I woke up the next morning to a ball of sugary cereal and a comic book, and I think this might be the most rested I’ve felt since the beginning of this year. Slept like a log, and even got the old yoga mat out and stretched the kinks out of my joints. Showered, clogged the drain with the amount of filth I was covered in. Brushed my teeth, which I hadn’t done in ages—even used some of that medicinal mouthwash mom loved so much. Fresh pair of clothes. New sneakers. Went on a run before the sun fully came up and was back to do the whole process all over again. Now I was in the kitchen, the cereal box beside me and my third bowl in front of me, comic in my hand, tv on behind me, and I could hear Rebecca showering, getting ready, talking to someone on the phone and packing her duffel bag.

  But I honestly couldn’t really give a fuck when she came downstairs and said, “Morning, Ry. Slept well?” I had more important things to do, like laughing to myself when Ares made some stupid joke and Cleopatra had to figure out if he was just as dense as his war hammer. It was false, of course, but Becky didn’t know that, and she took the hint and started making herself some coffee. I watched her over the comic, humming quietly, dressed for a cold day, with tactical boots on and heavy trousers with pockets full of all sorts of things for her uber special mission too high-caliber for the likes of me, so you’re gonna have to ask her what she’s carrying, because it’s probs confidential.

  I’m just the mannequin with the flashy powers, anyway. The dumb blonde superhero who can be coddled with a sleek new suit and easier tasks because poor old Rylee Addams can’t tie her own laces without getting herself transported to another dimension to fight aliens or whatever. I kept eating, chewing, flipping page after page, even when Becky leaned on the kitchen counter, facing me, mug in her hands and her eyes peering over my comic book.

  “So you’re just not gonna talk to me?” she asked.

  I flipped the page, reading and reading and I really did forget how good Dennie’s artwork was. That reminds me, I should probably start doing my own comic since I’ll have all this new found freetime on my hands.

  “Good old teenage silent treatment,” she said, taking a sip. “Ry, I hope you know I don’t want to impose.”

  I poured more cereal into my bowl, shaking it dry. I got up to get some more milk from the fridge, but when I turned around, she was standing in front of me. Guess the Freemans have a knack for popping up wherever they like. I look at her and shake the milk, which is empty, so thanks for that, Becky. I hand her the packet and walk past.

  She sighed. “I’ll grab more later from the store. Want something, too? Ice cream? More comics?”

  “My mom and Bianca would be great, thanks.”

  I picked up my bowl and went to sit on the couch, turning up the volume as I threw dry cereal into my mouth. Some new animated cartoon, something about a guy who’s got powers and his mom tries to get him to join some empire or whatever. Saw people talking about it on social media in the morning. Figured I should give it a shot. It felt a little too close to home sometimes, but I had my feet up on the table (which mom would have had my head for if she saw it) and the whole day off, right? I could waste my time watching tv the entire morning if I liked.

  Be a normal teenager, like they said I should be. Maybe I’ll even make a snowman, too!

  Becky then stood in front of the tv, making me sigh. “Rylee, let’s communicate here. Talk to me.”

  “Yeah?” I said, putting the cereal down. She nodded. “Could you move a little? You’re blocking the tv.”

  “I don’t want to make it seem like I’m taking something away from you,” she said softly. “All I want to do is make sure that you’ve got enough time and energy to sort out the massive issues this city’s got. Think of me like a sidekick. I handle all the gritty little bits, and you handle all the larger gritty bits, then we come back here in the night, debrief, have some dinner, then head to bed. How does that sound?” I turned up the volume. “Rylee, please.”

  “I’m just the big dumb hammer people can swing their problems at, remember? No point getting to me.” I used the heel of my palm to knock the side of my head. “Nothing up here apart from wet sand, seemingly. Go hit the giant monster, Rylee. Go save the day, Rylee. Fuck you, Rylee, and go take some time off because you’re useless.”

  “Nobody said you’re useless,” she said, sitting on the armrest of the couch, close to me. “You’re special, you always will be, but the city needs you more now than ever before. You just need to focus on that for now.”

  I grunted and stood up, leaving my bowl on the table. Time to head outside, I guess.

  One too many people in this house, anyway. Too cramped.

  “Are you not taking your suit?” she asked, watching me pick up my backpack and head for the door. “The SDU made sure it’s something you’ll like. No capes, I saw the last suit. They put it together with a lot of R&D.”

  “Good for them,” I muttered, putting on a beanie.

  “Will you…” She sighed, her shoulders dropping as she placed her mug on the counter. As I was crouched tying my laces, I glanced at her, only giving her a bit of my attention. “Just call me when it gets to six, alright? I’m going to be in a meeting for about twenty minutes, then there are people I want to see. I know this is all so sudden, and begging for your trust just won’t cut it, so I’ll make it up to you, I promise. They’ll be back before Christmas.”

  “Hell of a promise,” I said quietly, standing up. “Shame a lot of people don’t keep ‘em.”

