Flash Fire Page 15

  The water burst apart and fell onto the carpet, splashing against her feet. She grimaced, raising each foot and shaking the droplets off. “That’s what I need you for. I don’t understand what this is. It’s always been with me, for as long as I could remember. This is the least of what I can do.” Her voice cracked when she said, “Aaron. Please. Say something. I wasn’t trying to keep this from you. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” Dad demanded.

  Burke put his hand on Dad’s arm. “Aaron, don’t you know what this means?” He smiled as he looked back at Mom. “She’s an Extraordinary.”

  The lightbulb hanging in the attic exploded with an electrical snarl, glass falling onto the floor. Nick and Jazz screamed as the television began rocking back and forth, the screen cracking as the picture from years before went black. The TV fell over, the cord pulling from the socket and whipping around, almost hitting Nick in the face. He stumbled back on his butt, crab-walking as the TV fell forward, something inside breaking.

  Silence fell.

  And it was in this silence that Nick realized he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t focus. The knot in his head and chest writhed as the fractured bulb swung back and forth on its chain. He was nearly blind with panic, his breath whistling out his nose. Flashes of light burst across his vision. The walls began to close in around him.

  He flinched when he felt hands on him, rubbing up and down his back. Through the storm in his head, he heard Jazz’s worried voice. “Breathe, Nicky. Come on. You can do this. Breathe, just breathe. In. In, Nick.”

  He couldn’t do what she was asking. His lungs didn’t work. They were dead in his chest, his skin clammy. He was cold. He’d never been so cold in his life. He tried to inhale. It didn’t work. The attic became hazy around him, the shadows bled together, and Jazz was demanding that he take a breath right this second or she was going to call 911.

  He gasped in a breath. His chest expanded to the point he thought his ribs would crack. He exhaled explosively before drawing another breath, holding it as best he could.

  “Good,” Jazz said. “Again. In, Nick.”

  He did. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Out. In out in out in—

  And then he began to cry, choked, weak sobs that echoed in the attic around them.

  Jazz lifted his head while she scooted underneath him, letting him rest against her legs. She put her hands in his hair, whispering that he was all right, they were all right, let it out, Nicky, let it out.

  He did. A hole opened in his chest, and from it crawled the ugly monster of grief.

  * * *

  He didn’t know how long it took for him to come back to himself. All he knew was that when his vision finally cleared, the light from the attic window was off, as if it were late afternoon. Jazz was humming quietly, staring off into nothing as she stroked his hair.

  “Sorry,” he said, closing his eyes against the embarrassment that roared through him.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I kind of think that’s not something you need to apologize for.” Her hand paused in his hair. “Better?”

  “I have no idea.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, grimacing at his leaking nose.

  “Good answer,” she said, tracing a fingernail over his eyebrows. “You want to know what I think?”

  He nodded tiredly.

  She said, “I think your mother loved you very much, and if she kept things from you, then she had her reasons. Same with your dad. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you.”

  “Except tell me the truth,” Nick said bitterly.

  “Yeah, there is that. But what if…” She trailed off, looking at the broken television. She stiffened, turning back slowly toward Nick, her eyes wide. “The TV.” There was something in her voice, something Nick couldn’t quite place. “The light bulb.” She paled. “The bridge. Oh my god, Nick. The bridge.”

  Nick struggled to follow her line of thinking, his own thoughts a chaotic mess. “What are you— McManus Bridge?”

  “You fell, Nick. You should’ve died. But you didn’t. Everything collapsed around you, all that metal, and it should’ve crushed you flat onto the pavement. But it just … stopped. Like you did. Floating. Like a cup. Like … water.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Nick. Nick. Don’t you see?”

  Gooseflesh prickled along his arms, skin thrumming. “See what?”

  And Jasmine Kensington said, “What if it’s genetic? What if you have what she had? Nicky, what if you’ve been an Extraordinary all along?”

  And that’s why I asked you both to come here today. Aaron, because I love you and this might affect you, too, one day, if we decide to have a family.

