Taylor, Amy, Victoria, Mark, Carol, and I were seated around their large kitchen table and nibbling on a pizza. Melody was sleeping upstairs in Vicky’s bed. I had on a hoodie and sweatpants from her closet.

  So far, we had only been doing small talk and chit-chat, avoiding the villains in the room. I popped the last of my crust into my mouth and washed it down with some iced tea.

  I wasn’t sure how I wanted to break through the ice. More like an iceberg, lurking mostly under the surface and threatening to sink our ship. Metaphorical monsters are lurking beneath the surface-level civility of this bizarre situation.

  I drummed my fingernails on the tabletop. Iridescent black once again, just like my claws. Another iceberg.

  I cleared my throat. “Melody triggered,” I announced to the table. The Dallons froze up. Taylor continued to nibble on her slice. “I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first, but she turned into a hole in space. There was this weird aura. It dropped when she passed out.”

  Carol pursed her lips. Victoria looked like she wanted to say something. Amy seemingly already knew about it. Mark spoke first. “I’m sorry, Morgan. At least she’s okay now.”

  I held my breath for a long moment, then exhaled. “Thank you, Mark. I’m worried about her. For her.”

  I scrubbed my face with both palms.

  “Any idea what her power is?” Victoria asked.

  I shook my head slowly, face still buried. “It’s weird, whatever it is. Beautiful, in a way. Just like h-her.” My voice cracked.

  I said I’d do everything I could to make sure she never had to experience the misery of a trigger event. And it still happened. I wasn’t even there.

  Amy reached over under the table and squeezed my thigh. I sniffed and tried to squash the feelings down. Bawling right now wouldn’t help the situation. I had to be strong for her and Taylor.

  I took a shaky breath and folded my arms on the table. I felt like shit, but there was a lot to talk about. There were more important things than me.

  “I guess the silver lining here is that she’s okay. She… always wanted powers of her own. Ever since I got mine. I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t some… black and white thing, that there were real costs associated.” I sighed again.

  Victoria smiled at me. “She’s been through a lot, and it’s great that you’re there for her, Morgan. She’s going to need you. But maybe you’re projecting a little? Don’t assume she will have complex or messy feelings about being a parahuman that you did.”

  I nodded slowly. She was right. I was projecting my own shit on Melody, and it was coloring my expectations. I gave her a wan smile in return. “Thanks, Vicky. You’re right. I’ll try not to make assumptions.”

  Taylor put her slice of pizza down on her plate and rubbed her fingertips together. When she spoke, she was quiet and hesitant. Five pairs of eyes were locked onto her; it was one of the only times she’d spoken so far.

  “I think… just the fact that you’re all here, that you know what it’s like, and you’re supporting her? That’ll make all the difference in the world. A lot of people wake up to having powers completely alone, with no support at all. Melody has half a dozen people who care about her, just in this room.”

  Taylor kept her eyes on her slice as she spoke. She was talking about Melody, sure, but she was also speaking her own truth.

  Following Amy’s lead, I reached under the table and gently squeezed her thigh. She jolted slightly. I got the impression it wasn’t just the contact she wasn’t used to.

  Maybe it was the support. Or maybe it was both.

  She made eye contact with me briefly, and I smiled at her.

  “Eat something, geeze. You’re so thin your bugs could probably carry you around,” I teased.

  She rolled her eyes but picked up her slice again.

  Carol spoke up, and from her tone alone, I knew it was time to brace for impact.

  “I suppose now is as good a time as any to ask what it is, exactly, that you think you’re doing.”

  I looked over at her. She was addressing me directly, and for a moment, I was almost surprised.

  I chose my words carefully. “Can you be a bit more specific? There’s been a lot going on.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t play dumb with me, I know better. I’m talking about you,” she pointed at me, then at Taylor, “and your association with the Undersiders. And you, being Apex this whole time, lying to us. Coming into our home. Associating with my daughters.”

  Her voice dropped like a hammer.

  “As a villain.”

  Her voice saying that last part was so sharp, I swore I could feel it cutting into me. I leaned back in my chair and sighed.

  “You’re right. I owe you and Mark an apology.” I looked between them. “I’m sorry for putting you both in a difficult position–politically, personally.” I turned to Carol. “I wouldn’t call it lying. I wasn’t forthcoming about what I went through, but that’s because I was still figuring it out. I still am.”

  Carol shot back: “A lie by omission is still a lie, Morgan. I taught you that myself.”

  Victoria cut in. “Can we maybe tone the prosecutor down a little, Mom?”

  Carol held up a hand at Victoria, then lowered it. “You had no right to expose them to that,” she told me.

