Thursday’s hero class was silent as Ms. Almstead showed a compilation of heroes of the old world. End of the unit inspiration, she called it. They had just finished a module on equality of justice in crimefighting.

  On screen, Sentinel and Stargazer stood together giving a presentation to the UN. Both in their blue and silver costumes, hair streaked unnaturally silver-white. They were husband and wife, rings visible over their gloved hands. They gave each other loving glances that they probably didn’t even think about anymore. It was sad to think of their deaths in the same fight.

  In a different scene, Seraph, a knight in shining armor, flew through the sky aloft on golden feathered wings. She touched down on a wide street with cheering crowds on either side behind barriers. She joined a procession of more costumed figures; science heroes bristling with gadgets, heroes in high-tech armor, heroes in animal-themed costumes or simple color patterns or dark skintight suits. There were people with obvious mutations, enlarged brains or multiple arms or hues outside the normal range. The crowds loved them all. The heroes basked in their love.

  Lauren sat in her usual seat near the front, next to Lucy. She absorbed the footage silently. She was struck dumb by the enormity of it all. So many heroes from so many different walks of life. It felt impossible that she’d ever be a part of that, that she’d ever feel even a sliver of that adoration. Every time she was reminded that superheroes were a global phenomenon being rebuilt, it frightened her to be along for the ride. Not just the fear of dying like most of them had. There was a fear of living that life too. Of so many people seeing Lauren. Depending on her. It was too much.

  Lauren looked around at her classmates, each with eyes glued to the screen. Their mouths parted in wonder and excitement. They wanted the celebrity that came with it.

  A strange, sad jealousy welled up in Lauren. It felt wrong to want to run from it. Like there was something wrong with her. When she found Rachel, would her feelings change? She didn’t think they would. All she knew how to do was look out for herself and the people she cared about. Unfortunately, the people she cared about were increasingly becoming people who threw themselves into dangerous situations because they were expected to.

  She looked over to Lucy, her cheeks dimpling from a smile as she dreamed of her future. How was Lauren going to keep her safe, and her sister? For the millionth time, she wondered why Hogan had stopped searching. If he couldn’t tell her the truth, she didn’t want to talk to him at all.

  The end of another Friday found Lauren in the student lounge. She had sunken into a thick-cushioned seat against the far wall. An open glass soda bottle gathered condensation on the table beside her, fizz slowly airing out. Arms folded on her stomach, she watched with a lazy gaze students trickle in and out, chat, grab drinks and scroll on their phones.

  A few seats away, Reuben sat on Danielle’s lap, head against her chest. They had been a thing for a few weeks now. Lauren had a sense the shrinking boy’s interest had once been in her. If it was, she was glad he moved on and found someone else. He was cute, and nice, but too boyishly young looking for her attraction.

  More students were pairing up as the weeks dragged on, hands becoming held in between classes and meal groups shrinking to couples. Lauren wasn’t jealous, per se, but seeing it did stir something vague in her chest. Some indiscernible feeling that probably had a fancy therapy name she didn’t know.

  Her mission to rescue her sister was formless, and it left her too much time to think, to relax, to… belong. The mix of ease she felt at being at the school and unease from being too comfortable left her conflicted until she worked herself up into being exhausted about it. It left her listless. Mara’s missions into the Warrens were the only way Lauren could tell herself she was still actively searching. Weeks of delving with no monsters yet and no sign of criminal passage, but at least there was an honesty in wandering through the smelly, crumbling undercity with the other formerly-homeless girl.

  The time to herself made Lauren grapple with an uncomfortable reflection: she didn’t really have any of her own goals or ambitions. Just a vague need for reunion. She had always been a follower. First her sister, now whoever put her on a mission. She didn’t know how to plan or look ahead. She was good at being loyal. She had to learn how to put herself on her own path. Right now, that path was feeling like hunting down Lilith again. Maybe that’s what she was preparing herself for, physically and mentally. An assault against the New Lords. One of these days, she was going to walk out and go searching by herself again. Find one of them, or three, or all of them, and discover what they knew. Could be suicide. Might also be her last option to get answers. But she couldn’t keep going on like this. Even if Rachel was dead, she had to know. The feeling that she was out there still burned inside.

  Vinny wandered over to Lauren, trying to look like he wasn’t purposefully sliding up to her. Lauren’s gaze flicked up to him passively from the tall jacket collar forming a fence around her face.

  “Oh, hi,” the new student said down to her, as if he just noticed her presence. His tee was tucked into a pair of tight jeans. His dark, voluminous hair playfully styled. He smiled, showing off-white teeth. “Lauren, right? I’m Vinny. I’ve seen you around in class.”

  “Mhm.”

  “Can I get you a drink?” Vinny offered.

  Lauren’s soda was still half full. “Nope.”

