The Extraordinaries

by TJ Klune

  And since Nick absolutely did not want to die, he reached out for her even though she was shaking her head furiously and screaming at him to back off. Luckily for him, he didn’t give a crap what Rebecca Firestone wanted. He wrapped a hand around her ankle, stopping his descent before he could pick up speed.

  She grunted above him. “Let me go!”

  “No!” he shrieked up at her. “I’d really rather not if that’s okay with you!”

  “You’re going to break my leg!”

  “Oh no! How terrible for you! I’m going to break my everything if I let—are you trying to kick your leg? Stop it!”

  But she didn’t. He felt the muscles in her leg tense as she jerked her foot. His fingers dug into her skin, the tendons in her ankle bunching under his grip. Nick swung precariously out into nothing, and—“Why is your ankle sweaty? Who has sweaty ankles! Oh my god, I’m going to—”

  He slipped.

  And landed on the metal platform less than a foot below him.

  “Huh,” Nick said, looking down at his feet. He bounced up and down, testing its weight. It held. “I didn’t expect that. Awesome.”

  Then he immediately threw up over the side of the bridge. He couldn’t even find the strength to be embarrassed about it.

  He stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ugh. I should not have eaten all that hospital Jell-O.”

  “Get me down!”

  Nick looked up.

  Rebecca Firestone struggled against the spire, the shadow bands still wrapped around her, holding her in place. Above, at the highest part of the bridge, Shadow Star and Pyro Storm were battling it out. Nick cheered when Owen was hit with a ball of fire, only to wince when a long shadow tentacle lashed out, striking Seth in the chest, sending him spiraling into a metal support beam.

  “Kid, you gotta help me out!”

  Nick glared up at her. “You tried to kill me!”

  “Well, yeah, but it didn’t work, right?”

  “That’s probably not the best argument that you—”

  An amplified voice roared below him. “Nick? Nick! Can you hear me?”

  Nick peered over the edge of the platform. It couldn’t be—“Dad?”

  Sure enough, standing next to one of the patrol cars, was his father, megaphone pressed against his lips. He was still in his hospital gown, but he wore a NCPD jacket. Cap stood next to him, staring up toward Nick. “There’s a service ladder!” his dad said, voice blaring. “Off to your right! Start climbing down. I’m going to meet you half—” Cap said something that Dad didn’t like, and they argued back and forth. Nick wanted to remind them that they didn’t exactly have a lot of time but there was no way he’d be heard.

  Cap finally grabbed the megaphone from Dad’s hands. “Nick, get to the ladder! We’re going to send someone up after you who’s not an idiot with broken ribs. Move, kid!”

  Nick looked around, trying to find the ladder they were talking about. The platform he was standing on was long and skinny, surrounded by metal struts. If he walked along it, he’d have to maneuver around the struts, but it’d be doable. And there, at the other end of the platform, was a metal ladder, leading down to another platform.

  He took a step toward it.

  Then, “Please.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “You can’t leave me up here,” Rebecca Firestone said, voice quavering. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Nick!” His dad had gotten hold of the megaphone again. “You need to move now! We’ll help the woman.”

  A loud crash exploded above, and Nick’s eyes snapped open as the bridge groaned. Nick stumbled toward the edge of the platform, managing to grab one of the struts before he could tumble over the side. He looked up in time to see Owen throw Seth into one of the spires. The spire broke with a metallic groan. It fell, bouncing off the struts, orange sparks shooting out with each impact. The cops below shouted as they ran. Nick saw Cap grab his dad and pull him out of the way as the spire fell onto one of the cruisers. The windows shattered and the car crumpled. Dad struggled against Cap, trying to get to the nearest ladder.

  Nick knew what he had to do. He didn’t like it. But even though he wasn’t an Extraordinary, he sure as hell could act like one.

  He turned away from the ladder and back toward Rebecca Firestone.

  She struggled against the shadows around her, gasping as she stared up at the battle happening above them. Nick reached up and grabbed one of her legs, and she screamed as she looked down at him.

