Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 3

"Maggie?"

I jolted awake to find Mr. Porter, my English teacher, tapping me lightly on the shoulder. I had fallen asleep in class—again. I think it was the third time this week. Really, I thought it was a miracle that I had even made it to school that morning, but teachers rarely see things the same way as I do. Mr. Porter was looking at me with a mixture of concern and frustration—an expression I was very used to receiving from authority figures by now.

"Sorry," I mumbled, blinking around at the empty classroom. "Uh, how long ago did the bell ring?"

"About two minutes," said Mr. Porter. "And you slept through the quiz on The Great Gatsby. Come by during lunch and make that up, okay? I don't want to have to put in a zero."

"I will," I said, telling my first lie of the day.

That's something you have to get used to as a vigilante: lying to authority figures. I didn't really mind doing it with teachers. Even before I started jumping across rooftops in a cape, I thought teachers were nosy, and I knew I was better off telling them what they wanted to hear even if it wasn't the truth. Now that I regularly missed tests and forgot to turn in homework, I had to BS my way through a lot of involuntary afer-class conferences with teachers just to keep my sanity.

I wasn't sure whether Mr. Porter believed me, but he acted like he at least hoped I was telling the truth. I avoided eye contact as I scooped my stuff into my backpack and shuffled out of the English classroom, which was just far enough from my next class that I would need to hustle to make it in time.

I waited until I turned the corner and was safely out of Mr. Porter's jurisdiction before I started running down the hall.

So, short version: I go to a STEAM magnet school called Sefton Polytechnic—basically, it's the only good public school in the Fen, and I'm wormed my way in because I'm okay at science and more than okay at basketball. I like to think I was doing well for a freshman: I was making B-pluses, I had never been sent to the office, and I was on track to succeed Anaya Strawter as captain of the JV basketball team. Well, you know how it goes: the supervillain, the best friend's life-altering injury, the unquenchable lust for revenge. Now I'm a C-minus student at best, I finally got kicked off the basketball team after skipping five months of practice, and I'm mostly known as the girlfriend of the quiet kid from the Engineering track who was secretly murdering people while wearing a doll mask.

As you can tell, I wasn't super popular.

I tried to pretend like it didn't bother me. My classmates were easier to fool than my dad—crying yourself to sleep every night is a bit of a giveaway—but I was surviving. The Hmong students still wouldn't look at me, and even the other outcasts wouldn't sit with me at lunch if they could help it, but I was alive. It gave me plenty of time to be more active in my "extracurricular activities," which was part of why me and Corrigan were cracking down so hard on arms smuggling into the Fen. Harassing the Polish mob was satisfying, but it didn't quite make up for the loneliness.

I was stuffing my English textbook into my locker and wondering whether it was really worth it to shove my way through the halls just to make it on time to Geology when I noticed someone in my peripheral vision.

"Hey," said Benedict Vang, leaning over me with his usual cocky grin.

I did my best to frown. It had been over four weeks since Ben told me we couldn't hang out anymore because it would make his family look bad. He's Hmong, by the way, which should have made me a little more understanding about what a difficult place he was in. He wanted to be on my side, but I was also the girlfriend of the guy who had burned down the Redding Credit Cooperative and nearly left the entire Hmong community destitute. That made things complicated, but when you're the one being ostracized for doing the right thing, you get a little fed up with "complicated."