Tasha moves to the security monitor, squinting at the screen. "It's Councilman Davis."

  "Jamal?" I'm surprised. He hasn't been to the Music Hall in months, not since I was released from the hospital. "Did anyone know he was coming?"

  Everyone shakes their heads.

  "Maybe he's trick-or-treating?" Lily suggests, already moving to unlock the door.

  "At a defunct music hall? With a briefcase?" Tasha raises an eyebrow.

  I pull the plush shark off my hair, suddenly feeling ridiculous. There's something about Jamal Davis that makes me want to seem more put-together than I am, even though he's seen me at my absolute worst.

  Lily swings the door open, and there he is - Councilman Jamal Davis, still in his work clothes despite it being Halloween night. He's carrying a leather portfolio case and looks exhausted in that particular way politicians do after too many back-to-back meetings. His bald Black head shines in the light.

  "Evening, ladies," he says, stepping inside. "Sorry to interrupt your Halloween."

  "We're just sorting candy," I say, gesturing to the colorful piles spread across the floor. "What brings you here tonight?"

  Davis glances around the room, taking in our costumes, the candy, the general teenage chaos. "I was hoping to talk to you, Sam. But..." He hesitates, looking at the others. "I can come back another time if this isn't good."

  "No, it's fine," I say quickly. "Whatever you need to say to me, you can say in front of everyone."

  He nods, coming to a decision quickly. "Actually, having everyone here might be better. This concerns all of you."

  Something in his tone sets off warning bells. I exchange glances with Tasha, who's already slipped into her analytical mode, studying Davis like he's one of her beetles.

  "Can I get you something to drink?" Amelia offers, ever the hostess. "Water? Coffee? We might have some soda in the fridge."

  "Water would be great, thanks." Davis loosens his tie and sets his portfolio on the old card table we use for meetings.

  As Amelia heads to the kitchenette, the rest of us rearrange ourselves. I clear a space on the couch, sweeping candy wrappers onto the floor. Davis takes a seat, and I notice how carefully he moves, like a man carrying something fragile inside him.

  "How have you been, Sam?" he asks, his voice gentler than usual. "Really been."

  I shrug, uncomfortable with the direct inquiry. "Fine. Getting better. The EMT program is going well."

  "I heard. They say you're a natural."

  "Blood sense helps," I reply.

  He nods, accepting the water Amelia brings him. "And the rest of you? Everyone doing okay?"

  There's a chorus of noncommittal responses - "Yeah," "Good," "Surviving midterms" - but I can feel the tension building. This isn't a social call. I don't think he does those.

  "So what's this about?" I finally ask as Davis takes a long sip of water.

  He sets the glass down carefully. "I've been doing a lot of thinking since the Shrike incident. About my role in all this. About the system we've created."

  "Your role?" Maggie asks.

  "I was one of the original supporters of the Young Defenders program," he explains. "Back when the Delaware Valley Defenders were just getting established. I thought it was a good idea at the time. A way to channel powered youth away from gangs or supervillainy."

  "It was a good idea," Lily says. "It helped a lot of people."

  Davis smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Did it? Or did it just create a different kind of problem?" He stands up, moving to the portfolio case. "I'd like to show you something I've been working on. A proposal. But first, I need to explain why."

  He pulls out a set of blueprints and some photographs, laying them on the table but not opening them yet.

  "You know what keeps me up at night?" He looks straight forward, not making eye contact with anyone. "Not the villains. Not the guns, not the drugs, not the bodies in the river. What keeps me up is the part where we, as a city, decided superheroes were a reasonable way to manage crime. Like we were outsourcing civic duty to people in costumes. And I'm part of it. I signed off on it. And when Franklin suggested the youth program, it felt as natural as breathing."

  The room goes silent. Nobody touches their candy.

  "We called it mentorship. We told ourselves it was a pipeline - keep the gifted kids away from gangs, give them training, give them a team. But look closer: what did we actually teach you? Surveillance. Combat drills. Tactics. 'Investigation skills'. We raised you like soldiers."

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  I've never heard Davis talk like this before. Or anyone, really.

  "Why was that the first thought we had? Why didn't we think: give them trades, give them education, give them places to live, to breathe, to grow into themselves? Why was the cape and mask the default model? Because somewhere along the way, all of us - voters, councilmen, even parents - bought into the comic book fantasy that violence is the only way a superhuman meaningfully contributes to the world. Part of a culture too acclimated to violence-as-entertainment. I won't pretend it's the comic industry's fault, but it makes me wonder what the world could've been."

  He pauses, running a hand over his face. "And here's the part I can't get out of my head: if we'd called it what it was, people would have called it a crime against children. We sold it to ourselves as 'keeping you safe,' but it was really about keeping everyone else safe. Supervillains - criminals, really, I shouldn't dignify the supervillain title - hesitate when they have to shoot a kid because they know the penalty is worse for child murderers. That's not safety, that's an institutionalized human shield. You were all hostages, not heroes."

  I think about my parents, about their fear every time I go out. About how they finally gave up trying to stop me and settled for tracking bracelets and check-ins. About Mom's face when she saw me in the hospital after Shrike.

