For the next hour, we put them through increasingly difficult control exercises. Nothing flashy, just fundamentals - the boring but essential stuff that might keep them alive if their powers ever go haywire.

  "Okay, Liam, try this," I say, positioning myself across from him. "Transform just your hand, but maintain it while I distract you."

  He nods, his face scrunching in concentration as black scales ripple across his right hand. Once the transformation stabilizes, I start rapid-fire questions.

  "What's the capital of Pennsylvania?"

  "Harrisburg," he answers, scales wavering slightly but holding.

  "Square root of sixty-four?"

  "Eight."

  "Name of your first pet?"

  "I never had--" The scales flicker and start creeping up his wrist. He takes a deep breath, focusing, and pushes them back down to just his hand.

  "Good recovery," I note. "You noticed it slipping and pulled it back."

  Meanwhile, Maggie has Zara practicing with her eyes closed, identifying glass objects we've arranged in a circle around her.

  "Water bottle, ten o'clock," Zara says, pointing without looking. "Mason jar, two o'clock. Sunglasses... directly behind me."

  "Impressive," Maggie says. "Now, can you lift just the sunglasses without moving anything else?"

  Zara's forehead creases with effort. The sunglasses rise shakily about six inches off the ground, wobble for a moment, then stabilize. The other glass items remain untouched.

  "You're getting better at filtering," I observe. "Focusing on just one thing in your awareness field."

  "It's like... tuning a radio?" she suggests, eyes still closed. "Finding just one frequency among many."

  We rotate exercises, giving each kid breaks between intense concentration sessions. During one such break, Liam sprawls on the grass, looking up at the clouds while catching his breath.

  "So are all powers this hard to control?" he asks.

  "Depends on the power," I reply, handing him a water bottle. "And the person. Some people just naturally have better control. Others have to work at it."

  "Like you?" Zara asks, adjusting her glasses.

  I consider this. "I was somewhere in the middle. The blood sense came pretty naturally. The teeth... not so much." I flex my fingers, feeling a sudden, sharp pain underneath the nails in my hand.

  "The what?" Liam sits up, looking intrigued.

  "I can squeeze teeth out from any part of my body. But it takes a lot of effort. Like shitting. Didn't come naturally," I explain, flipping my hand front and back, sort of staring at it. I don't feel the need to explain the context of 'yeah I had to be in a life or death situation first before I could get the willpower to do it'. I don't want these kids in life or death situations.

  "What about you, Maggie?" Zara asks.

  "It just feels like, uh... Throwing things. Or pushing. It feels like pushing things against my arms and legs. But from far away?" Maggie tries to explain, wobbling her fingers together with slight gesticulations. "But my force fields are really strict. And delini... You know, like, they have a specific size, I don't get to pick it, which means I have to be aware of how big they are. So there were a lot of broken dishes, at first."

  "The key is to have a backup plan," I explain, starting to get into the whole what do if things go out of control side of things. "Something you can do immediately if things start going sideways."

  "Like what?" Liam asks.

  "For you, it might be focusing on your breathing when you feel smoke building up. In through the nose, out through the mouth, counting to four each time. It regulates your nervous system."

  "And for me?" Zara asks.

  "Grounding technique," Maggie suggests. "If you feel glass starting to react around you, focus on physical sensations - feet on the floor, hands against something solid. It pulls you out of your head and back to your body."

  I pull out a small notebook and pen. "Let's make a list for each of you. Triggers that tend to set off your powers, warning signs you might be losing control, and steps you can take immediately."

  We spend twenty minutes on this, making personalized cheat sheets. Liam's triggers include stress, anger, and weirdly, certain kinds of music. Zara's list includes anxiety, being startled, and intense concentration.

  "Keep these with you," I tell them as they fold the papers into their pockets. "Memorize them if you can. The sooner you recognize a potential problem, the easier it is to prevent."

  As we're packing up, Liam attempts to transform just his eyes again-– the skill he's been most excited about mastering. This time, the change happens almost instantly, his eyes shifting to reptilian amber.

  "Getting faster," I note approvingly.

  "And it doesn't feel as weird now," he says, blinking his dragon eyes. "More... natural?"

  "That's how it works," I tell him. "The more you practice, the more familiar it becomes. Eventually, it's like flexing a muscle you've always had."

