Parker's stepmother, who insisted on being called Laura, poked her head in while Parker swapped out DVDs. "How you girls doing?"

"I'm doing fine," Jamie said. She sat on Parker's bed, her back against the wall. The room was small and cluttered, filled mostly with a twin size bed, piles of laundry in various stages of dirty, video games and DVDs. Plus the piles of empty Mountain Dew cans and Skittles wrappers that Jamie and Parker had left lying around.

The walls and shelves were filled with superhero memorabilia, mostly the cheap Protectorate collectibles once sold at the headquarters gift shop: posters, action figures, buttons. Most of the decorations represented the high profile women. Worm Queen, Wild Kat, Libertine, and Velvet dominated the room with their officially licensed merc...

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