I'm airborne for maybe half a second before my back slams into the office door hard enough to rattle it in the frame. One second I'm sitting in a chair with a screwdriver against my neck. The next second something hits me from the front - not a fist, not a push, what, telekinesis? I can't even recognize what just hit me. It's forceful and immediate. Just sudden movement that I didn't consent to.

  The screwdriver is gone. It's not in my hand. I don't know where it went. My lungs are empty - completely, totally empty, the way they get when you belly-flop into a pool from too high up and every molecule of air exits your body simultaneously. I slump down against the door, sliding like a sticky hand that you're peeling off the wall, until I hit the ground, trying to breathe. My vision is white at the edges.

  What the fuck was that?

  I hear heels on carpet. Maya's shoes, crossing the office. I see her, barely, reaching down and scooping something off the floor. Then, unhurried, she walks back to her desk, opens a drawer, drops something in, shuts the drawer, walks back.

  By the time I can breathe again - maybe five seconds, maybe ten, time gets weird when your lungs aren't working - she's standing over me. Not close. About four feet away. Her hands are at her sides. Her blazer isn't even rumpled.

  "I'm sorry I had to do that," she says, and her voice is pitched perfectly - concerned, regretful, the voice of a responsible adult who just had to restrain a disturbed teenager for her own safety. "You had a weapon against your neck. You were going to hurt yourself. I did what I had to do to keep you safe."

  She's talking to the room. Not to me - to whatever microphone might be sewn into my sweater, taped to the inside of my backpack, recording from my phone. She doesn't know if I'm wearing a wire or not. Honestly, good for her. She reaches down and extends a hand. I don't even know whether to grab it or swat her away, so I end up doing neither, awkwardly.

  "I understand you're upset," she continues, and I'm on my hands and knees now, coughing, gasping, trying to get my diaphragm to remember what it does. "And I understand that you've been through things that no teenager should have to go through. But coming into a government office with a weapon is not the answer, Sam. It's not the answer to whatever you think is happening."

  I look up at her. She crouches down - not all the way, just enough to be closer to my eye level - and her face is composed. Hands steady. Everything about her is exactly what it should be.

  Except her eyes.

  Her eyes are wrong. In all the times I've encountered this woman - the school presentation, the news coverage, the political speeches - I've never seen anything move behind her eyes that she didn't put there on purpose. Her pupils are pinpricks in a sea of brown so dark it looks almost black in the indirect sunlight. Her eyes are vibrating, not twitching, not glancing, vibrating, like she's scanning for something. And, despite how composed her face is, I can see the tiniest, faintest twitch of her veins and arteries against her forehead and neck.

  Her heart is going so hard that it's through the roof. Her blood pressure must be enormous right now.

  "You don't know what I've had to sacrifice," she says, quieter now, and there's something in her voice that almost sounds real. Almost. "To protect the people I love. You don't know what it costs to do this job - any of my jobs - while keeping the people who matter to me safe. You walk in here with your theories and your screwdriver and you think you understand the situation, but you don't. You don't know what's at stake for me."

  It sounds rehearsed. Not badly rehearsed - Maya doesn't do anything badly - but there's a shape to it, a pre-built quality, like a paragraph she's been carrying in her pocket waiting for the right moment to deploy. I suck in air between my teeth and gasp a little bit. Haaah-- Hoohh, okay, that's better. "Cool backstory," I wheeze. "Glad to hear it."

  "Let me explain something to you," she says, and the warmth is gone now. Back to the professional register. "You came to my office with a weapon. You held that weapon to your own neck and made threats. My receptionist heard a commotion and will confirm that you became agitated during what was supposed to be a routine meeting about community center funding."

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I'm on my hands and knees. I can breathe now, sort of. Short, shallow gasps. My back feels like someone hit it with a baseball bat.

  "I've spoken with Principal Heckerman," she continues. "I'm aware of your disciplinary record. I'm aware of the incident at homecoming. I'm aware of your mental health history, or at least the parts that are in your school file. I know that you are one more infraction away from permanent expulsion." She pauses. "I am also a city council member and ex-superhero with no criminal record, and you are a sixteen-year-old girl with a documented history of confrontational behavior and multiple diagnosed mental health conditions who just held a screwdriver to her own throat in a government office."

