“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real, you know?” said Chris. “It’s almost over. In just a few weeks we won’t be kids anymore. We’ll be on to the next stage of our lives.”
“Chris, if you don’t shut up and study, you’ll get to enjoy this stage for a little longer,” Robby said flatly, then ducked the pencil Chris threw at him. He threw it back, only for Chris to catch it.
Isabelle laughed, shifting to lay her head on a softer part of Chris’s thigh. The southeast hallway past the computer labs was carpeted, but the carpet was thin, and Chris was happy to be a cushion for his girlfriend. “You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ve seen your grades. You’re good enough that you could probably just not show up for finals and still graduate.”
“I’m not gonna push my luck.” Chris twirled his pencil in one of Isabelle’s fiery curls. “What about you?”
“What about me? It’s lunch and I’m taking a break! Breaks are important for studying.” She pouted cutely up at him. “Besides, I’m too pretty to get an F.”
“Got that right,” a familiar voice blared out. Isabelle’s face fell as Pearl stalked past, sneering scornfully at them. “Two-faced bitches always know how to get ahead, don’t they, Izzy?”
“Pearl.” Beside her, Joel barely glanced at them. In the brief moment he did, it was like staring into the glassy eyes of a dead fish. “She’s not worth it. None of them are.”
Once the pair were safely past and out of earshot, Robby muttered after them, “Yeah, you better walk away, you fuckin’ pussies.”
Isabelle sat up with a quiet huff and reached for her biology textbook. “Don’t listen to her,” said Chris. “She’s just mad you took her down a peg when she turned on you after you dumped Joel.”
“If anyone’s a two-faced bitch, it’s her,” Robby added.
Isabelle smiled tightly. “Yeah, I know. All the more reason to prove her wrong, you know?”
“You’ve got nothing to prove, girl,” Robby told her. “You got into an Ivy League, Izzie. I bet you anything Pearl barely pulled a community college.”
“Yeah, probably.” Isabelle hesitated. “Joel’s probably going somewhere good, though. He qualified for a bunch of scholarships before we…” Her voice trailed off.
Robby shrugged. “So? I’ll bet you anything he loses them when somebody finds actual blow in his dorm room or something.”
Isabelle’s face fell, and Chris glared at Robby for bringing it up. Robby shrugged, unapologetic.
“God, I can’t believe I actually dated a guy who kept fake drugs in his locker,” Isabelle sighed, putting her hands over her face. “Like, seriously. Who even does that? It’s such loser behavior. And he was gonna drag me down with him!”
“Probably passing it off as real to sell it,” Chris said lightly. “You know, wannabe mafia shit. I can’t believe he still has scholarships after that.”
“Well, the world ain’t always fair,” Robbie said with a shrug. “But hey, there’s no chance he’s going to the same school as any of us—if he is going and he wasn’t lying about scholarships to impress you. Once we graduate, we never have to think about him again.”
Chris’s mind was already turning. “I mean…”
“Uh-oh,” Robbie sighed. “What’s that look?”
“That doesn’t have to be all we do,” Chris went on, a grin stealing across his face.
“I’m texting Angie,” Isabelle announced, already on her phone. “Whatever it is, she’s gonna want in.”
“I’m just saying,” said Chris. “Joel’s been making our lives hell since freshman year. He basically ruined our last year of track. Pearl’s been his loyal flunky the whole time. Why don’t we cap off our last year of high school with a prank?”
Within a minute, Angie was racing down the hallway toward him. “I came as soon as I heard,” she said breathlessly, dropping down to sit by Isabelle. “I want in.”
“You don’t even know what we’re doing,” said Robbie. “Hell, I don’t even know what we’re doing.”
There were only five minutes left of lunch, but five minutes was all Chris would need. “Like I said,” he went on. “Joel’s got a fat ego, and he’s spent four years running his mouth and letting Pearl back him up. Why don’t we send him off with a taste of the real world?”
***
Chris spent a few days feeling humiliated and sorry for himself before finally clawing together the courage to pick up Hazard’s phone.
It was his phone, technically. He’d bought it and set it up. But he’d gotten it for Hazard, for the express purpose of being able to contact each other without blowing their identities. And, well, Chris had kind of blown his on a wild hope.
He’d hoped that Hazard would understand, if he knew who Chris was. Taking initiative had backfired hard, because there was too much Chris didn’t know, too much Hazard hadn’t told him. The world had deadly magical forces battering at the gates at all times. The stakes were high, and maybe if Hazard knew that Chris had already seen it firsthand, he’d stop holding Chris at arm’s length.
But instead, Chris had scared his hero off. He hadn’t consciously known anything could scare Hazard, but apparently his prospective new partner breaking rule number one of being a superhero was it.
As he held the burner phone in his hand, another whim came over him, like it had the night he’d dropped his transformation and pleaded with Hazard to understand. Again, Chris rode the wave before fear could stop him.
The call rang once before going to voicemail. Chris’s heart dropped to his stomach. He called again. One ring, then voicemail. This time, he found it in himself to leave a message.
“Hey, uh, Hazard? It’s Fang—it’s Chris. Listen, I’m sorry about what happened that night, okay? I know that was weird, and—and probably a bad idea. I want to talk. I still want to help. I’ve always just, just wanted to help. Call me when you get this.”
He didn’t know why he bothered. Multiple rings before voicemail meant he’d missed the call. No rings meant his phone was off.
One ring meant he was blocked.
Chris continued to leave messages throughout the day. When evening rolled around with nothing to show for it, he put it aside and set out into the night.
Hazard hadn’t told him much before cutting him off, but he did know that they liked to patrol during dusk and dawn. Something about liminal hours—the explanation had gone over Chris’s head.
The air was tense as he made his way through the neighborhood. People were hurrying to get home before dark. No one wanted to be out at night.
