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The phone ringing, Dad on the other end sayingNick, oh my god, she’s gone, she’sgone.
Dad coming into his room late at night, Nick screaming in his sleep, a nightmare where she reached for him and he couldn’t get to her. “You’re all right,” Dad whispered as his son sobbed against his chest. “I’ve got you.”
Mom, dancing in the kitchen, an old song playing on the radio. “Nicky!” she cried happily when she saw him watching her. “Come sing with me.” He went, of course.
The three of them walking through the city, Nick telling them a story that went on and on and on, but no one was telling him to shut up, no one was telling him to stop talking.More, kid, tell us everything.
Dad standing next to him, the lighthouse in the distance, an urn clutched between them.
All I ever wanted was to keep you safe.
“No.”
Nick lifted his head as he spoke, looking over Dad’s shoulder, the knot in his head and chest untangling with ease, the strands sliding loose as he pulled and pulled and pulled. And there, in his chaos, a spark, burning brightly.
The ice spike stopped. Less than a foot away from Dad’s back, the sharp point glistened. A drop of water fell from the tip, landing with a splash on the floor. Nick breathed in and Nick breathed out, and there, in his head, a tremendous pressure, deliciously painful. He grasped onto it, gritting his teeth against the heavy wave of hurt that flooded his head. But he was bigger than it was, stronger. He hadn’t always been, but he was now. The pressure increased, and he pushed against it. It rippled like the surface of a lake. Resistant, but not so much that he couldn’t force his way into it, to sink beneath the surface and submerge himself in all of it.
So that’s what he did.
It closed up and over his head.
He should’ve drowned.
He didn’t.
He was alive,alive, the spark in his head the beginning of a great fire. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. He was—
“In control,” he whispered, and with all his might, hepushed.
The ice spike exploded with a fierce crack, the shards hitting the floor and bouncing away. Nick gently pushed his father to the side, Dad uncurling himself, the lines on his face smoothing out when he realized he hadn’t been run through by the spike. He turned slowly as Nick moved around him.
Smoke and Ice watched Nick, and for the first time, they looked … unsure. No fear—not yet—but they hadn’t expected Nick to be able to do what he’d done.
Good. They’d underestimated him. It would be their undoing.
“I knew it,” Rebecca Firestone breathed. “I goddamnknewit! You’re an Extraordinary too. You’re—”
“You shouldn’t have tried to hurt my dad,” Nick said in a low voice. He glanced at the rows of lockers lining the hallway andpushedagainst the spark. The doors began to rattle, the metalclanging loudly. The rattling moved swiftly down the hallway until all the locker doors were bouncing, bouncing, andtherewas the fear. It started with Smoke, her eyes widening as she took a step back. Ice was frowning; he didn’t yet understand what was happening. He raised his hands again, as if to send another spike their way.
“Don’t,” Nick warned.
But Ice didn’t listen. His fingers twitched, ice forming in the air above him once again.
Nick pushed again.
The locker doors squealed as they tore from their hinges, metal creaking and groaning. Ice cried out when one of the doors slammed into his hip, almost knocking him off his feet. The lights in the hallway began to flicker as Ice was struck by another door, and then another, this last one drawing blood from the back of his hand, a cut that sprayed droplets against the wall.
Smoke dissipated, turning into a voluminous black cloud as the locker doors flew through her, hitting Ice again and again. Except now, the doors didn’t bounce off Ice. No, they began to wraparoundhim, molding against his body. Two hit his legs, the metal shrieking as the doors folded around his feet and ankles, holding him in place. More doors crashed into his legs, then his waist, arms, pinning them to his sides. Ice cried out as the metal dug in, but Nick didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He didn’twantto stop. One night. They couldn’t even haveone nightwhere they weren’t running or screaming or fighting for their lives.
It would be easy, Nick knew. So easy. All he had to do was wrap one of the locker doors around Ice’s face and cut off his air. The metal would squeeze around Ice’s head, and he’d beterrified, begging Nick tostop, please, stop, please, I don’t want to die. Nick wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t listen because this man, these people, had tried to hurt Seth. They had tried to hurt Miss Conduct and TK. They’d tried to kill his father.
And there, standing behind them, looking as scared as he’d ever seen her, was Rebecca Firestone, somehow still recording. He could finish her too. She’d made Seth’s life miserable. She’d spread lies about the both of them. She was here, which meant she knewsomething. Maybe she was working with Burke. Maybe she was just stalking Nick. It didn’t matter. If he took care of Smoke and Ice, he could handle Rebecca Firestone.
The lights flickered violently, the entire hallway rumbling, the floor cracking as Smoke’s arms re-formed, pulling against the metal wrapping around Ice. Another door slammed against Ice’s chest, crumpling and molding until it looked like he was wearing a metal straitjacket. Only his head was left. One more door. One more door and it would all be over for him. Then Nick would move on to Smoke, and he would be a hero. Rebecca Firestone had the footage, and though she looked like she was about to run, Nick could catch her. Stop her. Make her feel every ounce of suffering she’d brought down on his family, and then, oh, andthen,he’d find Simon Burke. He would find him and make him pay for everything he’d done. For all his lies, for saying the name of Nick’s mother like he had any right to, and when he begged for Nick to spare him, Nick would laugh in his goddamnface, and—
“Look at me,” a voice said through the storm, through the sounds of the hallway breaking apart around them. “Look at me, kid.Nick.”
Familiar hands on his face, rough and warm and kind, thumbs rubbing against his cheeks. Nick blinked slowly as he broke through the surface, as the spark in his hands burned and burned and burned.
