Eight AM. Phone in hand, ankle monitor app open, green checkmark confirming I checked in. Wednesday morning, which means it's been - I count back - three days since I turned myself in, Monday at the asscrack of night. Sunday night, Monday morning? Whatever. It's the 21st. Feels like longer. Feels like I've been wearing this thing for months.

  I didn't sleep well. Kept listening for problems downstairs, for Alex moving around or Crossroads needing something or the sound of Kingdom pulling up outside. Nothing happened. Just a quiet night where I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and thinking about how Alex almost died and how I helped coordinate it and how that makes me complicit in whatever happens next.

  I get dressed. Sweatpants, hoodie, the monitor heavy under my thermal pants. Downstairs I can hear someone moving around - probably Crossroads, he's an early riser. Or maybe Alex woke up hurting and can't get back to sleep.

  It's Alex. He's on the couch where he slept, sitting up carefully, one hand pressed against his ribs. When he sees me he tries to straighten up, winces, gives up.

  "Morning," he says.

  "How bad?" I ask.

  "Scale of one to ten? Seven. Maybe eight when I try to move."

  I sit on the coffee table across from him. "Let me see."

  He pulls up his shirt. The bruise from the vest is massive - purple-black spreading across his entire chest, darker in the center where the bullet actually hit. Dinner plate sized. The kind of bruise that means deep tissue damage, broken blood vessels, impact trauma that would've killed him without the vest.

  "Jesus," I mutter.

  "Yeah."

  I check the grazes next. Leg first - he's got thermal pants on but I make him roll up the leg. The graze on his outer thigh is shallow, maybe two inches long, cleaned and bandaged but seeping a little through the gauze. Not infected, just still oozing. Normal for this stage.

  "Arm," I say.

  He pulls up his sleeve. Same story - shallow graze on his upper arm, bandaged, looks okay. The shoulder's worse. I can see swelling even through his shirt, and when I press gently near the joint he hisses.

  "That one hurts," he says.

  "No shit. You got hit by something heavy. Probably bruised the muscle, maybe even fractured something. Nonzero chance. Insist that your parents take you to an urgent care when you get home. Or just fucking. Go," I sit back. "You need ice, ibuprofen, and to not use that arm for anything for at least a week."

  "Can't promise the last part."

  "You're going to have to." I cross my arms. "We need to talk before my parents get up."

  He nods. Doesn't argue, which means he knows what's coming.

  "I know I'm about to tell you not to do this again," I start, "and I know you're going to blow me off. So before you say anything - before you start with whatever justification you've got lined up - I need you to shut up and actually listen to me."

  He opens his mouth.

  "No. Shut up. I'm serious." I lean forward, elbows on knees. "You almost died last night. Garbage Day almost killed you. If those fire trucks hadn't shown up, if Tasha hadn't called them ahead of time, if literally anything had gone differently, you'd be dead or captured. You understand that, right?"

  "I--"

  "I said shut up." My voice is flat. "Here's what you want to happen next: I become your handler. You do the fieldwork, I coordinate, we're a team. You get to be Hellhound for real, I'm your person in the chair, we hit Kingdom operations together until this's done and you've won the neverending fight against darkness. That's the fantasy you've been running since you put on that mask."

  He's staring at me. Not denying it.

  "I'm not doing that," I continue. "I'm not going to be the person who trains you to fight criminals and then acts surprised when you get yourself almost killed doing it. I had a mentor who did that. She's dead now, and she left me a fucking mess to clean up. I'm not Belle. I'm not going to do to you what she did to me."

  "Sam--"

  "Still talking." I hold up a hand. "Last night I made a choice. You were going in whether I helped or not, so I helped. Harm reduction. Keep you alive, get you out, minimize damage. But that was one time. That was an emergency response to a situation you created. It's not a pattern. It's not our new normal. It's not proof that I'm okay with you doing this."

  The anger is there now, hot and sharp under my ribs. "You made me complicit. You put me in a position where I had to choose between coordinating you or letting you die alone. That's not fair and you know it. You don't get to do that again."

