Charlotte Hathaway saw Storm Warning fall from the sky.
Maybe it had been stupid to walk toward the giant stone walls instead of away from them, but they were blocking the route back to her apartment. Her only options were to take a much longer way home, or to wait for Storm Warning to finish fighting Citadel.
She watched the fight from the sidewalk, ignoring the people who pushed past her on their way seek refuge in the shops. The wind picked up, pulling stray curls of blue hair free from her ponytail and whipping around the flannel she’d tied at her waist.
It was hard to follow the battle when the two were inside Citadel’s walls. But once they returned to the top of the wall towering over the street, Charlotte couldn’t tear her eyes away.
And then Citadel delivered that final blow.
By the time Charlotte’s mind caught up with her legs, she was already racing to the end of the street, toward the intersection where Storm Warning had fallen. She was nearly there when someone else on the sidewalk grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?” the woman asked, eyes wide.
Charlotte glanced at her. “Storm Warning—”
“Citadel is still out there!”
Charlotte turned her head in time to see Citadel step off a pillar and disappear over the other side of the wall. She yanked her arm free from the woman’s grasp and kept running. If Storm Warning was still alive, someone needed to get him help.
He had to be alive, right?
A puddle of rainwater had formed beneath the hero’s body. Some of it was probably blood, too. As Charlotte dropped to her knees next to him, she could hardly believe her eyes. Here she was, only feet away from the city’s greatest hero. And she was alone.
There was a massive wound across Storm Warning’s chest, spilling blood that darkened the front of his suit and stained his cape red.
“Storm Warning?” Charlotte tried. “Can you hear me?” Her eyes stung. The lights of nearby buildings blurred. “Hello?” She dared to rest a hand on his chest. No movement. No breathing.
Charlotte sniffed and dropped her head, resisting the urge to break down entirely but unable to find the strength to stand. What was she doing out here? Storm Warning was beyond saving now. They all were. She needed to get away before Citadel did something worse.
A white glow emanated from the wound in Storm Warning’s chest. Charlotte wiped her arm across her face and sniffed again. “Storm—?”
Dark, metallic liquid emerged from the wound and floated up into the air. The liquid formed a solid sphere a couple of feet above Storm Warning’s chest. Frowning, Charlotte reached out to touch it.
It shocked her. She flinched and yanked her hand back. The sphere melted back into liquid and followed her finger. Heart skipping in her chest, she rose to her feet and took a step back from the body. The liquid moved faster now, following until it found the skin of her arm. She gasped at its freezing touch.
Metal sliced through her skin and liquified again as it sank under the surface. Charlotte yelped in pain. Clutched her arm.
A shadow passed over her. There was movement on top of Citadel’s wall. In a panic, Charlotte swung her head, located the closest alley, and ran.
“Is someone down there?” a voice called. Citadel.
Charlotte forced her legs to move faster and held her throbbing arm close to her chest. She couldn’t feel any blood, but she was too scared to check. The shadows of the alleyway swallowed her.
A thud echoed overhead. Citadel had landed on the roof of the building to Charlotte’s left. “I saw you by his body,” he said. “Come out!”
Charlotte slammed into a door and tried the handle. Locked. She banged a fist against it. “Hello? Anyone in there?” she hissed as loud as she dared. Nothing.
She tipped her head back and shouted in frustration. “What do you want, Citadel? Haven’t you done enough already?”
“Did you know him?” Citadel asked. His figure appeared at the edge of the roof overhead, looking down at her. He clutched his cape in one hand. “Storm Warning?”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t have to. He was a hero.”
She was ready to try running again when the door in front of her swung open. A man wearing a restaurant uniform gestured for her to enter. Charlotte stumbled in, and the door slammed shut behind her.
The man twisted the lock. “What were you doing out there?” he asked.
Charlotte ignored the question. “Thank you!” she exclaimed as she rushed past him, already scanning for another door she could exit through.
“Wait, you can’t go back out there,” the man said, following her through the restaurant’s kitchen.
