I stand corrected, someone actually is strong enough to bruise me. The locker room I found down the hallway is full of people, packed to the gills with agents talking to younger superheroes trying to get their custom-made superhero costumes to fit. Parents take pictures and try not to tear up as teenagers sheepishly tell them to cut it out. Younger siblings scurry around, excitable and having the time of their lives. I feel weirdly alone walking into the locker room, having to force myself through walls of shoulders and backs and elbows. Finally, I reach my own scarlet locker, tucked so deep into the room itself that the air back here is kinda musty and sweaty and stinks of expensive perfume and sponsored deodorant. Everyone in this room is Ranked. If there’s only eighty of us, at least most of us here are in the top five-hundred Junior Capes in New America. Yours truly, like the number tagged beside Samantha Luck - Sentry, is ranked above them all. Number one never looked so good, I think to myself, and then wince a little.

  Logan did a freaking number on my shoulder. Every time someone accidentally shoves against me, pain bursts through my chest. The air is denser, a little thicker, and I can almost hear a silent hum coming from the walls.

  I spot red blocky letters above the locker room’s entrance. Power Dampening Zone, Be Advised.

  Right. Makes sense. Wouldn’t want anyone getting so nervous they accidentally have another Awakening all of a sudden and turn half the people in this room into piles of ash. But man, my fucking shoulder hurts like hell!

  God, is this what normal people feel like when they break their arm or stub their toe? This sucks.

  At least the costume neatly folded inside the wooden locker kicks so much ass that it almost makes up for it. My usual colors are light blue and gold. Simple and heroic, just the way I like it. This, though? This puts my old, torn-up costume to shame. The one mom probably forgot in the washing machine back home is fraying at the seams and getting to the point where it rips itself a new hole when I even look at it funny. It’s a miracle I haven’t had a major screw up in public wearing that thing, but it’s so molded to my body now that it fits like a freaking glove.

  This one is different. This one feels like real, top-of-the-line spandex. Dark, navy blue, soft gold on the shoulders going all the way down to the fingerless gloves. The large golden S on its chest glimmers under the lights, and I slowly have to trace my fingers along the golden curves and lines and invisible stitching. Holy shit, I think to myself, pulling on the fabric. I can barely tear a hole through this thing. This is the good stuff. The really good stuff. I guess that’s what happens when you go to a program that’s been ranked lowest second in the country over the past one-hundred years that it’s been open. I hold my costume’s top in front of me, trying not to grin.

  “Big leagues, baby,” I whisper. I pull out my phone and take a picture of it, grinning into the camera.

  “Really?” someone in the locker opposite mine says. I lower my phone. A girl with tongues of short, red hair is sitting in her locker, chewing loudly on a piece of gum as she rolls her wrists. Her arms are exposed because of her costume, and she breathes Elemental. Her costume is almost like mine, except hers stops at the shoulders. I haven’t seen Phoenix in ages. Not since she was massive news, decommitting from Texas’ program and joining PU.

  “Some of us have millions of people who can’t wait to see what we’re up to,” I say, then click post. I turn off my phone before the poor thing starts vibrating itself into bits. “I can’t say the same thing for you, sparkles.”

  Her eye twitches, making the stud in her eyebrow quiver. Smoke very discreetly pours out of her skin.

  “Oh, relax,” I tell her, pulling off my jacket. “I’m just playing around. Why’re you always so serious?”

  Phoenix leans back into her locker, then brushes imaginary lint off the gold and crimson fireproof spandex. “Whatever, nepo-hero,” she says. I pause, jaw going so clenched it hurts. I can hear her smiling. “Touched a nerve?”

  Breathe, Samantha. In. And out. She’s a superhero, too. Just a really annoying one.

  And also only ranked 6th in the nation, so…you know, small fries to me.

  I wave my hand over my shoulder. “A lot of talk for not even being in the top five.”

  “Pretty easy getting there when your mommy makes it easy.”

  I chew the edge of my tongue, then slowly turn around. “What did you just say?”

  “Super-hearing ain’t working?” she asks, Southern-twang heavy on her tongue.

  “How about you go back to letting buses full of people get crushed,” I say. Suddenly, she sits a little upright, eyebrows screwing tightly together. “Or was it letting that bridge get blown up?” I shrug. “Dunno, you fuck up so many times I’m honestly impressed they even let heroes like you in here. I guess the school was desperate.”

