AllFreeNovel
Share Us
3
After the Attack on Centennial High when Seth revealed himself as Pyro Storm, Nova City had captured the world’s attention. Seth was at the center of it all. People who called themselves “experts” screeched the loudest, shouting at anyone who would listen that the students at Centennial High were in danger, that Seth Gray could kill them all if he wanted to. “What happens if he fails a test?” one such man asked, his eyebrows looking like they were trying to eat his entire face. “Is he going to hold the teacher hostage until they give him the grade he wants? Isthatwhat we want for our children?”
“Do you have kids?” the newscaster had asked him. “A teenager, perhaps?”
“No,” the man had replied. “Children are terrible, filthy creatures ruled by their hormones, and I had a vasectomy in 1997 to ensure I’d never have to suffer because of them. But I’vestudiedExtraordinaries for the last two weeks, so I know what I’m talking about. They are going tokillyou. They’re going to kill your entirefamilies.And even worse, they’ll take your jobs! Who is going to want to hire anormalperson when they can have someone who can shoot lasers from their eyes? Isthisthe America the Founding Fathers wanted for us? Let me answer that question for you: no, it’snot.”
(Which, of course, led Nick down a rabbit hole, but as far as he could tell, Thomas Jefferson hadn’t been an Extraordinary, unless being the ultimate racist douchebag was a power.)
The fallout from Seth’s big reveal had been tremendous: notonly was he kicked out of Centennial High, but the weirdos came out of the woodwork; people were obsessed with the idea of someone able to create fire out of nothing. Some called him the devil. Others called him a god. And more than a few sent their underwear in the mail, something that Bob and Martha hadnotexpected, if the looks on their faces were any indication. “I suppose I could wash them and mail them back like the others,” Martha said, lifting the tenth pair of boxer briefs they’d received with her thick, yellow cleaning gloves. “It’s the nice thing to do. Darn, I’m all out of stamps. Silly me, what was I thinking?” She threw them away, removed the gloves, and then washed her hands with water so scalding, the kitchen filled with steam.
In the weeks before and after Gibby’s graduation, Seth hadn’t been able to go out in public without being accosted, either by reporters or by people who were after the million-dollar bounty. He’d spent the beginning of their summer break either in his house or in Nick’s, the blinds drawn over the windows, everyone trying to pretend it would go away on its own.
Seth seemed to take it all in stride. Nick kept a careful eye on him, studying him, wanting to make sure that as soon as he sawanysign of regret, he’d be there, ready to help Seth work through it. He owed Seth that and more; after all, he’d successfully diverted attention away from Nick’s part in the Attack on Centennial High, knowing Nick wasn’t ready yet for the world to know what he could do. The guilt Nick felt over this was enormous. A good Extraordinary, Nick knew, was kind, just, and above all else, brave. Nick wanted to be brave. He really did. He owed Seth that much. But try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He saw the anger on people’s faces, the way they spat and snarled about achildhaving the power Seth did. Sure, there were quite a few people who were on their side. It was mostly young people who took to the streets the world over in support of letting the Extraordinaries peacefully coexist, but the news seemed hell-bent on doomsday scenarios, letting guests ontheir shows or in op-eds give dire warnings about superpowered people and what it meant for the future of humanity.
At a meeting with all of them a few weeks back (the support group, something Nick had scoffed over at first but had begun to appreciate more and more), Mom had suggested they all limit their time online and avoid watching the news as much as possible. The other adults had agreed, and Nick had barely put up a fight, mostly relieved at the idea. He felt a little bad that his readers wouldn’t be getting an update anytime soon on his fic, but every time he’d tried to write a new chapter, it always ended up as a stream-of-consciousness diatribe (withoutparagraph breaks) about how some adults were a little too obsessed with a teenager.
Seth didn’t go out as Pyro Storm as much as he used to and anytime Pyro Storm was needed, Mom went with him, while one of the other adults was in the secret lair with whoever was on comms.
It’d been going reasonably well until two weeks ago.