“There has to be a way. I need to get to Bergamot Street.” Charlotte’s arm still throbbed with pain, and she still couldn’t bring herself to look at it. Avoiding eye contact with the skin, she grabbed the flannel from around her waist and shrugged it on.
The man hesitated. “You could take our west exit and cut through the plaza, but it’d be safest to wait until—”
“The plaza!” There were enough trees there to give her cover. “Thank you again! Stay safe!”
When Charlotte reentered the night, the city was eerily quiet. Sure, there were distant sirens and an occasional shout, but there wasn’t a soul in her field of vision. No sign of Citadel, either. Even the hum of traffic had quieted to an unsettling level.
The burst of adrenaline that had kept her going earlier faded quickly. Her pace slowed as she neared Bergamot Street, and before long she had tears streaming down her face. She choked back her sobs, desperately trying to hold them in until she could get to safety.
Her apartment building came into view, but Charlotte didn’t feel much relief at the sight. Every step hurt. Her body begged her to sit down and rest for a minute. Come on. She gritted her teeth. You’re almost there. She really wished she’d kept up with her running routine.
Finally, she stumbled into her apartment and flipped the kitchen light on.
Spencer Higgs—her cousin and roommate—sat on the couch in the living area watching TV. He rested an arm on the couch’s back and turned to watch Charlotte enter. It only took him a moment to realize something was wrong. “Charlie? You okay?”
“Storm Warning’s dead.” Charlotte barely got the words out.
Spencer was on his feet in an instant. He rushed to Charlotte’s side. “How? Was it Blazar?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Citadel.”
Spencer returned to the couch, picked up the remote, and switched to a local news station. His eyes widened as a reporter spoke over a still image of Storm Warning falling from the sky. He ran a hand through his chest-length blonde hair. “Shit.”
Blinking away fresh tears, Charlotte asked, “What do you think will happen to the city?”
“I don’t know.” There was a faraway look in Spencer’s gaze. His pale face looked cold in the light of the TV.
“The other heroes will do something, right?”
“Hopefully.”
A fresh wave of stinging pain reminded Charlotte that she had a bigger problem right now than the fate of New Atlas. She pulled up the sleeve of her flannel and felt a jolt of alarm. A silver scar ran across her arm where the strange liquid had touched her skin.
Charlotte swallowed. “Um, something happened to me out there.”
Spencer looked over. When his eyes settled on the scar, the concern in his expression grew. He muted the TV. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I went up to Storm Warning’s body. This…orb came out of his chest and it turned into liquid and I think it’s in me, now.”
“You touched a weird floating orb?”
“It touched me first!”
Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, okay. Uh, does it hurt?”
“Yeah.” Charlotte winced. “Should I call a doctor?”
“A doctor? We should be thinking about going to the hospital. They might be able to remove it surgically.”
Charlotte shook her head. The world spun around her. But despite the pain and slight nausea, the thought of removing the thing made her hesitate. “I mean, it was inside Storm Warning. Maybe it’s not a bad thing.”
“Yeah, or maybe you could die!” Spencer was pacing back and forth now, which made Charlotte even dizzier. “We don’t know anything about him. Just because he could survive having that in him, doesn’t mean you can.”
Charlotte stumbled past Spencer, toward the hallway. “I’m exhausted. I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Charlie!” Spencer called after her. “You can’t just go to bed!”
“I’ll be fine,” Charlotte insisted. “The pain’s starting to fade, I think.” She reached her bedroom door and grabbed the handle.
Spencer caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder. “Oh, for the love of—look, could you at least leave your door open so I can check on you?”
Charlotte didn’t have a chance of breaking out of his firm grip. Spencer was tall and lithe—with delicate features that often got him called “pretty”—and didn’t look particularly strong. But all you had to do was watch him move furniture around to know he spent a fair amount of time at the gym. Charlotte really needed to start tagging along with him.
“Sure,” she conceded. “But I don’t think I’m gonna get much sleep if you’re coming in every five minutes.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “Better tired than dead.”