  Phoenix stands up. She’s as tall as me, but physically more muscular, but more lean than muscular, if we’re being honest. Bulky, hulking superheroes don’t exist outside of cartoons. Just not that practical unless you’re a Bruiser. She gets in my face, and just like that, I spot a phone behind her and a few people quietly muttering. I lift up my chin and bite the inside of my mouth, trying not to smile and ultimately losing. Her eyes narrow. Tiny red embers spark in her forest of red hair. Phoenix is cute, like a candle that sputters and flares and has a bad habit of suddenly having a meltdown when you least expect it. She’s also intense. Very intense. We first met years ago.

  When we were still in the pee-wee leagues, going to some training camp for little superheroes. We shared a cabin that summer, roasted smores on her hair, giggled all night long as we told each other stupid stories. And then she burnt down the entire cabin one day because I didn’t like when she’d called me that name, nepo-hero. I wasn’t even old enough to really know what it meant, but I knew I hated it with how she spat it at me, then one thing led to another, she pushed me, I punched her, she flew into a rage and burst into flames. Nobody died. Barely. Mostly because I had to make sure nobody did die.

  It’s a miracle she’s not in prison right now, tell you what. She’s a fucking joke of a superhero.

  “Keep getting closer, Red,” I say quietly, “and we might as well just kiss this out, right?”

  “Don’t call me that,” she snarls, then shoves me into my locker. I roll my bruised shoulder, the purple gash even louder under the bright fluorescent lights. Power dampening, right. I grunt and stand up, and I figure that’s why there’s only smoke coming off her skin and not a full on flesh-melting blaze. She points a finger into my chest, keeping me half an arm’s length away from her. “And you don’t get to judge me. None of those were actually my—”

  “Here we go,” I sigh, shaking my head. “Dancing around accountability, like you always ha—”

  She sucker punches me in the jaw. Bang. Right in my fucking mouth.

  It’s not enough to throw me into my locker again, but it’s more than enough to snap my head around. The entire locker room is silent. Eyes stare, parents pull their younger kids away and inch toward the door. A guy with a camera who’d been filming short interviews pans toward us, zooms in. I taste blood on my teeth, pull back my lips and press my tongue against a loose tooth. I spot myself in my locker’s reflection, and stare at the blood on my split lip. I lick it off, use my thumb to clean up the rest of it, then wipe it onto my stomach. I flex my fingers and nod at Red. Her shoulders are rising and falling, and God, she’s always had such a quick temper, but that’s what you get for letting castaways join your superhero program. Maybe PU wants to prove they can also reform promising kids who are very destined to end up becoming supervillains or petty thugs, the kind that become right-hand men to villains.

  “Nice, Red, real nice,” I say, then spit blood on her golden boots. I knuckle my mouth clean.

  But don’t swing, because I might not like humans, not even a little bit, but I don’t kill superheroes.

  Even if I really, really want to put my fist halfway through her face.

  I’m an idiot, I’m rebellious, I have a hard time listening to orders, but I’m not stupid. Can you imagine the absolute meltdown my sponsors, agent and manager would have if they found out I got expelled on my first day?

  I’d be everywhere, sure, but not in the good way like I usually am.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  So, even though I hate this, I put up my hands in surrender. “My bad, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Red scoffs at me. “Of course, taking the high road when everyone’s watchin’. Really classy.”

  I shrug. “That’s what the best do, take the high road, be better, not, you know, lash out.”

  She almost looks like she wants to punch me again.