  I rubbed my forehead. “I know, Carol. But what am I supposed to do? Tell my best friends, ‘Sorry, please go fuck yourself because someone in an office decided I’m officially spooky and dangerous now?’” I looked up at her, meeting her gaze and holding it. I would apologize, but I wasn’t backing down on this. “Or did you suddenly start subscribing to the same logic that would have you believe I’m out in the streets, eating people and robbing grannies?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. I continued.

  “I got put in an impossible situation. I’m still in one. I was kicked out of the Wards, denied entry to the Protectorate, and I’d briefly been flirting with the idea of trying to join you all in New Wave before I turned into a literal giant monster. Now what do I do? Are you, Carol–the woman obsessed with image–going to take me in?”

  I placed my palms on the tabletop. “Even if you were willing, am I supposed to divine that somehow, and be willing to take a blind leap of faith? When my entire life got dumped upside-down in 72 hours?”

  She had a confrontational look on her face, but I could see the gears turning. She was a hell of a lot smarter than I was.

  “I didn’t even choose to associate with the Undersiders. That was a literal accident. I already knew some of them out of costume, and realizing who they were? That was ugly.”

  Taylor dropped her head. “But I’ll be totally honest with you.” I looked over at Mark, too. “Both of you.” I pointed over at Taylor, who glanced up at me. “I feel a kinship with them. Not because they’re villains and I want to go rob a bank suddenly, but because they’re people who got put in fucked-up situations, and who our systems failed. Just like they failed me.”

  I brought it full circle. Time to go for the knockout. I brought that finger around to bear on Carol. “And I know you have serious issues with that very system. You fight it in your career, and you fight it in costume, too. Guilt by association is a cancer. People are falling through the gaps in outreach. We don’t have enough social workers, doctors, or mental wellness professionals to handle the load.”

  “I need ice cream,” Victoria said into the silence that followed.

  “Make that two bowls,” Amy echoed. I looked at Taylor. She wasn’t going to ask for one.

  Of course not. This damn girl.

  “I’d like one too.” I poked Taylor. “What flavor do you want?” She mumbled something, lost in thought.

  “Surprise us,” I told Victoria. She beamed.

  Carol made a slightly sour face, then smoothed her hands over her lap. “You should consider a career in law,” she said, more neutral now.

  “I can see what you’re saying, Morgan,” Mark said after a beat. “We’ve known some people over the years who have been put in difficult situations of a similar nature. Not quite the same.”

  I nodded. “Secrecy and paranoia, the double lives, are deeply baked into our lives as parahumans.” I extended an olive branch to Carol. “It’s why I have so much respect for what you’ve all decided to do, with New Wave.”

  “I hope this isn’t insulting to mention you both in the same breath like this, but I’ve been drawing a lot of inspiration from you and from Faultline’s Crew.”

  Carol gave me a flat look. “I’m not saying you two are alike in what you do, just that you’ve both managed to stay independent and make it work.”

  She got up, huffed, and started clearing out the table of empty plates and pizza boxes. “I’m going to take that in the spirit it was intended.”

  As Carol was taking up Taylor's plate, she stepped back and tilted her head. Her brows drew together, and she moved her head around. “Taylor, look up at me a moment.”

  Taylor did, her expression slightly confused and a little defensive.

  “Oh my god,” Carol muttered, incredulous. “I thought you looked familiar. I can’t believe it. Wait here.” Carol took the plates and placed them in a dishwasher rack, and left for her home office.

  Taylor looked over at me, puzzled. I held my hands out and shrugged. She came back a minute later with a photo album and an entirely different look on her face. “You’re Annette and David’s daughter, aren’t you?” she asked Taylor.

  The color drained out of Taylor’s face. She coughed. “Danny, not David.”

  Carol snapped her finger and nodded. “That’s it! Sorry. I’m very sorry about your mom, Taylor. We knew each other.”

  Taylor’s eyes widened. “...You did?”

  Carol nodded quickly, flipped open her photo album, and flipped through the pages. “I think the last time I saw you was… gosh, maybe five or six years ago. You and your parents were at a cookout with Mark and me over at the Barnes’ house.”

  Taylor's expression darkened, quick as a flipped light switch, but it passed just as fast. Carol found what she was looking for and set the album down in front of Taylor. She covered her mouth, and I could see her eyes glistening.

  “Can I look?” I asked Taylor. Her eyes darted over to me, then she nodded quickly. A younger Carol was standing next to a pretty, dark-haired woman in glasses.

  A woman with hair almost identical to Taylor’s. That had to be her mom, Annette. Late mom, from the sound of it.

  Taylor traced her fingers over the photo, then the others. Shots of the two women at Brockton Bay University. She ran her hands over her cheeks, wiping away tears. Her voice was trembling a little when she said: “We don’t… have a ton of photos of her. And I’ve never seen these. I didn’t realize you knew each other.”

