After school, Melissa and I go to the library. SAT prep. This was her idea - she's been on my case about it since I mentioned I hadn't started, and Melissa has the kind of gentle persistence that makes it impossible to say no without feeling like you've kicked a puppy. She's got a prep book the size of a phone book and color-coded tabs marking the sections she's already completed.
"You haven't done any of this," she says, looking at my blank practice test.
"I've been busy."
"Sam. The SATs are in May."
"I know. That's like six weeks away."
"That's not a lot of time!"
"I learned the entire periodic table in one night for a bet with Jordan. I think I can handle some analogies."
She throws an eraser at me. I catch it. We spend two hours working through math sections - I'm better at this than I expected, the ADHD brain actually cooperates with standardized math because it's pattern recognition and I like patterns. The verbal sections are harder. Reading comprehension requires sitting with long passages and my eyes want to skip ahead. Melissa shows me her trick - read the questions first, then the passage, so you know what you're hunting for.
"That's actually genius," I say.
"That's literally in the first chapter of the prep book. Which you would know if you'd opened it."
"Bold of you to assume I own a prep book."
She slides hers across the table. "Borrow mine. I have a second one." Of course she does.
Wednesday after school - mentorship hours for this week. The center is humming along - six kids today, which is a new high. Jasmine's in her spot by the window, sketchbook out, headphones in. Zara's doing homework with that intense focus that means she's either locked in or completely lost. Liam and another kid - new, I think his name is Lyle - are playing cards at one of the tables. Alex isn't here today, which means he's either at school late or doing the thing where he pretends he doesn't need the center and then shows up Friday acting like he never left.
I help Zara with her algebra again. She's getting better - factoring comes naturally now, and she's starting to see the patterns without me pointing them out. The glass marbles float between her fingertips while she thinks, tiny disco balls catching the light. She doesn't even notice she's doing it anymore. That's progress - her power is becoming background, not foreground. Something she does while she lives, not something that defines her living.
Patricia pulls me aside on my way out. "The pilot evaluation is coming up. Jamal wants numbers - attendance, outcomes, parent feedback. Can you help me put together the report?"
"Yeah. I'll work on it this weekend."
"Thank you, Sam." She squeezes my arm. "This place wouldn't be what it is without you."
I nod and leave before my face does something embarrassing.
Thursday morning, parkour with Alex. 6:30 AM, the rooftop near the center. He's restless - always is - but he's learning to channel it. We work on egress today - three different routes off this roof, timed. He's getting faster. His landings are quieter. When his palms get squeezed, he's not offgassing anymore. He must've been working on that all week, like getting good at holding it in. The gloves Amelia's working on aren't ready yet but we're managing without them.
"When do I get to do the real stuff?" he asks, hanging from a fire escape.
"This is the real stuff."
"This is jumping off buildings."
"Spider-Man never jumped off a building?" I challenge him.
He stares at me, and then looks away, blinking a couple of times, slowly hauling himself up by his arms and elbows.
"This is learning how to not die when you need to leave somewhere fast. That's the most real stuff there is." I pull him up. "Rule one?"
"You are always learning to leave," he recites, rolling his eyes. "I know, I know."
"Good. Same time next week."
Thursday afternoon I sit in my room with the legal pad. Fresh page.
I've been thinking about this for a week - since the bus ride home from Silverstein's office, since the Victor call, since Desai. The shape has been forming in the background, underneath the routine, underneath the SAT prep and the mentorship hours and the patrol. Now I'm looking at it directly.
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Maya Richardson. City Councilwoman. Stormrise. Mrs. Zenith. However many names she has, she's one person. And I need to sit across from her and have a conversation.
Not a confrontation. Not an interrogation. A conversation. The same way I sat across from Silverstein - legitimate business, real concern, and underneath it, a revolver pressed against her belly. Passing a smooth metal barrel back and forth between the two of us. Russian Roulette. Don't blink.
I pick up my phone and call her council office. It rings twice.
"Councilwoman Richardson's office, this is Terrence."
"Hi, Terrence. My name is Sam Small, I'm the associate program coordinator at the Tacony Community Center - the pilot youth mentorship program in Councilman Richardson's district? We're doing outreach to council members about the program and I'd love to schedule a brief meeting with Councilwoman Richardson herself. I know it's Councilman Davis's program and all that, but... You know. I mean. It's in her district." I say, starting from the script I have written down on my notepad and immediately diverging once I hit the edge of "Tacony Community Center"
There's a pause. Slightly longer than the pause at Silverstein's office. "Sam Small?" Terrence repeats.
"That's right."
"Let me check the councilwoman's availability." More typing than Dana did. More silence. "She has an opening Monday afternoon at 4:00. Would that work?"
