Flash Fire

by TJ Klune

  Ice rose to his feet, joining Smoke. They wore matching suits, black with white dress shirts. Smoke’s tie was a dark gray, and Ice’s was blue. Smoke smiled wickedly as she cocked her head. “It’s nice to see you again, Nick.”

  “Yes,” Ice said. “So very nice.”

  Dad took another step toward them. “I don’t know how you think you know my son, but I—I won’t—” He stopped. “Where have I seen you before?”

  Ice and Smoke exchanged a look before they both laughed, a flat, dull sound that echoed along the hallway. “Familiar?” Smoke asked.

  “Yes,” Ice said. “We are familiar, Aaron Bell. Very familiar.”

  “What’s going on?” one of the boys at the lockers asked. “Is this part of the dance? I didn’t know there was going to be a show too.” He elbowed his friend. “Look at them.”

  His friend—a douchebro if there ever was one—laughed. “Weird, right?” He pushed himself off the locker, puffing out his chest. “Hey, freaks! What’s wrong with you? Why are you talking like that?”

  “Stop it, Micah,” one of the girls said, sounding annoyed. “Don’t be a dick. Nick’s dad is right there.”

  “And?” Douchebro said. “What’s he gonna do?”

  “He’s a cop.”

  Douchebro turned around, eyes wide. “Oh shit. The weed isn’t mine! Please don’t call my parents. Cornell will rescind my acceptance!”

  “Get out of here,” Nick snarled at them. “Tell everyone they have to get out of the school while they can!”

  They went, the boys running as quick as they could, leaving their dates behind. One of the girls sighed irritably before motioning her friend to follow. She glanced at Ice and Smoke before looking at Nick and his dad. Nick thought she was going to say something else, but her friend pulled her along, back toward the cafeteria.

  Ice and Smoke followed their exit, barely blinking. “Children,” Ice said. “I like the children.”

  “No,” Smoke said sharply. “Focus. We are here for the boy.”

  “What boy?” Dad asked.

  Ice and Smoke snapped their heads toward Nick and his father. Without thinking, Nick took a step back. “Dad?”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Dad barked. “This is school grounds. You aren’t welcome … here … what did you do to the door? Is that ice?”

  “It is,” Ice said. “Door’s frozen. Like all the other doors. There is no escape. For you. For the boy.”

  “Dad!”

  Dad looked back at Nick, frowning. “What, Nick? I’m trying to—”

  “That’s them!” Nick cried. “That’s Smoke and Ice! They’re working with Burke!”

  Dad didn’t hesitate. He went for his sidearm, cursing when he realized he didn’t have it. He’d left it at home. It wasn’t allowed in school, especially since he was off duty. Nick had watched as he’d stored it in the gun safe earlier that afternoon before they’d left the house. Instead, he moved in front of Nick, shielding him. Nick gripped his father’s coat, hanging on for dear life, breath rattling in his chest.

  “You can’t have him,” Dad snapped. “This is my kid. You want him, you’ll have to go through me. And I promise you it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  “Challenge,” Smoke said, a small smile forming on her face. “We have been offered a challenge.”

  “We accept,” Ice said. “We will go through you, Aaron Bell. You are expendable. And then we will have the boy. Pyro Storm will have no choice but to reveal himself. He will come, and we will be waiting.”

  They raised their hands in unison, palms facing Nick and Dad. Their fingers twitched. Behind them, Nick thought he saw someone peer around the corner. He only saw her for a moment. The woman he’d passed in the hallway. Dark hair. Sunglasses. The sunglasses were now sitting on top of her head, and in her hands, she held what looked like a small camera, pointed in their direction.

  Rage like he’d never experienced before flooded his entire body, and he snarled, “Holy shit, you are the goddamn worst, Rebecca Fire—”

  “Run!” Dad shouted as he spun on his heels. He grabbed Nick by the wrist, jerking him off his feet as he took off, running away from Smoke and Ice. Nick stumbled, looking back over his shoulder to see black clouds beginning to billow around Smoke’s hands, ice crystalizing out of the air and floating in sharp spikes above Ice’s head. Dad pulled Nick around the corner just as the spikes were hurtled toward them. One hit a row of lockers, denting the metal as the spike shattered. Another embedded itself into the wall, the plaster cracking.

  Dad’s grip tightened on Nick’s arm to the point where Nick thought he’d be bruised if they survived this. “We have to lead them out of the school!” Nick cried. “Away from everyone else!”

  Dad whipped his head back. “Where?”

  Nick took the lead, Dad still holding onto him. The music still thumped through the walls, the bass heavy. Nick tore through the school, Dad close on his heels. They ran past darkened classrooms, past stairs that led to the second floor. Nick gave brief thought to getting the higher ground but dismissed it. He couldn’t take the chance of getting trapped. He led Dad toward a side entrance the teachers used to access the parking lot.

  “Work,” he muttered to himself. “Goddammit, why don’t you work?” He shook his free hand, trying to get his powers to do something. He squawked when Dad shoved his head down, another ice spike flying over his head and colliding with the wall in front of them. Particles of ice hit Nick’s face as they rounded the corner. His teeth chattered at the sudden cold.

  Ahead, the pair of double doors. The windows showed the parking lot outside, bathed in an angry shade of yellow-orange from the sodium arc lights that lined the lot.

  “Yes!” Nick cried, running full tilt toward the doors. “Yes! Screw you, assholes! You can’t—dammit!”

  The doors were frozen shut, the ice thick over the handles and locks. Nick slammed into them, hoping the ice would shatter. The doors barely budged.

  Trapped. They were trapped.

  Dad let Nick go, hurrying toward the nearest interior door, but it was locked. He took two steps back before lifting his leg and slamming the bottom of his foot against the door. It rattled in its frame but didn’t open.