  Carol smiled warmly at Taylor. “Don’t you worry, I’ll turn on my computer and run you off copies of all the photos I have.” Taylor just nodded in silence. “You know, in another life, I was going to be teaching at the University with her. We took a lot of classes together. She was trying to get me to come teach, and I wanted to…”

  Carol looked over at Mark, then at Victoria and Amy. “We needed a bit more stability, so I wound up taking a partnership at the firm. I still work there with Alan.”

  Carol scooted her chair closer and wrapped an arm around Taylor’s shoulder. Taylor didn’t lean in, but she didn’t pull away either.

  “She taught at the university?” I asked. Carol nodded. “Yes. English literature. She was brilliant and an incredible instructor. Tenure track already, even at an early age in her career.”

  I smiled gently over at Taylor, who still had tears streaming down her cheeks. “She sounds awesome, Taylor. And she’s really pretty in these photos.”

  Taylor just bobbed her head a few times. I looked around. Mark seemed to be reading the news on his phone. Amy and Victoria were talking quietly to each other by the sink and glancing back at us.

  Carol spoke up again. “Why don’t I see you over at the Barnes anymore? Weren’t you and Emma fairly close?”

  Taylor jerked away from Carol, fists clenched so tight her knuckles went white, and her hands trembled.

  Carol looked around the table, confused.

  Taylor’s voice seethed, even though she spoke barely above a whisper. “I hate her. She ruined my life.”

  Mark looked up from his phone, and Carol drew her head back, blinking rapidly. “Why, what happened between you two?”

  Taylor just shook her head, and Carol frowned. A moment later, Carol said, “You can’t say that, then go quiet, if something happened, I’d want to know about it.”

  Taylor shot her a look that rode the line between rage and loathing. “Why, so you can save me?” Her voice dripped venom.

  It might as well have bounced clean off Carol. I imagine she had to deal with this sort of thing somewhat regularly in her career. Calm, level-headed, and patient, she said: “No, because I work with their family, and if they’re responsible for something bad, I’d want to know, both personally and professionally. Not as a cape.”

  Taylor was gritting her teeth, brown eyes burning with fury. I wasn’t sure if it was aimed at Carol or just the past. One thing was for certain: she was pissed. When she finally spoke, it was in that same hate-filled tone as before, but not nearly as quiet.

  “She,” she spat, “is the reason I got powers in the first place. She and her friends pulled a prank on me that hospitalized me and put me in a mental ward for a week in January. My dad and I just took it to the school, and Alan threatened to sue and press charges to protect her.”

  BANG!

  The table and the plates on it rattled with the impact, and one fell to the floor and shattered. I nearly jumped out of my chair.

  Carol had slammed her fists into the tabletop. Carol was red in the face, and her hands were glowing with an orange-gold light. Mark was watching the two of them intently, phone still held in his hands but all but forgotten.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Amy and Victoria were staring from across the room. I swallowed. I’d never seen Carol like this before. She was grinding her teeth and flexing her fists.

  In a flat, dead voice, Carol asked, “You mean to tell me you were the biohazard incident victim at Winslow? That Emma Barnes was responsible, and Alan threatened to sue you when it came to light?”

  Taylor’s eyes were wide, her cheeks were still wet, but the fury had drained out of her. She stared at Carol like she was burning holes straight through her, intense and unblinking. Then she nodded.

  Carol took a breath, exhaled, and stood up quickly, nearly knocking her chair over in the process.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and stomped out of the room and up the stairs. Two doors opened and closed.

  Muffled and coming from upstairs, but still pretty audible due to the volume, Carol screamed: “That MOTHER FUCKER!”

  Mark’s phone locked with a click, and he stood up. “Think I’m going to get some of that ice cream too now.”

  Victoria came over and picked up the pieces of the broken plate, sweeping quickly with a hand broom. Amy followed with bowls of ice cream.

  Taylor took her spoon and just sort of picked at the scoops in her bowl. I hesitated. She could be hard to read sometimes, and this was one of those moments. Something huge had just happened, and I had no idea how she was handling it. Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes still red and puffy, and she looked… defeated.

  I made up my mind. Leaning over, I wrapped an arm around her far shoulder and gently pulled her into a side hug. Her head landed on my shoulder like she had no bones in her neck.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “I don’t know what that was all about—besides it being one of those really bad moments most of us have when we get powers. But if you ever want to talk… just call me, okay?”

  She nodded a few times and sniffed.

  “One other thing,” I added. She glanced up at me, golden-brown eyes meeting mine. I grinned. “It’s against the law in all fifty states to eat ice cream while crying. Unless you’re pregnant.”

  That got a scoff out of her, and she sat up straighter. It seemed to do the trick, she took a bite of her dessert. She blinked rapidly, and Victoria grinned over at her. “I know, right?”