  She straightens up. Looks down at me.

  "There is no camera in this office," she says. "There is no recording device. If you tell anyone what happened in this room, it will be your word against mine. And we both know how that math works."

  I open my mouth. I suck in air. Then, I laugh. It's not voluntary at all, it's more like the sort of fear-cackle of a scared hyena, or a nervous comedian.

  "Get up," she says. I laugh a little harder. She reaches down, hooks me under my armpits as gingerly and cautiously as she can, as if I might reach out and bite her head off (not impossible!), and hoists me to my feet. My legs are working but they're not happy about it. My back is going to be a single bruise by tomorrow. The nice sweater has a scuff mark across the shoulder from the door frame.

  Then, she lets me go. I lurch a little bit, and hoist myself up by the door handle. "Good to see you, Maya. Remember what I said. About the Septa passes too." I cough. I can't help myself from smiling.

  Maya is standing by her desk. The screwdriver is gone. My folder is on the floor, papers scattered from when I went flying. The report Jennifer wrote. The attendance numbers. The parent feedback surveys. Splayed across the municipal carpet like evidence at a crime scene.

  "Get your shit and go," she barks.

  I look at her. She looks at me.

  "The community center proposal is real," I wheeze. My voice is hoarse. "The SEPTA partnership. The cross-district expansion. That's all real. I meant every word of it. And think about it this way," I say, bending down. I have to walk myself through the actions in my head, because my back is screaming from being, what, telekinetically thrown at the door? Excuse me for assuming the weather supervillain had weather powers. What an assumption.

  Pick up the folder. Collect the scattered pages. Put them back in order with hands that aren't shaking, which I'm proud of, because everything else is shaking. I straighten up. Smooth the sweater. Touch my backpack strap. "The more kids you help get through the program, the fewer young superheroes in this city. So you might want to consider that in your calculations. About whether or not that's a good thing."

  "Get the fuck out of my office," Maya growls.

  I open the door. Terrence is at his desk, looking up with polite concern, phone in his hand - clearly ready to call for help if necessary. "Everything alright? I heard--"

  "All good," I say. "I tripped and fell on the way out. Maya helped me up."

  He doesn't look like he believes me. I see him glance between me and the door. I turn around just enough to see Maya's face back into a perfect politician rictus. If he doesn't believe me, he's not saying anything.

  "Alright, well. Get home safe, okay? Do you need me to call anyone for you? A taxi?" he asks. Too good of a guy to be working here, I think.

  I wave him off. "I'm good. Thanks for the water earlier."

  "No problem, Ms. Small. You have a good afternoon."

  Walk yourself through it, Sam. You've been hurt way worse. You can tell there isn't even a single broken bone this time. All things considered, this went startlingly well. Elevator. Third floor, second floor, first floor, lobby. Sign out at the desk. The security guard doesn't look up.

  The doors open and the late afternoon light hits me and I almost cry. Not from pain - from the sudden sensory shift from fluorescent institutional lighting to actual sun. March sun. The kind of light that makes you remember that seasons change and time passes and the world keeps going outside of small rooms where terrible things happen.

  Patriot is still at the door. Arms crossed. Vest catching the light. He looks at me and something in his jaw tightens.

  "You good?" he asks.

  "Peachy," I say.

  He doesn't ask what happened. He falls into step behind me - half a step back, escort formation - and walks me to the bus stop. We stand there in the March afternoon, not talking.

  "You didn't have to stay out here watching me," I say, when the bus comes.

  "I don't have to do anything," he says. "But between you and me, I'm starting to get sick of my boss."

  We share a chuckle, and it feels wrong.

  Eventually, the bus comes, and I hop right on. Easy peasy. I take a window seat so I can lean against the cold glass and not worry too much about my spinal column. The bus pulls away and City Hall gets smaller and the William Penn statue catches the last of the afternoon sun.

  I threw down the gauntlet. And I'm under no illusions that it's going to get any easier from here. I just put everyone in my life at risk, mostly without their permission. Someone is going to get an arm broken. Garbage Day is going to come back. Other people are going to pay the consequences for my recklessness.

  I don't feel good about this.

  But I'm not going to feel bad about it, either.