The bed off in the corner was a twin that had been left open. It was so much bigger than her bed back home that she knew she’d feel lost in it.

She surveyed the desk, the charging laptop in one corner, then looked over at her little bathroom. It was a bit cramped, but she didn’t need much more than the shower and amenities it had. The room, with its view out into an alley behind the Quantum Mothman building, was more than enough for her.

The sigh that escaped her left with all her worries and pulled a weight off her back. She locked the door, then trudged over to the bed and allowed herself to crash into it.

After a minute of recharging her social batteries from empty to near-empty—which was as full as they would go for her—Emily rolled over and pulled her phone out of her pocket. A scan of WriteIt showed that all the popular threads were about Power Day. People were placing bets and waiting for the new Heroic faces to appear.

She skimmed over a few “If It Happens to You” threads and found a web page filled with images of cute animals doing cute things.

If people were her kryptonite, then pictures of kittens, foxes, and dogs were . . . whatever the opposite of kryptonite was.

Her mind, the part not looping through a series of “aww”s at every picture she scrolled down to, was still working through a few things. She was alone now. No mother to call on, no huge stoic dad to fix every big problem. Just Emily.

Her classes would start in the morning. She didn’t know how to describe what she felt about that but decided to settle on terrified.

When the ball of stress in her stomach grew too large, she set down her phone and jumped off the bed. GIFs of kittens being spooked by tinfoil weren’t doing it for her.

With a long-suffering sigh, Emily undressed, realized she didn’t have a hamper to put her clothes in, and settled for refolding them next to her bed; then she slid on some walrus-print pj’s and settled in. She knew that she wouldn’t fall asleep anytime soon, and that was okay. The internet was a never-ending font of cuddly things to look at.

Eventually, despite the early evening sun still bright outside her window, Emily blinked a final time and slid into a restless slumber.

CHAPTER ONE

Wake Up

Emily’s dreams were all hazy nightmares.

She woke with a bit of a jerk, a sense of wrong racing through her that only faded when she heard the distant honk of a car and the sound of a toilet flushing somewhere. The feeling that she wasn’t home was quickly followed by the realization that she was in her new dorm.