“Hey Hooks,” I said brightly as I walked into the gym. “How’s it going?”

  “Someone’s chipper,” Hooks muttered, looking me over. “What, you finally pop your cherry?”

  “What? No!” I flushed and glared at her.

  “Wait seriously?” She gave me a surprised look. “Don’t you spend more nights sleeping with your girlfriend than in your own bed?”

  “Hooks,” I hissed, face burning.

  “What? You’re a growing girl, nothing to be ashamed of.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s the matter, she don’t want it?”

  “That’s not—” I chewed my lip, looking around the gym. I didn’t exactly want to talk about this but… “I’m just a bad girlfriend and freak out anytime we try, so we don’t. That’s it. Can we get to boxing?” She crossed her arms.

  “What’s up, nervous?” Hooks patted my shoulder when I didn’t answer. “Hey, like I said, nothing to be ashamed of. Being scared doesn’t make you a bad girlfriend either.”

  “Yeah but why of her?” I asked. “It’s stupid, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Feelings and stuff usually don’t,” she replied. “She giving you shit?”

  “No, she’s been great,” I said quickly. “Like...it’s just me.” She nodded.

  “Then you gotta let it go,” Hooks said. “It’ll come around when you’re ready for it, don’t force it and don’t get forced into it. Til then, sounds like you got a pretty good girlfriend.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed, shoulders slumping. “I do.”

  “Anyway,” she said, shaking her head. “If it’s not that, what’re you in a good mood about? School giving out free beer?”

  “Better,” I said with a grin. “They took down Hannibal last night, you hear?”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “What do you mean?” My smile shrank. “They got that fuck who hurt Bailey. We should like, take him out to dinner or something.”

  “Still not on solids,” Hooks said flatly. “Glad another villain’s taken down, but it doesn’t fix him, only time will.”

  “But we got even!”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “We can get even in the ring. Out there, you can serve justice, that’s it. Am glad to see another Nazi behind bars, that’s about it.” I stared at her for a moment, then my shoulders slumped.

  “Well I’m happy about it,” I grumbled. “I’ll throw a god damn party every time we lock one of them up.” I flinched as she reached out and gripped my shoulder.

  “Not gonna stop you,” Hooks said. “Just remember revenge isn’t a solution.”

  I gave her a nod and, mercifully, we got to training. No one seemed to be happy Hannibal got what was coming to him. Amy had complained, which was fair enough since she’d been called to do some healing not ten minutes after I got there. I wasn’t happy about it either, but it hadn’t taken that much time away from our night.

  The Wards had just shrugged, saying of course the heroes got him. I had to bite my tongue at that, knowing they abso-fucking-lutely wouldn’t have if not for me and the Undersiders. At least I hadn’t been stupid enough to spill the beans. Sure I wanted people to know villains were getting taken down, I just didn’t want to put my career on the line doing it.

  It bugged me though, the fact that everyone just took it for granted that Hannibal had been captured. The Protectorate barely said more than the fact that he’d been arrested, the Wards didn’t care, even Hooks and Amy who should have been ecstatic that we were taking out the worst villains had just brushed it off.

  I shook my head, grabbing my gloves. Fuck it, I wasn’t doing this because I wanted people cheering for me. A hard night’s work fighting Nazis was all the reward I needed, and if they went to prison instead of just the hospital then even better. My place was putting them there, and if that meant doing it silently then it was fine.

  It had to be.

  “Scan the card, quick!” Violet snapped, pointing at the screen.

  “Which one?” I demanded, turning my head and looking at the five sitting next to the reader.

  “Yours, duh!”

  “Okay, jeez!” I grabbed the shiny card that had my ugly mug on it and slapped it onto the reader before turning back to the screen. “Okay and?”

  “And look!”

  Oh that’s what it was supposed to do. On-screen, Dr. Diabolical had been grabbed by none other than Amaranth. No way I was actually that tall, but it was probably just so the models didn’t look weird. I/her had the Tinker by a piece of his power armour, a part of the leg, and was yelling at myself to hit him. I charged up, aimed, and fired a laser blast. The joint tore apart as Amaranth vanished, seconds after she’d appeared.

  I barely managed the rest of the fight, despite Violet’s running commentary and the variety of card assists I had to call on. But at last, with a sliver of health and a nearly empty Power Meter, Dr. Diabolical went down and the ending cutscene played.

  “Did you forget how to use your hands?” Violet teased as the credits began to roll, tossing a smug grin my way.

  “I never played this game before today,” I complained. “Hell I’ve never used this console before today.”

