The next two hours are a blur of logistics.

  Parents arrive in waves - some rushing in panicked, some walking in with the forced calm of people who've decided not to make a scene. I stay visible, because that's the job now. I'm the bruised teenage volunteer who got beaten up on the way here. I'm proof that something happened, that this wasn't an overreaction, that the threat was real. A couple of parents look at my face and their expressions shift from skepticism to something harder.

  Good, I think. Be angry. Be angry at the right people.

  Dr. Khan arrives for Zara, and he's furious in that quiet, controlled way that professors get when they're too educated to yell but too angry to be polite. He asks me what happened, and I tell him - the short version, the version that doesn't include strategy or PR calculations, just "I got jumped by Songbirds on the way here." He looks at my face for a long moment, then nods once, like he's filing something away for later. Zara hugs me before she leaves. Like, actually hugs me.

  Liam's dad shows up in a work truck, still in his electrician's uniform, sawdust in his hair. He doesn't ask questions - just claps Liam on the shoulder, shakes my hand, and says "You need anything, you call." I don't know if he means me personally or the center generally.

  Alex's parents don't come. He gets a text, shows it to Mrs. Patterson, and leaves on his own. They were at least nice enough to call a taxi for him.

  Jasmine's foster mom arrives last, forty-five minutes after everyone else, still in scrubs. She's a nurse, I remember - or something medical, long shifts, never enough time. She looks exhausted and guilty and relieved all at once. Jasmine doesn't say anything to her, just walks to the car. The plants in the room have been still for a while now. Whatever storm was building in Jasmine has passed, or at least gone dormant.

  Lily leaves around six. She's been helping with cleanup, moving chairs, taking out trash - normal stuff, civilian stuff, her costume packed away in her bag. Before she goes, she catches my arm.

  "You okay?"

  "I'm fine."

  "Sam."

  "I'm fine, Lily. Really. It looks worse than it is."

  She doesn't believe me, but she lets it go. "You did good today. The cops were already on their way when I got here. Tasha called it in. All I had to do was look scary until they showed up."

  "The meteor hammer thing?"

  "Yeah." She grins, a little sheepish. "I didn't hit anyone. Just... demonstrated. They got the point."

  "That's perfect. That's exactly right."

  "I know." She squeezes my arm. "Text me when you get home, okay?"

  "Okay."

  She heads out. I watch her go, and I feel something loosen in my chest. She handled it. She was here, she was competent, she made the right calls. I wasn't here and it was fine. The world didn't end because Sam Small wasn't personally present for every crisis.

  That's... new. I don't know how I feel about it yet.

  The building is quiet now. The particular kind of quiet that happens after everyone leaves, the absence of voices, the settling of air, the way sound changes when a space stops being occupied. The main hall on the second floor feels bigger than it did an hour ago. Emptier.

  I find Mrs. Patterson in the office, sitting at her desk, staring at a cup of tea that's probably gone cold. She looks tired. Not just end-of-day tired - deep tired, the kind that comes from holding yourself together for hours and finally being allowed to stop.

  "Hey," I say, hovering in the doorway.

  She looks up. Her eyes go to my face, inventory the damage, come back to meet mine. "Sit down, Sam."

  I sit. The folding chair creaks under me. My ribs have settled into a dull ache that I've mostly learned to ignore.

  "You want some tea? I can make more."

  "I'm okay," I answer her.

  "Mmhm." She takes a sip of her cold tea, makes a face, sets it down. "You're always okay. Every time I see you, you're okay. We've been open for a month but I've seen that video. You know. And you're just okay. A dinosaur stepped on your house and you're okay. You know how many times you're okay?"

  I don't answer. I don't actually know the number. I've lost track.

  "Too many," she says. "That's how many. Too many times for a girl your age."

  "Mrs. Patterson--"

  "Jennifer." She waves a hand. "We're past 'Mrs. Patterson' by now. This whole thing is real because of you."

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  "Okay. Jennifer," I say, testing it out. It feels strange. She's been Mrs. Patterson in my head for long enough that the first name feels almost disrespectful.

  She leans back in her chair, studying me. Jennifer Patterson is maybe forty-five, maybe fifty - it's hard to tell. Her hair is graying and natural, cut short and practical. Her face has the kind of lines that come from a lifetime of expressions - worry lines, laugh lines, the particular crease between her eyebrows that means she's thinking hard about something. She's wearing a cardigan over a blouse, small gold earrings, sensible shoes. She looks like someone's mom.

  "How long have you been doing this?" I ask. "The community center stuff. Working with kids."

  "Oh, Lord." She laughs, soft and tired. "Twenty-some years? I started in '04, working for the city. Youth services. Back when that meant something different."

  "Different how?"

  "Different problems. Same kids, mostly. Same neighborhoods. But back then it was drugs and gangs and teen pregnancy. Now it's--" She gestures vaguely at the room, at the building, at everything. "All this. Superpowers. Activists who think children are dangerous because they can do things other children can't." She shakes her head. "I remember when the first one happened. 1981. I was twelve. Everybody was so scared. And then nothing happened for years, and everybody forgot to be scared, and then something happened after all and now everybody's scared again."

