Dinner was a strained affair. For the very first time I had met Zach's family who, unlike Mr. Boy, had not quickly gotten over my villainous tendencies. They had seated me at the round table and sat down to eat. With a smile made of daggers Zach's mother, Carolyn, had dumped serving upon serving of her roast and mashed potatoes on my plate, and then watched with an eagle eye as I robotically shoved it into my mouth. She was almost daring me to turn it way, as if rejecting her roast would have been a capital offense, comparable with my attempt at world domination.

While a large part me wanted to knock her roast down for the dog to lick up because of it, I recognized that I had to be acquiescent, just so I could stay out of prison. I didn't think anyone could fault me for it, but at the same time I had nagging feeling in the back of my mind, was this how I would be broken? Bending over and over myself to follow their rules till I wasn't breaking any at all. I bet that was how they got Peace in the end; Gwen and I used to have such high hopes for him in the beginning.

I looked around the table; no one seemed to notice the way Carolyn was trying to fatten me up. I felt like I was Gretel sans Hansel being fed mouthful after mouthful of unwanted sweets, till I got so fat and lazy that it would be my inevitable demise, his was probably how obesity become an epidemic.

Zach's younger brother smiled happily drawing faces in his food and knocking down vegetables for the dog that scuffled around his feet. Zach's father, Darren stared avidly at his plate. An apt distraction since I was sitting directly across form him (or as across as one can get at a circular table) and seemed more interested in pretending I didn't exist rather than acknowledging the fact that he was housing a criminal. I shovelled the last spoon of potatoes into my mouth and my jaw slogged open and shut, I was tired of chewing. As my gaze landed on Zach he shot his head up and winked at me.

"Wow, Lilly, you sure do like those potatoes don't you?" He said through a mouth of broccoli. Four heads of platinum blonde hair bobbed up to stare at me.

I gave the fakest smile possible, "uh, yeah, they're... great." That was apparently all the encouragement that Carolyn needed because she pulled my plate towards her and laid down four more scoops of creamy potatoes on my plate. My hand urged to smack Zach's face repeatedly into his plate till the potatoes gave him highlights was strong, and I was glad I still had my criminal creativity.

"There you go dear." It gave a whole new meaning to lying through your teeth. In fact, this was strange punishment, and was in someway, I was sure, against the Geneva Conventions.

"You're pretty" Jamie, Zach's little brother spoke up. With his dark brown eyes and unnaturally bright hair he was pretty cute, I was willing to overlook his family because of tiny little dimpled cheeks that were stained with a fain rosy blush.

"Thank you" I smiled, a genuine smile of adoration this time. If nothing else, this kid got rid of the tension. Zach and his father went back to eating, and his mother was only vaguely interested in Jamie's announcement.

"It's going to be valentine's in three months. Will you be me valentine?"

"Of course." I smiled graciously, anything for an adoring fan. This kid was going to be such a heartbreaker. It wasn't that I was going soft, I just appreciated a four year old getting his flirt on as much as the next person. Said four year old gave me a gap toothed smile.

After dinner I shuffled off to my room, where I preceded to throw myself on the bed and wish I didn't feel like a solid brick wall. My eyes began to flutter shut when I heard the soft knocks on my door and I rose and answered. Darren and Carolyn stepped into my room, they kept advancing till I had backed myself onto my bed. They stood uncomfortably in front of me for a minute before Carolyn began to speak.

"Now, we have taken it upon ourselves to let you into our care, and have graciously allowed you in the sanctity of our home and presence of our sons.

I fought the urge to snort. As if that were some special privilege, granted Jamie was pretty cool.

"While you stay here however, you will not be loafing around. We will not allow you to bring your friends into this house unless we approve of them first..."

As if I had any.

"And you must get a job, we don't let our Zach loaf about at home, and we certainly won't let you."

Darren had noticed my traitorous expression and quickly backtracked, good to know I had him bullied by my reputation alone. "We have gotten you a job at the local library, where Zach works, we don't like him to have too much free time where he can get into trouble."

