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“Yep.”

“You weresixteenand your parents kicked you out?”

“We were.”

“What did you do that made them…?”

How to tell the story as truthfully as possible? “High school was tough for Mark. He was shy and quiet and skinny in a town that prided itself on its football team, y’know?”

“Oh, I know all about that,” Sadie said.

“He got bullied a lot. I had no problem sticking up for him. I, uh… I got really mad this one time. The douchenozzles on the football team were harassing him. So during lunch, when no one was around…” Joan held up a hand. “We really didn’t intend to do anything, I swear. But back then when I got mad, it was next to impossible to control myself. I sort of blew up their equipment shed. The place where they stored all their stuff for practices and games.”

“Joan!” Sadie gasped, eyes wide. “You didn’t!”

“Oh no, I did. And then Mark flooded it. With a hose. To put out an, um, an electrical fire.”

In retrospect, it’d probably looked a little funny having an angry girl who always wore a dark flannel and jeans fuming outside the equipment shed while her preppy brother begged her to chill the hell out before she did something she’d regret.

The fire came anyway. A big blast that blew the metal roof clear off. Mark did his best to extinguish it, but his icy bursts ended up making the shed a smoky, smoldering, useless pile of debris. One more mess those troublesome Malone twins had created.

Sadie leaned on her forearms. “How did you blow it up? Where did you get the energy to do that?”

“Oh, I, uh…” Shit, how to explain that? “I had a lot of emotion, and Mark had a lot of emotion. I fed off both of us, and it just kind of happened. Like I said, things were pretty out of whack until I learned how to control my abilities.”

“Wow. So did you get caught?”

“Someone saw us running away from it. We had a reputation for being troublemakers, so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. We got expelled.”

“Joan.” This time, Sadie’s voice was soft.

“That’s when our parents—mine and Mark’s—decided they’d had enough of our shenanigans. They didn’t know how to deal with us anymore. Figured we’d do better in the city. They gave us a little money to start over. So we did.”

“You were just kids.” She shook her head in short, jerky movements. “Did you tell them Mark was being bullied? That what happened was an accident?”

“We tried to, but…” Joan shrugged. They’d already been labeled bad seeds. Something that continued in Vector City.

She didn’t want to get into the guilt she still carried over getting them kicked out. Thatshewas the reason, not Mark. That Mark had had his life upended because of her. She knew on one level he didn’t begrudge her, but deep down, that didn’t make it any easier. She’d been his protector but had let him down. It had never happened again, and never would.

“Have you talked to your parents since then?” Sadie asked.

“I used to, once in a while. Mark stayed more in touch with the people back home. We called when we got our GEDs, stuff like that.” Joan paused. “But it’s been a while.”

“You should be so proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to survive,” Joan said.

“I can’t believe this. It makes me so mad.” Sadie leaned back. “I hope they do know you’re Catch. So they understand you were trying to get a grasp on your abilities while defending someone you care about.”

A pinch squeezed her heart hearing that name. “I’m sure they suspect there’s more to the story. But they for sure don’t think I’m Catch.”

“Well, it is so totally their loss.”

Okay, enough was enough. She had to tell Sadie she wasn’t Catch. It wasn’t fair to lead her on, especially if they were gonna sleep together. Even if it meant saying goodbye. Even if it meant revealing her true identity. She’d made it clear by now she was not a norm.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Joan said.

A noise sounded at her door. Keys jingling.Shit.