  "And now the 'adults in the room' failed keeping the 'supervillains' locked up, and an escaped 'supervillain' just tried to kill a 'young superhero' because her 'superhero' mentor just happened to be the one that trained her. Isn't it all so fucking absurd?" - The f-bomb makes me jump - "That this even happened, and that they're treating you like a hero about it in the news, instead of a traumatized teenage girl thrust into an impossible situation she has no control over?"

  His voice cracks on the last sentence, and he takes a moment to compose himself. I notice Tasha has gone completely still, her eyes wide. Maggie is gripping the arm of the couch so hard her knuckles have turned white. Lily looks like she might cry. Amelia's face is unreadable.

  "I don't know what the third way looks like yet," Davis continues, softer now. "I just know it can't be this - not throwing kids to the wolves, not pretending adults in tights are a substitute for infrastructure. There has to be a way we can build something better than a holding pattern in spandex."

  He unfolds the blueprints, revealing architectural drawings of the Tacony Music Hall, but painted over, sketched over heavily in white lines. In the corner is a small little signature I don't recognize. John Horvath. Where have I heard that name before?

  "What I'm proposing is a community center. A place for powered youth to come together, to learn, to grow - without the expectation that they'll put themselves in danger." He spreads out several more drawings. "A halfway house for those who need it. Beds. Classrooms. Workshop spaces. Counseling services. Vocational training."

  He pulls out more documents - budget proposals, staffing plans, curriculum outlines.

  "The city has funds earmarked for 'metahuman youth initiatives' that have been sitting unused since the Young Defenders program was officially discontinued. I want to redirect that funding here, to something that actually serves you rather than exploits you."

  He turns to me directly. "Sam, I'd like you to be part of the pilot program. Not as a soldier, not as a symbol, but as a young person who deserves support and opportunities beyond fighting."

  I stare at the blueprints, trying to process what I'm seeing. The Music Hall transformed. Our headquarters, our home away from home, reimagined as something... legitimate. Institutional. Authorized. Contained.

  "You want to turn our base into a rec center?" Lily asks, her voice small.

  "I want to turn it into a real support system," Davis corrects gently. "One that recognizes you as teenagers first, powered individuals second."

  "And what about the Auditors?" Tasha asks. "What happens to us?"

  Davis sighs, looking at each of us in turn. "I wish I could tell you that you'll never need to put on costumes again. That the police and the NSRA and all the other agencies will suddenly become adequate. But we both know that's not true."

  He points to a section of the blueprints. "This area here - it could be a private office. With functioning locks. I don't have to know what happens behind that door. Officially."

  "You're saying you'd look the other way," Amelia translates, her voice neutral.

  "I'm saying I recognize the world we live in," Davis replies. "People aren't going to stop robbing banks with masks on overnight. But maybe if we start building something better now, the next generation won't need to choose between school and supervillainy. Won't need to become hostages to protect their neighborhoods."

  He turns back to me. "What do you think, Sam? I know it's a lot to take in."

  What do I think? I think my brain is spinning too fast to form coherent thoughts. I think I'm having trouble breathing. I think I'm hearing stars again just thinking about Shrike.

  "Why now?" I ask instead. "Why not before Shrike?"

  Davis's expression shifts, a flash of pain crossing his features. "Because I failed you, Sam. I was part of the system that put you in his path. That night at the construction site--" He stops, swallows hard. "When I saw the footage, I realized I couldn't keep pretending this was normal or acceptable. No child should have to go through what you did. No human should, really."

  "I'm not a child," I say automatically, not sure if I believe it anymore or not.

  "No," he agrees softly. "I made damn well sure of that."

  The room falls silent again. I can hear everyone breathing, can feel the weight of Davis's proposal hanging in the air. Part of me wants to reject it outright - to defend what we've built here, what we've accomplished. But another part, a quieter part, wonders what it would be like to have actual support. To not feel like we're constantly swimming upstream.

  "Could we still help people?" Lily asks. "Just... differently?"

  Davis nods. "That's the whole point. Finding better ways to help. Ways that don't require you to bleed for it."

  I look at the blueprints again, trying to reconcile the Music Hall I know with the vision Davis is proposing. "You said this would be a pilot program. What does that mean exactly?"

  "It means we start small, see what works. If it's successful here, we expand the model to other neighborhoods, other cities eventually. Create a network of support rather than isolated pockets of resistance."

  "And who would run it?" Tasha asks pragmatically. "The city? The DVDs?"

  "A community board," Davis says. "Representatives from the city, yes, but also from the neighborhood, from powered families, from the youth themselves." He looks at me meaningfully. "You'd have a seat at that table, Sam. All of you would, if you wanted."

  "A seat at the table," I repeat. I mean, it sounds absurd. The table where decisions are made, where the future is shaped. The table I've been fighting to protect without ever being invited to sit at it. The table that looms over my head like a... like a... I don't know. A bad roof.

  "I know it's not a perfect solution," Davis acknowledges. "The world we live in doesn't allow for perfect solutions. But it's a start. A different approach. We have some contacts in Chicago that have been piloting something similar for the past two years. Wouldn't it be... I don't know, nice?"

  Wouldn't it be nice?