  “Helllloooo freshmen!” someone cheers. Everyone turns toward the doors, except Red, who folds her arms and glares at me as I blow her a bloody kiss. A short brown-haired girl with glasses is at the locker room’s entrance, with a big white smile and a massive clipboard pressed to her chest. She’s in a red and white pantsuit, with a pin on her blazer that says, President. “Oh my God, look at all of you! I remember my first time in here, nervous and giddy and filled with so much awe and wonder!” She grins even wider somehow. I throw the top half of my costume over my shoulder and wait for her to finish talking. “Don’t worry,” she says with a wink, “if anyone needs to go number two because of your nerves, the bathrooms are first door down the hallway on your left. Trust me, it happens a lot.” She looks around. So does everyone else. A couple of guys snicker and shove each other. “Alrighty then! Looks like everyone is set. So, the ceremony is gonna be pretty straight to the point. All we need you guys to do is sit in your allocated seats, listen to a couple of speeches, a select few of you will have interviews afterward, and then we’re going to have the actual orientation, lunch with your sophomore parents for the day, and then you’ll be free to unpack, relax, and get cozy on campus! Exciting, right?” Someone coughs. Someone else awkwardly claps. “I’ll take that as a yes! Awesome! So…” She checks her clipboard, mutters to herself, then says, “Is Jason Stafford here?” A tall, handsome-looking guy with black hair puts up his hand. “Anddd”—she checks her clipboard again—“are Jordan Winters, Summer Stride, Kory Nakamura, Sydney Livingstone, and…Samantha Luck, everyone present?”

  A series of hands go up, including mine and Red, despite my blood still being on her knuckles.

  “Great!” she chirps. “You’ll all go last, in that order, with Sam coming out at the very end.”

  I nudge Red. “It’s ‘cause I’m important.”

  She shoots me a glare and says nothing.

  The girl claps her hands together. “Everyone else, don’t forget, you are equally as special! Now get your gear on, get your wedgies pulled, and put your smiles on, because there’s going to be eighty-thousand people in that stadium and about ten million people watching this live, so…no pressure. Smile, wave, and act natural, OK?”

  With that, she beams one last time, spins on her heels, and leaves. Slowly, so does everyone else.

  Until six other superhumans are awkwardly standing around in the suddenly silent locker room.

  “So,” Jason, the guy with black hair and intense blue eyes says, clapping his hands together—his costume is a little different, still skin-tight, just padded with kevlar body armor and a red utility belt around his waist. “This is fun so far. Since we’re probably gonna be here for a while, we should introduce ourselves. I’m Jason. Or Bandit.”

  “Never heard of you,” Red—Sydney, or whatever—grunts as she sits on a bench.

  “I’m a little more…low-key with my superhero work,” he says sheepishly. “New Washington, around Old-Port sometimes, just…you know, around on the ground and the alleys.” I raise my eyebrow. “So, whose next?”

  “Hi!” a tall, athletic-looking girl says. Short, blonde hair, somehow wilder than mine. She’s more leg than she is upper body, wearing an entirely scarlet costume with a golden leather jacket that stops just beneath her chest, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, too. It looks like a bag of freckles exploded across her cheeks and her nose, and she’s also got a scar splitting one eyebrow. The girl zips from the corner she’s been standing in toward Jason, vigorously shakes his hand, and says, “I’m Summer. It is so good to meet you guys.” Then she’s in front of Jordan, then a Japanese guy who’s silently been watching us and smoking a cigarette in the corner, to Sydney, and finally in my face, where she grabs my hands and shakes them so hard my entire body rattles. She grins and plants her fists on her hips. “I’m Blitz! I come from a reallllyyyy long line of Speedsters. My dad isn’t Booster Blitz, though. At least, I think he’s not. He slept with a lot of people back in the day, according to the rumors, but my mom never went to this school so I don’t think he’s my dad, unless he…” She stops talking, still smiles as we all look at her. She clears her throat. “I’m Summer. Summer Stride. Most of my family comes from the West Coast, ergo, that’s where my dad is.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know your old man,” Red mutters.

  “Yeah, I don’t, because we buried him in the West Coast.”

  We stare at her some more.

  “I’m, uh, sorry for your loss,” Jason says, scratching the back of his head.

  “No biggie,” Summer says, shrugging. “Didn’t know him, anyway. What’s your name?”

  Jordan, still puckering her lips and making sure her lipstick doesn’t smear, lowers her handheld mirror and raises an eyebrow. Her wings aren’t as big as her mother’s, but they’re large enough to rest around her shoulders like a sheath of white cloth. Tall, freshly done braids, sharp eyes that glow like gold, and an attitude. “Like you don’t already know who I am,” she says, putting away her mirror. “Ranked Fourth in the Nation, semi-finalist for Junior Cape of the Year, and the youngest superhero to ever stop three S-Grade supervillains in one month. You know me.”