Monday. Five days from now, right after school. I won't even have time to get changed into any kevlar. That's fine. That's good. Enough time to prep, not enough to overthink.
"That's perfect. Thank you."
"Can I get a callback number and the subject of the meeting?"
I give him my number. "The subject is the community center program - expanding support across council districts. We're reaching out to all council members, not just Councilman Davis."
"Got it. We'll see you Monday, Ms. Small."
I hang up. My heart is doing the metronome thing again - fast but steady.
She's going to know. The second Terrence tells her Sam Small called to make an appointment, she's going to know this isn't just about the community center. And she's going to take the meeting anyway, because Maya Richardson doesn't dodge. She's too proud. Too curious. Too confident that she can handle whatever a seventeen-year-old brings to her desk.
That's what I'm counting on.
I flip the legal pad to a new page.
MAYA MEETING - MONDAY 4:00 PM GOALS:
- Show enough cards to introduce uncertainty
- Let her see the shape of what I've built without drawing the lines
- Don't reveal sources. Don't name names. Don't give her anything she can act on.
- Read her reaction. What does she do when she realizes the floor might not be solid? RULES:
- Community center business is REAL. Lead with it. Mean it.
- You are a scared teenager asking for help. That's not a lie.
- Don't threaten. Don't accuse. Don't bluff harder than you can back up.
- No Garbage Days.
- You're not trying to win today. You're trying to start a clock.
I look at the list. It's similar to the Silverstein list but the stakes are different. Silverstein was a diagnostic - figure out what he knows. Maya is a provocation - make her wonder what I know. With Silverstein, I was reading the room. With Maya, I'm furnishing it.
I don't know what she's going to do. I don't know if this is smart. I don't know if two weeks from now I'll be sitting in Desai's office explaining why I walked into a lion's den with a folder full of community center paperwork and a prayer, or if I'll be in a hospital because she decided to shoot me or hit me with lightning or whatever.
This is my gamble. I think she won't do it.
Davis told me himself - they created an institution that turns young superheroes into hostages, because the federal heat for killing one is too much for any one supervillain to bear unless they have a death wish. He made that perfectly clear.
And you know what? I agree with him. This is my ticking clock - I have about three weeks and a year where I can still use "I'm a minor" as armor, and after that, the jig is up. After that, the war is going to get worse. This is the time pressure. Can I get Maya out of the way fast enough to get to Mr. Antithesis, or will we have to settle for protecting Philly and let the big trucks slam into the Kingdom's main apparatus? And what about Rogue Wave? Rush Order will beat me up in public - will he kill me in private?
No, I don't think so either. I'm an infinite spectacle flywheel, and I think they spent too long letting me get here. Maybe when I just started this thing they could've rubbed me out and just a family grieves and it becomes news for a while and the news cycle moves on, but not anymore.
They made a mistake letting me get this far.
Every institutional thread is being pulled by someone who isn't me. Ford has Bellwether. Tasha has the Songbird money trail. Jamal has Silverstein. The Inquirer has the financial angle. Rachel's coalition has the political pressure. The DVD has boots on the ground. The machine is running.
And the one thing the machine can't do - the one thread that nobody else can pull - is sit across from Maya Richardson, face to face, and let her see that the girl she's been trying to break is still here. With a community center full of kids behind her and a list of people who would burn the city down if anything happened to her.
I'm not going in to win. I'm going in to throw down my gauntlet. And then I'm walking out, and Maya gets to decide what she does with what she saw.
Friday, I do something I haven't done in a while. I go to synagogue with Mom. Not because I'm feeling particularly religious - I'm not sure what I am, spiritually - but because Mom asked, and because sitting in a room full of people doing something ancient and repetitive and communal feels right this week. The rabbi talks about something from Exodus - the Israelites at the Red Sea, the moment before the water parts, when they had to walk forward before the miracle happened. You don't get the miracle first. You walk into the water and trust that something will hold you up.
I'm not sure I believe in miracles. But I believe in walking forward.
Saturday is patrol. Sunday is rest. Monday is Maya. Everything is exactly where it should be. The weekend goes about as normally as I can expect it to.
Monday morning, I wake up early. I shower. I put on the nice sweater - the same one I wore to Silverstein's office, because it worked last time and I'm not above superstition. I eat breakfast with my parents. Mom asks where I'm going and I tell her I have a meeting at City Hall for the center. Not a lie. Not the whole truth.
"Good luck," Dad says.
"Thanks."
I grab the community center folder, my legal pad, and my phone. I check the list one more time - the strategic one, the names, the threads. And underneath it, the other list. The weight.
I walk to the bus stop. The March air is cool but not cold. The sun's out. Spring.
I get on the Broad Street Line heading south.