The next morning, I woke up to the smell of blueberry pancakes. At first thought, I thought I had slept all the way through Friday and into Saturday. My dad only had the time to make pancakes on Saturdays, which meant that to my brain, in that moment, meant that I slept for more than twenty-four hours.

"Am I dead?" Stupid question, but a valid one, as I opened my eyes, which ended up only being one eye. My right eye felt glued shut, and when I went to feel it, it was more than twice the size of the other eye. As I sat up, I saw my dad cooking, which was relatively normal, but then I saw some guy that I didn't recognize, sitting at our kitchen table. I still had no clue what day of the week, or even what year it was, but I knew something was wrong. Really wrong.

"Thankfully, no. Though, I am a tad worried that you think you are." My dad didn't look up from the stove as he spoke, probably not wanting to burn the pancakes, like the November Incident (which we do not speak of).

"I'll tell you, uh, later." My eyes flickered over to the man at the table. He was much older than my dad, with his hair and beard entirely grey, and was dressed way too formal for my liking, with his grey suit and navy blue tie. "Sorry, but, who are you?"

"I don't think we've met before, but you do know my wife. The name's Tony Greenstein." The man gave me a small wave, as I nodded. Mrs. Greenstein had talked about her husband a few times, especially after she first began to work with me. I bugged her a lot about her life story when I was young. I was pretty sure he was a lawyer, though I didn't know if he had retired or not. Either way, the idea of a lawyer being in my kitchen without my prior notice was not one that I liked.

"Am I in trouble?" I asked, wrapping a blanket around myself as I stood up. Not the best idea, as I got extremely dizzy as my head throbbed, but I wanted some pancakes. I never had dinner the night before. And my lunch wasn't that great, either.

Surprisingly, my dad started laughing from where he was, as if me panicking was funny. Mr. Greenstein simply shook his head, sighing, though I wasn't quite sure if it was at me or my dad.

"Well, if you did something illegal, please, don't tell Cath. I don't need her being stressed from your antics for another three weeks." He pulled his computer out of his bag, opening it up. "But, you're technically not in trouble, in the sense that you're thinking of. What I'm here to talk about, though, I would say is troubling. Was meant to just be your dad and I, but I guess you're safe to hear it also."

"She'd hear at some point." My dad pointed his spatula at Mr. Greenstein, before returning to his pancakes. "But, kiddo, if you haven't realized it yet, you're not going to school today. Or, well..." he hesitated, and I had a feeling something was wrong, but I was too clueless to know what. At least I knew it was, in fact, Friday.

"That's perfectly fine, since yesterday was, well, a day." I shuffled over to my dad, looking over his shoulder at the pancakes. They still were on the first side. Unfortunate. "How much longer?"

"Few minutes, I'm flipping them now. You might want to lay back down, though." My dad looked at me for a few long seconds. "You look like you've been through a tornado." He patted my head, which felt nice for my headache, before turning back to cooking. I shuffled back to the couch, was made the whole journey a bit of a waste of energy, but I didn't think about that as I flopped onto the couch, curling up into a ball.

All the while, Mr. Greenstein was eerily silent, typing away at his keyboard. It seemed that always typing on a computer was a Greenstein family thing. I began to grow concerned about what he was there for.

No one spoke as my dad finished the set of pancakes, putting them on a plate and bringing them over to me. No syrup or butter, just how I liked them. He also gave me an icepack, wrapped in a washcloth.

"Keep it on your face for fifteen minutes or so, and then give your face a break. It'll help with the swelling, if you keep repeating that," he said, before dropping his voice to a whisper, "And, you can listen to what's going on, but wait until Mr. Greenstein leaves to talk about it, okay? He's more here for business than anyway, and he's got to go somewhere quick after this." My dad kissed the top of my head, ruffling my hair before walking over to the kitchen table and sitting across from Mr. Greenstein.

Nothing good ever comes of two people talking at our kitchen table.

"So, what's going on with this new law?" My dad asked, leaning forward slightly and giving me a quick glance. It was probably a good thing that he told me to stay quiet. And gave me food for while they were talking. "They can't be serious about enforcing it, right?"

"I believe they are, Michael, they're contracting people to set up the tracking system already." Mr. Greenstein's facial expression didn't change as he spoke, which gave me a weird feeling in my stomach.

"But trying to track every Superhuman that exists in the whole country, every hour of the day? That's nearly impossible, let alone the whole escorting thing." My dad was staying calm, but his hands were fidgeting with the end of his sleeve. "People on both sides are already rioting—"

"I'm not here to deal with the riots. I'm here to help you form the testi—speech, for if the House will let you make the case for Superhumans." Mr. Greenstein turned his computer towards my dad, but in a way that it made it seem like he was trying to hide it from me. "So, first of all, I've been able to compile a list of all the evictions, hate crimes, and any other sort of targeting case my firm has dealt with since I worked there, including with the classification of Superhuman it was dealt with."

So, he worked specifically for Superhumans. How many cases could he had won like that?

"This is good, really good. Well, not good in that sense, but good material." My dad pulled the computer closer to him, leaning forward and squinting at the screen. "I really need to get glasses." He looked back over at Mr. Greenstein. "Has the House said anything to you yet?"

"It's the House, of course they haven't. We'll be lucky if they get back to us within the year." Mr. Greenstein leaned back in his chair, looking around. "Of course they'll act fast on something like this, though."

"But remember, I've done a lot already with the government, they'll know me." My dad pushed the computer back. "What else do you have?"

"Well, I did some magic, not really, I just annoyed my friend until he gave me the information, but I finally have the date they're going to announce the new law going into effect, and the day that it does."

"And?"

"It's being announced one week from today. And, uh..." Mr. Greenstein looked at me, and his face finally showed some form of emotion. Fear.

"It's going into effect that day?" The words came out of my mouth before I even realized I was thinking them. Mr. Greenstein didn't respond, but by the way he looked at me, I could tell I was right. The pancakes that I were eating started to taste like pure acid, as the realization of the worst hit me. I didn't know much about what they were talking about, but it sounded like I was about to be watched, everywhere I went. Which meant more limitations. More discrimination.

It just didn't sound right. I did everything I could to follow their rules, no matter how absurd they sounded. I stayed quiet, I didn't fight. But, I knew that things would still get worse for me, despite that. There was no way they were talking about that law, if it wasn't going to affect my dad and me.

Then, at the worst time ever possible, there was a knock on the door. My dad practically leapt up to grab it, looking at me before pointing to my room. I didn't ask questions, taking myself and my pancakes, before running to my room and closing the door behind me. Part of me was curious to listen, but that part was small.

I curled up on my bed, shut my eyes, and covered my ears until my dad came back.