  A few minutes later, Carol came back downstairs, and it looked like she had washed her face and tidied up. And she had someone else in tow: Melody. She looked half-awake and still a bit drained after everything. I put my spoon down and started clapping for her, a huge smile on my face.

  Just because she went through hell earlier doesn’t mean she has to stay there.

  Everyone else joined in, even Taylor, and Melody took a seat between Amy and me. Melody looked around, slightly confused by what was going on.

  Her eyes were black now. Jet black, dark enough that the pupils blended in with the irises.

  She cleared her throat and spoke, a little hoarse. “What’s this all about?”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess it’s a birthday of sorts, isn’t it? Welcome to the club, sis. You’re no longer the odd person out of this room.”

  She frowned. “That–that wasn’t a bad dream? That was real?”

  I turned and hugged her, and she hugged me back. After I released her, Carol asked her what kind of pizza she wanted, and then reheated some for her.

  “Nope,” Amy said, shaking her head. “You had enough cyanide and hydrocarbon residue in your lungs to kill a bull elephant.”

  “Welcome to the club!” Victoria said, grinning.

  “We were worried for you,” Mark chimed in, and I groaned and nodded.

  “E88 is going to pay for everything they’ve done today,” Taylor said quietly.

  I turned to her and nodded. “Yes, they will. But right now? We’ve got pizza and good company. Let’s leave that for another time.”

  She stared at me for a long moment, then went back to eating her ice cream. Rocky road. Looked good. I was being basic with the vanilla.

  “Is that what this weird feeling is in my head?” Melody asked the room.

  Immediately, hands shot up and voices overlapped.

  “Hang on–”

  “Not in the house!”

  “Probably should–”

  “Please don’t–”

  “Yeah–”

  “Okay, okay!” She exclaimed. “I got the message!” Then she laughed, and everyone relaxed just a little.

  She recounted what had happened as she munched on pizza. She’d gone looking for me and broke into my place when I wasn’t answering the phone. While she was searching through the place for me, she saw a beam of light start blasting buildings across the street, and she took cover under the staircase. My apartment had partially collapsed and trapped her, and the place was steadily crumbling in on her.

  Then the smoke from the buildings burning across the street flooded in. She’d been sure she was going to die, then she heard Apex screaming her name.

  I blushed and cast my eyes down at my bowl.

  “How’d I get over here?” She asked. Nobody spoke.

  She had to find out sometime.

  “I… flew you over so Amy could treat you,” I muttered, not lifting my gaze.

  “Since when can you fly? What?” She asked from my right side.

  I sighed loudly. “Since the day after I moved out. I’m… super sorry for lying to you, Melody. You were right all along. I was keeping things from you, and I had other reasons for moving out that I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

  Today’s weather is cloudy with frequent showers.

  I wiped a bitter tear from my cheek.

  “Well, what is it, then?” I looked over and up at her. Her dark eyes were striking, and it was going to take getting used to.

  I coughed. “You know Apex? That new gross cape?”

  She frowned.

  I dropped my eyes back to my bowl and said, “...yeah. That’s me.” I stuffed a wad of sugar and cream into my mouth to fill the pit where my stomach used to be.

  I was caught off guard when Taylor spoke up in solidarity. “I’m Skitter. Your sister… actually knew us before any of us realized who each other were in costume.” Her voice was firm, rock solid, even. “She’s a big part of the reason why the fight against the ABB ended as quickly as it did.”

  “Is that true?” Victoria asked.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t expand on it. Another scoop of ice cream.

  Melody’s voice was sharp when she finally spoke. “So let me get this straight. You ran away from home and abandoned us to go be a villain?”

  I placed the spoon down and sank my face into my hands. This was exactly how I feared things might go with telling her and my parents.

  “No,” Taylor said, voice firm with conviction. “We had to convince her to even interact with the villains in town. She only went to that big meeting—the one where all the villain groups met to discuss a truce—because she couldn’t stand the idea of people like the E88 operating without anyone holding them accountable.”

  “So no, but still yes,” Melody shot back, her voice rising.

  “You don’t understand. None of you do. Because you’re used to living in a bubble.” Taylor said. “Bad things don’t stop happening just because you stick your head in the sand and ignore them. If the Undersiders and Apex hadn’t been present, the other villains still would have gone. Except there would be more bodies at the end of the day, most of them innocent people under the ABB’s influence.”

  She let the words settle, then pressed on. “On top of fighting the ABB, we were also keeping tabs on—and stopping—some of the truly awful people in the city from living out their sick fantasies.” Taylor jabbed a bony finger into my shoulder. “Your sister is personally responsible for saving hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. If you think that makes her a villain, you’ve got your head on backwards.”

