THE RIDE BACK to my house feels too long and too short all at once. Sherman’s bike judders over cracks in the battle-scarred road; I clutch the grip bar so tight my knuckles ache.
For once, Sherman is the talkative one. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow,” she says, pulling off her helmet as I wobble off on legs that feel like skin sacks filled with porridge. “We can join the protest at city hall, then tell one of the councillors about Project Zero. Sound good?”
It’s what I’ve been working toward for the past several weeks. It’s the culmination of so much effort and fear. And it’s the last thing I want to think about, without Jav by my side.
She must know I didn’t mean it. Jav will be the wokest Harvard grad in history. She knows it, I know it, everyone does. So what I said doesn’t really matter. Right?
As if. I said what I said, and I wanted to hurt her. For once in my life, I met my goal with resounding success.
“Jones?” Shit, Sherman’s staring. “Are you…?”
I clear my throat. “Yeah. Fine. Tomorrow. I, uh…” I gesture in the direction of the prison and, no doubt, the metric shit ton of bad memories she has locked up there. “Are you…?”
“Yeah,” Sherman echoes, glaring through her reflection in her visor. “Fine.”
As if. Still, us liars got to stick together.
I trudge into my building, barely waving to the Beauvaises on the stairs. Hernando is doing something miraculous involving Mexican rice, chicken, and jalapeños. He hands me a bowl as soon as I’m through the door. “Good timing, mija.” Mija. All of it—that name; the rich smell of tomato bouillon; the thwip of the messages Lyssa pings to whoever she’s arguing with on Discord … Home is too vast a concept to fit in that single word. Too vast, even, for Project Zero to take away. I know, deep down, that just this once, always-right Jav got it wrong, wrong, wrong.
I joined Hench for myself, but I’m gonna blow the whistle on Project Zero for everyone. For Sloan Street. For Bridgebrook. If my best friend can’t see that … Well, I’ve been through a lot lately. Perhaps too much for us to be best friends anymore.
That thought stings as much as when I left Artie’s behind me, along with our perfect last summer. I slump on the couch in front of the TV and try to dull all brain activity by watching the ads that play before the news.
Hernando and Lyssa join me once food is ready. No attempt at conversation, which is both gratifying and a cause for concern. We all share the chismosa gene; if I’m not fielding questions about my mood, my family must be feeling merciful, which means I look as shit as I feel.
The news starts on the hour. Today’s broadcast kicks off with a montage of the pro-march posters that plaster every available surface in Bridgebrook. They drum up support from every industry: retail, construction, sanitation, and far more besides. Some of the Hench posters—black masks with crossed green tape over where the mouths should be—have been ripped down. More remain up, though, daring the world to keep silencing us.
“You joining?” I ask Hernando.
He sieves spiced red broth through his mustache. “Not officially. The Mart don’t support this kinda thing.”
“You won’t go in your warehouse uniform, then?”
He blows too forcefully on his next spoonful. Red-stained rice spatters our carpet. “No. But still, I could always head down on my lunch break. Might see you there.”
I get the underlying message. If I’m to attend the protest, he doesn’t want me in a mask.
I’ve disappointed a lot of people this summer. Matias. The Captain. Jav. Yet somehow, despite everything, I’ve managed to avoid disappointing Hernando. Which makes the fact I fully intend to stand by Sherman tomorrow in Hench uniform really kinda suck.
“Is that your totally-not-a-girlfriend?” asks Lyssa. She waves her spoon at the TV. Sure enough, the story has changed. Now a candid shot of Sherman dominates the screen. The image must be a few years old. You can tell because she looks about fifteen—and because she’s mid-battle, wrapped in a blue sidekick’s uniform.
The half-chewed chicken sours in my mouth. I remember to shut my jaws before it falls out.
“Turn it up,” I croak.
“Remote’s in your crack.”
“Lyssa!” says Hernando, scandalized. It’s gonna take some getting used to, him being home.
“Sofa crack,” Lyssa corrects herself. “Damn, Riles, you’re dating a sidekick?”
No. Sherman’s not that, not anymore. And if this is being dug up on TV, it can’t be good.
The shake starts in the tips of my fingers. It progresses from there, swarming up my arms. I wedge my hand into the furrow between the cushions, from whence dropped change may never return. It emerges, triumphant, holding the remote. I jab the volume button and the reporter’s voice swells like oncoming thunder: “… leader of the henchmen, revealed. Sofia Sherman is a D-class Super of a minor Surger/Shaper discipline, capable of freezing one five-by-five circle of air at a distance under twenty yards from her position.”
“Sofia,” I repeat. That’s a pretty name. Weirdly disappointing, to learn it from TV. Guess I hoped she’d be the one to tell me.