  Vinny wasn’t yet deterred by Lauren’s disinterest. “Well, can I get to know you?”

  Lauren looked at the boy again, this time with a more discerning eye. She tried to decide if there was anything she wanted out of him. He wasn’t bad looking. Kinda hairy, though. Lauren toyed with the idea of getting laid. Honestly, might take her mind off things for the night. With all her baby parts scooped out and her body being immune to all disease, it wasn’t like there would be any consequences. She wasn’t some romantic saving her virginity for anything.

  Vinny waited patiently, not knowing Lauren was weighing whether to skip all pretense and offer to go home with him. Lauren exhaled, knowing she’d just be a limp noodle with how she was feeling. He might not care, but it didn’t feel like the right time.

  “Isn’t there anyone prettier around here you can hit on?” Lauren asked him.

  Vinny smirked, putting his thumbs in his pockets. “Maybe I think you’re the prettiest one here,” he said.

  More like the least intimidating option out of those visibly alone. He was laying it on thick. He probably worked his way through all the girls that would have him where he was from.

  “Not tonight,” Lauren said dismissively.

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  He half-swiveled to leave. “But in the future…?”

  “I’ll let you know if I need your services,” Lauren said.

  “I can live with that,” he said, biting his lip as he backed away. “Whatever you need. I’m not clingy.”

  Lauren’s gaze caught on someone else’s as he walked away. One of the other new students, Anika. She had been watching the interaction from the bar. One heavy-lidded eye studied Lauren. The other was covered by her drooping tongue of dyed hair. She traced a dark nail around the rim of her heavy bottomed glass. Lauren held her look, not sure what it was for.

  Anika swiveled around to face Lauren fully. Her curvy body filled a tight black bodysuit that flared up over her hips, leaving a strip of skin exposed over the pants she wore with it. Lauren’s eyes roamed over her. She found herself blushing at noticing the curve of Anika’s belly and chest through the fabric. Lauren had only ever blushed that way around Edward, who had a similar intensity she noticed in this new girl. A playful smile on her glossy black lips seemed to invite Lauren to keep looking.

  The lounge doors opened.

  “Lauren!”

  The eye contact between them was broken, interrupting Lauren’s burgeoning questions of attraction. She looked over to see Lucy and Grace approaching together. Something about them walking together and smiling was unsettling.

  “Hey,” Lucy said. “Grace and I were talking, and we were thinking about hosting a sleepover tonight at our dorm. How does that sound?”

  “A… sleepover?”

  “Yeah!” Lucy said. “Pajamas, snacks, movies, girl talk. Those sorts of things.”

  Lauren hesitated. It sounded loud, long, and inescapable if it was happening at their dorm. “Who all would be there?” she asked.

  “Oh, just us four, then Thalia, Mary, Cleo, Lyra, and we were going to invite Allison to get to know her.”

  “We were gonna invite Benedict as the gay friend, but he kinda got pushed out,” Grace said.

  “That’s still a lot of people,” Lauren said.

  “We have a big dorm and lots of friends!” Lucy said. She clasped her hands under her chin and gave big puppy dog eyes. “Pleeeease?”

  Lauren rolled her eyes at her friend’s theatrics. “Alright.”

  “Yay!” Lucy cheered.

  Lauren followed her roommates home, and Lucy had Lauren help her get started on a batch of homemade cookies. Lucy scolded Lauren for sneaking tastes of raw batter, but Lauren pointed out she wasn’t going to get sick. Grace left for a while to requisition sleeping bags. Soon she returned with Harper, both burdened with bags which they dropped to the ground and began unrolling to carpet the living room floor.

  As the cookies baked, Lauren helped move furniture out of the way. The delicious smell of homemade treats soon filled the space. Lucy lit some candles that she wasn’t supposed to have, which complimented the dominant smell of cookies with undertones of autumn fragrances. The four of them worked together to tidy the space in small ways. It was nice. Lauren was still a bit worried about the crowd that was going to arrive, but she found the prep a lot more peaceful and relaxing than being used by some guy for the night would surely have been. It felt… wholesome. Like the feeling of being lost inside her could be temporarily filled. As long as she didn’t think about the looming questions of what she was going to do in the near future.

  The girls changed into pajamas, Lauren choosing cotton bottoms and an oversized shirt. They met again in the living room and guests began arriving soon after.

  Cleo was the first to show up. She slipped off the sandals at the end of her long, tan legs. “Had to finish up my maths homework. Mr. Gildan is such a dick about it,” she complained while chewing a piece of gum.

  Thalia and Mary showed up together, Mary in blue pajamas and Thalia in leopard-print sleepwear. Lyra came in a sea-blue robe that looked finely crafted. Allison arrived last in sweats and a shirt. Her dark brown hair was down. She was practically a stick, tall and thin. She smiled, showing off her braces.

