"Someone had to," Alex says.

  I hear myself in it. That's the worst part. Someone had to, and he's right - to me, the logic is airtight. With great power comes great yadda yadda. But you know what? I'm not going to do what Belle did. I'm not going to groom him into a weapon - sorry, Belle! I'm not going to turn him into a superhero. I can help him, too. I can stop him from getting killed, and slowly... wean him out. Like a toothing kitten.

  Yeah. I can make this work. I feel the plan already coalescing.

  "Show me what you've got," I say.

  We find a spot between two parked cars, snow piled high enough to give us cover from casual observation. Alex opens the folder and starts laying out papers on the hood of someone's buried Civic.

  "Distribution schedules," he says, pointing. "This is how they move product through the neighborhood. These times, these routes. I've been watching for three weeks."

  Three weeks. He's been doing this for three weeks and I had no idea.

  "How'd you get this?"

  "Followed a guy. Broke into his car when he went inside a bar. He had a clipboard."

  I stare at him. "You broke into someone's car."

  "He's a drug dealer, Sam. I don't think he's going to report it to the cops."

  I try not to clench my teeth. "You know I can't condone this, right?" I try to explain. "This isn't what the program is about."

  "Bite me," he snarks. "Locations." He pulls out another sheet - hand-drawn map, surprisingly detailed. "This is where they stage. This is where they store product. This one--" he taps a building on Torresdale, "--I think this is something bigger. More traffic. More security. I haven't been able to get close enough to confirm."

  "You've been doing surveillance on Kingdom operations for three weeks, alone, without telling anyone."

  "Who was I going to tell?" His voice has an edge now. "You were on the run. The cops don't care. The Titans are spread thin. I saw what was happening and I did something about it."

  I want to argue. I want to tell him this is dangerous, reckless, that he's going to get himself killed. Instead, I say this; "Okay," I say. "Walk me through what you're seeing."

  We start moving through the neighborhood. Alex points things out - the guy on the corner of Magee who's been there every day this week. The car that circles the block every twenty minutes. The way certain businesses have new stickers in their windows, subtle enough to miss if you're not looking.

  "Protection markers," I say, recognizing the pattern. "They're tagging who's paid."

  "Yeah. And look who doesn't have them."

  The Chens' restaurant. Mr. Hassan's bodega. The little hardware store on the corner that's been there since before I was born. The places that said no.

  "They're going to hit them," I say. "The ones who refused."

  "Probably. That's how it works, right? Make an example."

  We round a corner and I see them. Three guys, mid-twenties, standing outside the hardware store. One of them is talking to Mr. Nowak through the window. The old man's face is tight, shoulders hunched. The posture of someone being squeezed.

  "Sam--" Alex starts.

  "I see them."

  We keep walking. Casual. Just two teenagers out for a walk in the snow. Nothing to see here.

  But one of them sees us anyway.

  He detaches from the group and angles toward us. Not fast, not aggressive - just purposeful. Testing. The same way the dealer approached me and Melissa yesterday.

  "Keep walking," I murmur.

  "Sam."

  "Keep walking."

  He doesn't listen. Alex stops, turns to face the approaching guy. I stop too, because what else am I going to do, leave him there?

  "Help you with something?" the guy asks. He's got that same empty smile I'm starting to recognize as Kingdom standard issue. Customer service for criminals.

  "Just walking," Alex says. His voice is steady.

  "Walking where?"

  "Around. It's a free country."

  The guy's smile doesn't waver. "Sure it is. But this is a dangerous neighborhood lately. Lots of break-ins. You two should be careful."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "We're careful."

  "Good." His eyes move from Alex to me. Linger on my face a beat too long. "You look familiar. Do I know you?"

  My heart rate spikes. He's seen the news, I bet. He knows about Bloodhound. He knows why he's in this neighborhood, maybe? Or am I just paranoid? Maybe he's been briefed specifically - watch for this girl, this address, this face.

  "I live here," I say. Flat. Giving nothing. "What's it to you?"

  "Nothing. Just being neighborly." His smile widens. "You get in trouble recently?" he gestures at my ankle, at the monitor bulging under my jeans, "Must be hard, being stuck at home. Can't go anywhere. Can't do anything. We can help with that. Know a guy that likes to play with ankle monitors."

  Alex brings a hand up, thumb pointed upwards, fingers splayed. He grimaces, and a soft whoosh of orange fire, the kind of jet noise that Jordan's dab rig lighter made, leaks out from his thumb. Hisssshhhhssshhhh. Then, one by one, each other fingertip lights up with an inch-long, dull red flame. I know that red is the least dangerous thing Alex has. Just barely an exertion. Does this guy know?

  "Easy," the guy says, backing up slightly. "No trouble here. Just talking."

  "Then stop talking," Alex answers coldly, the flames going bright white for a split second, like a camera flash. "And maybe consider leaving this old guy alone."

  The guy looks at Alex's hand. Then, backwards to his friend. He chooses the wiser option and retreats back to his friends. They exchange words, glancing at us, and then they move off, around the corner, out of sight.

  Alex lets the fire die. His hand is shaking slightly with adrenaline.

