“At least take my number,” Pip said, pouting as she stared after Vivianne. After the night before, she’d thought Vivainne would be more agreeable toward her, but now she was leaving and tried to take off without saying anything.

  Had last night meant nothing?

  Vivainne stopped, staring at Pip for a moment before rolling her eyes. “Fine,” she said, holding out a hand. Pip scrambled for her phone, slapping it onto Vivainne’s open palm. “Don’t see the point though.”

  “The point is, we can talk to each other,” Pip said, smiling widely at the girl. She knew no one could resist her, not for long, even if she made a bad impression.

  “About what?”

  “Superhero things? Training? Whatever you’re into?” Pip said, rattling off the list quickly.

  “You’re out of luck, then,” Viv said, the corners of her lips twitching as she finished typing in her number. “I don’t know anything about training or superhero things.”

  “You’re in luck, then! Because I know those things.”

  “Sure.” Vivainne handed the phone back, a smile creeping across her face. “I guess I’ll see you again when the program year starts.”

  “Definitely,” Pip said. “Maybe we’ll even be roommates!”

  Vivainne let out a burst of laugher. “Right. As if.”

  She waved as she stopped by the door, Thalia waiting just outside to take her to the Unity Tower and back home. Pip waved back, smiling widely at the girl. A new friend, and someone who probably needed a friend too. Pip had to be proud of the fact that was able to break past Vivainne’s hard outer shell to get to the soft, squishy stuff inside.

  The moment the door closed, Pip took her phone out, selecting Viv’s number and sending off a smiley face.

  Vivainne didn’t respond, but that was okay. Pip had more to do than bother a girl today. She had to film her essay for the hero program, so she could finish her application.

  The breakfast Grant made was a far cry from what Pip was used to, but she ate the pile of french toast gratefully, occasionally tapping her fork against the table as she mused over what to talk about in her essay.

  Florence stepped out of the living room, looking like he’d risen from the dead. “You didn’t wake me,” he said, frowning deeply, eyebrows that didn’t match his hair creasing together. “I told you to wake me when there was breakfast.”

  Pip rolled her eyes. “I wanted to actually get some, before you came and ate all of it.”

  Florence shot her a dirty look, making his way around the kitchen silently and piling a plate full of food. He dropped into a chair, digging into his breakfast in broody silence. What was up with him?

  “What do you have planned for today?” Grant asked after a sip of coffee. “I knew originally you were going to go and tour the Florida location next.”

  Florence made a face. “No way you were going to go and train in Florida. What are you, insane?”

  Pip rolled her eyes. “No, I just wanted to see what was out there.”

  “Supersized gators,” Florence said. “Giant poisonous snakes. Iguanas the size of cars, with super powers. You don’t want to go to Florida.”

  “There are just as many metafauna animals in Colorado as there are in Florida,” Pip said, shaking her head at him. The metafauna species weren’t really that big of a deal, most of the time. Like normal animals, they had their own lives and were content to stay out of humans’ way. Most of the time. Sometimes, something would disturb them and they’d cause some trouble, but it wasn’t anything heroes or even the trained Handlers couldn’t deal with.

  “And then there’s the ocean,” Florence continued. “Hurricanes. Natural disasters. Floridians.” He shuddered dramatically.

  “Okay,” Pip said, rolling her eyes. “Either way, I’m not going to Florida, I’m going here. So it doesn’t really matter, does it?” She turned her attention back to her grandpa. “I’m planning on finishing the application today, and then, I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe I steal you for a bit,” Grant said, eyes twinkling. Most of the time, he was the sane and steady one compared to Thalia, but Pip had to wonder if he only looked that way because of how out there her grandmother was at times. “Haven’t had much time with you recently.”

  “Sure,” Pip agreed, smiling at him.

  “Can I come?” Florence asked. When Pip looked at him, he shrugged. “What? I’m on break and I don’t really have anything to do.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Grant said.

  “Where do you think you’re going to take us?”

  “No idea,” Grant said. “But I have until you finish your application to figure it out.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Breakfast ended quickly, with Florence finishing off the last of the french toast. Pip glared at him as she stirred together her coffee, something she didn’t normally drink at home, but her mum wasn’t here to stop her.

  When she set the pot down, Florence grabbed the pot and took a long sniff before pouring the last of it into a massive mug.

  “You’re not going to drink all that,” she said.

  “Sure I am,” Florence said, taking a sip. He let out a dramatic sigh. “Black and piping hot. Just like me.”

  Pip rolled her eyes and carried her mug away, happy with the pile of sugar and chocolate and cream she’d doled hers up with. As soon as she stepped out of the way, Florence took her place, adding sugar and cream to his.

  “I knew you didn’t drink your coffee like that.”

  “You’re right,” Florence said, smirking at her. “I like my coffee like I like my men. Sweet and full of cream.”

  Pip gagged and turned away from him. “Disgusting.”

  “And you take your coffee like you like your women,” Florence continued.

  “Stop.”

  “Chocolatey and cold?”

  “Enough.”