  Nick gaped at her as his mind shorted out in a furious burst of sparks. “What in the actual fu—”

  8

  “Cups. Make them move.”

  Nick looked down at the glass cups she’d brought up from the kitchen. Jazz had set them down in a line on the attic floor. All were empty. Jazz said she didn’t get water because knowing Nick, if it worked, they’d both get wet and her sweater was dry-clean only. He had to hand it to her for having her priorities straight (at least for Jazz) in the middle of … well. Whatever this was.

  “Okay, okay.” He shook out his shoulders, wiggling his arms and hands. “Cups. I can do this. They’re just cups. Little glass cups. Focus. Focus.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slow. And like his mother had, he raised his hand up, palm facing the glasses lining the floor. He crooked his fingers as he began to strain, teeth grinding together.

  Nothing happened.

  “Powers activate!”

  Nothing.

  “Invisible Glass Smash!”

  Jazz started laughing. “What? Why did you say that?”

  He glared at her, hand still outstretched. “The name of the move I’m trying to do. Everyone knows that when you perform a move, you say the name of it.”

  “Oh, if everyone knows that, then keep going.”

  “I would if you’d stop laughing. Hurling Cup of Death!”

  She did not stop laughing. If anything, she laughed harder. “Oh my god, this is amazing. Say something else. Wait, I’ve got one. Flying Cup of Eternity!”

  “Flying Cup of Eternity!” Nick bellowed, curling his hand into a fist.

  The cups didn’t move.

  Nick dropped his hand. “This is stupid. I don’t have powers, Jazz. You were right when you said we’d have seen something by now.” He was getting angry, but he didn’t know at whom. Maybe everybody. Dad, for keeping their shared history from him. Mom, for doing what she could and not being here to tell him why. Burke, for existing. Owen, for trying to kill him and his friends. Seth, for … well, for nothing, because Seth was perfect.

  Jazz wasn’t laughing anymore. “Nick, calm down, okay? You’re starting to breathe fast again.” She placed her hand on his arm. “You’re okay. We don’t have to do anything now if you’re not ready. It might be better if we pump the brakes and think.”

  He shook his head. “I need to talk to Dad. I gotta hear this from him. If he’s—” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “If he kept this from me, I need to know why.” And there was his anger, bright and glassy. They should’ve told him. Secrets. It always came down to secrets, and Nick was sick of it.

  A lance of pain burst through his head, and Nick groaned, bending over and wrapping his arms around his waist. The whisper in the back of his mind—that low, unintelligible voice—began to roar, and he felt it. He felt it down to his bones, a strangeness he couldn’t escape. He heard Jazz’s worried voice near him, but he couldn’t focus on what she was saying. He gritted his teeth as the headache came for him with a vengeance, pulsing slickly, causing his gorge to rise. He tasted bile in the back of his throat, and just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, just when he expected to be consumed by it, he grabbed hold of it. It wriggled furiously like it was alive, and Nick whispered, “No.”

  His headache disappeared as quickly as it cam
e. He blinked slowly as his head cleared, back popping as he pulled himself to his full height. He turned to Jazz, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but it died at the look on her face.

  Her eyes were wide, her jaw dropped, bottom lip quivering. But she wasn’t staring at him.

  “What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  She reached up and took his chin in her hand, turning his head toward the hatch.

  The four cups were floating in midair. The one on the right spun in slow circles. The one on the left moved up and down, up and down. The middle two clinked together gently, the sound dull in the attic.

  “You’re doing it,” Jazz whispered.

  He watched as the cups began to spin in concentric circles, wider and faster. He took a step back when one of the cups passed right in front of him, whistling as it sliced through the air. “Ha, ha,” he said weakly. “Okay, I’m done now. Cups, fall down. Cease and desist! Cups, stop.”

  They didn’t stop. They moved faster, but he managed to grab Jazz in time and pull her down as one of the cups rocketed toward them. Jazz gasped as it shattered against the wall. “Turn it off!”