  Carol cut in. “I don’t understand this point you keep making. What do you mean she was responsible for things ending quicker?”

  I rubbed my face and took a deep breath. “I was running strikes on the worst of the ABB’s assets, denying them war materials and infrastructure so we could shut things down faster. Some days, I was at it for eighteen hours straight.”

  I scooped up a bite of ice cream and ate it. “Eight-story buildings packed to the ceiling with guns, ammo, bombs, missiles, all kinds of military-grade hardware. Hardened bunkers. Vehicles and heavy weapons. The Undersiders and Faultline’s Crew focused on freeing the people who’d been implanted with bombs and forced into fighting.”

  “Wait, that was you two, and Faultline’s Crew that were responsible for all of that?” Mark asked. Taylor and I both nodded.

  “Morgan did the real heavy lifting,” Taylor added. “All by herself, too.”

  “Right, so you ran away from home to go play villain, ” Melody snapped from beside me.

  “No, god damn it!” I turned on her, glaring. She didn’t flinch. “I left home for the exact reason I told you. So I wouldn’t risk you or our parents getting hurt while I was out there trying to be an independent cape. Alone. With no backup.”

  Melody’s voice rose to match mine. “And then you just told me you lied about all of it—so which is it!?”

  I clenched my left fist on the table until the knuckles creaked. My pulse was hammering in my ears. “I lied about why I was gone so much. Why I couldn’t hang out or come around after I moved out. And the reason is…” I met her eyes, voice trembling with heat. “Because I’m a giant fucking monster at least sixteen hours a day!”

  She tilted her head, all attitude. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”

  I stood up, walked barefoot to the back door, opened it, and stepped outside, shutting it softly behind me. I had to. I was this close to doing something I knew I’d regret, hitting her or breaking something in the Dallons’ house. And none of them deserved that.

  I wandered out into the yard, maybe a dozen feet, then sat in the grass, folding my arms over my knees and dropping my head onto them.

  There was a lot of talking going on inside, muffled by the walls, but I tuned it out. Instead, I retreated into my headspace, the one where my power resided. I pictured lying in the sea, letting the waves rock me on my back. Limp. Drifting. Letting the current carry me without resistance or care.

  Somewhere in the back of my awareness, I registered that my left hand really hurt. I ignored it.

  Maybe I’ll go for a swim tonight. Assuming I can, and don’t get arrested afterwards.

  My sister could be… extremely difficult. Part of it was that she knew me so well. She knew exactly where to hit me, when to say the worst thing possible, and how to leave a bruise that wouldn’t show. This day had already been hell. And the fallout from everything that happened? I knew it wasn’t going to just touch me; it was going to ripple through the lives of everyone I cared about.

  The back door opened. Soft footsteps approached across the grass. Someone sat beside me.

  Amy. I could smell her.

  “Hey,” she said softly to me.

  I didn’t move. Didn’t answer.

  “You’re bleeding. Pretty badly. Can I take care of that for you, Morgan?”

  So that’s what the burning was.

  “I think the pain’s helping me cut through the noise right now,” I murmured.

  “Okay… It’s just, it’s getting everywhere.”

  “It’ll clean itself up in a few minutes. Something new I learned.”

  I sighed and let myself fall back onto the grass, throwing my arms wide and staring up at the sky. Wisps of smoke curled above the treeline, but the rest of the sky was bright and blue. Late afternoon. The kind of day that would’ve felt like summer break when I was a kid.

  Amy lay beside me, then rolled into me, draping one leg and one arm over my body, her head resting on my arm.

  “What are you thinking about right now?” she asked softly.

  “I was thinking how nice it would be to just… throw all this shit aside and go swim in the ocean,” I said. “I’m so tired of it. Ever since I left home, it feels like all we do is argue. I love her more than anything, but the constant fighting… It’s exhausting.”

  “Taylor’s going rounds with your sister right now,” Amy murmured. “I think… I think I get it now, what you see in her. A little better, at least.”

  “I don’t think she’s a bad person, Amy. I think she’s just… misguided. Surrounded by bad influences, maybe. But the more I get to know them, the more I question how bad those influences really are. I spent the whole afternoon with Tattletale, and by the end? We weren’t even trying to claw each other’s eyes out.”

  “I don’t know if I could do that myself,” Amy deadpanned. “I’d probably just hit her in the head with a rock.”

  I snorted, then chuckled at the image of the two of them in some cartoonish catfight: hair pulling, slapping, the works.

  “Open your left hand for me?” she asked gently.

  I relented. Glanced down. She was right. I’d really done a number on myself. When I opened my fist, I saw the cause. My claws were out, and I’d sunk four of them straight through my own palm. As I watched, the bleeding stopped and the punctures sealed over in seconds.

