’ve been going about it the wrong way.

  Lisa broke the silence: “You know Brian. You know Taylor.” She gestured at both of them in turn.

  I gave a small nod.

  Where are you going with this?

  “You’ve fought monsters before. Real ones. Can you look at either of them and tell me they’re like that? That they’re thrill-seeking sadists? That they’re cold-blooded killers?”

  I turned my head, just enough to show I was looking at each of them in turn. My tail flicked. A claw tapped against the cement, soft and sharp.

  “They don’t…” I started to say.

  Was I wrong?

  By all accounts, the bank had been a nightmare. But maybe the outcome hadn’t been the intent. Maybe it had spiraled. Maybe Victoria was right in her assessments of them.

  I considered the many mixed reactions I’d garnered from people over the past couple of weeks, getting out in the city. The wild rumors, lies, speculation about me online.

  “No,” I said, finally. “They don’t strike me as the type.”

  Brian stepped forward: “Can we salvage this?” His voice was unsure, tinged with remorse. “I’m willing to take full responsibility. It was my call to go for the takedown. It went wrong. We- I thought Phoenix Strike was a brute. Could take a hit. We wanted to disable, nothing more.” He clenched a fist, angry about something, maybe at himself. “God’s honest truth, Morgan. I wouldn’t want to kill someone.”

  I stared at him. The room was still, silent. It felt like nobody was breathing.

  I believe him.

  “What are we salvaging?” I asked after a long pause. “What even is this?” I swept a claw between the three of them, then back at myself.

  Brian turned to Lisa, and they shared a look. An exchange of subtle cues, body language, eye contact. But I didn’t know either of them well enough to decipher it.

  “Can I trust you not to react if I use my smoke to talk to Lisa in private for a second?”

  A dozen possibilities raced through my head. They could run. Regroup. Plan another strike. Call in backup.

  Or they could be confused and trying to do the right thing, too. I can’t let paranoia twist my thinking.

  I tapped a big claw on the concrete. Slow and deliberate.

  Clack. Clack. Clack.

  I’d gotten a feel for Brian during our sparring sessions. He didn’t rattle easy, didn’t cheat. The other two? They struck me as the type who’d fight dirty if the odds tilted against them.

  But Brian? I wanted to trust him. To believe he wasn’t a bad guy.

  “Fine. But, go to the corner. Away from the entrances and exits.”

  “Absolutely. We won’t be more than a minute or two.” His relief was palpable.

  They moved. Brian conjured his smoke, cloaking the far corner and the foot of the spiral staircase—but not the stairs themselves. Smart. Or maybe just careful. Maybe both.

  That left me and Taylor.

  I turned my head to face her, keeping a very close eye on the smoke in the corner. The moment anything felt off, I was going through the wall and out. No second warning.

  I watched her in the silence. This is the girl who’d cracked me over the head, now standing with bugs clinging to her. Her eyes held guilt. There was anger present, too.

  I’d suspected it from that day in the coffee shop together. The weight in her voice, the stiffness in how she carried herself. I didn’t know what she was, but I knew there was something off. Not the everyday mask most of us wear. This was a parahuman hiding in plain sight. Just like me.

  I wanted to jab at her. Say something biting. Bleed out some of the betrayal, frustration, and pain into words with honed edges.

  Instead, I asked her: “How long?”

  Taylor blinked. “What?”

  “How long have you had your powers?”

  Maybe I was opening a door. Maybe I was closing one. That part was up to her.

  She crossed her arms, shifted her stance, glanced away. I thought she’d closed the door. Then, quietly: “Since January. Right after winter break.”

  She looked back up at me. Met my gaze and held it.

  “How long have you been like that? Been Apex? Was Phoenix Strike ever real?”

  I moved, and she stiffened for a fraction of a moment. I shifted my bulk, taking my weight off my hands and settling down lower, onto my elbows.

  My voice came out quieter than I’d ever heard it before. It was still deep, and resonant, but this was the most vulnerable Apex had ever been.

  “I- I don’t know. Maybe always, from the first day I triggered. I never liked my power. It terrified me, and sometimes it still does. I was in therapy. Phoenix Strike was real. She always was. But she…” My hair writhed restlessly on my neck and shoulders.

  I was reminded of Jessica Yamada’s words. That sometimes you did need to voice your feelings, and doing so could lead to better things.

  “I used maybe five percent. One percent, of my power as Phoenix Strike. I was mortified by what people would think if I ever showed more. I gave it everything outside my power, but I was still a joke. And I got fired for it.”

  I squeezed a fist tightly, a gurgle emanating from my huge forearm, my connective tissues creaking under the intense force I was generating.

  “Phoenix Strike was afraid of being a monster. She’s gone now. Graduated. Rode off into the sunset. Apex doesn’t have a choice in the matter, but Apex is done hiding, done being scared, done being lonely.”

  Taylor stepped over, cautious, but less so than I’d expected. She sat on my hard forearm, facing away from me. I didn’t move. I barely breathed. I didn’t want to ruin whatever this was.

  “Where’s that leave Morgan?” She asked.

  I looked over at the corner, where Brian and Lisa had vanished into the smoke. Then back at her.

  She didn’t look at me, just sat there, hunched, waiting.

  “I’m still holding on to her,” I said, softly. “But she’s slipping. And I don’t know if I can get her back if she falls.”