Jasmine's smile fades as quickly as it came, but I saw it. That's something.

  "So," I say. "What do you want to be when you grow up. For real. No wrong answers."

  Liam jumps in first, because of course he does. "Electrician. Like my dad." He shrugs when Zara looks at him. "What? It's good money, union benefits, and I already know half the trade from helping him on jobs. Plus I can use the dragon thing to reach high places without a ladder. He hates it but it's useful."

  "That's actually a great answer," I say. "Powers as tools, not identity. You're not 'Dragon Boy, Electrician.' You're an electrician who happens to have a useful trick for reaching junction boxes in weird spots."

  "Dragon Boy," Liam repeats, making a face. "Please never call me that again."

  "No promises."

  Zara's next. She takes her time, which is very Zara - thinking before speaking, making sure she has the right words.

  "Research, I think. Metahuman biology, or maybe environmental science. There's so much we don't understand about how powers interact with ecosystems." She glances at Jasmine. "Like chlorokinesis - if you could accelerate plant growth in targeted ways, what does that do to soil composition? Nutrient cycles? Mycorrhizal networks?" She catches herself, blushes slightly. "Sorry. I just think there's a lot of potential for powers to do things that aren't... fighting."

  "Don't apologize. That's exactly the kind of thinking I want to hear." I lean back in the chair. "Powers show up and everyone assumes the only options are hero or villain. But there's a whole world of applications nobody's really explored because we're all so focused on punching each other."

  "My dad's friend works at a construction company," Liam offers. "They've got a guy who can melt steel with his hands. He just... welds stuff. Makes twice what a normal welder makes because he doesn't need equipment."

  "See? That's what I'm talking about," I reply, thinking again about Kate.

  Jasmine is picking at her sleeve again. I give her time.

  "I don't know," she says finally. Quiet, almost defensive. "I haven't thought about it."

  "That's okay. You don't have to have an answer."

  "No, I mean--" She stops. Starts again. "At Whitford they just wanted to keep me safe. There was a lot of therapy talk. Because I pose a quote unquote danger to myself or others. A lot of group therapy about unpacking my emotions. And shit like that," she looks up at me, and there's something sharp in her expression. "Nobody ever asked what I wanted to do with my life."

  The room goes quiet.

  "That's fucked up," Liam says, which breaks the tension a little.

  "Yeah," I agree. "It is." I hold Jasmine's gaze. "So I'm asking. Not about your powers. About your life. And if the answer is 'I don't know yet,' that's fine. You're like fifteen. You're allowed to not know."

  She nods slowly. Doesn't offer more. I don't push.

  Which leaves Alex.

  He's been quiet through all of this, listening, his expression carefully neutral. I can feel him thinking, calculating. When I look at him, he meets my eyes directly.

  "Business," he says. "Something with business. Maybe consulting, or project management. I'm good at organizing things, seeing how pieces fit together."

  It's a perfectly reasonable answer. It's also, I'm pretty sure, complete bullshit.

  The thing is, I can't tell if I think that because I can read him, or because I can't read him and I'm projecting. His face is calm, his voice is steady, his body language is relaxed. There's nothing obviously wrong with the answer. Maybe he really does want to go into business. Maybe the warehouse raid was an aberration, a one-time thing, and he's genuinely thinking about civilian futures.

  Or maybe he's figured out what I want to hear and he's giving it to me because he wants my approval.

  I can't tell. I hate that I can't tell.

  "Cool," I say, keeping my voice neutral. "Consulting's a good field for people who can see systems."

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

  "Or a drag racer," he admits, as if my confidence has melted him. "Like those guys that they make the special cars for that the whole job is to see how fast they can make a car go across the desert."

  "Better answer," I compliment him.

  We move on to power practice.

  The backyard is small and muddy from the rain, and it's not quite private, but I don't think anyone is going to give us grief anyways. It's winter. Nobody wants to be outside in the first place. There's a porch umbrella because we technically have a backyard, so I sort of like crank it out all the way for the first time in maybe six years. Just to give a little shade.

  Liam goes first. Today he manages to hold dragon-arms for almost two minutes while keeping his torso and legs human.

  "The trick is the shoulders," he says, slightly out of breath when he shifts back. "If I let it get past my shoulders, the whole thing wants to cascade."

  "So you're building a dam," Zara says, interested. "Holding the transformation at a specific point."

  "I guess? It's more like--" He makes a vague gesture. "Like flexing a muscle you didn't know you had. And trying to keep flexing it without flexing the muscles next to it."

  "Right, it's like flexing a muscle in your brain," I add. Something I've impressed on them before.