  “Thanks for having me,” Allison said as Lauren let her in. “Well, half of me. I’m also hanging out with the boys at the bonfire. I assumed you didn’t want my boy body here.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t even think of that!” Lucy fretted as she came around from pulling out the cookies. “Do you want to uh, also come here?”

  “No, it’s fine,” Allison insisted. “I get it, it’s a vibes thing. I have two brains, so I can multitask.”

  The girls settled into the nest of sleeping bags, couches, chairs, pillows, and blankets. Lauren eased down to the floor between Mary and Thalia. Lucy brought out cookies and bowls of popcorn. She asked what everyone wanted to drink. She was a natural host, Lauren could tell. Lucy was in her element flitting around serving guests and being sociable. Lauren grabbed a fresh cookie to nibble on.

  Grace sat on the couch like some sort of monarch of the sleepover, prim in her pink silk pajamas. Her attention turned to Allison.

  “So, Allison, where are you and your brother from?” Grace asked.

  “Again, it’s just me. I’m Allison and Justin,” Allison reminded graciously. She sat on a pillow, leaning against the recliner. “Just two names and two bodies. I’m from Connecticut.”

  “Right, right,” Grace said, nodding. “My ex’s name was Justin too. Soooo, if I wanted to ask out your other half, does that go through you, or should I ask myself?”

  Allison laughed, straining not to sound annoyed. “You would ask either of me, because it’s just me, and if we were to date you would be dating me too because I’m the same person.”

  Grace pursed her lips. “But, I’m not gay.”

  Allison smiled without humor.

  “Grace, leave the poor girl alone,” Lucy said, stepping her socked foot into the circle with a handful of sodas. She passed them out.

  “Yeah, we should be asking important questions.” Thalia cracked open her soda. “What are your powers?”

  That perked Allison up. “Oh! Well, my two bodies are linked spatially. So I can pass messages between them, obviously. I can also teleport one to the other. I have a few small tricks I can do depending on how I’m feeling. I’m here to get better with it.”

  “So you’re here, and also around the fire with the boys?” Lauren asked. She was trying to practice being more open, and also was just curious how it worked.

  Allison nodded. “Yep. I’m also having a conversation with them.” She paused and giggled. “They’re very curious what us girls are up to in here. They want me to spy.”

  “Tell them we’re all making out,” Thalia dared. The circle of girls giggled.

  They continued talking and snacking, sometimes all as a group, sometimes in a few different conversations. It grew fully dark outside. The nights were starting to cool significantly. Lauren pulled up a comforter over herself. She relaxed. There weren’t too many girls after all. She talked with Lyra and heard a bit about her underwater kingdom. She was a diplomat to the surface, apparently a tradition every generation. There were all kinds of different underwater kingdoms across the world. Lauren listened with rapt attention. When she was younger, she could barely imagine what the rest of the country was like outside of Callis. Now she was getting a picture of the entire fantastical world in her head. She thought about traveling someday, when she had her sister and they were free.

  Eventually they turned down the lights and turned to the TV to watch some old drama show about a teen girl in a cozy small town.

  “Lauren.” Lauren turned around. Behind her, still sitting on the couch, Grace had opened her knees and patted her inner thigh. “Come here.”

  “Why?” Lauren asked. She couldn’t help but be suspicious. Things may have been better between her and Grace, but that didn’t mean she fully trusted her roommate.

  “I wanna do your hair,” Grace said. “Scoot back.”

  Lauren was still suspicious, but she couldn’t think of a reason to say no. She backed up until she was between Grace’s legs. Surprisingly, Grace was very gentle gathering her hair up and beginning to brush it.

  Lauren couldn’t help but relax further as her head bobbed from the brush gently working through her hair and Grace running her fingers through it. Her shoulders dropped. She closed her eyes and listened to the dialogue of the show mixed with her friends’ whispered comments. This was nice. Sometimes she and Rachel had brushed each other’s hair, but it was never like this. When she was satisfied, Grace put down the brush and began separating Lauren’s hair into strands. She wove them together into loose braids, one gathering the hair at the back of Lauren’s head and a smaller one by her right ear.

  Lauren didn’t scoot immediately when Grace was done. She found herself resting her head on Grace’s thigh as she worked a fingernail lightly against Lauren’s scalp.

  Lauren yawned. “Thank you.”

  “’Course.”

  Lucy came over and used Lauren’s lap as a pillow. Lauren paid the affection forward by gently petting Lucy’s head. Together they all watched the unimportant drama of small town life.

  Lauren smiled. She was glad Lucy couldn’t see a small tear roll down from her eye. She’d be worried. But Lauren wasn’t upset. She was remembering what home felt like.