  “I don’t know how!” Nick shouted at her as another cup shot toward them. Jazz shoved him out of the way as the glass smashed against the ground where Nick had been standing only a second before. He fell to his knees as the boxes around him began to shudder and shake. A plastic tub flipped on its side, spilling out old books and papers. The books rose from the floor, the pages fluttering and snapping. He flinched when the broken television righted itself, the power cord whipping back and forth.

  He pushed himself up, grabbing Jazz by the hand as the attic began to rumble. She moved quickly, following him as he pulled her toward the ladder. He looked back over his shoulder as he made her go down first.

  Every single box and tub in the attic was floating inches off the floor.

  He fell down the ladder to avoid getting hit in the face by the two remaining glasses. He landed on his back at the bottom of the ladder, Jazz standing over him, her hair hanging down around her face.

  A loud crash came from above them, and he barely had time to recover when Jazz hooked her hands in his armpits from behind, pulling him away as the pile of Christmas decorations they’d gathered began to rise from the floor. The garland swirled. The lights blinked green and red and blue. The photographs hanging on the wall began to rattle.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jazz breathed in his ear as a box fell down the ladder and split apart before its contents, too, began to move. “Go, go, go!”

  They went, flying down the stairs even as the railing creaked and groaned, the wooden slats of the steps shaking. It felt like an earthquake, the very floor vibrating beneath their feet. Jazz jumped from the last few steps, and almost fell over when the rug leading toward the front door slid out from underneath her feet, twisting like a snake. He grabbed her before she could fall, and they both hit the door at the same time. She grabbed her coat off the hook, throwing one of Nick’s hoodies at him as he gripped the doorknob.

  Outside, the cold air was a punch in the face. Nick immediately began to shiver as he slammed the door behind them. Through the frosted glass, he could see things still moving inside. He backed away slowly.

  “We’re good,” Jazz panted. “We’re safe. It’s over.”

  They both screamed when the rug from the hallway smashed against the inside of the door, causing it to rattle in its frame.

  “Run!” Nick cried.

  They ran.

  * * *

  They made it to the sidewalk as Nick struggled to pull the hoodie up and over him. He got his head through, ready to tell Jazz she was never allowed to have ideas again, when the alarm of the car closest to them began to blare. As did the SUV behind it. And another car. And another. And another.

  And then one of the cars covered in a thin crust of snow began to bounce on its tires, the frame squealing. Nick’s next-door neighbor— a man with the amazing name of Percival Axworthy—came onto the porch, his car keys in hand. He frowned as he repeatedly hit the button to turn the alarm off. Instead of silencing it, the car— a 1982 Chevy Citation that Percival had lovingly restored for reasons Nick didn’t understand, given how ugly it was—launched ten feet into the air before crashing back down onto the road, the windows blowing out, glass spraying in glittering arcs.

  “I’m sorry!” Nick shouted as Jazz pulled him down the sidewalk. “Call your insurance company and file a claim!”

  Percival didn’t seem to hear him, staring, dumbfounded, as one of the tires of his beloved car deflated with a comical wheeze.

  “Gibby,” Jazz was saying into her phone. “We have a—would you listen to me? Yes, I’m yelling! This is a perfect time for yelling! Where’s Seth?” They both almost slipped when the meters began spewing coins onto the sidewalk, people already taking out their phones and beginning to record the mayhem. “What do you mean he went out? Dammit, fine. No, don’t. Stay where you are. We’re going to go find Nick’s—” The phone flew from her hands. They watched as it flew up into the air and landed on the roof of the apartment building across the street.

  “Um,” Nick said. “My bad?”

  “Yeah,” Jazz said faintly. “That’s your bad. Daddy’s going to be pissed that I lost another phone.”

  They began to push through the crowd that had stopped to stare at the destruction that seemed to follow in their wake. Too many people. Too many people, and they were stuck, they were stuck and—

  A woman screamed as she began to slide backward, the tips of her shoes dragging along the cement. She stopped a few feet away on wobbly legs, looking around wildly, people running over to make sure she was all right.

