The porch light is on. I can see Mom's silhouette through the kitchen window - laptop open, mug of something. Dad's in the living room. The TV is off, which means he was waiting up and didn't want to look like he was waiting up.

  I come in. Shoes off. Jacket on the hook. Backpack on the floor by the stairs, carefully, because there's a polymer shark helmet in there and dropping it makes a sound that's hard to explain.

  Mom looks up from the kitchen table. She does the scan - face, hands, posture, gait. The Rachel Small triage protocol, refined over three years of her daughter coming home from things she can't fully describe. No blood, no limp, no thousand-yard stare. I'm tired and a little shaky and thirty minutes late and that's it.

  "You're okay?" she asks.

  "I'm okay. I'm sorry I was late. It wasn't a fight or any legal trouble. Just sort of went out further than I thought I did." I say, which isn't really a lie, either. "Had to do some talking," I add. "All is good!"

  She nods. There's a pause where three years ago there would have been twenty minutes of interrogation, and instead she just says, "Bed."

  "We're not going to--"

  "Bed, Sam. Tomorrow."

  Dad looks up from the living room. He's got his reading glasses on and a city planning journal open on his lap and his leg is propped on the ottoman with the heating pad on his thigh, which means he did his PT stretches while I was out because he always does them while watching TV and then reads afterward. The routine of a man who has organized his evening around not thinking about where his daughter is.

  "Goodnight, kiddo," he says.

  "Night, Dad."

  He holds the look for an extra second. The look that says I know more than I'm asking about and I'm choosing to let it go tonight because you're standing in my living room in one piece and that's enough for me. Then he goes back to his journal.

  I go upstairs. Brush my teeth. Take my meds - lithium, desvenlafaxine, prazosin, glass of water, 9 PM habit happening at 11:47 PM. I am not sure if Dr. Desai would have thoughts about that. Is being late by two, three hours so bad? I mean, maybe it is.

  I lie in bed. The ceiling is the same ceiling it's been since they rebuilt the house after Mr. Tyrannosaur destroyed it, which means it's technically newer than me. I think about Torres on the sidewalk saying "one mulligan" and I think about Marco walking into a brick wall like it was fog and I think about the fact that I told a hunted kid to come find me at a building with my name on the staff board and then I stop thinking because the prazosin is doing its job and the world gets soft around the edges and I'm just gone. Awesome.

  Thursday.

  School. History essay is half-done - I wrote three pages on the Missouri Compromise during study hall and it's not my best work but it's not my worst either. English class discusses The Crucible, Act Three, the courtroom scene where the system eats the people who try to tell the truth inside it. I have a lot of thoughts and I share approximately ten percent of them because the other ninety percent would require explaining that I was detained by a federal agent twelve hours ago for helping a fugitive and I don't think that's what class participation means.

  Lunch with Alex Garcia. He's talking about his college applications, which are mostly done, and whether he should defer a year. I eat a cheesesteak and an apple and half of his fries because he offered and I listen and I give opinions when asked and I don't check my phone under the table except twice. Nothing from any number I don't recognize. Marco hasn't called. Marco doesn't have my number. Marco might not even know my last name.

  No calls from Torres. No calls from Ford, either, although I'm not really expecting any. Maybe I am? I feel like I am.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Hanging out at the Community Center after school turns into impromptu mentorship. Liam & Jasmine. Liam hits three minutes on the dragon-arms and has started learning how to stretch his neck out like an, air quotes, "Lindwurm", which is mildly terrifying. Jasmine grows a sunflower from seed to six inches in the time it takes me to explain phototropism, which I have to look up on my phone first because I am not a botanist. Zara is teaching herself how to juggle, she texts me. Not for any particular reason, and not with her powers. Just to know how to juggle.

  I check the front door of the center eleven times during the afternoon. I count.