  “Wait, seriously?” She cocked her head. “But you live here.”

  “Yeah and I’m usually working, or doing homework, or drawing, or over at Amy’s,” I said flatly. “Besides, Chris and Dennis usually play it when they’re here. Not really any room for me to join in.”

  “There’s co-op,” Violet countered. “Or versus mode.”

  “Also like...would rather be out there,” I said with a shrug. “This was fine but like, I don’t know, felt fake. And did you see how they put me in the game? All I did was grab the guy, I could have crushed his knee and totally disabled him.”

  “Everyone’s got a special assist, remember?” she explained. “Mine slows enemies down for ten seconds, yours stuns them for three, Crucible’s does a bunch of damage…”

  “But that’s dumb,” I said. “God, is there any merch that doesn’t suck?”

  “I dunno, the cards are pretty cool,” Violet said. “Like, they’re actually useful in some way, you know? And it’s not as weird as someone having a big picture of me up on their wall.”

  “I guess,” I said. “Still dumb. Like, sell me-branded pepper spray or something; you know, actually useful for people day-to-day.” She snorted.

  “Who uses pepper spray every day?” she asked sarcastically. “Lia, normal people don’t worry about that stuff. They want like, collectibles, cool stuff to show off to their friends. They wanna say ‘look it’s my favourite hero’, stuff like that. You’ve done a couple signings now right?”

  “Yeah, always packed,” I muttered. “And it’s all kids, or like, parents getting stuff for them.” Or Amy, sometimes.

  “Wish mine were,” she sighed. “Not many people, and like half of them are Pride events.” I grimaced.

  “God I hope they don’t try and pull me into that shit,” I said. “Already hate talking about myself, I really don’t want to talk about my relationship and stuff.”

  “Why?” Violet asked. “Does it suck?” I gave her a look.

  “What? No,” I snapped, shaking my head. “It’s good, but like, I don’t need people prying.”

  “Fair.” There was a beat of silence. “How um, how is it?”

  “How’s what? Dating Amy?” She nodded and I narrowed my eyes. “Didn’t I just say I don’t need people prying?”

  “Yeah but…” Violet pursed her lips. “What’s it...like, dating girls?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Uhh.” I blinked. “Why do you want to know? You’re dating Crucible.”

  “Sure, that’s why I’m asking.”

  “It’s...dating?” I shrugged. “We go on dates, we sleep with each other, I don’t know it’s just...normal? What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know…just, girl stuff?”

  “Girl stuff,” I echoed.

  “Yeah I dunno like, does she do your hair?” Violet said. “Or maybe each others’ nails?” I held up my short digits and made her wince.

  “Look, honestly Violet, it’s not crazy,” I said, exasperated. “Sure maybe some girls do that stuff but we just watch TV or whatever. If you wanna find out so bad, just go date a girl; it’s a free country.”

  “But wouldn’t that be weird?” She balked at the glare that earned. “N-not that girls can’t date girls but like...I’m not exactly a girl-girl, you know?”

  “Gonna be honest, who needs to know that except someone you’re planning to like...you know?” I replied. “And if you’re getting that far I hope you’re smart enough to not pick someone who makes that a problem.” I tossed my controller onto the couch. “Why are we talking about this? I said I didn’t want to.”

  “Sorry,” Violet apologized, taking the controller and returning to the menu. “Um, wanna play co-op?” I sighed.

  “Shit, why not?”

  I sat quietly, picking at the belly of my right arm. The clock was ticking, grating like it always did. Doctor O’Keefe sat opposite, moustache bristling at me as he made one note or another. Wasn’t like I’d said anything for the past few minutes, not since he brought up my mom.

  “Amelia?” he asked.

  “What?” I replied.

  “If this is an uncomfortable topic, please do say so,” he said warmly. “I’m here to help, not distress you.”

  “Got to talk about it sometime, right?” I muttered.

  “It would be healthier,” O’Keefe said, nodding. “Bottling up your feelings only means dealing with them later, rather than sooner. This is a safe place for you to talk about them, but if you don’t feel you can then we can simply change topics.”

  “It’s whatever,” I said bitterly. “Just going to bug me about it next time so lets just get it over with. I fucking hate her and I’m glad she’s dead. Moving on?”

  “I see,” he said, voice neutral. “May I ask why you feel that way?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Did Yamada ever tell you about my Slaughterhouse Nine trials?” I asked in response, getting a brief shake of his head. “Well I’ll skip over the two that don’t matter: Mannequin told me to change, gave me a deadline. I knew my mom had been in with the Empire, since Victor called me out, so I went and got their colours inked on my arm.”