It should’ve been an easy call: a fire at a high-rise in midtown. A blaze had broken out due to faulty wiring on the fifteenth floor. The fire had spread quickly. Everyone below the fifteenth floor had been able to evacuate, but those above were trapped, the elevators fried, the stairways blocked by thick, noxious smoke, making it damn near impossible to see anything. Nick’s mother—TK—had gotten there first, followed quickly by Pyro Storm, cameras tracking him hurtling across the sky, leaving a trail of flames in his wake. In a shocking moment that took over the news cycle once more, TK had shattered a window on the side of the building before moving out of the way. Pyro Storm took her place and hadpulledthe fire out, gathering it into a great, writhing ball above his head that rivaled the brightness of the sun. He’d then leaned back, horizontal to the ground, and hurtled the ball into the sky, where it dissipated safely high above Nova City. TK and Pyro Storm had helped people get out of the building, working in tandem with the Nova City Fire Department.
And when they’d helped the last person to the street—a six-year-old girl named Luciana with a soot-covered face and stars in her eyes as she looked up at her rescuer—the police had descended.
They’d tried to arrest Pyro Storm and TK.
The only reason they hadn’t was because the people Pyro Storm and TK had saved formed a wall in front of them, arms linked, joined by others who’d stopped to gape at the fiery destruction from above and had seen the rescue. They were threatened with pepper spray and Tasers, but hadn’t moved. In an image that had been exalted and condemned in equal measure, a photographer with the AP had captured the moment when little Luciana shoved her way to the front, her hands on her hips as she glared up at the cop before her, her dress slightly singed.
LEAVE THEM ALONE! the caption had read under the photo, her words like a battle cry that others picked up and began to chant. The only reason it hadn’t devolved into complete chaos was because some of the firefighters had joined the line, telling the cops to getback,that Pyro Storm and TK had saved dozens of lives.
But by then, the Extraordinaries were already gone.
Seth didn’t go out much after that, even though Mom had told him he’d done exactly what he was supposed to. In fact, the only time he suited up after was to help Nick with his training. He believed in Nick, in Guardian, and Nick didn’t think he trusted anyone as much as he did Seth, not even Dad and Mom. Nick listened.
Because the nightmares he had were vicious things, filled with smoke and ice and shadows, the people he loved in danger, and Nick unable to do anything to help them. Sometimes it was Seth. Other times, Gibby and Jazz. Most times, though, it was Dad. Dad, a band of smoke wrapped around his chest.
Never Mom, though. He never dreamed she was in danger.
It was made all that much harder by Simon Burke’s rising presence in Nova City ever since he’d announced his candidacy for mayor.
At rallies with thousands of people he stoked the flames of fear, playing the role of a grieving father whose son had betrayed him, all while condemning the actions of Extraordinaries, Pyro Storm in particular. “For any of them who say they want to help us, there will be a dozen more hidden in the shadows wanting to take away your lives and liberties,” he said, working the crowds into a frenzy. “I know. Believe me, I know this better than anyone. I’ve seen firsthand what these people are capable of. I…” He blinked rapidly, looking away as his throat worked, people cheering, cheering. Burke raised his hand to quiet them down. “My son was—isone of them. I failed him as a father, and that is my greatest mistake, one I still grapple with. I willnotfail Nova City. You have my solemn promise that if you bestow upon me the great honor of being your next mayor, I will do everything within my power to protect you, to protect your children so that you no longer have to cower in fear from those who want to destroy your way of life. We will take our cityback,and nothing—not even Extraordinaries—will stop us. Elect me, and I will make Nova City the crown jewel of this great country once again!”
“In Burke we trust! In Burke we trust!”
Mom said he wasn’t as dangerous as he seemed, that he was bloviating, talking himself up, wanting to stoke the fires of outrage to get people on his side.
“We can handle him,” she said. “If it should come to that.”
He trusted her.
She was his mother, after all.
It wasn’t all bad, Nick often thought. They were alive. They were together. They were a team, and nothing could tear them apart.
Jasmine Kensington, in all her resplendent glory, stood in front of the large oval mirror in the corner of her room. Her brunette hair had been styled in a bun wrapped in thin braidswith green ribbons. She wore a white dress patterned with red flowers surrounded by leaves and vines of green, the hem stopping just below her knees. Her feet were bare, red toenails digging into the carpet as she turned this way and that, a quiet smile on her face.
Nick sat on her four-poster bed, back against the headboard, phone forgotten beside him as he watched his friend. Gibby and Seth were in Jazz’s bathroom, their voices low as Gibby tried to smooth down Seth’s unruly curls.