  We finish cleaning up, gathering the cones and glass practice materials. As Zara's dad pulls up in his Volvo, she hesitates before joining him.

  "I wanted to ask," she says quietly, "about Bloodhound... the new one, I mean. Is it someone you know?"

  The question catches me off guard. "Why do you ask?"

  "Just curious if they're... like us. Someone who got training."

  I choose my words carefully. "Yes, I know them. And they had some guidance, but not as much as you're getting. They're still learning too."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She nods, seeming satisfied. "Thanks for today. It was... actually really helpful."

  "See you next week?" I ask.

  "Definitely." She smiles - a real smile, not the nervous half-grimace she usually wears - before hurrying to her father's car.

  Liam, meanwhile, is struggling to revert his eyes to normal. "Uh, guys? I think I'm stuck."

  "Don't panic," Maggie says immediately. "That just makes it harder to change back."

  "Close your eyes," I instruct. "There's a muscle in your brain that's controlling the transformation," I say, not really telling the truth but doing enough to get it to work. "Relax it. You're having a superpower cramp. Just relax. Deep breaths."

  I can't really relate that much, I don't think. Was there a time where I couldn't pick exactly where teeth would be coming out of my body? The thought feels alien.

  He follows my directions, standing perfectly still with his eyes closed. After about thirty seconds, he opens them again - back to normal brown.

  "That was close," he mutters. "My mom would've freaked."

  "It gets easier," I assure him. "Next week we'll work more on transitions - changing back and forth smoothly."

  After Liam pedals away on his too-small bike, Maggie and I are left alone in the clearing, packing the last of our supplies.

  "They're doing better than I expected," Maggie says, zipping up her backpack.

  "Yeah," I agree. "They actually want to learn. That makes a huge difference."

  "Makes me wonder how many other kids are out there," she muses. "Just trying to figure this stuff out on their own."

  All those faces around the circle - kids with powers, adults with powers, some barely controlled, all struggling in different ways. Where are they now? What are they doing with their abilities?

  "Maggie," I say suddenly, "do you remember me telling you about a girl named Nina? From my old therapy group?"

  "Vaguely," she says, frowning. "She worked at that nightclub, right? The one owned by the Kingdom."

  "Yeah, Crescent." I zip up my own backpack with more force than necessary. "She was in the same group as us. One of the adults in the room. And then I bumped into her at Crescent."

  "You think we should try to recruit her for Davis's program?"

  I shake my head. "No, she's like, twenty something. I'm just... you know, working with Zara and Liam, remembering that she existed."

  "Sam," Maggie warns, reading my mind before I can even start thinking. "you promised your parents no investigations."

  "This isn't an investigation," I argue. "It's... reconnecting with an old therapy friend. Who happens to have potentially useful information."

  "About the Kingdom."

  "About a lot of things." I shoulder my backpack. "And if she's still working there, she might be in danger. Or worse, being used by them somehow."

  Maggie sighs, recognizing the stubborn set of my jaw. "Sam,"

  "No, I'm not going to show up at a night club where they have my face on 'shoot on sight' posters in the back." I agree. "But I might be able to find her elsewhere. Dr. Jensen might know where she is now."

  "You're going to ask your therapist for information about another patient? I'm pretty sure that violates about a dozen privacy laws."

  "I'm not asking for her medical information," I clarify. "Just if she knows how to contact her. For... peer mentoring purposes."

  Maggie gives me a skeptical look. Normally, I'd expect her to be 100% with any stupid plan I come up with. "Sam." she repeats. "You're retiring."

  "Bloodhound I is retiring," I start walking back toward the park entrance, Maggie falling into step beside me. "But I need to do something, Mags. The EMT work is good, and this mentoring thing is important, but..." I trail off, not sure how to express the restlessness that's been building inside me. When I watched Zara get in a nice car, and Liam pedal off on his rickety bike, I felt good but... I don't know. Not good enough. My stomach aches and I don't know if it's from not eating or from being injured too much.

  I feel hollow. Dizzy. I can feel my heart pumping in my ears. I can hear stars whining.

  "But it's not enough," she finishes for me. "You need to be back in the fight somehow."

  "I didn't say I'd get into any fights," I correct her. "I don't want to get in any fights. I'm still probably missing like three inches of large intestine. But I can't just sit here while everything gets worse pretending that mentoring a couple of teenagers is going to change anything in the long run."