  Becky’s eyebrows almost met. “He fucked up your trust, and I’m sorry about that, but all I can do is go out there and try and make things better. I know you won’t listen to me, so…stay safe out there, whatever you’re going to do today, just make sure you take care of yourself, and if you need anything, call me. Whenever you want, too.”

  “If you want me to talk to you, here’s something: find them. I’ll trust you after that.”

  “Deal,” she said, smiling thinly, crossing her heart. “And Rylee? Have a good day, alright?”

  I froze, hand on the doorknob. I tensed my jaw and shut my eyes, because a flicker of annoyance just ran through my body. I took a deep breath and relaxed my shoulders, then opened the door. “Yeah,” I said. “You too.”

  The good thing about Ava was that she had no body right now, because having to find her would have been one hell of a headache to deal with, tell you what. I picked up a shift in the coffee store that morning to help out Dennie as he tried dealing with the flood of construction workers looking for a quick hit of sweet black. The city was still getting rebuilt, but it was slow, the snow and the bitter cold making everything glacial. That, and the constant attacks from perky little supervillains trying to take their opportunity and grab as much territory as they could.

  But I had something more important to do first after I smiled and served coffee and donuts, swept the floor and mopped spillage, which was clocking out at around midday, headed upstairs to my room, and talked to the Riveras, everyone’s favorite not-so criminal family. They’d been here since I left, probably because Ava couldn’t walk and her uncle didn’t really have anything left to his name. Dennie wasn’t in today, though. Something about a meeting he had to go to with the health inspector. That left a chick called Sandy in charge, and Ava’s uncle had a few things to say about her when he was forced into an apron and handed a pen and notebook to take orders.

  But poor people like him don’t really get to choose. Unemployment is at an all time high in the city, Sandy had said, and she’d be damned if some forty-year old freeloader sat on his ass all day long without helping out. Considering that I struggle to get this family to follow what I say, and I can punch a hole through them, he grudgingly snapped to attention and did what she said, even though he was muttering death threats all day long.

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

  So for now, it was just Ava and I in my tiny little bedroom, and you know what? If I didn’t know her any better, that might’ve been a genuine, almost teary smile on her face the moment I walked in and dumped my stuff.

  “My God!” she said as I shed my coat and the hoodie underneath it. “You’re alive? Ha! I knew you wouldn’t just leave me alone out of the blue like that! And here I was this whole time, halfway scared to what I might call death, thinking you’d been killed! You know how long I, well, ‘sat’ here, staring out of that window?”

  I laughed a little and sat on my bed, taking off my shoes. “Yeah, it’s been a hell of a week.”

  “Tell me,” she said. “Did you find Bianca? Destroy the Talon? And did you manage to meet Hekka?”

  “No, no, and he’s dead,” I said, grunting, because my socks were wet from the snow and my toes were practically numb. “Met his son, though. An asshole and a half. Sent me to another reality. Met versions of myself and everything.” I stood up and opened my backpack, grabbing several sticky note pads. “Then I came back here.”

  “I’d like to think you can articulate yourself better than a few broken sentences, Rylee.”

  I shrugged. “Probably, but that’s old news. The SDU is handling his son, and they don’t want my help dealing with the ‘big things,’ so I guess I’ve got some time on my hands to get some of my homework done.”

  “Homework?” she asked. “You’ve been out of school for months, and I doubt Olympus U is open.”

  “Different kind of homework,” I said. “You’re gonna teach me about New Olympus. Everything.”

  Ava looked at me funny, like I was some kind of creature she’d never seen before. I didn’t really have much else to tell her, so I hovered around my room, taking down poster after poster until there was enough space on the walls to make things easier when we started. I folded the faded old things and slid them inside the same box all of my comic drafts were and shut the wardrobe. There. The room looked a lot cleaner, and a lot less cramped. I got out my glasses because I think I might have a concussion, since things haven’t been fully clear the longer I have my eyes open, grab several pens, and get the sticky notes ready. Then I turn to Ava, an extra pen behind my ear, too.

  “Ah, I understand now,” she said. “You must be a shapeshifter of some kind. Funny, truly, but you’re going to have to leave before Rylee shows up. She doesn’t quite like being screwed with to any capacity, so unless you’d like your guts torn and not solid, I suggest you put the posters back where you found them and leave her alone.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Av’,” I said, shrugging. “It really is me.”

  “The Olympia I know wouldn’t have done or said anything that’s just transpired in the past minute.”

  “That’s because the version you know of me is pretty useless,” I muttered. I sat down on the edge of my bed and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, looking at her. Someone had gone through the hassle of bandaging her throat, so at least all of her meaty bits weren’t all over my desk. “I stayed up pretty late last night thinking about what I really wanted. Ever since you robbed that bank, it’s been one shitshow after the next, like I’m going down this water slide that doesn’t want to end, and the more I try to fight the current, the deeper I end up getting.” I sighed and pushed a hand through my hair, then leaned my chin on my palm. “I kinda just figured I need to do this a whole lot better, and not just the fighting part, but the part where I know what I’m actually fighting and why I’m doing it.”