  Zara's practice is subtler. Marbles. Juggling them in her fingers, letting them dance atop her fingertips in a way that looks more like a circus act than anything else.

  "It's like echolocation," she explains, eyes closed, marbles dipping down past her blank, unadorned nails in a way that looks physics defying. Because it is. "I can feel the shape of things near it. But the resolution is bad. I can tell there's a wall, but not what color it is."

  "Can you tell where people are?" I ask.

  "Sort of? Warm things feel different than cold things. But it's fuzzy." She answers

  "That's actually really useful for search and rescue," I say. "Collapsed buildings, people trapped under rubble. Glass dust gets everywhere. Can you see through sand? Or is it just glass?"

  Zara looks away from me, eyes snapping open. "I don't know. I've never been to the beach,"

  "Okay, well, we'll do a beach episode later. My Pop-Pop lives in Ventnor. I'm sure he'd love to meet you guys," I say, earning a shy smile.

  Alex demonstrates fire control - careful, precise, nothing like the warehouse. He lights a candle from three feet away with what looks like a lance, or almost a syringe, something white hot and razor thin. It's showy but controlled, which is what I want to see. If he's going to have combat-applicable powers, he needs to prove he can modulate them.

  "How's your fine control?" I ask.

  Alex tries to look cocky. "Always good," he says, while everyone else huddles around two fistfuls of red-orange flame glooping out from his waxy palms. The umbrella helps trap the heat.

  Jasmine doesn't demonstrate. She's not ready, and I don't push. Asking her to perform on command isn't just uncomfortable for her; it might not even work. We'll get there eventually. For now, she watches the others, and I watch her watching, and that's enough.

  After the kids leave - Liam's dad picking him up, Zara's mom this time, Alex walking to the bus, Jasmine's taxi arriving exactly when she said it would - I sit in the empty living room for a while. The house feels quiet. Maxwell's still upstairs; I can hear him talking on the phone, probably coordinating something I don't need to know about.

  The hearing is in ten days. The weather is still shit. The neighborhood is still getting squeezed.

  I need to move.

  I tell my parents I'm going for a run - not a lie, technically - and head out into the grey afternoon. The slush has frozen into uneven ridges on the sidewalks, treacherous if you're not paying attention. I pay attention, and my shoes are good for this.

  Running in this weather is miserable. My lungs burn with cold air, my feet are wet within five minutes despite the waterproof shoes, and the sky is the color of dirty concrete. But my body is moving, my heart is pounding, and for a little while I don't have to think about anything except the next step.

  I take the long route. Past the check-cashing place with the new guy at the door - he's there again today, watching the street. Past the bodega where Mrs. Reyes works; she waves at me through the window, I wave back. Past the corner where I saw the Kingdom guys yesterday - different guys today, same energy.

  The neighborhood is holding. Barely. You can feel the pressure, the slow squeeze, the sense that something's going to give. But people are still opening their stores, still walking their kids to school, still living their lives. That's not nothing.

  I run until my legs hurt, until the cold has seeped through every layer, until I'm pretty sure I've hit the edge of what my ankle monitor considers acceptable distance from home. Then I turn around and run back.

  It's not enough. It's never enough. But it's something.

  The days blur together. School, office hours, homework. The weather stays miserable - cold rain, grey skies, slush that freezes overnight and melts into puddles by noon. The forecast keeps saying it'll warm up soon. It doesn't.

  I walk the neighborhood when I can. Help Mr. Pak move some boxes. Sit with Mrs. Adebayo while she waits for the locksmith to finally show up. Play basketball with the kids on Torresdale even though the court is half-frozen and everyone's wearing too many layers to move properly.

  Tasha texts updates. Lily texts updates. The scanner keeps chattering. I get an email, a text, one person at a time, from the Philadelphia Inquirer - legal is nervous. They have to verify. They have to do due diligence and pass actionable information to the PPD. You know this means war, right? I swing around ancient jungle gyms like they're labyrinths. Another "altercation." Another business closing early. Another rumor about someone who got visited by guys asking about "community protection."

  I pass it all to Sundial, to the Titans, to anyone who can actually do something. I document. I wait.

  Miasma texts me once: Pieces moving. Stay ready.

  I don't ask what that means. I don't need to know yet.

  One night - I've lost track of which one - I'm sitting on the back step, smoking, watching the cold make shapes out of my breath. The ember of the cigarette is the warmest thing in the alley. My phone buzzes with a weather alert: Winter Storm Watch for the greater Philadelphia area. Significant snowfall expected. Prepare for hazardous conditions.

  I take a long drag, blow smoke into the dark.

  "Significant snowfall," I murmur to no one.