I’m gonna need it. Those are the only words cycling through my mind as I stand opposite this guy, watching him bounce on the balls of his feet, a tight smile on his lips as he doesn’t take his eyes off me. Everyone else is standing back, some of them interested, some of them with their phones still out, until Mrs. Skies—at least, that’s what I think I heard someone call her—waves her hand and snatches everyone’s phones from their grasp. This is going to be private. Just one of those things that happens behind closed doors and gets whispered about. Easy. You know one thing I love doing? Do you really wanna know what makes me smile when I’m hunting down supervillains?

  It’s all the things they conjure up amongst themselves about me. Someone hears a story that I ate a thug alive, or another one where I skewered a guy on a flag pole and used the star-spangled banner as a rope to hang his accomplice. If there’s one thing that evil people have, it’s an imagination. I’m not saying that any of these losers are evil, but they can be creative. They’ll talk about this, whisper about it, and eventually, the sophomores will hear about it, and so will the juniors and finally the seniors. A reporter looking for a breakout story is gonna write up a half-cocked article about The Fight for First and make me look even more valuable to Ultra Force. Hell, I might even declare for the draft by the end of my first year of being in Pantheon U. Break a couple records, be the youngest superhero to get picked up by America’s most prolific team. Awards. Big contracts. Making a name for me.

  And all I’ve got to do for things like that to happen is to kill bad ideas before they catch on. Mrs. Skies might want to train the rest of them to not be afraid of threats larger than they’ll ever be, but that’s not my problem.

  Supervillains stopped calling me out personally years ago. I’ve literally had to run after a few of them as soon as I get to the scene. I wouldn’t say they’re afraid of me. They’re just cowards, naturally, because if you’re so powerful, so scary, then stop hiding behind that cowl, in those shadows, pretending to be nastier than you actually are. Superheroes sometimes aren’t even as powerful as supervillains all the time, and you don’t see us wearing cowls anymore. We go out there and beat evil down with big grins on our faces, because that’s what the public deserves.

  They deserve to know who’s saving them, and evil doesn’t deserve to hide.

  But this guy in front of me? He reeks of something different.

  Not quite evil, just…different.

  And I hate it.

  “I met your mom,” he says, finally landing on his feet. Silence stretches. “Really nice lady, by the way.”

  It comes out flat, almost unimpressed.

  “Most people already have,” I say. “But this isn’t about her. If you want, I can ask her to write you a get well soon card when this is over, since you’re such a fan.” I smile at him. “You don’t have to do this to yourself.”

  “Yeah, but to you?” He shrugs. “Of course I do. I want your spot. Who wouldn’t want it?”

  Here we go, I think, then sigh from my nose. Cheers to the slogan for the next few years of my life.

  “Yeah, well, I earned it,” I say. “And fighting another superhero for it doesn’t mean you’re actually Number One.” I look at everyone else and put on my wise, teaching-the-kiddies voice as I can, which is easy, since I’ve gone to plenty of pre-schools to teach kids on how not to be assholes. “If anyone else is thinking of trying to ‘take my spot,’ or whatever, don’t bother, OK? Go out there, save lives, and be the best superhero you can be, ‘cause it ain’t happening.” Red snorts. Jordan can’t help but smile through a clenched jaw. I look back at him. “But I’ll humor you, because it looks like you want a fight, and I could use the extra credit that someone might actually give me.”

  Mrs. Skies, arms folded, only says, “I’ve still got a class to teach. Five minutes. That’s all you get.”

  He smiles and says, “Five minutes? You’re giving me an eternity, but sure, that works.”

  “Well, at least he’s confident,” someone mutters.

  “And kinda cute,” a girl whispers.

  He almost freezes. I can literally hear his heart rate spiking in his chest.

  Mrs. Skies claps her hand. “Five minutes! Let’s go! I’ve still got a syllabus to cover, superheroes.”

  I point at her. “What I do to him is your fault.”

  “Anything except lasers, Sam.”

  His funeral, I think to myself.

  He cracks his knuckles and rolls his neck, bounces on his feet and watches me like a hawk. I don’t bother with either. I stand there, almost motionless, wondering if he’s gonna start his own ass-whopping or if I should do it for him. No lasers. No freeze breath. Fine, a good old fashioned knuckle buster, just like mom used to teach me.

  He stops bouncing, bends his knees in a crouch, and I see the split-second the air warps around him.

  Carter is in my face half a second later. His fist is inches from my jaw by the time he’s stepping forward. But he’s smarter than that. And I am, too. I turn my head. His knuckles graze my cheek. He follows his own momentum and throws himself to the side, skidding across the mats and whistling under his breath and shaking out his fist.

  Then my face stings. A sudden sharp pain that makes me wince.

  I frown and bring my thumb to my face, drag it along the aching flesh, and pull it away.