  Ava’s brows screwed together and her lips tugged downward. “What the fuck? Are you dying?”

  “I’m being as genuine as I’ve ever been right now.”

  “Someone’s holding Bianca for ransom and making you say this, aren’t they?”

  “What the hell would a supervillain get out of making me a better superhero?”

  “Well, I was willing to pay for your training in the Olympiad for one, so I suppose it’s not entirely out of the question.” She pursed her lips and looked me over, silent enough for the sounds of orders downstairs and the rattling coffee machines came up through the floorboards. “You really are telling the truth right now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Ava, I really am,” I said, sighing. “My ‘boss’”—air quotes, obviously, because Dennie was the only boss I’ve ever really had—“practically thinks I’m only good as a meathead who can hit things really hard, and if he hit me with that earlier on in the year, I would’ve jumped at it, but I’m not stupid. I know I’m not stupid, but a lot of people think I’m just not smart enough to figure out the things going on behind my back, the things that actually matter to me, because I can’t even save my own mom and Bianca, just because nobody wants to tell me a single thing about what’s going on, and I’m pretty tired of everyone around knowing more than I do and not sharing the goods until they need me to come save their butts. I mean, what kind of superhero doesn’t know their own city?”

  “So…you came to me for help?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t trust me.”

  “I could waste even more time going around looking for someone to ask questions to, or I could go to the chick who’s literally just a head full of knowledge,” I said, standing up. “I really hate to admit it, but you’re pretty much all I’ve got, Ava. I’ve probably seen you more times this year than I’ve seen my own friends. I’m willing to get you a body if you help me get at least some notes down on what’s going on in New Olympus. A girl’s struggling out here playing catch up when seemingly everyone knows almost everything about, well, everything. So whaddya say? We drop the ‘I’m gonna kill you one day, I swear’ act and actually try to help each other out for once, y’know.”

  She hummed in thought, because of course she did—at the end of the day, she was still Ava. Making some kind of deal that would somehow screw me over was just part of her genetic makeup at this point. Getting her a body would be…something, a task and a half for sure, because I didn’t even know where to start with that, but I was gonna let it slide just this once with how she smiled and said, “It’s odd, you know, because the moment I began observing you was the same moment I began to understand you better. Well, seemingly not perfectly, but enough to know that you were never going to be like your father, and I personally think that’s a better outcome for you than ever finding your potential in that bureaucratic bloodsucking government office, and considering how busy my schedule is, I think I’ve got just enough time to help you with whatever hair-brained task you’ve got up next.”

  I smiled a little. “Thanks for squeezing some time in for me. ‘preciate it.” I faced the wall, staring at the old wallpaper and the lighter patches where my posters used to be. “Did you actually think I’d never be like him?”

  “From the jump,” she said.

  I nodded and swallowed. “What gave you that idea?”

  “No child is a carbon copy of their parents,” Ava said. “No matter how much you try, their shoes just won’t fit you and neither will their seat or even their cape. That’s just how the world works, unfortunately, and if we’re all hung up on chasing ghosts all the time, then we’ve got little to no chance of actually living up to our potential. The dead don’t have anything to tell you. If they did, you’d already know it.” We remained in silence for a long time after that. I didn’t move from my spot, not until she added, “Besides, I don’t think either of our fathers did a great job with us, but I think we can do a better job of moving past them together. So yes, fuck it, get your pens ready.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “You’re being optimistic. It’s creeping me out.”

  “What I’m being is helpful,” she muttered. “It’s the least I can do after the year we’ve had.”

  I turned around, trying not to smile, because I personally don’t think Ava should see me do that. It would mean she’s in my head, on my side, and we’re friends now or whatever. “Great,” I said quietly, then cleared my throat. “I was thinking we start with Zeus and Lucian, because we probably know the most about that, and then we hit the Kaiju and then the Blackwoods, then we’re gonna round back to the House of One and this weird kind of prophecy thing that Thirteen told me about, then we’re gonna talk about Lucas—Shrike—for a while, I’ll be really honest, and after that…” I shrugged, clicking my pen. “I guess we’ll just keep talking until we’ve got a roadmap.”

  “Where does the Triumvirate fit in any of this?” she asked me. “You and Adam as well.”

  “Good point,” I said, scribbling down ‘Triumvirate’ and sticking it in the center of the wall. “Forgot about them. It’s been a really long couple of months. Don’t forget Witchling, too, and the Olympiad…the SDU as well.”

  “It’s a blessing you live above a coffee shop,” she said. “This is going to take a while.”

  “You’re a talking head, you can’t drink coffee.”

  “I consider that ableist, thank you very much.”

  I laughed as I wrote down a name, but I guess to the world it was a title: Zeus. I hovered and stuck that one to the ceiling right above me, because I was more than sure that my dear old man had his fingers in dozens of pies.

  Well, time to get my homework started.