AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nick felt a drop of sweat slide down the back of his neck. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re going to do this too, aren’t you? Become an Extraordinary? I don’t know if I want to do this by myself.”
“Getting cold feet?”
“No. I just—why would you want to be normal when you can be something more?”
Nick didn’t like the glint in Owen’s eyes. “Exactly what I’ve always thought. This is going to be good, Nick. You’ll see. We’re here.”
They stopped in front of ornate double doors. There was a black box next to the doors, similar to the one on the outside of Burke Tower. But instead of using the same card, Owen pulled a different one out of his pocket. He swiped it through the thin slot. It beeped… and a little light turned red.
Owen frowned.
He swiped it again.
A beep. A red light.
“Huh,” Owen said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Card’s not working. My father must have had the doors recoded. Can never be too careful these days. Keep an eye out.”
“Maybe we should—”
“It’ll only take a second, Nick.”
Nick turned and looked down the hallway. It was empty.
“I like you, Nick,” Owen said. “I always have. I know—I know things were weird between us for a little while. And I know I haven’t been as good a friend as I could be, but there’s a reason for that.”
Nick looked back over his shoulder. Owen hunched over the black box. Nick couldn’t see what he was doing to it, but he could see Owen’s arms moving. “Because you’re a stuck-up jerk?”
“A little. But I don’t suppose it matters now, does it? You’ve got Seth.”
“I don’t know about that,” Nick muttered. “He’s… Something’s going on with him, and I don’t know what.”
“Life,” Owen said airily. “We’re teenagers. Everything is unnecessarily complicated. We’re told we have to be a certain way, even if weknow it’s wrong. We’re not taken seriously. Our ideas are cast aside as though they’re without merit. Sometimes, we need to act out so that people pay attention to us. So that people know we mean what we say. That we’re capable. That we shouldn’t be dismissed.”
Nick didn’t know what he was talking about. “I thought putting a cricket into a microwave was going to make me into a superhero. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be allowed to have ideas of my own anymore.”
Owen shook his head. “Maybe it wasn’t the most well thought-out plan, but your heart was in the right place. You made a decision to become something greater than what you were.”
“Because I had a crush on an Extraordinary. It’s stupid, if you think about it.”
“But it’s not just because of that anymore, is it?”
“I… No. It’s not. But I don’t think—”
Nick saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eyes. He whirled around in time to see one of the doors swing open. “How did you do that?”
Owen grinned, sharp. “I have my ways. Come on. We’re almost there.”
Nick looked back over his shoulder.
The hallway was still empty.