  “And later had them removed?”

  “No, it was invisible ink,” I said sarcastically. “Anyway Victor showed up, told me she’d been in real deep, running drug programs or something; targeted ones too, and you don’t get any points for guessing who it was aimed at. So fuck that bitch, she deserved worse.”

  “I understand why you feel so strongly,” O’Keefe said, confirming he had a brain that worked at least as well as mine. “You said you learned this in the wake of the Slaughterhouse Nine’s assault. Before that, before you learned about her connections, how did you feel?” I knit my brows.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I suppose I mean have you mourned her?”

  “No,” I scoffed. “Did you miss the part where I said I’m glad she’s dead?”

  “I hear you’re angry at her for what she did in life,” he said. “And I think that’s fair. That is...a difficult revelation, especially about your parent.”

  “Try ‘horrifying’,” I drawled.

  “Horrifying then,” he agreed. “I didn’t want to put words in your mouth. That being said, as awful as what you learned may be, you are allowed to miss her.” The soft ‘peep-peep’ of the timer for the end of my session was the only thing that stopped me saying something that'd earn another few weeks off patrol.

  “Well I don’t,” I said, rising and grabbing my jacket from the back of the couch. I threw it on, then pulled up my mask and hood. “And that’s really all I have to say about it.”

  “Alright Amaranth, I apologize if I touched on a sensitive topic,” O’Keefe said, offering an apologetic smile. “Counseling does sometimes have that effect. If you’re not comfortable discussing it further we won’t, but please consider what I said. Bottling up is a temporary solution, and one I can say from experience is much worse in the long term.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said flatly, turning to the door. “See you next week, doctor.”

  Another therapy session done, another hour of my life wasted. I walked through the hallway head down, my stomach roiling. That fucking bastard, why’d he have to bring up Mom and all her bullshit? Sure not a day went by it wasn’t on my mind, but that was because I was trying to gut her legacy. I didn’t need to mourn, I needed to stomp out every trace of her left in this city, I needed…

  I needed some air.

  The elevator only took me part way, but I knew my way around headquarters well enough. I navigated to the back stairwell and continued heading up. I’d only been up to the roof a couple times, usually with Sere since he felt it was the most private place in the building. Despite the skyscrapers surrounding it, windows slowly filling with glass, I sort of agreed. Not today though, it seemed, as I saw someone smoking near the edge. I frowned and turned to go to the opposite end, but looked back and cocked my head.

  “Hooks?” I asked as I approached. She turned and I saw I wasn’t wrong.

  “Mara,” she said evenly. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Getting some air,” I said, eyeing the cigarette between her fingers. “Hey uh, can I have one?” She stared at me for a moment.

  “You smoke?” I shrugged, making her sigh. She glanced over her shoulder, then took the pack from her pocket and passed me a thin, white tube from it. “Light?” I pulled down my mask and put the stick in my mouth, then nodded. She held out a lighter and flicked it. I put the tip in the flame and slowly inhaled.

  “Holy fucking shit!” I coughed out as the smoke hit the back of my throat, hot.

  “So that’s a no to the smoking,” Hooks said sarcastically, taking a drag off her own. She puffed out a ring of smoke and shook her head. “Should keep it that way, this shit’ll kill you.”

  “So will work,” I muttered, taking another puff. I sputtered a little, but it wasn’t quite as bad when I was expecting it. “Ah shit.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a fucking dumbass,” I said, cheeks flushing red. “Just unmasked in front of you.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Hooks glanced at me, then shrugged. “Lips are sealed about the acne, I guess.”

  “This is serious.”

  “I know, sorry kid.” She sighed and scratched the stubbly hair on the side of her head. “Far as I’m concerned, I’m just fascinated that you can smoke through your mask.”

  “Okay,” I grumbled.

  “Got something up your ass?” she asked as I kept smoking.

  “Just this therapy bullshit they put us through,” I groused. “Guy says I should ‘mourn’ my mom.”

  “Wait, didn’t you tell me she was some mega-Nazi?”

  “Yup.” I popped the ‘p’. “Like I said, it’s bullshit. And this is the guy who’s supposed to give the okay for me to go out and do hero stuff again. Like, come the fuck on, what does it have to do with anything?”

  “Sounds like a shit sandwich,” Hooks agreed. “I heard a rumour, you know, about Hannibal?” I stiffened, trying to hide my nerves with another puff and short coughing fit.

  “Oh?” I managed, eyes watering. I tried to ignore my racing heart. “What about?”