  “Stop kicking,” he snapped at her. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Get me down!”

  “I will if you stop yelling!”

  “Don’t shout at me! Do you have any idea who I am?”

  “Oh my god,” Nick muttered. “I hate you so much.” He tried pulling on her leg, but the shadows held. He thought about trying to climb the spire, but he couldn’t find anything to hold on to that wasn’t a body part, and he did not want to climb Rebecca Firestone. If only there was a way to get rid of the shadows, he could—wait! Holy crap. That was it.

  He reached into his pocket for his phone.

  Only to remember how it’d been crushed when Owen had taken him. For all he knew, it was still on the sidewalk in front of the Gray house.

  He looked up at Rebecca Firestone. “Do you have your phone?”

  “What? Why do you need my phone? Get your own! I can’t upgrade for another seven months—”

  “You are the worst person to rescue. I’m not trying to take it. I want the flashlight on it.”

  “Why?”

  Nick gave very serious consideration to turning around and leaving her right there. “For the shadows! It’ll—”

  Thumpthumpthumpthump.

  Nick turned slowly.

  A helicopter approached the bridge. Nick could see an Action News logo on the tail. Someone was hanging out the side, a camera pointed in their direction. “How many helicopters do you guys have? That seems excessive.”

  “Oh thank god,” Rebecca Firestone said. “They’ll rescue me.”

  “Lady, you’re hanging from the top of a bridge. There’s no way they can land. You need to get your phone. It’s the only way I can get you—oh no.”

  A spotlight on the front of the helicopter burst to life.

  It hit Nick first, blinding him. He raised his hands to shield his eyes.

  It rose toward Rebecca Firestone. The effect was instantaneous. The shadows holding her in place disappeared. She fell, landing hard on the platform. She bounced … and rolled off the side.

  Nick was already running, bathed in the spotlight and barely able to see. He fell to his knees and reached for her just as she slid off the edge of the platform. His hand hit her arm, and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Nick was jerked forward onto his stomach, the metal cold against his skin where his shirt had ridden up. He grimaced against the strain in his shoulder. “Stop … moving,” he ground out.

  Rebecca Firestone gasped, pulling on Nick’s arm, legs flailing into nothing. The roar of the helicopter thundered in Nick’s ears. People screamed below them. Nick didn’t pay attention to any of it. All that mattered was his arm being torn out of its socket.

  He tried push himself up, but only succeeded in sliding closer to the edge of the platform. He looked through the metal grate to see Rebecca Firestone staring up at him, eyes bulging, mouth wide and slack.

  God, his head hurt.

  He gritted his teeth together and tried to rise again. The platform shuddered underneath him. He managed to get to his knees. Just when he thought it’d be enough, Rebecca Firestone’s grip on his wrist slipped.

  She began to fall again.

  He caught her by the hand.

  A slick wave of pain crashed over him as something popped wetly in his shoulder. Nick screamed, pitching forward.

  The weight was suddenly lifted as Rebecca Firestone flew up in front of him, knocking him back. He landed on the platform, blinking up at the
dark sky.

  “Nick? Nick!”

  A hand touched the side of his face.

  Someone bent over him. A mask covered their face.

  “Nick!”

  “Hey,” Nick whispered.

  Seth breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey.” He reached down to help Nick up. Nick cried out as fingers closed over his injured arm. “Sorry. Nicky, I’m sorry. You’re hurt. It’s—”

  “It’s fine,” Nick grunted. He used his good arm to push himself up into a sitting position.

  A metallic creak came from behind them, and Nick turned his head in time to see Rebecca Firestone disappearing down the ladder. “You’re welcome!” Nick shouted after her. “Don’t worry about us. We’re totally fine!”

