Loki slumped on his side on the couch, and his arm was stretched to full length, holding his phone as he facetimed his mom. She was home from work, all in her favorite sweater and her blonde hair pulled up, and she looked really tired.

"Hela still sleeping?"

He nodded. "She's kind of crazy."

Mom rubbed her forehead. "I know she's probably not what you're used to..."

"She's got tattoos and picked the lock with a credit card, it was super cool."

Mom's eyebrows almost hit her hairline, blonde with just a couple grey bits above her ears. "Really?"

"Yup. She's super punk." Hela was pretty cool. He didn't know anybody else who could pick locks in real life, and even Thor had been impressed by her devil-may-care attitude, though not as much her obvious dislike of their dad.

Maybe Mom wasn't thrilled by Loki's admiration, but she smiled. "Punk's cool now?"

Loki grinned. "Yeah, she's pretty cool. Why doesn't she ever visit?"

"Well, she was mostly out of the house by the time you were old enough to really remember her. Are you all getting along all right?"

He shrugged and kicked the box of dusty pictures tucked at the end of the couch. Dad must have swept them off the mantle and tossed them all in a box when he moved in, even though Loki liked all the pictures of them together and happy. If Dad didn't want them anymore, maybe he would take on up to his room. He kicked it a little harder, and the frames rattled gingerly. Fragile.

"Loki?"

He stopped kicking the box and jerked his attention back to his mom. "Huh?"

"I said have you both been getting along with your sister?"

"Yeah. She's been sleeping most of the day."

"Are you and Thor getting along?"

"I guess." Thor was upstairs watching TV or talking to his stupid friends or something. He'd already spent like four hours talking to his friends, especially Jane who was one grade older and really pretty. She was nice to Loki too, so that made her okay. He was already missing his own friends, his room, his bike. He wanted to go home.

"Good. Are you doing okay?" Frigga asked.

"Yeah. Loki buried his chin in his crooked elbow. "Are you okay?"

She forced a smiled, but he could tell she was sad too, a little cracked. "I'm fine. Do you two have enough money?"

Loki was sure they had maybe thirty dollars left of what Mom had put on the debit card before they got on the plane. He'd crept into Hela's bedroom to ask about lunch, but she'd been wrapped around a pillow and dead to his gentle pokes. Then he and Thor had looked in in the cupboards and found nothing, so they'd ending up ordering in from Jimmy John's. They could maybe order pizza for dinner, but if Hela wasn't awake they would have to pay for it. How much could pizza cost? Ten dollars?

"I think we're good. Hela bought us McDonald's for breakfast, and we had sandwiches for lunch."

She laughed, even if it was a little short. "Well, I'm glad there's some food in the house for you. You can ask Hela to take you grocery shopping, and I'll pay her back."

Groceries were boring. But Hela seemed cool, and she might let him get something fun like a donut from the bakery or the frozen Oreo churros he and Thor had seen in the Target near his house. Mom's house. He let his vision go out of focus and stared past the screen towards the huge windows and the dirt-colored, dust-coated world outside. "I want to come home, Mom."

She sighed. "I know. I'm so sorry this happened, but I need you to be patient just a little—" Her phone buzzed, and the screen turned grey with a little white message: video will resume. He inhaled and lifted his head, but then she was back, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"It's your dad. I'm going to have to hang up, okay?"

He nodded. "Okay."

"I love you. Be good, and I'll see you again soon, I promise."

"Love you."

And she was gone. Loki rolled onto his side and stared at the black TV screen. Crying was for babies. He wouldn't cry. Mr. Heimdall, Mom's lawyer, would get this crap sorted out, and they'd be back home in no time.

A door thumped, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes. Hela stumbled out of the bedroom, her eyeliner even more smeared than it had been a few hours ago, almost raccoon ringing her eyes, and her hair was a mess. Somewhere between going to bed and getting up, she'd lost her boots, but her socks were black too, so the effect was pretty much the same. She looked like a mess, but a sharp one, like nobody in the world could touch her.