  He's quiet now. Actually listening, I think. Or at least not interrupting.

  "Here's the deal," I say. "This is an order from me to you: no operations until we figure this out. Not alone, not coordinated, not anything. You got the evidence, you did your job, now you stand down. We distribute the photos, we let the Titans and the DVD handle Kingdom escalation, and you focus on healing and not dying. Understood?"

  "For how long?" His voice is careful.

  "Until I say otherwise. Maybe until the mentorship program is done and we can get you a job fucking welding cars together or some shit. Until you're not injured anymore. Until I figure out how to do this without making another child soldier," I growl. God. I sound just like the DVDs. But from the opposite direction. It's weird.

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  "What if Kingdom--"

  "No." I cut him off. "You don't get to make that call. You're sixteen, I'm sixteen, you just got shot, and you almost died fighting a guy who breaks buildings with his hands. You're benched. I don't care how important you think it is. The answer is no."

  Silence. He's processing. I can see him trying to find the angle, the argument that'll change my mind.

  "I'm not saying you're kicked out of the program. The program was designed to teach the four of you how to not want to do this. Giving you a childhood that I - only semi-voluntarily - decided not to take." I add, quieter now. "I'm not saying you can't ever do this again. I'm saying right now, this week, this month - however long it takes - you're not doing solo operations. And when you do go back in the field, it's not going to be like last night. It's going to be coordinated, supported, with people who know what they're doing and can pull you out if things go sideways."

  "Like the Titans?" he asks.

  "Maybe. I don't know yet. I'm figuring it out." I run a hand through my hair. "The whole point of Davis's program was to stop the 'kid superhero' pipeline. Because, honestly, I agree with him. I shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be doing this. None of my friends should be doing this. We shouldn't even be living in a world where people put on costumes and fight criminals because nobody else will do anything about it. But G-d damnit, if you're going to turn yourself into a child soldier then you're going to act the soldier part or I'm dishonorably discharging you. Got it?"

  He's still quiet. Thinking. His jaw is set in that stubborn way that means he's not happy but he's listening.

  "You want to argue," I say. It's not a question.

  "Yeah."

  "Don't. Not right now. You're hurt, I'm angry, and neither of us is thinking clearly. Just--" I exhale. "Just tell me you heard what I said. That you understand I'm serious about this. You shouldn't want to do this. You can do parkour, go base jumping, explore hidden buildings, whatever. Go boxing. I shouldn't want to do this."

  He stares at me. I feel the ghost of Victor grabbing me by the back of the throat. I keep speaking "There's something wrong with me that I do it. It's a character flaw, not something for you to admire."

  "I heard you," Alex says finally. "I don't agree. With. The whole thing. But I hear you. I get it."

  "Good enough for now." I stand up. "Come on. My parents are probably awake. We need to figure out what we're telling them."

  I hear movement in the kitchen - coffee maker running, cabinet doors opening. Both of them are up.

  "What's the story?" Alex asks quietly.

  "Close to the truth. You went to investigate on your own, things went wrong, you called me for help. I coordinated your extraction and called my dad to pick you up. I didn't plan it with you beforehand." I look at him. "That's technically true, right? You would've gone whether I helped or not."

  "Yeah."

  "Then that's what we say. You made a stupid decision, I helped clean it up, now you're recovering." I head toward the kitchen. "And you need to call your parents by end of day or mine will do it for you. "

  He follows me, moving stiffly. The kitchen is warm, smells like coffee. Mom's at the counter pouring two mugs, Dad's at the table with the newspaper spread out in front of him. They both look up when we come in.

  "How are you feeling?" Mom asks Alex.

  "Sore. But okay."

  She hands him one of the mugs - coffee with cream and sugar already added. Hands me the other one as a vague, hot-chocolate-added sludge that barely looks like coffee. I don't usually drink coffee but I take it anyway because it's warm and gives me something to do with my hands.

  "Sit," Dad says. It's not quite an order but close.

  We sit. Alex moves carefully, favoring his ribs. I wrap my hands around the mug and wait.