  "You okay?" I ask.

  "Yeah." He flexes his fingers, working out the tension. "That was awesome. You alright?"

  I don't know how to answer that. I'm experiencing a lot of things that I don't have the vocabulary to name, at once. "Yeah, I'm good. Let's, uh, head back, before these guys decide they want to make a problem."

  No argument there. We walk in silence for a block, round the corner, back to having my house in sight. Then Alex turns to me. "I'm going out tonight."

  "Alex--" I'm immediately in concerned mentor mode.

  "I'm not asking permission. I told you. I'm going to do something about this. Hit them back. Make them feel it."

  "You're going to get yourself killed."

  "Maybe." He says it like he's considered it. Like he's weighed the odds and decided they're acceptable. "But I can't just watch. I can't just let them take over and pretend it's not happening. You of all people should understand that."

  I do understand. That's the problem.

  "What's your target?"

  He looks at me. Surprised, maybe, that I'm asking tactically instead of arguing.

  "There's a warehouse on Torresdale. The one I showed you on the map. I think it's a distribution hub. Drugs, maybe equipment. I'm not sure. But there's always guys going in and out, always vehicles. If I hit it--"

  "You'll hurt their operations. But they'll know someone's fighting back. They'll escalate."

  "Good. Let them escalate. Let them show everyone what they really are."

  I see Alex inside a storage unit, doing whatever the pyrogenetic version of knuckle conditioning is, on his lonesome. No Miasma to be his overwatch. And then I see him dead in a ditch somewhere. Would his parents, as little as they seem to give a shit about him, care about that? Yeah. They probably would.

  "You don't have backup," I say. "You don't have someone watching your exits, tracking your position, ready to call for help if things go sideways. You're going in alone."

  "I know."

  "That's how you die. Not in the fight - in the five seconds after the fight when someone comes up behind you and you're too jacked on adrenaline to hear them."

  Alex is quiet for a moment. We're almost back to my house now. I can see my front porch from here, the snow shoveled into thick, dense walls that you could stop gunfire with. You can see - which houses have people able-bodied enough (enough) to shovel snow. Which ones don't. Which ones had to pay. The snowplows on the street have turned the entire block into a labyrinth of waist-high ice walls. Alex spins up a small, sputtering orange-yellow flame with his middle finger, just to keep warm.

  "So come with me," he says.

  "I can't." I tap my ankle. "Monitor. If I'm anywhere near a crime scene--"

  "I know. That's not what I mean." He stops walking, turns to face me. "I mean be in my ear. Tell me what to do. Watch my back from a distance. You know how to do this. I don't. Not really. I can fight, I can scare people, but the tactical stuff - the planning, the situational awareness - that's you. Don't you read superhero comics or whatever? I need a guy in the desk."

  I should say no. I should tell him this is a terrible idea, that I can't be involved, that he needs to stand down and let the Titans handle it.

  But the Titans are overwhelmed, the cops don't care, and the feds are busy. None of the security guards at my school are gonna do anything about it. Even Maggie, Lily, and Amelia, probably patrolling Bridesburg right now, taking care of the homeless near the river, aren't going to be able to get here and help. And Tasha is... not suited for combat. Even if her arm wasn't still recovering from getting dislocated two months ago.

  And Alex is going to do this whether I help or not.

  I think about Tasha's voice in my ear all those nights. Miasma coordinating me like a marionette. Crossroads stopping me from getting killed while I was pretending to be Soot, by bare inches - going from headshot to graze. The difference between having support and going in blind.

  I think about what happens if Alex goes alone and doesn't come back.

  "If I do this," I say slowly, "you follow my instructions. Exactly. No improvising, no heroics, no going off-script. You do what I tell you, when I tell you, or you pull out. That includes retreating when I tell you it's getting too hot. Understood?"

  Alex's face does something complicated. Relief and excitement and maybe a little fear, all tangled together.

  "Understood."

  "I mean it. The second something feels wrong, you're gone. I'm not watching you die because you wanted to prove something."

  "I get it."

  "And this is once. One operation. I don't want to enable this behavior. The whole point of the mentoring group is to make fewer child soldiers, not more of them," I say, feeling quite like my Mom, now.

  "Okay," he says, sounding almost bored. I bite down my offense.

  "Tonight," I say. "After dark. Keep your phone charged and find a headset. I'll text you the frequency. The only reason I'm doing this is because I'd rather you do it together, smartly, than die alone, stupidly."

  He nods, and tries to hide the obvious excitement on his face. G-d damnit. "I'll see you later, chief. Or hear you later, I guess," he quips.

  "How are the neighbors?" Mom asks.

  "Fine," I say. "Everyone's handling. I'm gonna help people shovel later, I just need a little warm-up break."

  I go upstairs to my room. Close the door. Sit on my bed and stare at the wall.

  Tonight I'm going to coordinate a vigilante operation from my bedroom while wearing an ankle monitor that tracks my every move. I'm going to guide a sixteen-year-old with fire powers through a sabotage mission against a criminal organization run by a city councilwoman who can control the weather.

  This is my life now. And I can't even pretend to be upset about it.