  “That it wasn’t the heroes that took him down, it was another gang.” I breathed a sigh of relief, hidden by a rush of smoke. “The Undersiders, I know you’ve heard of them. Thing is, if it was them, they didn’t do it because he was a bad guy and deserved justice, it was because they wanted a slice of his pie.”

  “Does that matter?” I asked, cocking my head. “Like they’re criminals yeah and we need to deal with them, but they can’t be as bad as literal Nazis.”

  “No,” Hooks sighed and shook her head. “Didn’t mean it like that. Just like, it wasn’t the heroes, the ones who’re supposed to do that.” Well it was one of them.

  “Yeah I guess that’s shitty,” I agreed. It was all I could do. “For my part of it, I’m just glad he went down at all. Much as I wish it was MM putting a boot on his neck, I’ll settle for Tattletale.”

  “But if it isn’t us, why’re we here?”

  I frowned, staring out at the city as I slowly smoked my borrowed cigarette. It still hurt, but the pain was clearing my head. Why was I here? Well what other choice did I have? My mom was dead, the rest of my relatives either didn’t care or weren’t viable; whoever any of them were, I only remembered Mom vaguely talking about aunts and uncles living somewhere else. Here I at least had a place to stay and, til recently, had been allowed to make a difference.

  But now the latter part wasn’t true, and the former barely applied since I spent so much time with Amy. I couldn’t just leave though, being a Ward was why I was a hero. Without them picking me up after Leviathan’s attack, god only knew where I could have ended up. If the Nazis had found me first…

  I didn’t want to think about that, but I knew I owed the PRT a lot. I had to stick by them, and they’d have my back when I actually got out into the field again. I had to believe they’d let me do that which was… Well I had to, or I didn’t know what I’d do.

  “You done?” I glanced up at Hooks, then took one final puff off the cigarette before stubbing it out and pulling up my mask.

  “Yeah, yeah I’m good,” I said, nodding and tugging at a long lock of hair that had escaped my bun. Annoying. “God my hair sucks.”

  “Does it?” Hooks asked, leaning closer. “Just looks like you haven’t taken care of it.”

  “Yeah it’s just a pain, might as well shave it all off,” I grumbled. I thought occurred and I looked up at Hooks. “Hey you uh…”

  “Want me to do you in too?” she asked with a smile, pointing at her hair. I nodded sheepishly, getting a dry chuckle. “You sure? It’s a hell of a change from, you know, having hair.”

  "My um, uh," I stammered, swallowing. "My mom was always on my ass to take care of it, made my life a pain anytime it was in a state she didn't like it. I don't know."

  "Sounds like you don't need that in your life anymore," Hooks said, clapping a hand on my shoulder and walking with me towards the stairwell. "Well come on, sure I got some clippers in my locker."

  "Thanks Hooks," I said, a smile growing on my face. "Let's make it quick, before I lose my nerve."

  We shared a chuckle as we headed down, and I felt at least a little better than when I'd left O'Keefe's office.

  “Hey Lia how wa—” Amy paused, blinking owlishly. I blushed as I locked the door behind me, scratching the stubble on the back of my head.

  “Uh, hi,” I mumbled. “How was your day?”

  “You— I mean— Um, it was fine.” A beat. “What happened?”

  “I got a haircut,” I replied, taking off my shoes and dropping my bag by the door

  “But...why?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “Kind of a long day, just bullshit at work. This um, helped, I guess. Sorry, I know it looks kind of crap but so did my hair anyway so I was just like...get rid of it, you know?”

  “It’s okay it’s…” Amy cocked her head, frowning. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t call it ‘pretty’ or anything but it’s...you?” My stomach fluttered and a smile twisted my lips.

  “Thanks,” I said, blushing. “That’s...thanks.”

  We headed in and sat on the couch. I leaned against Amy while she told me a bit about her day, or her night at the hospital as it was. Quiet, apparently, which was nice to hear; though she did qualify it by saying ‘no night is really quiet’. As we chatted, her fingers slowly scratched my newly shaved hair, making me sigh.

  “Sorry, wasn’t really a good day,” Amy said glumly.

  “It’s not that,” I assured her, putting a hand on her thigh. “Just...this is nice, that’s all.”

  “What, sitting here listening to me bitch and moan about work?” she asked sarcastically.

  “I mean, that’s what we’re doing,” I said. “But I don’t know, I’m here with you. I’m...happy.” Our eyes met, both our cheeks bright red.

  Our lips met a moment later, and I knew she was too.