  "Sam!" Maggie huffs, almost indignant.

  "What?" I ask, confused.

  "You really think that little of this whole thing?" she replies, crossing her arms.

  I scratch my head. "No, I mean. It's a good idea. But how much good can it be? Do you see any members of the Kingdom or Rogue Wave getting arrested recently? No, they're just posting up more security guards at every school and pretending that fixes things. We still don't have a single scrap of information on who actually broke into Daedalus in the first place."

  "Do you think they'd tell the public if they did?" Maggie counters.

  I go quiet for a couple of seconds. Then, I stop looking at Maggie. As we reach the park entrance, I'm already mentally drafting the carefully casual email I'll send to Dr. Jensen. Looking for an old therapy group contact for a school project, perhaps. Or maybe for Davis's peer mentoring program - that has the benefit of being partially true.

  "You don't get to be just a girl in the crowd, not getting into fights, but still want to remain roped in on everything, Sam," Maggie says, and it's so confusing because Maggie is not the person that gives me pushback like this. She's like... my protege. I'm her Liberty Belle and she's a bona-fide Sam Small Fangirl, and yet-- Oh G-d, she's doing to me what I did to Belle. "Either retire or don't. If you want to sit with Tasha on the desk and do like... you know, dispatch, that's one thing. But you're already planning out a whole operation in your head, aren't you?"

  "Mags," I mumble.

  "You just spent an hour telling Zara and Liam to be careful with their powers while you're planning to sneak around behind a crime syndicate's back?" she continues, making my head ring worse and worse. "You're so cynical. What if Liberty Belle didn't think mentoring you guys would've... What if she had your worldview? Didn't she teach you about, like, responsibility and trust and stuff like that?" She asks, scrambling for a grammatically correct sentence.

  "Why are you being so mean to me about this?" I ask without really meaning to say it. That was an inside thought, Sam.

  Maggie grabs me by the wrist, and stops both of us. "Sam. You rescued me from a collapsed building and then barely remembered who I was because I was just another civilian to rescue. That's a good thing. It's in your blood. And the only reason I've been following you to the ends of the Earth - and got shot for it! - is because I wanted to follow your example. You're the one being mean to me. Or did all the mentorship you taught me with those baseballs mean nothing?"

  For a second, I realize just how haggard I must look. I see the tiniest glimpse of my reflection, not even a millimeter wide, in Maggie's face. But I can feel it, even if I can't see it. Sunken. Tired. Confused.

  "I don't think you really believe mentoring is useless. But I don't think you know what you want, either, and I think you're scared of letting these kids down. Defensive," she says, staring me down with the most serious expression I've ever seen on her face. "You think you're the only one allowed to get hurt. Liam and Zara can't become superheroes because they might get injured and do to their parents what you do to yours on a weekly basis, but you can heal, right? So it has to be you every time. And now you're sidelined and just... itching to jump back in the fire, even after what Shrike did to you."

  "Mags," I sort of half-plead, trying not to look at her.

  "I go to Mass every Sunday, Sam. You know what Father Mike says about sacrifice? It's supposed to mean something. Getting yourself hurt just because you're bored isn't sacrifice - it's just... it's just reckless. And I'm not letting you throw away everything you've built because you miss the rush," Maggie says firmly.

  I think about the way I used to play soccer. It feels like something I haven't thought about in years.

  You want to know how I played, Maggie? I was the kid who never passed when there was even half a chance to shoot. Always sliding into tackles I didn’t need to make, always chasing the risky play. A little poacher, a reckless striker. I racked up fouls, rolled my ankle more times than I can count, and kept going anyway because I was a stubborn-ass 13-year-old. And 12-year-old. And 11-year-old.

  That's what I'd like to say, at least. But instead I just sort of squeak.

  "I'm not going to tell you that reaching out to Nina is a stupid idea. But I'm also not letting you do it. We'll do it. The Auditors will do it. And you're going to stay retired and be our captain. Our Councilman Davis. I'm not letting you betray your parents after everything you've put them through, either. And we're doing it as a team, because I'm not letting you shoulder that yourself. Okay, idiot? " Maggie asks, giving me her ultimatum. "I know it's not because you're a bad person. You've been through too much for one kid. But I'm not going to let you backslide."

  I swallow, and my chest hurts.