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I could take him. I’m faster and stronger. I could slam his head into the wall hard enough to knock him out, then I could … the phrase “run away” doesn’t work in this situation. But I could lock him up somewhere on the island; make it to where he can’t turn me in. If I could just buy time to find a way to prove my innocence, then …

Evan clears his throat, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m not turning you in.” He lifts his hand, the one holding my arm, and brings my hand with it, turning it over to reveal my clenched fist. “I heard all that nonsensical rambling just now,” he says. Then, in my head, I know you’re not evil.

“Then why do you have my arm in a death grip?”

“To prevent you from running away.”

“Why would I run away?”

“To prove your innocence. To avenge Pepper. To try to protect me from being depowered. Take your pick.” He slides his hand up my arm, still not letting go. “You’re a runner. I can’t let you go until we have a plan.”

“They just declared me a villain with no actual proof. I have to leave, Evan. I have to go prove my innocence.”

“How?” His entire body trembles in anger. “You think they’re just going to take your word for it? After failing your Hero exam, attacking Aloki, and ruining a villain set up at the south entrance? What are you going to do? Walk into Central and say, ‘It’s cool guys; I’m not evil.’? They have two dead bodies and security camera video of someone who looks a hell of a lot like you.”

My temple flares with pain as my skull threatens to crack open under the pressure of my clenched teeth. I want so badly to disagree with him. But he’s right.

He’s always right.

“I have to do something.”

He nods. “Yes but not until we figure out a plan. Whoever that was on the screen is still out there, and you are safe here. The Heroes will capture them and discover that it isn’t you. We just have to wait it out.”

“Wait it out.” I test the words on my tongue. They don’t feel right at all. I glance at the elevator, and then across the room where my Hero suit has been laundered and placed on a shelf next to a Batgirl statue. My teeth dig into my bottom lip.

“Take a deep breath, Mace.” The nickname catches me off-guard. Only Max calls me Mace. Nicknames are what you call loved ones and friends. I do as he says, taking in a deep breath and slowly exhaling. When I look at him again, it’s with a new perspective. He offers me his hand, and a lopsided smile to go with it. Evan is not my enemy.

Evan is on my side. This is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“I’ll do it.” I lift my arm but don’t take his hand. “I’ll stay. But you’re doing something for me, too.”

“What’s that?”

I place my elbow in his outstretched hand. “Take my blood. Test me and prove that I’m not evil. Then I get to turn myself in and take the results to Central.”

We could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows. Evan stares at my bare arm in his hand, but doesn’t so much as shake the hair out of his eyes. “Don’t bother playing it cool,” I mutter. “I know you’ve been wanting to.”

“This will hurt,” Evan says. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. He’s holding a syringe with a needle the size of a freaking pencil lead above my arm. He’s taken me down to the fourth floor where all his blood glass slides are, prepped my arm with the world’s coldest cotton ball of alcohol, and prepared a dozen new slides for the addition of my blood.

He isn’t admitting it, but I can tell by the light buzzing of power emanating off him and the way he keeps gnawing on his bottom lip, that he’s psyched out of his mind to test my blood. With all the controversy surrounding my being born into a fifty/fifty chance of turning evil, I guess I can’t blame him.

I know in my heart that I am not evil. I’ve just had a rough time lately and anyone would act the way I acted, were they in the same situations. And now Evan will have scientific proof of my innocence. I’ll take that proof straight back to Central, ending this lockdown and gaining Hero status with one victorious piece of paper. Two birds, one stone. Hello, Hero Maci.

I take a deep breath as Evan ties a rubber tourniquet around my arm and counts to three. The needle plunges into my arm and although it hurts, it doesn’t come close to the pain of cracking your head multiple times on the Grand Canyon. Blood pours into a glass vial. I smile. “That’s not so bad.”

Evan concentrates on his task. “Hurt like hell when I took it from my own arm.”

“That is because you are a wiener.”

He pulls the needle from my arm and instructs me to hold a cotton ball against it as he readies another vial and pulls another syringe from a drawer. This one has a needle the size of a pencil. “Time for a sample of your power,” he says, flourishing what might as well be a turkey baster in front of my face. “Let’s see how long that cocky smile lasts.”

I’m banished to Evan’s bedroom for the next hour. Apparently he gets stage fright analyzing blood samples in front of the person who might be a potential villain. I try playing Xbox, but I only get as far as turning on the machine before I end up lying on the bed, discovering animal-shaped blobs in the ceiling plaster.

When I realize I’ve spent too much time thinking about Evan’s cute smile, I try to focus on something more productive. Like, why does Aurora want to find me? I close my eyes, meditating on the question. But I have nothing. Dad and Max enter my mind but I push them out of it. I cannot deal with those thoughts right now.

It’s two hours later and Evan’s wearing his glasses again. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“I’m sorry, what?” I say, snapping back to reality after mapping out an entire colony of blobs in the ceiling.