  After, I help Mrs. Patterson reorganize the supply closet, which is a task that sounds boring and is boring and I do it because boring tasks are grounding and Dr. Desai says I need more of them. Tasha calls at seven with a drone update - she's still mapping the corridor but hasn't seen the NSRA vehicles since Wednesday night. Either they've moved their stakeout or they've adjusted their schedule. Either way, the pattern I knew is gone.

  Home by eight. Dinner is leftover chicken and rice. Homework. SAT prep - math this time, which goes about as well as it always does, meaning I stare at a quadratic equation for ten minutes and then solve it in thirty seconds once my brain decides to cooperate. That's the ADHD bargain: you can't control when your brain decides to work, but when it does, it works fast.

  Meds at nine. Bed. Ceiling.

  Marco didn't come.

  Friday.

  School. History essay turned in. It's fine. I'll get a B, maybe a B-plus if the teacher likes my thesis about compromise as a tool for delaying justice rather than achieving it. English class does Crucible Act Four - Proctor's refusal to sign the confession, the part where he chooses his name over his life. I have too many thoughts about this and, for once, I talk about them in a sort of 'I heard about this happening to a friend' way.

  I'm sure this is not going to get me any better of a reputation - people are going to be weird about the fact that I'm apparently friends with vigilantes - but people already saw me judo throw a security guard, so I'm not really pressed.

  Alex Garcia brings me a cupcake at lunch because he heard my birthday is next week. It's from the Shoprite bakery section and it has blue frosting and a little plastic ring on top.

  "It's not my birthday yet," I say.

  "I'm going to be at Drexel for admitted students day next Thursday so I'm pre-celebrating. Wear the ring, it's a shark."

  It's not a shark. It's a dolphin. I wear it anyway.

  I check the group chat during sixth period. Lily's found something - a forum thread where someone in one of the Philly cape-watching forums is asking about phase-walkers, what they can do, how their powers work. Someone corrects them that, dynologically speaking, it's 'transolid locomotion', someone corrects that person that it's called 'molecular decoupling', and an argument ensues that the original poster does not participate in. The account is two days old and has no other posts. Could be nothing. Could be a kid trying to understand what's happening to him. Could be someone doing research for the Safer Streets bounty.

  Tasha responds: I'll monitor the thread. Don't engage.

  I respond: Wasn't going to.

  Lily responds: pigeon update and sends another photo of what I think is the same pigeon, now wearing a different tiny hat.

  I respond: Whose pigeon is that?

  Lily responds: one of my relatives apparently trains carrier pigeons? lives in NYC sending me pictures.

  To which I respond: Oh, okay.

  Mentorship at four. Full group today - Zara, Liam, Alex Kirby, Jasmine. It's a good session. We do outdoor power work because the weather's nice enough. April in Philadelphia is unpredictable but today it's cooperating - mid-fifties, partly cloudy, the kind of day where you can wear a hoodie and be fine. Alex Kirby vaults the dumpster on his first try and I cheer and then make him do it again without using his hands. He almost makes it.

  The circle is about fear. I didn't plan it that way - the topics emerge from whatever the kids bring, and today Jasmine says she's scared her power is going to do something she can't control, and Zara says she's scared that people are going to find out what she can do and treat her differently, and Liam says he's scared of what he looks like when he transforms, and Alex Kirby says he's not scared of anything, which is the scariest answer because it means he's scared of everything and doesn't know how to say it. We talk about it. I don't fix anything. That's not what the circle is for. The circle is for saying the thing out loud and having someone hear it.

  After the session the kids clear out and I stay. Friday afternoon at the Tacony Community Center, the space between the structured programming and the evening quiet. Mrs. Patterson asks me to help break down the folding tables from a GED prep session that ran in the other room. I fold tables. I stack chairs. I sweep the floor of the main hall because someone tracked mud in and the custodian doesn't come until Monday.

  It's honest work. Lifting things, moving things, putting things where they go. My body doing what bodies do, no powers required. I could do this forever. I could just be the girl who stacks chairs and sweeps floors and never thinks about case numbers or coverage models or scared kids in hoodies.

  I'm carrying a stack of four folding chairs toward the storage closet when I hear the front door open.