Somehow I doubted that Zach had ever gotten into the kind of trouble that I had, but I appreciated his father's attempt at appeasing my temper; knowing that it was something they expected of their own child, and not just myself made me feel less singled out. Besides, it wasn't as if I had much of a choice. They continued to tell me that I would follow Zach to work, rather than home tomorrow after school, and that I would do that every time he had to go to work.

And my first day as one of worker drones began tomorrow.

`

AT the end of the next school day we boarded the bus as usual. I wondered if we would be sent to the house first, in which case I could bully Zach into letting me stay with Jamie. Unfortunately, the bus driver must have been in on the arrangement because pulled to a stop in front of the main shopping avenue of Maxville. Zach grimaced at me and gestured that I should follow as he hopped of the bus and began ambling down the sidewalk.

"So where exactly is this library?" I asked, once I had caught up with Zach.

He sent me an incredulous look, "have you really never been to the public library before Lily? To be so privileged. You know if you have so much why would you want more, what could you have possibly gained by attacking the school?"

I was not prepared for Zach's outburst. In fact, out of the "gang" I had always thought he would be the unruffled one, the mellow one who never deign to raise his voice, and here he was chewing me out on the sidewalk.

I wondered if I had offended him, maybe being to snotty in my one of voice or demanding when I asked him where we were going, but that certainly would not have warranted his outburst. Which made me think, maybe Zach kept a lot more bottled up then whether his friends or anyone else had imagined.

I was so caught up in thinking about Zach's sudden mood swing that I was barely noticed that I actually concerned about his behaviour. I shoved that thought away though as I attributed it to the desire to rather having to live with a sane roommate than a mentally unstable one.

We arrived at the library then and I had to admire its design. The red brick was accented with dark jagged stones to form the wall that was topped with a glass pyramid for a ceiling. The panes of the pyramid ranged from clear to the deepest blue and I could tell that it would glitter magnificently in the sunlight. Too bad it was a cloudy day.

Zach had already let himself in, not bothering to wait for me out of ire or embarrassment, I couldn't tell. For some reason I wanted to reassure him, but I wasn't sure how to go about it, not without coming off soft or insincere. And I desperately wanted to tell him off for assuming so much about my past. Granted, as far as he knew I was one of the more affluent students at Sky High, but it he thought it was all butterflies and daisies for me, he was sorely mistaken.

Everything I wanted to say of prove would have to wait, because as soon as I stepped foot inside the library I was accosted by a girl my age with shoulder length hair he most hideous shade of red I had ever seen.

"So, you must like, be that girl, the new one right?"

To say I took an immediate disliking to her would be an understatement.

"You'd better, uh, come with me to the stacks"

The stacks were probably the most mind numbing job there was, repeatedly shelving books, it was mixed up only by the airhead comments made by the girl, Wendy, whose presence I found completely insufferable.

She insisted on teaching the finer aspects of shelving books, when I was sure that such a thing didn't exist, and that she was shirking off her own duties onto me. I weighed the next book in my hand, The Warriors, and debated the merits of launching it at Wendy's head. Instead I smacked don harshly on the shelf, only a minor consolation the by the sound it made and imagine if it would be any different against her head.

"Are you like, even listening to me?" Wendy demanded, striking what I'm sure she hoped was a dramatic and intimidating pose with her arms crossed over her chest, and her hip jutting out and obscene angle.

It was enough.

"No, it's incredibly hard to listen to someone who speaks like every word is it's one sentence, uses the word 'like' as grammatical junction, and has hair the color of a candied apple!" I screamed throwing a heavy volume that narrowly missed her head.

I had expected her to be outrage, angry, march off and demand my immediate suspension or even try and fire me herself. Instead I watched as a smile creeped up on her face and he shoulders began to shake.

She was laughing? I didn't understand.

I was getting really angry, actually. I couldn't see what was so funny about it, was she not taking me seriously?

She was clutching her stomach now with the force of the bellowing laughs she was hunched over. As she slowly regained her composure she met my stare with a cold and level gaze. This was not the Wendy I had expected.