  "Were you scared? When it happened?"

  "I was twelve and Black in Philadelphia in 1981, sweetheart. I was already scared of plenty. Some people getting superpowers wasn't even in my top five." She picks up her tea, looks at it, puts it down again. "But I remember thinking as I was getting older - all these people, all this power, and nobody knows what to do with it. That's going to be a problem. And it was. And it still is."

  We sit with that for a moment. Outside, I can hear traffic on Longshore - normal sounds, Friday evening sounds, people going home from work.

  "Jamal told me about you," she says. "When he asked me to take this job."

  I tense. "What did he tell you?"

  "That you were one of the good ones. That you'd been doing this since you were fourteen. That you--" She pauses, choosing her words. "That you'd seen things no child should see, and done things no child should have to do. And that you were still standing. Still showing up."

  I'm not exactly sure that's a compliment.

  "I didn't know what to make of you at first," she continues. "This girl who walks in with fresh bruises and pretends everything's fine. And is either doing this, or being an EMT at 17, or being a child soldier at 17." She meets my eyes. "You remind me of someone."

  "Who?" I ask, expecting her to say 'Liberty Belle'.

  "Me. Twenty years ago." She smiles, but it's not a happy smile. "I was the same way. Couldn't sit still, couldn't stay out of trouble, couldn't stop trying to fix things that weren't mine to fix. My mother used to say I was going to wear myself down to a nub before I turned thirty."

  "Did you?"

  "Almost. Got real sick in my late twenties - stress, exhaustion, my body just gave out. Spent three months in bed, hating every second of it. And when I got up again, I had to learn how to do this differently. How to pace myself. How to let other people carry some of the weight." She leans forward, and her voice gets quieter, more serious. "You're not going to be able to do this forever, Sam. Not like this. You know that, right?"

  I know that. I've always known that. I just haven't figured out what to do about it.

  "I'm working on it," I say, which is almost true.

  "Mmhm." She doesn't believe me either. But she lets it go, the same way Lily let it go. "Those kids in there - they look up to you. You know that?"

  "I know."

  "Alex especially. That boy wants to be you so bad he can taste it. And he's going to get himself killed trying."

  "I know." It comes out heavier than I meant it to. "I've been trying to - I benched him. He's not supposed to be doing anything right now."

  "Benching him isn't going to fix it. He's not acting out because he wants to break rules. He's acting out because he doesn't know who he is if he's not fighting something. Same as you. He's a romantic," she points out.

  "A romantic?" is what I ask, trying to process the whole sentence at once.

  "An idealist. What you told them earlier," she says. "About not fighting. About being smart. That was good. They needed to hear it." She pauses. "But you need to hear it too."

  "I hear it," I point out. "I'm saying it."

  "Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, you just got beaten up on purpose to make a point."

  I go very still.

  "I'm not stupid, Sam." Her voice is gentle, not accusing. "I've been doing this work for twenty years. I know what a real victim looks like and I know what someone playing a game looks like. You walked in here with a bruised face and a plan. You told those kids exactly what story to believe about what happened to you. And I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm not saying it wasn't smart. But I've been watching you, and I'm worried."

  "Worried about what?"

  "Worried about what happens when you run out of face to let them hit." She reaches across the desk, puts her hand over mine. Her skin is dry and warm. "You're seventeen. You've got your whole life ahead of you. And I've seen too many kids like you burn out before they turn twenty-five."

  "I'm not going to burn out."

  "That sounds like exactly what the person about to burn out says. Jamal told me you like soccer. How many old soccer players you know, Sam?" she asks, trying to empathize with me through normal interests that feel like they're light-years away.

  "I mean, Pele's, what, 86?" I mutter, trying to run down a list of names in my head.

  "How many you know that still play soccer, smartass?" she catches like a fresh hook to the jaw. "Or do they all retire when they're 30 because they've broken their legs too many times? Are you a soccer player? You gonna cram all the help you can do into the next 13 years and then retire? Or do you wanna make a life out of this? You can do whatever you want, Sam. But think about the demands of the position."

  I stare at her.

  "I should go," I say. "It's getting late."

  "You want me to call you a cab? Or your parents?"

  "I'll walk. It's not far."

  "Mmhm." She stands up, and I stand up, and she pulls me into a hug before I can react. It's brief, firm, the kind of hug that says things words can't. "You did good today," she says into my shoulder. "I mean it. Now go home and rest."

  "Yes ma'am."

  "Don't 'ma'am' me. I told you. Jennifer."

  "Yes, Jennifer."

  She laughs and lets me go.

  Longshore Avenue is quiet in the dark. Streetlights make pools of orange on the sidewalk. The hedges I passed on the way in have settled back to normal - still leaning slightly toward the center, but not straining anymore. Jasmine's influence fading with distance, or maybe just with time.

  I check my phone. Messages from Mom, from Dad, from the group chat. I should call them. I should tell them I'm okay. I should go home and let my mother fuss over me and eat whatever comfort food she's already making.

  Instead I just walk. Letting the cold air clear my head. Letting the day settle. Slightly resenting being as transparent as glass.