  “Your power is amazing, Amy.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “You always manage to see the best in people, Morgan. Even when you don’t want to. It’s why you’re drawn to Taylor, and why you are so mad at your sister.”

  I turned my head and gave her a look.

  She rolled her eyes. “Not like that. I mean emotionally. You’re always trying to help people become better versions of themselves. Even when it costs you—your comfort, your relationships, your own success.”

  I smiled at her. A sad, broken thing. She smiled back.

  Then we both turned to face the sky again.

  We sat like that for a while, and I felt the wet patch on Victoria’s sweats dry. I looked down. Clean, clear.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’d better head back in before someone actually gets killed.”

  We got back up and headed inside.

  Everyone was gone from the kitchen.

  No bodies, no blood, that’s… good, I think.

  Amy and I wandered around.

  Mark was watching news coverage of the E88 business. It seemed like Purity wasn’t just wholesale destroying parts of the city any longer, for whatever reason. Maybe she got bored. Or what she wanted.

  He saw us come in and gave a wave, not saying anything. Amy walked over and gave him a hug over the back of the couch. He blinked.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “With everything going on…” Amy gestured at the TV, then toward me. “And all the arguing, I realized maybe I’ve been wrong about some things. It was time to say the quiet part out loud.” She leaned over further and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Dad.”

  I swear I could see his chest and head swell up in real time. He smiled widely and responded: “Love you too, Amy. Your mom is in her office with Taylor. They shut the door, so you know what that means. Your sisters are upstairs.”

  I took a deep breath. It seemed like things had simmered down instead of boiling over. That was good.

  I hadn’t been keeping track of time, but perhaps Amy and I had been out there longer than I’d realized. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to walk in on either thing, so I walked around and took a seat in the loveseat next to the couch. Amy walked around, too, and sat next to Mark.

  She held her hand out, and he took it, tilting his head a little.

  Amy had an intense look on her face, and she was chewing on her lower lip. I realized that she was stewing on something big.

  Wait, is she…?

  Her voice was soft when she spoke. Mark muted the television and turned in his seat to look at her.

  “Dad, I… have been keeping something to myself for a long time now. And it’s been bugging me for a long time, and I think I want to talk about it now.” She looked up to him, her face dead serious and no little part nervous. “It’s tearing me up, inside. If… I tell you, will you try to support me? With um, talking to everyone else about it?”

  He took her hand in both of his, and he nodded seriously. “Amy, always. You can tell me anything.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I… like girls.”

  His face softened, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Your mother and I have had our differences, but we’d never think any less of you for something like that."

  I expected to see some relief in Amy’s posture, but it never came.

  “Was… that it?” Mark asked carefully.

  Amy looked over at me. She looked guilty.

  “Remember what I told you the other night at the party,” I reminded her.

  She nodded once and turned back to Mark.

  It was a moment before she spoke again.

  “I don’t want to work at the hospital. I don’t want to be Panacea anymore.”

  Mark’s face became a bit more serious than before, but his voice was gentle. “Okay, that’s a big change. Can you explain to me why, so I can understand a little better?”

  Amy licked her lips. “I don’t want you or Mom to think less of me for saying this, but…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t like it. I don’t like healing people. I used to think I just… hated being a hero, but I talked to Morgan the other night, at the party.”

  She glanced back at me. “And she made me realize that maybe I wasn’t being honest with myself. It’s not that I don’t want to help people, it’s that I don’t want to heal people. It sucks all the life and joy out of me, being around dying people all day, when you’re the only person who can help them. And… It’s a slippery slope. No matter how much I do, no matter how hard I work, there’s always more. And it’s life and death. And I hate it, and I keep guilt-tripping myself into doing more of it, despite all of that.”

  Her eyes misted up, and she turned back to Mark. She choked out, “I-it makes me want to hurt myself. Like I’m trapped and—”

  Mark cut her off by taking her in his arms and squeezing her tightly to his chest. Rubbing her back, he muttered to her, “You don’t have to say another word. I get it. You don’t want to heal anymore? You don’t do it. It’s that easy.”

  I broke into a huge smile and covered my mouth. She peeked over at me, and I saw the corners of her eyes were upturned. She let out a little cough, and he pulled her back from the hug.

  “So, any big plans? Taking a hard-earned vacation?” he asked her, gently teasing.

  She laughed quietly. “I think…” She glanced at me, then back at her father. “...I’m going to try doing cape stuff. Not from the back lines. From the front.”

  Mark’s eyebrows climbed so high I thought they might leave orbit. “Really? That’s, wow. That’s a huge change. Are you… Sure about that? I mean, have you thought it through?”

  She nodded. “I have some ideas. Some are um… sort of crazy, but I think they could work. Morgan’s helping to train me. I’m going to start working hard to get fit.”

