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Hector thought about simply refusing Nathan’s offer--Garovel even gave permission--but he couldn’t bring himself to. He worried what his new group of friends thought of him, what with how he always made it difficult for them to help him with anything. So he went to school.

But before even his first class finished, Hector had to leave again. Garovel had found him a nice, heaping plate of early morning gang violence--and not even that far away from Calman High, either.

It was a group of ten or so guys, all pretty young, and masked with scarves and hoodies. They’d been raiding a rundown apartment complex, terrorizing the residents with knives and handguns. Without incurring injury, Hector bound them all in iron and stole their weapons. An elderly tenant offered him an apple pie. He quietly refused, of course.

Garovel was quick to find more people in distress. There had been a spike in violent crime over the past couple days. The police largely attributed it to the Rofals, but they also seemed keen to blame Hector, even if they couldn’t determine how just yet.

And now, having not slept more than a total of four hours in the past three days, Hector finally lay in bed again. It was the middle of the day, but the nights tended to need him more, anyway.

Through the growing fog that was his fatigue, he could still feel faintly wondrous at the lack of pain throughout his body. It was a welcome change, to say the least, though he did not expect it to remain that way for very long.

Sleep was a warm cloud, unconscious bliss. And then a voice broke through.

‘Hector, wake up. Your cellphone is beeping.’

His eyes slit open. “Cellphone...? Who would be--?” He sat up.