The Unfavorable Heroes

Prologue

Charlie Rose was used to being alone. At home, where she was ignored by her parents, who always favored her older sister, as well as at school, St. Bernard High, where she often spent her lunch tending to the plants inside of the greenhouse in full solitude.

She never foresaw this changing—yet, in the span of three weeks, her entire life had turned upside down.

Part of her thought it was a good thing. Part of her liked that she belonged to something and that she was doing some good in the world. You know—saving the planet from aliens and all of that.

And another part of her was excited because she had a crush. A crush on somebody who she was pretty certain liked her back. Kire Hunter.

She had never kissed a boy before, and Kire Hunter had kissed her twice now.

But a lot of the time, she wasn’t sure how she felt about her brand-new life. She knew she didn’t work well with others and always felt like she could only count on herself to get a job done. Her new ‘friends’ weren’t even the type of people she would’ve picked out to be friends with herself. Kaos and Trace were the meanest bullies in the school. Amberly was the most popular, but not because people liked her—it was because people feared her, including Charlie, on most days.

It was purely by chance that the five of them formed this group of theirs. The Unlikely Defenders. They all had just happened to be in a cave in the White Forest when the five egg-like structures had floated toward them and given them all a Quintet gift. Then the world suddenly counted on the five of them to protect it from an invasion—or from getting destroyed. So, whether Charlie—who preferred to go by her last name, Rose—wanted to or not, she was forced to spend time with Kire, Kaos, Trace, and Amberly. She had a whole new life and an entirely new way of thinking—especially since the gift she received that night in the cave had come with special... powers. Ones that she was still trying to figure out how to control and master.

First, the Jago creature attacked. Somehow, without the help of Amberly, the other four of the Quintets managed to destroy him. Then came Heno. That one had been a little tricky and resulted in Trace getting a broken leg, but in the end, they had all been able to defeat him, too.

Then their gifts, the only things that kept their group together, left them. It was troubling to Charlie, seeing as Kire’s gift—a book called Halo—had given him a vision about Rezin, the toughest, vilest alien creature yet, finding the Quintets and preparing to kill them all. The vision hadn’t come true yet, but Charlie wasn’t certain how much time they had before it did.

Charlie Rose had never considered herself a fighter. She had never considered herself particularly brave. But when it came to being the defenders of the earth and using her gift, Charlie found that while she knew she couldn’t always be braver and stronger, she at least wanted to try. She took her position on the team seriously—whether or not the rest of the Quintets did—and she wanted to be a part of saving the world.

Little did she know that with her band of gifted teenagers, there was going to be a lot more she had to learn before she could ever fully become her true self.