“Until her expulsion from the Super Squad,” the news anchor continues, “Miss Sherman sidekicked for Crystalis, one of our most promising A-class recruits in the junior division. Crystalis is here with us in the studio to shed further light on Sofia, as well as to discuss her motivations in orchestrating this demonstration and disguising her own identity by pretending to be a powerless citizen—or a ‘Normie,’ as we are colloquially known. Please, Crystalis—when did you first meet Miss Sherman?”
Our view of the studio reels back. Sherman’s face shrinks into blurry insignificance behind the reporter, a fine-boned older man with backswept, graying hair. It’s hard to concentrate on him with Crystalis perched on the plush sofa opposite, hands clasped over her crossed thighs.
Perfect, perfect, perfect. The bow of her lips; her long, dark lashes; her catlike green eyes. It’s as if whatever created her worked down a checklist. She’s even more beautiful than she seemed during that fight at the start of the summer, when Sherman shot her off the Flamer’s back. Her hair cascades past her shoulders in lush ginger waves; her skin is pale as cream, smooth as silk. A formfitting yet conservative emerald dress hugs her from bust to knees.
In short, she could step on me and I would say thank you. Though that changes as soon as she opens her mouth.
“Dear Sofia—or Shieldling, as we knew her back then. She started training to be my sidekick when she was thirteen. They paired us up in our first class, and we were together for three years. The perfect match.”
I can picture it now: Sherman combing snarls from those thick red locks, while perfectly manicured hands pinned her to a chaise longue (whatever one of those might be). The two of them wrapped around each other like cats. Pressed together, parting, pink lips cresting a smooth umber neck …
“And for a while,” continues Crystalis, while I, overlooked by the world, hug my knees to my chest in mimicry of the hard knot inside me, “I actually believed it.”
The reporter makes sympathetic noises. “What went wrong?”
Crystalis sighs, winding her hair together and draping the thick red snake over one shoulder. “It started with the little things. An earring here. A ring there. I suppose she just couldn’t help herself, coming from her background.”
Somewhere in Bridgebrook, in a house I have yet to visit, Sherman is watching this. What does she think? What does she feel?
I want to message her, insist I’m not listening—but I am, even if I don’t believe it. Pegs pin my eyelids. Can’t blink, can’t move, can’t look away.
“It escalated, of course,” Crystalis continues. “My father did warn me—these things always do. She got bolder. More reckless. I caught her in the act, looting my late grandmother’s jewels from my vanity.”
“And how did you react?”
“Well, I was angry, of course! But I also felt sorry for the poor girl. She hadn’t had the same opportunities as me. I gave her a chance to return everything, to apologize.” Crystalis actually dabs at her eyes. “Shieldling laughed in my face. Walked out the door. Really, my only regret is that I couldn’t reach her. That I couldn’t convince her to do the right thing.” She sniffles. “I’m a heroine. That’s my job. To inspire people to do good. But I failed with Shieldling, and that is my cross to bear.”
The knot expands until it chokes me. I want to scream like a preschooler: Liar, liar, pants on fire! I’ve never wished Amelia’s fate on anyone so strongly.
Unfortunately, my glare doesn’t develop the power to make people spontaneously combust. Crystalis stays right where she is, winning over the population of Sunnylake with each tremble of her underlip, each hitch of her delicate breath.
The reporter leans closer, letting the cameras get a good shot of his kindly eyes. “Was it after this that the … altercation happened, with Miss Sherman’s father?”
“Yes. She couldn’t bear to face me, so she sent him in her place. He proceeded to attack my father, unprovoked. In truth, it only makes me feel sorrier for Shieldling. Imagine what she suffered at home…”
This is insane. Sherm loves her dad; I see it in her eyes whenever she saddles up. I know what abused kids look like, thanks to our bathroom mirror. I can’t believe he’d ever hurt her.
“My bullshit-o-meter’s going off,” Lyssa comments. I could bundle my sister in my arms right now and give her a slobbery kiss.
Hernando’s eyebrows hurtle toward his hairline. “Come again?”
Lyssa grimaces. “Bull … crap?”
“Keep trying.”
“Lie meter. Sheesh.”
Hernando nods to himself, settling back against the sofa’s plucked, patchy arm. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I fumble out my phone. Lyssa’s not the only one to dispute this; several tweeters demand Sherman’s side of the story. However, the bulk of comments are dedicated to her own lies. Those are the ones using words like betrayal.
Super speaking over Normies? Jfc not surprised typical Powered Privilege
She faked being a Normie for sympathy points? Gross
Canceled. Canceled, canceled, canceled.
Shrug emojis, eye rolls. Dismissal. They shrink down everything Sherman, my Sherman, is. Reducing her to a single mistake.
Hernando’s beautiful rice bubbles at the back of my throat. I shove my unfinished bowl to Lyssa.
“Sorry,” I choke. “Gotta go.”