  “Icy and bitter.”

  “Seriously?”

  “All right, I’m done now,” Florence said.

  Ignoring him, Pip took her cup of coffee and walked back into the living room. The blanket fort deconstructed, there was still a pile of blankets on the couch and a few glass pillars around the room. She needed to take them down, but Grant had asked her to wait, so they remained up.

  Placing her mug on the coffee table first, Pip found her bag and pulled out her computer. Sure enough, Artemis had emailed her a link to the video submission form, so she could film and submit her essay for the application.

  A pile of other notifications waited for her, Khione’s name at the top of them. Pip read through the messages quickly, able to feel the chill through the computer screen. Khione was mad, of course, and demanding Pip message her since Pip hadn’t called or texted the day before.

  She was busy! What did Khione expect?

  “All good?” Florence asked. He sat on the other side of the table, criss-cross on the floor, giant mug blocking half his face.

  “Yeah,” Pip said, shaking her head. She would respond to Khione later. Probably. For now, this was the most important thing.

  Opening up the link, Pip set up her computer, staring at the white screen. All she had to do was press a button, click on the video camera in the middle of the webpage and record her essay.

  What was she supposed to say?

  She could talk all day about heroes, about their role in society, about what the world had been like before Unity. But how was that supposed to make her stand out?

  “It doesn’t need to be complicated,” Florence said between yawns. “I mean, they’re going to admit you. Isn’t your aunt in charge of admissions?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the point. I don’t want everything to be about my family name.”

  Florence raised an eyebrow silently.

  “Yeah, I know, I know.” Pip shook her head again, then smoothed back her hair. Maybe she should have showered and gotten dressed first? But she’d rather get this out of the way. “All right, be quiet. Let me talk.”

  She sat back, checked her appearance once more in the camera to make sure it didn’t look like she’d just slept the entire night on the floor, then clicked record.

  A light blinked on a the top of her laptop, shining white into her eyes.

  She flashed a smile at the screen. “Hi, uh, my name is Phillipa Carter, and I always knew I was going to be a hero.”

  She swallowed, glancing past the screen to Florence sitting behind it, then back at the screen.

  “You’d think that was because everyone in my family is a hero,” Pip continued, gathering her thoughts as she spoke slower than normal. “But there’s one who’s not. My mum. She’s entirely human, with no special powers, except that she’s a great parent. And she’s one of the strongest people I know.”

  “My mum, Mai, doesn’t want me to be a hero. I’ve seen the strain it takes on her anytime my mom, Athena, goes off to work. It doesn’t matter if she spends her entire day in the tower, delegating. As the oldest in my family, I’ve seen that first hand. I know the toll it takes to be a hero. I’ve seen what the heroes in my family have gone through. I know what they’ve done to shape the world, into a world where it’s okay for my mum not to want me to be a hero. Because I don’t have to be one. But I’m going to be one, because I need to do my part in sustaining the world that my family has built.”

  “If I step back, who can guarantee that when I’m grown, when I have children of my own, that it will be a world where they can afford to say “No, I don’t want to be a hero”? There has to be someone there to hold the line. To make sure the world that was built for me doesn’t slip through their fingers, because I didn’t care enough to hold onto it.”

  Pip took a breath, ready to finish up. “I don’t think my mum understands that, but I’m going to make sure she never has to. I’m going to be a hero, and I’m going to hold the line, so that people like my mum don’t have to deal with the consequences of what happens when we don’t.”

  She finished her essay, feeling out of breath despite not talking much more than normal, and turned off the recorder. Relief and trepidation mixed together, too many feelings to digest.

  “Was that good, at all?” Pip asked, staring across the table at Florence.

  “It was,” he said. “Kinda wordy though. Maybe you should record it again.”

  Pip rolled her eyes and clicked send. She wasn’t going to sit here all day and record the same essay over and over again. Not when they had adventures to go on with Grandpa Grant.

  She grabbed the laptop, moving to shut it when her eyes caught on Khione’s messages once more. She could respond, tell Khione that she’d made a decision and recorded her essay and all she had to do was wait and see when she’d be admitted. But Khione wouldn’t understand.

  I’ll text her later, Pip decided. She shut the laptop and stuffed it back into her backpack, along with her phone. She left the bag open on the couch, darting back into the kitchen.

  “I’m done,” she declared, leaning against the kitchen island. “Where are we going?”

  A smile spread across Grant’s face like an infectious disease, getting to Pip before he ever opened his mouth. “I thought, considering the holidays, we’d go to Santa’s Workshop.”

  “What.”

  Florence scrambled into the kitchen like a puppy with too long legs, sliding on the tile floor. “No way. Really?”

  Pip stared at him, doing her best to keep a grin from her face. “Oh, Flor, did no one ever tell you? Santa isn’t real.”

  “You’re so wrong,” Florence said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t technically exist,” Grant said, laying a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “But there’s a super out there who would love for him to be, and it just so happens that he and I are friends.”

  “Oh my god,” Pip said, letting out a chuckle. “My grandpa is friends with Santa Claus.”