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Nick didn’t think. He shoved Shadow Star to the side and launched himself out the seventy-second floor of Burke Tower. His father screamed his name, but it was lost in the wind roaring around him.
Patricia and Simon Burke plummeted, the ground below rushing toward them. Nick folded his arms at his sides, slicing through the air.
He closed his eyes. And there, waiting for him in the dark, his mother. She held out her hand. In it, a ball of light. A spark.Herspark.
“Fly,” he whispered back, and pushed her spark and his together. They combined, and their dazzling light rushed through him, warming him from the inside out.
He opened his eyes. The ground was getting closer as Nick reached out his gloved hands toward Simon and Patricia Burke. Too far away to grab, but the spark was there and he pushed with everything he had. The pain that tore through his head was enormous. But as soon as it arrived, it was gone, and something else flooded through him, something bigger, stronger.
“I am extraordinary,” Nick said to the wind.
The air below Simon and Patricia Burke rippled, concentric circles that expanded like ripples in a lake. The Burkes hit the air, slowing, the stageright below them,but it was enough, and Nick grabbed Simon’s hand, grabbed Patricia’s elbow, and pulled as hard as he could, the muscles in his arms straining.
And then everything stopped. The wind. The blood rushing in his ears. Everything.
Nick looked down.
He was floating horizontally above the stage ten feet below, Simon and Patricia Burke hanging from his hands. Burke looked up at him with wide eyes. Patricia’s head was bowed, her hair hanging around her face. They were heavy—too heavy, really—but Nick had them.
He dropped another few feet and let them go. Patricia hit the stage hard, rolling until she came to a stop near the edge, her arm hanging off the side, limp and unmoving.
Burke landed on his side, the wood creaking as he rolled over onto his back, looking up at Nick with a dazed expression, the sounds of the frightened crowd muted as if coming from a distance.
Nick floated above him. He lowered himself toward Burke, stopping a few feet above, studying the man who’d tried to take everything from him. Because in the end, whatever else he was—villain, monster, murderer—he was still just an ordinary man, hands raised as if to ward Nick off.
“Everyone knows who you are now. What you think of them. What you tried to do. You lost.”
Burke rose to his feet, looking for an escape. But the cops were gathering on the sides of the stage.
“He’s a murderer,” Nick said, lowering himself to the stage, voice carrying across the crowd. “He had my mother killed, and she wasn’t the only one. He’s hurt so many people. We’ve proven what he is. The rest is up to you.” He leaned forward. “My name is Nicholas Bell. I’m a seventeen-year-old with ADHD who also happens to be queer as balls. And like my mother before me, I’m the Extraordinary known as Guardian. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have one more villain to stop.”
He looked down at the cops surrounding the stage. Relief, then, when Chris walked up the stairs, glaring at Burke. Nick stepped away from the podium as Chris crouched down next to Patricia, fingers against her neck. “She’s alive,” Chris said quietly. He pulled his hand back. “You all right?”
“Not yet,” Nick said.
“You heard the man,” Chris barked, pulling out a pair of handcuffs from his duty belt. “Get moving.”
But none of them did. They just stood there, looking wary, confused.
Before Chris could snap at them, another figure landed on the stage, causing the crowd to shout. Pyro Storm, fire dancing around him, wisps of smoke rising from his shoulders. In his right hand, he held the Guardian helmet. Nick barely had time to react before Pyro Storm practically tackled him, hugging himtightly. “You did it,” Pyro Storm whispered in his ear. Over his shoulder, Nick grunted in surprise when he sawciviliansclimb onto the stage, surrounding the Burkes, keeping Simon from escaping. Chris followed them, snapping cuffs on Burke before moving on to Patricia.
“I did,” Nick whispered back. “I have no idea how, but…” He stepped back, looking up the side of Burke Tower. “Is my dad okay? The others?”
“Everyone is okay, but I think you’re going to be grounded until you’re thirty.”
Nick sighed. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Pyro Storm handed him his helmet. Nick slid it over his head, the lenses bursting to life.WELCOME, GUARDIAN, the words read in front of his eyes. “Mobile Lighthouse, you copy?”
“Nick?” Gibby and Jazz said at the same time.
“Hi! How are you?”
Silence.
Then, Jazz: “I’m going to stab you so hard, and you willthank me for it,” while at the same time, Gibby said, “You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met, oh my god. Why are youlikethis?”
“Secret lair here,” Martha said, voice crackling in the speakers. “We agree with Jazz and Gibby, just so you know. We’re going to hug you, but then we’re going to yell at you. It’s going to be very loud, but you will sit there and take it.”