  He turned back as Seth crouched in front of him, cape dragging along the platform. The light from the helicopter covered his face in shadows. Seth reached up and touched Nick’s cheek with a gloved hand. “God, Nick. I thought—I thought you fell.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Nick’s. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

  Nick didn’t know if what he was feeling right then was love, but he thought it was close. He loved Seth, yes; he had loved him almost from the moment he’d met him. But this was bigger, grander, and he needed Seth to understand. Nick (always and forever being Nick) blurted, “You make my heart so full, I think I’ll die.”

  Seth jerked his head back, inhaling sharply. “What did you say?”

  “I—”

  Seth kissed him.

  It was hotter than he expected. Literally. Seth’s lips were so warm, it felt like he was burning from the inside out. And it was also slightly awkward, Seth’s mask digging into Nick’s skin. But Nick couldn’t bring himself to care. He was too busy having his mind blown by the fact that he was being kissed by his best friend, and it felt like coming home.

  It was probably the most ridiculous moment of his life. And, perhaps, the most wonderful.

  Seth’s hand came up to cup his cheek as the kiss deepened. He felt the swipe of Seth’s tongue against his bottom lip before Seth broke the kiss, pressing his forehead against Nick’s again.

  “Wow,” Nick breathed. “Even though my arm hurts like you wouldn’t believe, wow.”

  And oh, how Seth smiled. “Yeah. Wow.”

  “It’s about damn time. It only took me getting kidnapped by my villainous ex-boyfriend for you to—”

  Seth groaned. “Moment ruined. Way to go, Nicky.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “You don’t have to say anything. We’re having our first kiss, and you’re talking about your ex!”

  “Who kidnapped me. I’m allowed to state the obvious. Do you know how traumatizing today has been for me?”

  But Nick never got to hear what Seth’s response would have been.

  Because one moment, they were together, finally together, and it was everything Nick thought it would be.

  And in the next, the platform broke away from the bridge, the struts crumpling around them as a black shadow wrapped around Seth, pulling him off into nothing.

  Nick didn’t have time to react, because he was falling.

  It was here, then, at the end, that Nick’s life flashed before his eyes.

  There was a chubby boy sitting on the swings by himself, and Nick wanted nothing more than to be his friend forever.

  A girl named Gibby laughed at a joke he made, and he felt like he could do anything.

  Jazz was crying on his shoulder, having fought with her girlfriend. Nick wrapped an arm around her, holding her close, his face in her hair.

  Owen smiled wickedly as he reached across the table, stealing a carrot.

  They walked up the stairs from the Franklin Street station, all of them bumping shoulders and laughing.

  Cap grinned at him, mustache drooping.

  Martha Gray kissed his forehead as she shooed him up the stairs.

  Bob Gray clapped him on the back while he flipped burgers on the grill.

  And there was the ocean, and she was there, laying her head on his shoulder. She was telling him that she loved him, and she smiled like the sun, and he was happy, dear god, he was happy because he was with her.

  He touched her smile in the frame on his nightstand.

  He had his first kiss.

  Then he had the only first kiss that mattered.

  And there was a man, a big man, a strong man, who lifted Nick up on his shoulders, saying how proud he was of Nick, that he was brave and kind. He said he wished Nick didn’t have to be the way he was, why do you have to be this way? He was asking Nick if he’d taken his pill. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, head slumped, and he was crying, his whole body shaking, a frilly pink scarf clutched in his hands, and Nick knew he was trying to be quiet, trying not to let anyone hear him, but Nick couldn’t leave him alone. He sat next to him on the bed, taking his dad’s hand in his, and they stayed there for the longest time. There was Cinnamon Bread-Shaped Chomps, because that was how they apologized to each other. There was the buzzing of his phone in the middle of a school day and the beeping of his father’s heart from a machine next to his bed.

  But everything faded away with the sound of Dad’s voice.

  I don’t need you to be an Extraordinary, Nicky. Not when you’re already extraordinary to me.

  He’d lived a good life.

  He’d made his mother smile. He’d made his father proud. He’d kissed the boy of his dreams. And he did it all without being an Extraordinary. In the end, maybe that was his superpower.