"Well?" she said in a lilting tone, completely different from the valley girl accent she had feigned before. "Honestly, Lily I was getting worried about you. This whole martyr routine is so not what promising villain should be engaging in."

Oh my goodness.

"Gwen?"

"Really why didn't you just use your powers and incapacitate me? Have you gotten soft without my instruction?"

"Gwen."

"Really Lily show some pride and stop staring at me with your mouth open like a dead fish. Gaping is déclassé."

"Gwen!"

"Lily would you shut up! People who matter might hear you." She hissed.

I couldn't believe it, but then, Gwen did escape. But here disguising herself as a worker in the public library? It just seemed too impossible to be true.

"How is this even possible?"

She shrugged daintily, "We're partners Lily remember? 'Till the very end. With everyone else in jail, who did you expect me to turn to? Besides we're best friends, aren't we?

"I've got it all worked out too, it won't be just us anymore. All you have to do is just play your part."

"My part?" What in the hell had she put together, I wondered. It was always hinted to us, her band of faithful followers that once we had Sky High there would something to expand on, after that. One more step before we could lay claim to our rewards. It seemed like this was it, that final step.

She stepped forward till she was centimetres away and painfully grasped my limp arms. Way too close for comfort, but even more eerie there was a fanatical gleam in her eyes that lit up her entire face in a completely unpleasant way.

"Do you have your powers?"

"No. And I'm constantly monitored by Stronghold's gang,"

She grimaced and then smiled, "Well I knew about the latter obviously, but the first will make your extraction a bit hard.

"Okay, this is what we're going to do I need you to be friend with Stronghold, especially his friends. You need to get in their inner circle, be buddy-buddy whatever it takes, so long as you collect for me a few samples.

"The samples are DNA bits, I don't care what kind of piece you carve out of them, as long as you get something. But it has to have their blood on it, a sizeable portion of their blood. "

The way she said it made it sound so simple, be friends, get blood. Easy, done. Oh wait, except half of them had full or partial invulnerability, how exactly was I supposed to get past that.

As if she could read my mind, Gwen smiled, and told me to be creative.

"And once you are done, come here and put in your two weeks notice. I'll get message, we'll pull you out and then you can leave this god-forsaken dump and join me. You'll be my right hand Lily, I swear it."

She looked at me expectantly, and I ran through my options quickly, as I had become accustomed to doing lately. I had no idea what exactly it was Gwen had planned, but it had to better than this, whatever it was.

Assured of my acquiescence Gwen beamed and then rushed me off saying my shift was almost over, I had to meet "that glowing boy".

She walked me to the front desk, tucked her fake hair behind her ear and sauntered off.

I waited patiently for Zach to finish up in whatever section he was in so that we could leave for the day.

`

At the house, I went to Zach's room and knocked on his door. If I was supposed to be friendly I might as well start now. Opening his door I stepped into his room.

Zach was laying on his be. His orange comforter and matching sheets were mussed. I was surprised to see a large and mostly filled bookcase that took up a good portion of his right wall. Adorning his bare walls there were posters of famous heroes. One poster caught my eye, it definitely wasn't professional but it had a well drawn outline of a man's body radiating some yellow field. In small untidy scrawl at the bottom it read "Zach Attack".

"It was a birthday present"

I looked at Zach, he had been watching me stare at his walls.

"It's nice" I commented. The poster really was cute, in a pathetic kind of way.

Turning back towards him, I met his gaze, "I didn't know you read."

Zach sighed heavily and laid his book on his chest as he collapsed on his bed. It was quiet for a minute as he stared as the ceiling.

"Was there something specific that you wanted Lily?" Zach asked in a monotonous tone.

I shifted un comfortable, there wasn't anywhere to sit except the bed so I made my way over there and perched on the very edge.

"Um, I actually wanted to tell you I was sorry... for offending you" even though I don't know how I offended you to begin with, "you know before"

Zach lifted his head to stare at me for awhile and then smiled.

"Okay"

Okay, with that accomplished I turned to leave Zach called me out.

"Have you read the Count of Monte Cristo before?"

"No, I haven't, I replied."

He threw the book at me, "you should".