“Congratulations,” he says, stepping around the desk and shaking my hand. “You are the newest member of the Hero Brigade.”
Everything happens quickly and yet slowly at the same time. I know I’m supposed to turn around and leave but I can’t help myself. “What happened to my sister?”
Lucy squares her shoulders. “You have no sister.”
Hugo clears his throat. “I assume you are talking about the villain who is allegedly your twin sister.”
“Um, yeah,” I say. “That person. What happened to her?”
Lucy lifts an eyebrow. “She is as good as dead. No need to concern yourself with her.”
“Was she depowered?”
Hugo gives Lucy a look, which she returns with a glare. The third examiner speaks up. “We do not keep secrets from Heroes, and I trust you two haven’t forgotten that.” To me, she says, “The villain in question ran off shortly after we arrived on the scene. We do not know where she is, but we are searching for her and she will be given a swift death on sight.”
A lump forms in my throat. “But we’re Supers. I thought we didn’t kill?”
Hugo places a hand on my shoulder. “If you murder innocent Supers and depower the president, we will make an exception.”
Lucy’s head tilts to the side, my signed contract still gripped tightly in her hands. “Do you have a problem with that, Miss Might?”
I slip the BEEPR onto my wrist and it tightens into place. I shake my head. “Sounds like a great plan to me.”
The smell of home hits me like a freight train. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my house and the familiar sound of the door sliding open, the stench of Max having just done a workout in his bedroom, the feel of the carpet beneath my feet. Evan’s place didn’t have carpet.
I drop the hospital bag full of medicine, gauze, and my damaged Hero suit to the floor and give a halfhearted smile to the two faces staring back at me. All the air squeezes out of my lungs as Max throws himself over me in a massive bear hug.
“Welcome home, Mace.” He pulls back slowly, letting his right hand trail down my left arm but ignoring my other arm. I can’t blame him for that. His hand stops at my BEEPR. “What’s this? Is it from the hospital?”
I snort, feeling excitement rush over me for the first time since I left the examiners. “What does it look like, genius?”
Max holds up his left wrist. “It looks like this.”
I pat him on the chest as condescendingly as I can for being so much shorter than he is. “Good job, Sherlock.”
“You’re a Hero?”
“Yup.” I try to play it cool but I’m all smiles and there’s no denying my excitement. All the air rushes out of my lungs again. This time Max lifts me off my feet and spins me in a circle. When he puts me down, he punches me on the shoulder.
“You’re the most badass person in Central now. Partially depowered and still a Hero.”
“I can fix that for you.” Evan speaks up for the first time. Max and I both spin around to face him.
“You can?” I practically yell to him in anticipation. He scratches the back of his neck. His hair is pulled into a messy ponytail. His eyes have dark circles under them and his t-shirt is three sizes too big. Borrowed from Max, no doubt.
“Well, I have no idea how to fix it.” He bites his lower lip. “But I’ll work on it. We can clone power cells, regrow veins, maybe do a partial vein transplant—I don’t know but I’ll figure something out.”
He stares at my bandaged arm as he talks, the gears in his brilliant mind turning and thinking up possibilities that I could never imagine. I have full faith that he will think of a solution. Because that’s just Evan. I smile at him even though he’s not looking.
“Geez, just hug already,” Max says, shoving me toward Evan. “I can cut the sexual tension in here with a knife.”
I turn a furiously embarrassing shade of red and fall into Evan’s arms. He clutches me to his chest, wrapping both of his arms around me without a care as to which one of them is depowered. My cheek rests against his neck and I breathe him in, digging my fingers into his shoulders. I’ve seen him more than I’ve seen anyone else in the last two weeks but somehow I missed him the most.
He kisses my head and shivers run through my body.
The doorbell rings. Max slaps his hands together. “Pizza’s here.”
An hour later I’m still munching on cheese bread while Max and Evan play Assassin’s Quest in the living room. The game room has a bigger screen and