They aren’t talking about me.

They weren’t even thinking about me.

Like I wasn’t even lying a few doors down the hall on my deathbed with obviously nobody worrying about me at all!

“You are such a traitor! Sleeping with the enemy! What’s wrong with you? This is just too gross for my eyeballs!”

“Go back to bed, Dani,” Ryodan says, looking at me funny.

I hate him and I hate her and I hate his stupid retracting door.

I can’t even slam it on the way out.

I wake up feeling amazing. Usually I wake up confused and cross. I’m thinking maybe I should almost get killed more often. I have no clue why I feel so good but I love it so I stretch, milking it for all I can get. My muscles are totally smooth and happy and relaxed, and I don’t feel a bruise anywhere, which is impossible. My muscles are always knotted somewhere. Bruises are me. This feels like a brand-new body! I figure I must be in some kind of pre-waking state I never been in before, where the brain’s been turned on but the body’s still numb. I feel candy bars in bed with me, melty in my warm nest. One’s mashed between my cheek and the pillow, I feel another plastered to my butt. I scootch them both out, tear one open and eat it without opening my eyes, blissfully happy. I could get used to this. No pain from assorted bumps and bruises, breakfast in bed.

Then I remember where I am.

Chester’s.

And I remember what I saw before I fell asleep.

Ryodan doing the dirty with Jo.

On his desk.

Gah!

Like I’m ever going to be able to look at his desk again! How am I supposed to sit in his office now?

I’m so pissed off I shoot bolt upright in bed and swallow the last half of my candy bar so fast it gets stuck in my throat.

I start choking and all the sudden a fist slams into my back. My mouth pops open and half a mangled candy bar goes flying into the glass wall with a gooey chocolate splat. It’s too gross for me so early in the morning. My stomach heaves and I double over trying to keep it down.

Yeah, this is more like how I wake up. All screwed up and confused. When I lived at the abbey, Ro told me I have growing pains and that superheroes have them worse than most people. She said that’s why I need to sleep so hard and deep, and wake up so slow, because my body has to do more work to repair me on a cellular level. Makes scientific sense.

“Might help, kid,” Lor says behind me, “if you chew more than once before you swallow.”

“I never chew more than once. I wouldn’t be able to eat fast enough if I did. I’d have to spend my whole day chewing. I’d get jaw muscles the size of Popeye’s biceps.”

“You’re too young to know who Popeye is.”

When you spent most of your childhood in a cage in front of a TV, you know who everybody is. I can sing the songs for Green Acres and Gilligan’s Island. I even know who That Girl was. I learned everything I know about the world from watching TV. There’s a whole lot of psychology in there if you’re paying attention, and I was a captive audience. Ro said I got all my melodrama from growing up that way. That I think folks are supposed to be larger than life like they are in shows. Dude, of course I do! But I didn’t need TV to tell me that. Life’s a choice: you can live in black and white, or you can live in color. I’ll take every shade of the rainbow and the gazillion in between! I push up from the bed, grab my sword and head for the door.

Lor’s in front of it, arms folded over his chest. “Boss didn’t say you could leave.”

“I didn’t say your boss could boink Jo,” I say real calm-like, but inside I’m seething. I don’t know why I feel so betrayed. Why do I care? They’re grown-ups. Grown-ups never make sense. Jo doesn’t even like him. And I know he doesn’t give a shit about Jo.

“Honey, boss don’t ask nobody who he fucks.”

“Well, he ain’t going to do Jo again. Get out of my way. Move.” I’m going to tell her I’m never talking to her if she has sex with him ever again. I’ll make her choose and she’ll choose me.

“So you can start some shit?”

“Yep.” I don’t even try to deny it. I’m ready to knock heads and I’m not going to feel better until I make somebody else as miserable as I am.

He looks down at me. I slant my jaw at a jauntier angle, and I can tell he’s trying not to laugh.

“What? You think I’m funny?” I’m so sick of people smiling at me like that. My hand goes to the hilt of my sword. It closes on his hand. They’re all faster than me. “I’m not funny. I’m dangerous. You just wait and see. I’m not full grown yet, but when I am, I’m going to kick your ass from one end of Chester’s to the other. You just wait and see.”