  “Train,” Nick gasped as they burst through the back of the crowd. “We gotta get to the train. Dad’s gotta be at the station by now.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Jazz asked. “I’m not going in a metal tube with you while you’re on the fritz. If you want to take the chance of getting stuck in one of the tunnels, then go for it. But I have too much respect for myself to have to wait to be rescued. We’ll walk.”

  “That’s twenty blocks!”

  “Then we better get moving,” she said grimly.

  They did, even as more car alarms began to shriek.

  * * *

  By the time they reached the block the precinct was on, they were worn out and frazzled, Nick’s face covered in red marks after the strings of his hoodie began to slap against his face like they were alive. He’d pulled the string out and thrown it on the ground. It didn’t move again. They stopped in the alcove of a shuttered shop with boards on the windows and graffiti covering the wood in bright colors. Nick bent over, hands on his knees, panting.

  “Did you see the guitar explode?” Jazz managed to say, sweat trickling down her cheek. “That poor busker. Who knew such a big man could scream like that?”

  Nick grimaced as he stood upright. His body felt weak, and he was more tired than he’d ever been in his life. His thoughts were sluggish as he leaned out of the alcove, looking up and down the sidewalk to see if anything else would happen. Or explode.

  Nothing. Just people hurrying by, paying them no mind, the street filled with backed-up traffic, horns honking as construction workers yelled back at them.

  “Oh, thank god,” Nick muttered. “I think it’s over.”

  “Are you sure?” Jazz asked. “Because that wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for when I brought up the cups.”

  Nick groaned as he rubbed a hand over his face. “Stupid cups. Stupid powers.” He laughed hollowly as he looked up the street toward the precinct. “Why would—”

  But he never got the chance to finish. Because the double doors of the police station swung open, and Nick’s father stepped out, mouth twisted into a scowl as he glanced down at his phone. Nick jerked his head back as Dad looked in his direction. He didn’t know if he’d been seen. He waited a moment before leaning back out. He saw his father’s b
ack facing him as he walked in the opposite direction through the crowd. Jazz stood on her tiptoes, looking over his shoulder. “Where’s he going?”

  Thinking quickly, Nick said, “Jazz, go home—or—go to Seth and Gibby. I gotta talk to my dad.”

  She gripped his arm. “You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

  He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. By the look on her face, he’d failed. “I know, but I—I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I don’t want you caught in the middle of it.”

  She dropped her hand. Looking perturbed, she said, “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” he said firmly. “I’ll catch up with you after, okay? You good with getting out of here on your own?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I can handle myself.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He laughed quietly when she stood on her tiptoes, kissing his cheek. “Thanks, Jazz.”

  “Go,” she said, shoving him out of the alcove. “Do what you need to do, but be careful, Nicky. You don’t know what you’re walking into.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” he said. “Later.”

  He hurried down the sidewalk, glancing into the windows of the precinct as he passed it. He remembered what Gibby had told him—how he saw a badge and uniform and thought safety, something so ingrained in him that he took it as gospel truth when perhaps he should’ve asked questions. He ducked his head when he saw Officer Rookie inside, wearing an ill-fitting suit, holding a folder in his hands. Since Nick had last seen him, he’d apparently decided that a beard was the right thing to do for his face, which, okay.

  He made it by the station without the Rook seeing him, and he continued on, keeping an eye on Dad so he didn’t lose him in the crowd. He thought about calling after him, but the look on Dad’s face when he’d exited the precinct rubbed him the wrong way. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t exactly feel like giving Dad the benefit of the doubt at the moment. He wanted to see where he was going, what he was doing. He wasn’t headed toward home. Maybe he was going back to Jazz’s and Gibby’s parents, though Nick didn’t think that was the case. It’d been hours since Dad had left, and he’d said he was going to work when he finished with them.