What were the chances that Melaton would just remove the things about herself on the drive, then give it to her bosses? And then the fact that Emily was a Villain would be out in the open. She didn’t have much of a choice. At least being with Melaton would allow her to maybe make . . . maybe not friends—that was going too far—but become the acquaintance of a Hero.

“We’re coming,” Emily said.

“Good. You got a costume? Because looking like a civvy is great if you’re a nobody, but it’s hardly intimidating,” Melaton said.

“I do,” Emily said. “But, ah, I need a place to change?”

Melaton looked around. “No one here,” she said.

“The Boss doesn’t like it when people see her naked,” Teddy said.

Emily considered if she could turn around and run away from the mortification, especially when Melaton started to laugh. “And you don’t mind, kid?” she asked.

“I get naked in front of people all the time,” Teddy said.

Emily slapped a hand over her face. It was . . . kind of technically true. Teddy’s grizzly form wasn’t wearing anything but its fur, but that didn’t count!

Melaton choked on her laughter. “What?”

“Is there a place we could change?” Emily asked.

The Hero nodded and gestured behind her. “There’s a little booth back there. It’s for changing in and out of costume.”

“There are booths?” Emily asked.

Melaton nodded. “Yeah. Bit of a trade secret. You don’t want some overzealous fan camping out in front of a booth. The creeps might put up a camera or something, and then I’d need to find and knock them out.”

Emily tilted her head to the side, expecting to see a little booth, like a phone booth but hopefully with blacked-out walls, but other than a few dumpsters, there was nothing of note. “Um.”

The Hero sighed and spun around to head deeper into the alley. “It’s camouflage,” she said before stopping next to a dumpster. A tug upward on a bar at the front, then a yank to the side, and part of the garbage container’s exterior slid open, revealing a small white room with a bench and some windows on the walls that Emily couldn’t see from the outside.

“Oh, wow,” she said.

“Have fun. I’ll be over there.” Melaton pointed off to the end of the alley.

“R-right.”

Emily ducked into the booth first, with Teddy waiting for her just outside. She undressed herself in a hurry, shoved everything in her bag, then got dressed—with only some reluctance—into her costume. Looking like a gangster from the twenties in front of a Hero was sounding like an increasingly dumb idea, but she didn’t have much of a choice.