The guy’s eyes moved around, tracking every member of the group, as if he was getting his head around dealing with five people with powers. “Is Tattletale pulling something?”

“No,” Aiden said. “Tattletale’s not. This is me. Chicken Little.”

“We’re not pulling anything,” Candy jumped in.

“Precipice,” the guy said. “Why are you here?”

“Because she’s a friend, and I wanted to see how she was.”

There was a voice from inside the hospital room. Muffled by the door.

“How did you know we were here?”

“She told me,” Aiden said.

Precipice didn’t look too happy about that.

“Can I say hi?” Aiden asked. “I brought her presents.”

“Show me?”

Aiden pulled his bag off and opened it up. He pulled out books, handing them over, then a necklace, and some general junk that he was really second-guessing now that people were looking.

Precipice turned the books page-side-down and shook them out, riffing through pages, checked the necklace and cord, and searched the other junk.

The voice on the other side of the door piped up again.

“You’re for real?” Precipice asked.

“I guess,” Aiden responded. Roman nudged him. “Yeah.”

“You’re a good kid,” Precipice told him.

“No,” Aiden replied, his eyebrows knitting together. “I’m a bad guy. I’m an Undersider, which makes me a villain.”

“The people you hang out with don’t define you,” Precipice said. “It’s the choices you make. This kind of gesture seems like the right kind of choice to be making.”

“I choose to be an Undersider,” Aiden said. “I choose to call myself one.”

“You’re a kid. You haven’t been handed a lot of options.”

“I still choose,” Aiden said, setting his jaw. “I’m loyal.”

Precipice stacked the things, so the books were on the bottom, and the successive other things were on top, with the necklace resting at the very top. Aiden let go of Darlene’s hand to take it with a ginger care that kept the stack from toppling, then dumped it into his bag. It would feel weird to hand over the necklace first and with it being on top it would’ve been necessary.

The voice came through, insistent and muffled by the intervening wall and door.

“You’d better go through, before she pops her stitches,” Precipice said.

Aiden opened the door, heading inside.

“—swear I’ll get my revenge somehow!” Lookout was saying. She spotted Aiden. “Oh, hi. And hi Chicken Little’s friends.”

She was black. That surprised Aiden, but he wasn’t sure why. He’d grown up the last few years with Aisha and Aisha was black too. He’d just… had a slightly different mental image of Lookout. It made him feel bad and a bit less sure of himself.