  Jason whistles quietly. “Look at you, one heck of a nerd to keep up to date with all that math.”

  Jordan freezes, then narrows her eyes at him. “Nerd? Is that what you just called me?”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “I am a lot of things, alley-boy,” she says, and Jason smiles at that, “but I am not a nerd.”

  “Is…is it a bad thing to be one?” Summer asks, then spreads her arms. “I like comics. Am I a nerd?”

  “Major nerd,” Red says.

  Summer pouts.

  “I’m with her,” I say, jerking my thumb at Jordan. “Who needs an intro when you’ve got accolades?”

  “Mommy’s accolades, sure,” Red says quietly.

  I try my best not to glare at her, or even look at her, so help my God.

  A cheer erupts above us, muffled and choked by the concrete. The distant shriek of jets tearing through the sky echoes down the hallway. Suddenly, halfway through putting on my costume, I pause and listen to the stadium shake and shudder, like it’s very own living beast. I hear heartbeats spike, mouths swallowing and bodies tensing.

  I guess, at the end of the day, we’re all still kids.

  “Oh, I know you!” Summer zips toward me, nearly making me trip over as I force a leg into my spandex pants. “You’re uber famous where I come from. My uncle even has a Sentry Sauce for his burger place. Can I have your autograph?” Gone, then back in front of me with a notepad and a pen—a notepad already filled with dozens of other signatures. I shrug and scribble Sentry onto it, then finish it with a tiny star at the end. She grins. “Awesome.”

  “Hey,” Phoenix says. I look down at her, expecting to rain some more on Summers’ parade (which is doing wonders for my ego, tell you what, folks), but instead, Red is gesturing at the Japanese guy watching us through a light cloud of smoke. His eyes are etched with sleep. He’s not even got his costume on. Still in baggy black pants, an old black military jacket, and a thin silver necklace that hangs from his throat. “How’d you get a cigarette in?”

  He pulls it out of his mouth and blows smoke from his nose. “Do you really wanna know?”

  “Gross,” Red says, pulling her hand away.

  “Gross?” he asks. “What’s so gross about keeping it in my back pocket?”

  “What?” Phoenix says. “They didn’t search you?”

  “Why would they search me?” he asks, leaning back inside his locker. “I’m a superhero.”

  She looks around, then says, “They searched you guys, didn’t they?”

  Everyone shakes their heads. Well, mom technically did, but that doesn’t count.

  Red stands up, half a smile on her face. “So I’m the only one they strip searched? What the fuck?”

  I almost laugh. Almost. It balances on my lips and I’ve got to swallow it whole, because since when do superheroes get strip searched? I could waltz into high school with a bomb in my backpack because everyone knew I was a part-time superhero who’d never do any harm. The image of Red stark naked getting searched nearly does it.

  But I’m a professional here, so I’ll laugh at her about this later.

  “That’s what you get for being a criminal,” I quietly sing.

  “Don’t you fucking start, ‘fore I punch you in the mouth again, nepo-hero.”

  I wave her down. “Behold, everyone—the delinquent returns to her violent state when provoked.”

  She punches me in the ribs this time. I double over and cough so hard I almost feel my lungs sliding into my throat. I wheeze and spit saliva onto the floor, then glare up at her. Jordan snorts. The Japanese guy smirks a little. Summer lends me a hand, but I wave her off, roll my shoulders, and firmly pat Red’s shoulder so hard she flinches. I have a really awesome comeback lined up right now, but…I’m still trying not to puke my guts out.

  So I’ll let the walking-talking fire-hazard off the hook this one time.

  Bitch.

  It’s not long before the girl with the clipboard is back. “You guys ready?” she asks, eyes sparkling.

  I finish stretching out my suit, roll my shoulders, and pretend both my rib, jaw, and shoulder don’t sting. I nod, and so does Jason. Summer is hopping up and down like she’s at a track meet. The guy smoking puts out his nicotine and stuffs it inside his pocket. Red cleans the blood off her knuckles, and Jordan’s wings ruffle a little.

  “As ready as we’ll probably ever be,” I say quietly, throat dry. So, so dry.

  “Great,” she says, then sweeps her arm out of the door. “Let’s go and make you superstars.”