[2020 Watty Award Winner!]
[BOOK 1 OF THE HAVOC SERIES]
❝you may be the best web-slinger
around, but you're terrible
at keeping secrets.❞
in which even though peter has a new,
high-tech suit, it doesn't stop a girl with
common sense from discove...
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GOING TO SCHOOL ON Monday almost seems impossible. Granted, going to school any day seems impossible, but this particular morning feels like she's actually getting the life drained out of her the more she's within the building of Midtown Tech. Her body still has a residual ache from the bruises covering her skin and the general soreness of battle. She'd popped several over-the-counter pain relievers before leaving her apartment. Even so, she still feels the same dull ache every time she moves. She's had to place a bandage across her face to allow the cut to heal. Being in so much pain is exhausting.
It's been a strange day. She keeps forgetting that they've actually defeated their main villain. Hoodie Man has apparently fallen off the face of the earth — he hadn't been attached to the bus anymore when they came back to Homecoming that night — and there hasn't been a word from Vulture's other accomplices, if he has any.
It seems surreal. Lena catches herself staring at Peter and thinking, We did that. Them, two teenage superheroes with powers they barely understand. Two atrociously different nerds. The thought has her wondering who else in their school has abilities that they struggle with. Does the boy she sits next to in AP Calc have the power to heal? Can her locker neighbor lift three times her body weight? If they can hide their superhero guise well, then so can anyone else.
Then she passes by Liz's locker on her way to AP Gov, and all of that pride goes to shit.
The tall girl has her arms hugged around her stomach and her head down, a posture so different from her normal, confident one that it takes Lena by surprise. A curtain of wavy black hair obscures her face from view. Her mother and Betty are cleaning the books, notebooks, binders, and knick-knacks from the small blue space. Every plop of a book into the cardboard box or taking down of a picture makes the locker look sad. Barren. Lifeless. Lena even catches a glimpse of a picture of the team at Nationals the split second before her mother removes it.
Words fire out of her mouth before she can stop them. "Hey, Liz—"
She doesn't know where to go from there. Just as quickly as the words come, they die in her throat, and she's left to stand there in the hallway, gaping like a fish out of water. There are so many things that she wants to say but can't make her mouth form the words.
Liz turns around, and, to Lena's surprise, envelopes her in a hug. The younger girl feels a stab of guilt as she returns the embrace. It runs through her gut and rests there, causing a pool of utter coldness to form in her stomach. She can't help but feel like she's a hypocrite. After all, she is the reason why Liz is so miserable.