Loki sat up straight and watched her stalk to the fridge where she grabbed a beer out of the door, leaned against the cabinet, spied him, and raised the bottle in a half acknowledgment and twisted the cap that hissed off and clattered into the sink. "Morning."

"Hi."

She looked around the kitchen and spied the crumpled takeout papers strewn across the counter. "See you found yourselves food."

He puffed out his chest, glad she'd seen how self-sufficient they could be. "Mom said you have to take us grocery shopping, and she'll pay you back."

Hela pursed her lips and took another drink. "How about pizza or something?" Her phone buzzed, and she held up a finger. "Hang on."

She pulled it out of her pocket, glanced at the screen, and curled her lips back from her teeth in disgust before holding the phone to her ear. "What?"

Loki slunk back to the living room and hunted around for the remote, keeping his full attention on the conversation in the kitchen. Hela sounded mad, like as mad as Mom when she and Dad fought on the phone and she thought Loki and Thor was upstairs in bed. She was leaning against the counter, hip digging into the counter and her long nails clicking on the granite.

"Yeah, they got in last night, and I had to drive all night from LA to pick them up. You're welcome."

Tense silence. Loki flipped the same three pillows over a couple times and found the remote poking out from the seat cushions.

"So you're just not coming back or…"

Loki froze. If Dad didn't come home soon, then they'd have to stay with Hela. But Hela couldn't stay forever, and they couldn't stay alone because Thor was only big enough to watch him overnight, not hours. They'd have to get sent home.

"Two weeks? You have got to be—" Hela glanced at Loki and paused. Then she turned her back on him and lowered her voice, but he went back to shuffling pillows. He wasn't sure Hela counted as a grown-up, but they weren't very good at keeping secrets. Christmas presents, birthday present, papers from the divorce lawyers.

"It's not about the money, Odin, it's about the fact that for some godforsaken reason, I have to be the adult here because you and your lawyers sure as hell aren't."

Hela clicked her nails against the counter, fast and agitated as she listened to a voice Loki couldn't hear. She swore under her breath. "Your sons? Then maybe you should act like it."

More clicking nails.

"Yeah, don't bring Frigga into this. She probably should have called someone else, but this? This is on you."

Another tense silence. Hela scoffed. "You know what? You're an ass."

She slammed her phone on the counter and knocked back the rest of her beer. Then she spun on Loki, who gasped and whipped his head down.

"What kind of pizza do you want?"

"Uh…"

"Supreme," said Thor.

Loki looked up, and his brother was standing on the second-floor balcony, leaning against the railing. His face was screwed up funny, and Loki realized his brother had heard everything too. Hela picked up her phone and typed something before scrolling and holding it back up to her ear. "You want Pepsi or anything?"

"Sprite," Loki said before his brother could say anything. Thor got to pick the pizza, Mom would say it was only fair.

Hela nodded then straightened her back as someone spoke to her. "Hi, I'd like to order a large supreme pizza, a two-liter Sprite, and… let's add an order of breadsticks or cheesy bread or whatever it is you've got." She gave Odin's address then hung up and looked back to them. "Did you unpack?"

"You told us to." Thor thumped down the stairs with the grace and lightness of an elephant.

"Well, pack again because tomorrow morning we're driving back to L.A."

Thor sputtered. "Wait, what?"

"I have to get back to work, and it looks like your old man isn't making an appearance for at least another month."

"You just said two weeks."

She gave him a knowing look. "Trust me, it'll be a month."

"Can you do that?" Loki draped himself over the back of the couch, hands dangling towards the floor.

She shrugged. "I called your mom's lawyer about an hour ago, and he called your dad's people and worked it out."

"Can we go to Disneyland?"

"We'll see."

Thor stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered into the kitchen. "Can I have a beer?"

"Absolutely not."