“All right, all right.” Charlotte made her way to her bed and collapsed onto her back. She probably should have changed out of her damp clothes, but she was already slipping out of consciousness.
And then the morning sun was streaming through her window, and birds were chirping, and Charlotte was very much Not Dead. At least, she hoped she wasn’t dead. Groaning, she rolled out of bed. Her feet thudded against the ground.
Something was different.
Charlotte rose to her full height, caught a glimpse of herself in her full-length mirror, and clapped a hand over her mouth.
For starters, “full height” was a good five inches higher than it used to be. The too-large university tee she’d fallen asleep in was almost a perfect fit now. A little tight, even. Charlotte examined her right arm. The silver scar had faded to the point that if she hadn’t known it was there, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it.
That wasn’t the only change. Charlotte looked like the more muscular girls at the campus gym she’d always wished she had the willpower to keep up with. Buffer, even. She laughed.
“Charlotte?” Spencer called from the other side of the apartment. “You awake?”
“Sure am!” Charlotte pulled herself away from the mirror and strolled out of her room.
Spencer choked on his water as Charlotte entered the kitchen. “Uh, did you get taller?” he asked from where he sat at the table.
Charlotte grinned. “Cool, right?”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Spencer lifted an eyebrow. Even after just waking up, his hair was stupidly voluminous, as usual. No matter how much Charlotte pestered him, he insisted he wasn’t using any products. Unfair. Still, Charlotte was too excited about her new height and muscle to be jealous for more than a few seconds.
“How are you going to explain this to people?” Spencer asked.
That was enough to wipe away Charlotte’s excitement. “Good point,” she groaned. “Oh, god. What am I going to tell my parents next time they visit?”
“Tell them you’re going to the gym now,” Spencer suggested. “Maybe it’ll be believable by then.”
“Lifting weights doesn’t make you grow five inches!”
“Tell them you did steroids.”
Charlotte barely heard the comment. “I’m going to need new clothes! Most of my stuff won’t fit anymore!”
“Yeah,” Spencer said. “And you’re probably going to want something nice, if you want to go to the funeral.”
“Storm Warning’s funeral?” Charlotte walked to the table and slid into the chair across from Spencer. “When is it?”
“Tonight.”
That was fast. “Are they revealing his identity?” Sometimes heroes had a will that allowed their identities to be announced to the public after death, while others chose to be anonymous forever.
“Nope.” Spencer took another sip of his water. “A few heroes flew in from New York to handle the whole thing. Old friends of his, I guess.”
Charlotte assumed Spencer meant that the heroes literally flew in, seeing as how New York was only a couple of hours away by car. “Think they’ll stick around to fight Citadel?”
Spencer sighed. “That would be nice. But New York has its own problems. I doubt they’ll stay long.”
“Hm.” Charlotte ran a hand along her new muscles. “Well, maybe a smaller hero will have to start doing a little more work around here.” There weren’t many. Wrecking Ball, Jackrabbit, Collider, Airborne…none of them were known for fighting big villains.
That didn’t seem to reassure Spencer. His expression darkened. “The funeral’s at seven. You wanna go?”
Charlotte nodded.
Concern still lingering on his face, Spencer added, “I’m going to go visit my parents after the funeral, and I might stay the night at their place. Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Charlotte didn’t know Spencer’s parents that well, despite their mothers being sisters. She and Spencer hadn’t even been particularly close until she’d decided to attend New Atlas University, and he’d offered the room in his apartment vacated by a graduating senior.
“Pretty sure I can handle anything at this point,” Charlotte said. Okay, maybe she had a little too much confidence. She was probably stronger than she had been yesterday, but that didn’t mean she was invincible.
Storm Warning hadn’t been, after all.
“Okay.” Spencer was quiet for a moment. “So, do you think you have his powers?”
“Hm.” Charlotte stared at her hand and tried to make something happen. Anything. She imagined electricity running through her fingers.
“What are you doing?” Spencer asked. “Trying to electrocute us?”
“I don’t know. I can’t feel anything.” Charlotte closed her fist. “I guess we’ll see.”