  "Did you two plan this together?" Mom asks. Direct question, no preamble.

  "No," I say. "Alex went on his own. He called me when things went wrong and I helped get him out. I called Dad to pick him up afterward."

  "You coordinated a vigilante operation while wearing an ankle monitor," she says.

  "I coordinated an emergency extraction for someone who called me for help," I correct. "I didn't plan the operation. I didn't know he was going until he was already there."

  "But you knew what he was investigating," Dad says.

  "Yeah. He told me during the day. But I told him not to go." I glance at Alex. "He went anyway."

  Mom looks at Alex. "Is that accurate?"

  "Yes ma'am," he says.

  "Why didn't you call your parents?" she asks.

  He doesn't answer immediately. When he does his voice is quiet. "Because they would've fixed it. Made it go away. And I didn't want it fixed. I wanted--" He stops. "I wanted it to matter."

  Mom and Dad exchange a look. I don't even know if they're doing the telepathy right now. They just both look sad.

  "How bad are your injuries?" Dad asks.

  "Bullet bruise from the vest. Two grazes. Shoulder got hit by something but nothing's broken." Alex shifts in his chair. "Sam checked everything this morning. Nothing life-threatening."

  "You got shot," Mom says. Like she's making sure we all understand what that means. "And you had a bullet proof vest."

  "The vest caught--" Alex tries to correct.

  "You still got shot," she cuts him off. "and you had access to a bulletproof vest."

  He doesn't have an answer for that.

  Dad folds his newspaper. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to stay here today and rest. We're not sending you home injured without making sure you're okay. But you need to call your parents and let them know where you are. If you don't do that by five PM, Rachel or I will call them ourselves. Clear?"

  "Clear," Alex says.

  "And Sam." Dad looks at me. "I understand why you helped. If a kid calls you saying he's hurt and needs extraction, you help. That's the right instinct. But you can't coordinate vigilante operations while you're under legal restrictions. That puts your case at risk."

  "I know."

  "Do you? Because Mr. Caldwell is working very hard to get those charges dropped, and if it comes out that you were coordinating illegal activities while on pre-trial release--"

  "I know," I repeat. "I wasn't planning operations. I was responding to an emergency. There's a difference."

  "The court might not see it that way."

  "Then I'll deal with it if it comes to that." I take a sip of coffee. It makes my throat hurt. "What was I supposed to do, tell him good luck and hang up?"

  Mom sighs. "No. You weren't. But this can't become a pattern. We can't be the safehouse for every kid who decides to play vigilante and gets hurt."

  "We're going upstairs," Mom says firmly. "You're handling whatever this is in the dining room, we're not watching, and if anyone asks we know nothing about it. Clear?"

  "Clear," I say.

  Dad stands up. "Call your parents by five, Alex. We mean it."

  "Yes sir," Alex says.

  They leave. I hear their footsteps on the stairs, the bedroom door closing. Creating plausible deniability the best way they can—by literally not being in the room.

  "Photos," I say to Alex. "Show me what you got."

  He unlocks his phone, starts pulling up images. "Documentation of the break-ins, territory maps, payment records. Proof Kingdom's running systematic protection rackets."

  "That's good intel," Maxwell says from the living room doorway, laptop under his good arm. "Can I see?"

  Alex angles his phone so Maxwell can see. Maxwell scrolls through a few photos, his expression neutral but focused.

  "This is solid," he says after a moment. "The public is gonna wanna know about it. Might get the feds to pay a little more attention. Maybe not. We'll see."

  "Who gets it?" I ask.

  "Multiple people. Your lawyer for the case, Councilman Davis for political pressure, maybe the press for public exposure." Maxwell scrolls through more photos. "Titans could use it operationally too. They're stretched thin but this gives them target lists."

  "We need to sort through them first," I say. "Alex has like two billion photos. Most are probably useless - wrong pages, bad angles, whatever. We need to figure out which ones actually matter."

  "War room?" Maxwell suggests.

  "War room," I confirm.