  He sighed and clapped his hands on her shoulders. “Amy, you’re going to give me gray hairs worrying about you getting hurt, but if that’s what you want, I’ll do everything I can to support you.”

  Her lower lip trembled, but she was smiling. He looked over at the door that led to Carol’s office. “You let me talk to your mother first, and then we’ll have a family discussion about it, all of us. Alright?”

  She nodded quickly and went to get up, but he kept his hands on her shoulders. “Before you go,” he said, “are there any other bombs you want to drop while we’re at it?"

  Amy’s eyes widened. She glanced over at me in a half-panic and laughed nervously. “Heh heh… Uhm…”

  He gave her one hell of a stern look, and she actually squirmed.

  His voice matched his expression. “Nothing about… some of the things I’ve found in your laundry? Pants pockets with weird stains, maybe…?”

  She froze, color draining from her face as she started to stammer.

  “Out with it,” he commanded her.

  “I was only doing it b-because of the other thing! The stress of being at the hospital!”

  I blinked rapidly, thoroughly confused at this exchange.

  “So that means it’s done and over with?”

  She nodded so, so fast. I was worried she was going to give herself whiplash.

  “Good. Good!” He was all smiles now, rubbing her shoulders. She slumped a little.

  She eeped as he squeezed her shoulders, his face darkening into something straight out of a horror movie. “If I find out you’re lying and you go back to doing it…” He leaned in. “I will end you.”

  “God! Dad! I swear! I won’t smoke again!”

  This wasn’t the kind of crisis I was used to handling, but damn if it didn’t make me wish I had more like this instead of fire and smoke and screaming.

  The door to the home office opened, and Taylor and Carol came out. Taylor looked… maybe a touch more energetic than I’d seen her out of costume. She had a thick folder in her hand and a stack of photographs tucked into an envelope.

  She turned to Carol. “You promise you won’t tell him about the other things?”

  Carol clicked her tongue and chided, “I’m a lawyer. Client confidentiality is sacred. I’ll tell you I think you’re making a mistake, but I won’t say a word to him.”

  Taylor hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Dallon.”

  Carol cleared her throat. “I’ll wish you luck with the other thing, but I think you should consider talking to Morgan about it. Her input could be extremely valuable for you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Taylor said quietly.

  Carol looked over at the three of us on the couches, tilted her head just slightly, and asked, “Did we miss something important?”

  Mark rested an arm on the back of the couch and turned to face his wife. “You did, but we’ll talk about it in a little bit. Today has been a big day for everyone.”

  Carol tongued the inside of her cheek, then headed into the kitchen.

  “Want to go upstairs?” Amy asked me.

  “Yeah, sure–” I frowned a moment.

  Shit. I just realized I’m homeless. Pretty sure all the work’s done on the station by now.

  I snapped out of my derailed train of thought. “Oh, yeah, sure.” I stood up, and Amy did as well. Mark unmuted the TV. We headed to the staircase, and Amy hesitated, then turned back to Taylor.

  “Are you coming?” She asked.

  Taylor, for her part, seemed surprised by the invitation. Taylor blinked, like she wasn’t used to being included. I felt a twinge in my chest. Nobody should be that surprised just to be asked along.

  She fell in behind me, and the two of us headed upstairs behind Amy.

  Amy hesitated, torn between heading to her room or Vicky’s. Taylor was examining the oddly out-of-place door Victoria had on her room.

  I snickered. “Victoria has problems controlling her strength sometimes, especially if she’s being absent-minded or emotional. After replacing her door three times in one week, they went and got this big, heavy monster installed. They had to have contractors install it.”

  “It looks like a security door, or a fire door,” Taylor said.

  “Pretty sure that’s exactly what it is,” I told her.

  The door was shut. That could have meant any number of things. Girl talk. Ugly crying. Making out, although I seriously doubted that last one.

  “Maybe your room?” I asked Amy.

  We walked in, and Amy sat on her bed. My duffel bag was by her desk—so that’s where it had gotten off to. Taylor wandered over and looked at Amy’s extensive collection of shitty horror movies and books on her big bookshelf.

  I walked over and squatted by the bag, unzipping it and pulling out the heavy book I’d bought for Taylor and forgotten to give her after all the commotion of the day.

  “Hey, Taylor?”

  “Mmh?” She turned.

  I stood up, stepped over, and handed her the book. “I got this for you. It’s not the easiest read—especially the parts on physiology and nutrition—but you’re really smart. I think you’ll get through it.”

  She set the folder and envelope on Amy’s desk and dropped her bookbag. She flipped the book open. I’d filled it with those little sticky page flags and noted a bunch of stuff in there in fine-tipped marker. The pages were sort of waxy, and pen ink wouldn’t take to them.

  She frowned as she looked through all the various things I’d put in there for her. “This…”

  I worried she didn’t like it.