  A cloud of black smoke billowed around the corner before reforming into Smoke. Ice appeared at her side, eyes glittering darkly. “Run, run, run,” he said. “I do like it when they run.” His smile stretched so wide Nick thought his face would tear in half.

  “There,” Smoke said. “Nowhere else to go. You tried, Aaron Bell. But we will have the boy. Pyro Storm will reveal himself. And then everyone will see who they both truly are.”

  Dad stepped in front of Nick once more. “I told you, you aren’t going to touch him. I don’t need powers to kick your asses.”

  “No?” Ice said. “Let us show you otherwise.”

  The air above Ice’s head began to shift, hazy and snapping. Ice crystals appeared, gathering together, the temperature dropping around them. The particles swirled, forming the biggest spike of ice Nick had ever seen. It was at least four feet long, the end needle-sharp and aimed directly at them.

  Rebecca Firestone skidded to a halt behind them, camera still pointed in their direction. Her cheeks were flushed, her wig sitting lopsided on her head.

  “Help us!” Nick shouted at her.

  “I can’t!” she called back. “I’m a reporter, I can’t get involved.”

  “Oh my god,” Nick muttered. “I hate her so much.”

  “Bigger things to worry about, kid,” Dad growled, never looking away from Smoke and Ice.

  “Mr. Burke regrets that it has come to this,” Ice said as his eyes slid unfocused, the spike hovering above his head as it grew even larger. “But you took from him, Nicholas. And now he will take from you. Say goodbye to your father.”

  Ice jerked his head, the spike quivering before hurtling toward them. Time slowed down around Nick, each second five beats of his heart. He watched as the spike grew
bigger and bigger the closer it got, the sharp point glistening. Dad turned, but not away. Never away. He wrapped his entire body around Nick, clutching him tightly, Nick’s face against his shoulder, eyes burning.

  Shielding him. His father was shielding him. “I love you,” Dad whispered in his ear. “Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. I’ll love you forever.”

  Mom laughing as the wind blew through her hair, the salt from the ocean thick on their tongues.

  Nick between them, little Nick learning to walk, little Nick holding onto both their hands, demanding that they swing him up. They did.

  The phone ringing, Dad on the other end saying Nick, oh my god, she’s gone, she’s gone.

  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, he pushed.

  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 goddamn knew it! 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 and pushed against the spark. The doors began to rattle, the metal clanging loudly. The rattling moved swiftly down the hallway until all the locker doors were bouncing, bouncing, and there was 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 wrap around him, 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’t want to stop. One night. They couldn’t even have one night where 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 be terrified, begging Nick to stop, 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 knew something. 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, and then, 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 goddamn face, 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.

  Dad said, “No, Nicky. No, no. That’s enough. No more. Look at me. Look at me, Nick. I’m here. I’m here with you. We’re okay, I promise.”

  “Dad?” Nick whispered as his father came into focus, brow furrowed, the worry lines deep. He looked scared, but Nick couldn’t tell of what. Smoke? Ice? Nick himself? He didn’t know, but it was enough to startle him, as if waking from a vivid dream.

  Dad nodded. “There you go. It’s all right.”

  Nick breathed in and out, the pressure in his head lessening slightly, enough so that he could think. It’d been close. So close.

  “Listen to me,” Dad said. “The ice broke on the doors. Go. Don’t call 911. I don’t know who’ll answer, and we can’t take that chance. Call Cap directly. But run, you hear me?”

  Nick was already shaking his head, even before Dad finished. “No. I can’t leave my friends here. I can’t leave you here—”

  Dad jostled him. “They’re coming for you, Nick. They want you and Pyro Storm, and I won’t—”

  For years after, Nick would remember the exact look on his father’s face the moment a band of black smoke wrapped around Dad’s chest
. Shock and disbelief and anger. The nightmares Nick would have—brutal. His father was ripped away from him, flying backward as he reached forward for Nick. It happened so quickly. One moment, Dad was inches away from Nick, and then he was gone, hurtling through the air toward Smoke, her arms extended like smoky tentacles. Ice fell to the floor at her side with a metallic thunk.

  “DAD!” Nick screamed.

  Black smoke wrapped around Dad’s mouth, cutting him off. He struggled—oh, how he struggled—but it was no use. The smoke that held him was too strong. For a moment, Nick flashed back to a bridge, to shadows rising around him, but it was lost in the storm in his head.

  “No,” Smoke said, and she sounded furious. “Not another step. You move, and I will crush him. Do you want to see what your father’s insides look like?”

  “Let him go,” Nick snarled, the lights flickering again, the hallway rumbling.

  “Strong,” Smoke said, looking up at the lights. “He knew you’d be strong. But this is more. Mr. Burke will help you. Come—come with us. Let him show you the way. If you do, your father will be safe. If you do not, he will die. Your friends will die. Everyone at this school will die. It will be your fault.”

  “Kiss my damn ass,” Nick growled, and reached for a small, red-and-white box embedded in the wall. He grabbed the handle, pulling it as hard as he could. It slid down with an audible snap. The second before the alarm blared, Nick, ever the badass, said the greatest mic drop in superhero history, in his most humble of opinions. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

  The alarm shrieked. The sound caught Smoke off guard. The column holding Dad loosened and he slipped toward the ground, the tips of his shoes scraping the floor. “Nick, goddammit, run!” Dad cried. Before he could say more, the band tightened around him again, covering him almost completely. Smoke pointed her other hand toward Ice, black clouds falling from her palm, landing on top of Ice and lifting him up off the floor, still surrounded by metal. Ice glared at Nick as he rose, floating next to Smoke.

  Screams from the cafeteria as the dance music cut off. Startled, Nick jerked his head toward the sound.