  Blood shines on my fingers, glaring at me under the fluorescent lights. More leaks down my face, across my jaw and off my chin, dripping onto the mats. I stare at the droplets near my feet, feeling my skin as it forces itself back together. I swallow. Hear my heartbeat and nothing else. I look at Carter, stare at his ripped open knuckles. Not just mine. He’s hurt, too. And he’s not healing. Not quick enough. The friction from that cut alone makes it steam.

  “Really awesome head movement,” Carter says, grinning. “Your mom trained you really well.”

  I lift my t-shirt and wipe my face, let it drop and lower myself to the mat, getting into a crouch. I thumb the blood off the floor and sniff it. A mix. Mine and something foreign, which means mine and his. Good. But not really. Two people just made me bleed. Me. You’d think I’d be afraid, you’d think I’d feel anxious that that could happen.

  Instead, there’s this weird sort of calmness coursing through me, because…ha. Haha fucking ha.

  I stand, flex my fingers and curl my hands into fists, then take a step forward.

  He drops into a defensive stance immediately, and that’s all I need to see.

  I slam my foot into his ankle, dropping him to the floor. He gasps as he hits the mats, and then chokes on the heel that smashes into his teeth. He rolls, skids, leaves blackened scorch marks across the mats, and finally slams into the far wall so hard the lights flicker and the cracks in the walls deepen and shed dust onto our shoulders. And now they’re quiet. And now they’re watching. I hum to myself as I walk across the mats, watching him groan and shake his head, massaging his jaw as broken teeth slide out of his mouth in a torrent of scarlet blood. It reeks. Reeks so badly I want to vomit. Blood like his is new to my nose, and… Wait. I sniff the air again, and my face scrunches on its own. Radiation. I step back. He’s oozing it. Not enough to kill, but it’s enough to stink and make my eyes water. I spit and knuckle my lips, then glare at him as he groggily picks himself up, a tight bloody smile on his face.

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  “Your mom hits harder,” he says quietly, then looks at me. His eyes are bright, nearly sparkling.

  Like he’s begging me to smash his skull into the concrete wall.

  I narrow my eyes. “What’s that mean? You used to be some kind of supervillain?”

  Carter stands up and fixes his jaw with a nasty crunch. Steam hisses from his mouth as his torn gums and shattered teeth heal and reconstruct. And still, he reeks even more of radiation, so much it nearly makes me dizzy.

  “No,” I say quietly, shaking my head. “You were something else. And you’re also bluffing.”

  “Yeah?” he says, that smile still tearing his healing lips apart. “Educate me on that.”

  “If Guardian hits you,” I say, now closer, so close I can shove my fingers through his stomach and come out with his spinal cord. “You’re not gonna be here trying to pick a fight with me. That getting into my head shit? Drop it. Doesn’t work. Supervillains do that, and petty superheroes, too. You wanna be number one? Then you’re either gonna have to mop the floor with me and leave me nearly dead on this floor, or I’m gonna break your back and teach you what happens when you look me in the eyes and even have the idea that you’re even on my level.”

  He’s silent. Silent for a very, very long time.

  Then: “There’s a word for you, it starts with A. Slipping my mind right now.”

  I glare at him. “When I give you brain damage there’s gonna be a lot of words you won’t remember.”

  “Ooo,” he says, grinning even wider. “Scary.”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly. “Really, really fucking scary.”

  I punch him in the face, right down the middle, crushing his nose, his cheeks, his jaw and his forehead, and smashing his skull into the concrete behind him with such a violent impact that the entire building shakes. Steam gushes around my fist as I pull it out of his mangled face, blood and bits of bone trickling off my knuckles as I shake them loose. Carter’s face is fucked. That’s the only way I can put it. His body collapses at my feet, twitching, tense, gushing steam and even more radiation. I step back and rub my knuckles on my t-shirt, then turn around to the rest of the class and spread my arms. No phones. No cameras. Just wide eyes, pale faces, and stock-still bodies.

  “Anyone else wanna check if I can bleed?” I ask them, walking closer. “Or is the party over?”

  I stop several feet away from them and scan their faces. Half of them can’t even look me in the eyes.

  Pathetic. And you call yourself superheroes, and here you are, scared of little old me.

  “Pussies,” I mutter, then jerk my chin at Carter. “Hey, teach. Wanna deal with that, or should I?”

  She swallows. Not a lot. But I see it. She adjusts her glasses and says, “Class is done for the day.” Nobody speaks. She clears her throat. “You’ll find a combat theory assignment in your e-mails. Do it before Wednesday." She walks forward and stops beside me, her voice dropped so low it’s barely a whisper. “Stay behind for me, Sam.”

  “Nice going,” Red mutters, punching me in the shoulder as she leaves. I glare at her.

  Ana finds her way closer and asks, “That was…”

  “Don’t start, Ana,” I sigh. “Not right now.”