  She chewed on her lip, then said, “This looks like it was really expensive. This isn’t like an off-the-shelf book; this is more like a university textbook.”

  I shrugged at her. “So? Sometimes you get what you pay for. A lot of the cheaper books either have bad, wrong, or outdated information in them. And anything that’s full-color printing is bound to be expensive. The price wasn’t a concern to me, Taylor. If it helps at all, I got it used, even though it was in like-new condition.”

  She flipped through a few more notated pages. “You…made all of these?” She ran her fingers over the color-coded adhesive strips that were densely packed on the outside of the binding.

  “Yeah. Things I learned from experience, tips, and tricks. Some recipes. Notes on exercises that look hard but are easy, and ones that look easy but you need to be in really good shape to do.”

  Amy spoke up, dry and sarcastic: “Morgan’s that rare hybrid of nerd and jock. She's a nerd about meathead things.”

  I spun on my heel and leveled a finger in her direction. “Listen. Some of us don’t have powers that come with super-genius biology knowledge. And kinesthetics, nutrition, biomechanics? Complicated as hell.”

  From that point on, the ice was well and truly broken. Amy put on a cult-classic from Aleph, the one about people trapped in a frozen wasteland. I’d seen part of it before and hated it—it hit way too close to home. But lately, I’d been growing more comfortable with my power.

  The three of us lay on her bed, turned out the lights, and turned up the volume on her television.

  Turns out, the movie deserved its status. Both Taylor and I talked about it a bunch with Amy afterwards.

  Not long after the movie ended, Victoria and Melody joined us. They’d been deep in conversation—Victoria giving Melody a crash course in cape shit... thanks in part to her taking early college courses on Parahuman Studies. The two had also been exploring new hair and makeup options for Melody with her new dark eyes.

  There was a moment when the rest of the conversation fell away, and the two of us were left to confront one another again. Melody stood with one arm crossed low across her stomach, like she was bracing herself. She had her eyes down on the floor.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for being a bitch to you earlier.”

  I sighed. “I know why you were mad at me. I just… will you try to give me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to why I might lie or hide things...?”

  She looked up at me, and I continued. “I genuinely don’t like lying to any of you. In fact, I hate doing it. But there’s… so fucking much of this life you’re going to discover for yourself is like trying to navigate minefields. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Sooner or later, you’re going to have something blow up on you. If… I’m ever lying to you about something, just try and consider that I might be doing it to protect you and not to hurt you.”

  Her voice was soft. “I know you do it to protect me, protect us. It doesn’t change the fact that it hurts every time you do. And the more you do it, the harder it is to have that trust in you. And lately–” she held her chest and coughed. “It’s just… constant. Some days, I feel like I don’t even recognize you anymore.”

  I flinched. I don’t think she meant to use the turn of phrase the way she had, but it had cut me. Deep.

  She held her hand out to me. “Morgan– I’m sorry. Please believe me that I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I bit my lower lip and nodded. I scooted forward on the bed and held my arms out to her, and we embraced.

  “I am starting to understand things a little better, understand your viewpoint.” She whispered to me. “I never really understood what you meant when you said you wished that I never had to experience what getting powers was like. I completely get that now. It always felt like you wanted to exclude me from this club I wasn’t allowed to be a member of. I never realized just… how bad things have to be to have a chance of getting them.”

  I nodded fiercely against her. “It’s not the same for everyone. Second-generation parahumans are able to get powers more easily than we are, as first-generation.”

  “Yeah. Victoria explained that to me. And I’m sorry. Will you… help me with everything, going forward?”

  “Of course, Melody. Who knows—maybe you’ll get into the Protectorate, if that’s what you want.”

  She pulled back slightly and studied my face. Confusion at first, then slow-dawning realization. She sank onto the bed beside me and slumped into my side.

  “All that work. Everything I had planned… It’s just gone, isn’t it?”

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tightly. With a bitter laugh, I said, “Welcome to my world, sis. I told you I wouldn’t wish it on you. But I do hope you don’t have to go through the bullshit I’ve had to. It gets very old after the second or third time around.”

  Her head thumped against my shoulder. “I can only imagine,” she murmured.

  “Call Mom and Dad if you haven’t yet. Tell them we’re staying here, watching shitty movies, and eating ice cream with the Dallons.”

  She looked up at me with wet eyes and asked, “Will you stay around and watch with us?”

  I smiled wistfully at her. “As long as I can. I don’t have too much longer I can stay like this. And other-me doesn’t do well in people’s houses. My ass is so big I make Victoria’s furniture smashing look like amateur hour.”

  “Hey!” Victoria elbowed my side and grinned at me. “Bitch.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “That’s got to be hard,” Melody said.

  “Sister, you have no idea.”