  Deep in his head, the ache bit down like it was alive, its teeth sharp. He was being torn apart. He didn’t like it. With the last of his strength, he pushed it away.

  And for the first time in his life, it just … went.

  There was a sharp crack around him, and everything stopped.

  He opened his eyes. He stood on the bridge.

  The cruisers were in front of him, lights spinning, a line of officers staring at him with matching expressions of awe.

  Well, not exactly at him.

  Above him.

  Nick lifted his head.

  The pieces of the bridge that had collapsed around him hung suspended in the air, swirling in a lazy circle.

  “Huh,” Nick said, squinting up at the pieces of the metal floating over him. “That’s … I don’t know what that is.”

  “Nick!”

  He looked ahead.

  Dad was there. Cap was trying to hold him back, but it was a losing battle.

  Nick started to run toward him.

  Dad broke free of Cap and stumbled forward, arm going around his stomach, a grimace on his face. Nick’s Chucks slapped against the pavement and he was almost there when his dad’s eyes widened. “Nick!” he screamed.

  Nick looked up. The debris that had been floating in the air was starting to vibrate. Nick felt his heart hammer in his chest when the first piece fell, slamming onto the roadway, cracking the asphalt.

  The rest of it came raining down around him. Nick raised his arms over his head as if it would be enough to protect him from thousands of pounds of steel. He zigzagged as a strut slammed into the road, bouncing off toward the guardrails, making the road shake under his feet.

  He didn’t stop moving until he felt his dad’s hands on his shoulders, telling him it was all right, that everything would be all right, that he was safe now, that he was safe, and by god, he was going to be grounded for the rest of his life, what the hell was he thinking?

  Nick laughed, blinking away the burn in his eyes, chin resting on Dad’s shoulder. “Okay,” he managed to say. “I’m okay with that.” His arm was hurting where it was pressed against his dad, but he didn’t care. They were all right. They were—

  Then:

  The cops around them shouted in warning.

  Nick whirled around.

  Shadow Star stood on the bridge where Nick had landed. His costume had been burned away on his right shoulder and left leg. He was breathing he
avily, head bowed, blood dripping from his mouth. Behind him, cops pulled their guns, pointing them at Shadow Star, shouting at him to stand down, now! They hid behind their cruisers, some near the trunks, others behind open doors.

  Their light bars were lit up, red and blue spinning.

  Much like the lights on the cruisers behind Nick.

  The spotlight from the helicopter was directly on him while it hovered overhead.

  The shadows danced around the debris in the roadway.

  Shadow Star lifted his head and looked directly at Nick. He grinned wickedly. His teeth were bloodied. Part of his helmet had broken off, and a single eye was visible. It was wide and crazed. “Well,” he said, panting. “This has certainly been exciting.”

  “I am ordering you to stand down,” Cap barked into the megaphone.

  Owen shook his head. “Already taken it this far, haven’t I?”

  Dad tried to drag Nick back toward the line of officers, but Nick pulled away. “Nick, no. We gotta go.”

  Nick looked over his shoulder, smiling tightly. “Dad, I know—it’s Owen. I can get through to him.”

  Dad frowned. “Owen.” Then, “Owen Burke? Nick, what the hell?”

  Nick turned back toward Owen. He raised his voice and said, “It’s over, Owen. No one else needs to get hurt.”

  “Nova City is mine. I won’t let anyone take it from me.”

  Nick groaned. “Man, that shtick gets old real fast. You have to know how ridiculous you sound. Legit, man. Take the high road.”

  “Maybe don’t piss him off more,” Dad growled behind Nick.

  Owen’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “I’m the hero. I’ve always been the hero. Just because none of you can see it doesn’t mean you can take it away from me. I’ll show you. I’ll show you all.”

  He raised his hands. The shadows rose around him, taking shape, becoming corporeal again.

  The police on the other edge of the bridge took aim. Without turning, Nick knew the cops behind him were doing the same.

  They would slaughter one another.

  Dad grabbed his good arm, trying to pull him to safety.