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Seth chuckled, walking toward Nick with a strange heat in his eyes. He set his helmet next to Nick’s on the ledge before leaning in. Nick’s heart sped up a little. It always did when Seth was around, but when he was so close Nick could count the faint freckles across his nose and cheeks? Man, did Nick enjoy the hell out of it.
Seth kissed him slowly, lips slightly chapped. Nick returned in kind, his tongue sliding against Seth’s as sweat trickled down his neck. The heat wave that had settled on Nova City a few weeks ago hadn’t let up. After a bitterly cold winter with storm after storm of heavy snow followed by a wet spring, summer had come to the city with a vengeance: blazing hot, the humidityalmost unbearable. If Nick wasn’t destined to become an Extraordinary, he’d have stayed inside with the air-conditioning on until senior year started up in the fall.
Senior year, he thought distantly as Seth’s lips worked over his. The end of one life, and the beginning of another one entirely. On his best days, Nick wasn’t a fan of change. His ADHD—while mostly under control with the new meds he was on—required routine in his life, order to keep things from spinning out of control. Sure, chaos often reared its head and laid waste to his plans, but Nick was trying, something he’d decided he had to do in order to live a double life of a mild-mannered student who moonlighted as an Extraordinary.
Sort of. In the month since he’d been gifted the costume and become Guardian, he hadn’t done much with it. Dad said he wasn’t ready to save the day on his own. No matter how much Nick begged to go out as Guardian, Dad stood firm, telling him he had to ease into it, to take things slowly. “Besides,” Dad said, “you’re still the leader of Lighthouse. That’s just as important.”
Being a hero was vastly more complicated than he’d expected it to be. Not only did he have to worry about saving-the-day shit, he also had to focus on being Nick Bell, too. He didn’t understand how the comics made it look so easy. He was supposed to wear a skintight costume while also worrying about getting into college? He needed to fret over the fact that Seth might not get to go back to Centennial High (home of the Fighting Wombats!) because he revealed himself as Pyro Storm while at the same time figuring out how the hell he was supposed to take AP History and survive? Gibby was going to NCU in the fall, so they were already down one person. Was it just supposed to be him and Jazz at school for months on end, all while rumors swirled around them about what had happened the night of the prom?
He didn’t know how he was going to do it. Everything felt too big. While grateful it was June, he knew that eventually he’d have to face the very real fact that things were changing, splintering, and there wasn’t much he could do to stop it.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Seth murmured against his lips.
Nick sighed as he pulled back. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. You know how it is. I have thoughts and thenthosethoughts have thoughts.”
Seth smiled. “I know, Nicky. Anything you want to talk about?”
“Just the same crap as always. Everything and nothing all at once.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Seth said, reaching out and squeezing Nick’s gloved hands. “But we can talk more about it later. Tonight, we focus, all right?”
Nick nodded as he relaxed. “Right. Focus. I’m with you.” He had something to prove tonight, to show that he was capable.
Seth stepped around him, going to the ledge and looking down at the alley below. “Good. Now, tell me what you think we should do.”
Nick turned and stood next to Seth, hands resting on top of his helmet. He followed Seth’s gaze down to the alley. Across the alley was another building, a little shorter than the one they stood on. An old air conditioner rattled and groaned next to a metal roof-access door.
“Could go through the roof door,” he said. “Avoid any windows that could give us away.”
“Door’s bolted and locked,” Seth said. “How do you get in if you want to avoid as much property damage as possible?”
He paused, looking at the air-conditioning unit. His gaze traveled along the length of the roof, toward the side of the building closest to them. Sitting near the top was a vent covered in a metal grate. “There,” he said, pointing. “Could go through the vent.”
Seth nodded. “Think you can fit?”
“Rude.”
Seth rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.” He bumped his shoulder against Nick’s. “You don’t want to try something like that, only to get stuck. Think, Nick. Whatshould you do when you have to enter a building you’ve never been to before?”
“Powers,” Nick said automatically. “Make my own door.” Images flooded his brain of him standing before a brick wall and waving his hand, causing the bricks to shift and break apart, making a door.
But Seth nipped that right in the bud, shaking his head and saying, “Withoutpowers. You can’t always count on them. There may come a time when powers could work against you.” He paused, considering. “Or, when you don’t quite have control over them.”
Nick scowled at him. “I totally have control of my powers. Watch.” He looked around, trying to find something he could use. Near the far corner, a plastic bucket sat as if forgotten, the handle rusted, the side cracked. Taking a deep breath, Nick raised his hand, and in his head, a light sparked, warm and sweet. He held on to it as tightly as he could andpushed,a shiver of not-quite-pain rippling through him.
The bucket wiggled from side to side before rising slowly off the roof, floating five feet in the air. “See?” Nick said, a trickle of sweat sliding down his forehead. “Easy. I got this. I’m so good at—”
The spark pulsed in his head, and the bucket shot through the air, arcing high before it landed three roofs away with a faint clatter.
Nick sighed, dropping his hand. “Okay, so there might be a few kinks to work out, but still! What’s the point of being an Extraordinary if I don’t get tobeextraordinary?”
“There’s more to it than that,” Seth said, and it wasn’t the first time he’d told Nick this, or the tenth. “While having powers is all well and good, you can’t always rely onjustyour powers. You have to think, too, Nicky. And since no one thinks like you do, you’ve got this. Come on. Can’t go in through the front or the roof access. Doors locked. How do you proceed?”
Nick brightened. “Lighthouse.”
“Exactly.” Seth nodded toward his helmet. “Get to it.”
Nick lifted his helmet from the ledge and put it on. The moment the helmet settled on his head, bright lights exploded inside as his vision sharpened. Lines of code ran like cascading water before they disappeared, replaced by two words, blinking in cerulean blue.