He had a better handle on his powers these days; it was easy enough to isolate the shift to his nose. He walked up and down the streets, gradually widening the radius. With a little luck, Hazard was keeping an eye on this area, making sure Chris wasn’t still patrolling.
Once a full twenty minutes had passed without Chris seeing another person, he shifted the rest of the way and headed for the old armory building on Mission and 14th. Once there, a few careful leaps got him up to the roof without damaging a ledge or breaking any windows. Perching on one of the corner turrets, Chris turned his head to the sky and howled.
Hazard did not keep him waiting long.
***
“Are you sure this’ll work?” Robbie asked. “We’re not even allowed in the teachers’ offices without a pass.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” said Angie. “We can’t be there without a pass, so if they see us there, they’ll assume we have one.”
“It’s all about confidence,” Chris added. “Ready?”
“Hell yeah, let’s knock that asshole down.”
***
“What do you want,” Hazard asked flatly. Chris hadn’t heard him climb up.
“Oh, thank God, I thought you weren’t coming,” Chris sighed with relief. “Listen, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Hazard was quiet for a moment. “For what.”
“I dunno, freaking you out, I guess,” Chris said with a shrug. “I overdid it with the patrols, and I know I shouldn’t have spilled about my secret identity, it was a dumb move. I’m still new at this whole superhero thing. Uh, if that wasn’t obvious.”
He paused, hoping for an answer. Some kind of feedback, at least. But Hazard remained silent and still.
“But I’m learning,” Chris pressed on. “I know there’s so much you haven’t shared, and I’m not asking you to. But if you give me another chance, I can prove you can trust me with stuff like how you get around the city—which is cool as hell, by the way. Really pulled a Batman on me, haha.”
Hazard waited for Chris’s thin trickle of laughter to die away. “I don’t hand power over to bullies.”
“What?” Chris blurted out. “The fuck do you mean, bullies?”
“You were terrorizing poor people!” Hazard shouted suddenly. “You were terrorizing everyone—people were afraid to go outside at night!”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Chris demanded. “The people who are actually dangerous are too scared to start shit, and the people who aren’t are safe from people stupid or crazy enough to try tangling with a werewolf! Jesus, Hazard, that’s not bullying, that’s keeping people safe! You know, the thing we’re supposed to be doing?”
“You put innocent people in the hospital,” Hazard gritted out.
Chris thought back; there were only a few that Hazard could possibly be talking about. “They weren’t innocent, they were thugs lurking on street corners at night, trust me, look into them and you’ll find plenty they did to deserve it—”
“Like Joel deserved it?” Hazard shot back.
Chris froze.
They found the stack on Mr. Nguyen’s desk, still ungraded. Joel’s was in the middle, and the shredder was three steps away. It was nice when justice came easy.
“You made—you made his life hell,” Hazard snarled. “From the day you met him, you couldn’t just leave him the fuck alone—”
“Hey—wait a minute!” Chris started forward. “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you heard, but I wasn’t the bully, he was!”
“He was the bully?!” Hazard barked out a laugh. “Are you fucking serious? Oh my God. Tell me how he bullied you, I have to hear this.”
“He acted like he was better than everyone!” Old anger welled up in Chris, and the claws on his feet dug into the roof beneath him. “Him and that bitch Pearl—every day they shoved their fucking egos in everyone’s faces! He never missed a chance to make me look stupid!”
“What did he do, Chris,” Hazard said flatly. “I’m still waiting for a fuckin’ verb.”
“You wanna talk about putting innocent people in hospitals?” Chris snarled. “Pearl did that to one of my friends!”
“Oh yeah,” Hazard remarked. “Travis Hui, right? The guy that kept flipping girls’ skirts in crowded hallways”
“He didn’t deserve getting his arm broken for it!”
“Yeah?” said Hazard. “And what’d Joel do to deserve what you did to him?”
They cheered together on graduation day, when Joel’s name was never called.
“He had a plan, you know,” said Hazard, shaking and seething. “His home life was what nightmares were made of. Graduation was his way out. He and Pearl scraped together enough to afford rent in another city. And then you shredded his fucking final, and he was stuck in that house for another six months, and Pearl didn’t have enough on her own to get out, either. They fucking suffered because of you, and for what? ‘Cause he was almost as fast as you in track? ‘Cause he didn’t kiss your ass in the hallway? ‘Cause your crush liked him first and you had to go to the trouble of hiding fake drugs in his locker so she’d dump him?”
“Why do you care so much?” Chris demanded. “You’re Hazard! You’re a hero! You were fighting monsters from beyond the veil in high school! He was just some asshole nobody headed for boot camp or jail, why do you waste your time even thinking about him?”
“Because I should’ve said this years ago,” Hazard gritted out. “I should’ve stood up to you. I am a hero, but I was a shit one back then because the one person I didn’t protect was—him.”
“He didn’t need to be protected,” said Chris. “He deserved it. Whatever you think you know about him, he deserved it. Nothing I did—he would’ve done it anyway. Drugs, fucking over his future—if I hadn’t done that, he would’ve done it to himself eventually. That’s just the kind of person he was.”
Hazard was silent for a minute. Chris waited, praying that his words would get through.
“You seem pretty unhappy at your job,” said Hazard. “And your apartment.”
“What?” Chris said, caught off guard. “I, uh. I guess? They’re whatever, I’m not super attached or an—”
“Good, then you won’t be too broken up about leaving.”
“…What?”
“Get out, Chris,” said Hazard. “You have a month to get out and find somewhere else to be. If you’re still here by then, we’ll be happy to help you.”
He was gone before Chris could even get out a “But—”
“But,” he said anyway, to the darkness and the empty rooftop. “I’m—I’m a hero. I came here to be a hero.”
There was no answer.