  “I was gonna say awesome,” she whispers, grinning so wide it makes the freckles on her cheeks dance. “I think superheroes shouldn’t ‘hold back’ or whatever, because why should we? And you’re literally numero uno. More people should probably get that memo before they find out the hard way why you’re all the way up there.”

  I frown at her. “Why’re you being so…weird?”

  She keeps smiling and raises an eyebrow. “Weird?”

  “Not yourself,” I say. “You never used to bring up any of that. Hell, you used to want me to go around helping cats get out of trees and old people cross the street. Since when did you care about not holding back?”

  Ana shrugs. “Things change, I guess. Besides, Ashley was right last night. Superhumans shouldn’t be scared about using their powers just because it makes the vanillas scared. We’re the ones saving their asses.”

  I stare at her, at her face, at her tattoos and her piercings, wondering who the hell I’m talking to.

  She then pecks me on the cheek and says, “See you at the end of the day?”

  Ana leaves before I can tell her that I don’t want to.

  And now it’s me, a boy vomiting blood and teeth and sweating radiation, and an empty classroom. Mrs. Skies is helping Carter onto his feet, but soon enough, he promptly passes out. She sighs and floats him into the air in what must be some kind of invisible bubble, keeping him above our heads as she slowly walks toward me. She stops and folds her arms, glasses reflecting the lights, blindingly white and entirely hiding everything in her eyes.

  “What?” I ask her. “I said it would be your fault if anything happened to him.”

  “How hard can you hit?” she asks quietly.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Sam,” she says flatly. “How hard?”

  I blow air out of my mouth and say, “Who freaking knows? Hard enough to—”

  “Well, the school knows,” she says. “It’s hard enough to vaporize a Non-Super’s head, hard enough to tear a hole through an entire skyscraper. And that’s when you’re in the air, when all that power is coming from your shoulder and not your back. That punch? The one that nearly killed Carter? That was you on your feet, power from your hips and your back, which would’ve nearly taken down that entire fifty-inch thick concrete wall.” She gets closer, close enough for me to finally see the thinness in her eyes. “And he survived. Barely. But…he lived. That’s not a feat he’ll be proud of, because Carter would’ve wanted to win that, just like every villain you’ve fought, every human you’ve killed—they wanted to live a little longer, fight a little harder, and maybe, just maybe, get a chance at hurting you.” I clench my jaw and narrow my eyes at her. I wait until she speaks again. “You are terrifying, Sam.”

  “I’m a superhero who hits hard, big whoop,” I say. “I’ll probably declare for the draft after my first year.”

  “And they wouldn’t take you,” she says simply.

  I smile, then laugh shortly. “Right, totally, says the lady who became a teacher instead of a superhero.”

  “Oh, I’ve been a superhero. I graduated with Booster Blitz. Second in my class, right behind him.” I pause as she nods slowly. “I didn’t wash out. I didn’t find it too hard. The money was so great that I’ve got my entire family debt free and living on a farm in Western Liberty City big enough to house three-hundred people at a time. I left, Sam, because up there, where you’re rushing toward? It’s worse than what you can do. So, so much worse.” She jabs her finger into my chest. A chill crawls through my entire body, over my flesh and into my bones. “Don’t think you’re the hardest hitter on the planet. You wouldn’t crack the top fifty. Don’t flaunt your strength, don’t flash it around and make everyone scared.” She leans in and drops her voice to a level I alone can probably hear. “Don’t give this school more information than they need. So when I say restraint, I don’t mean do it for me, or for you. Do it for your future as a superhero. The best of us don’t show anyone what we’ve got in the tank. Ever. Not until we really have to. A fight in Applied Combat isn’t that place, just because it bruised your ego. I need you to be smart. Don’t go walking around, thinking you’re the hottest shit ever. PU knows a lot. Never let it know everything. If you do, so will the government, and so will some very, very, very bad people. Do not fuck this up, Sam. For your sake.”

  With that, she gently thumps my chest with the side of her fist, and takes Carter with her to the door.

  I swallow, lips and throat and mouth terribly dry, then glance over my shoulder. “Why’d you leave?”

  She stops, then says, “Another time. I’ve got to get him to the Healers. Shower and get to your next class.”

  “It’s not until after lunch,” I say.

  “Good,” Mrs. Skies says. “Then you’ve got time to make it look like you threw everything you’ve got into that sole punch. Alex already hurt you, so pretend like he really did, and act like you screwed up your hand or your shoulder throwing this punch at Carter. Play nice, act nice, and be a sweetheart like you know how to be, alright?”

  I sigh from my nose, teeth lightly clenched. “So you want me to go and make ‘friends’ with losers?”

  “I want you to be a kid while you still can.” She smiles at me. “Trust me, you’ll wish you did.”

  With that, she’s gone, Carter floating listlessly behind her, leaving blood in the air.

  Blood that stinks. Blood that makes it hard to swallow.

  Blood that clings to my fist and makes my flesh burn.

  I sigh again and pick up my backpack, because I really should’ve just stayed in bed instead.