Flash Fire

by TJ Klune

  Dad paled. “No. Nick, no.”

  “It’s not only about Owen,” Nick whispered. “It’s about us. You. Me.” He looked away. “He … I think he loved her. More than you know. And I think he allowed his feelings to fester until they were rotten. He acted like it didn’t matter, acted like it didn’t hurt him, but what if it did? She was her own person and she made her own decisions, but what if he felt like you took her away from him?”

  “Aaron?” Cap asked. “What’s he talking about?”

  Dad ignored him, eyes on Nick. “If we do this, we can’t ever take it back.”

  “I know,” Nick said. “But this is Cap. Him coming here and telling us what he did puts a target on his back, and he needs to know everything. We have to stand together because we’re struggling apart.”

  Dad hung his head, hands curling into fists on the table. “I’m scared.”

  “I am too,” Nick said gently.

  “I just want you to be safe,” Dad said in a choked voice. “I want you to be happy and free and not worry about any of this.”

  “I know. And you did what you thought was right,” Nick said. “Whether or not it was is something else entirely, but I don’t blame you for that. I’m mad because you tried to take away part of me that you had no right to. I’m mad because you lied to me. But I can never be mad that you tried to protect me. No one knows what it was like for us when Before became After. We’re a team, and no one can stop us.”

  Dad wiped his eyes. “Team, huh?”

  “Damn right we are. And if Burke thinks he can use that against us, then he’s making his biggest mistake yet.”

  Dad stood, holding his arms open. “C’mere, kid.”

  Nick went. Of course he did. Dad hugged him tightly, Nick’s face buried in his chest.

  After a time, Dad pulled away, studying Nick’s face. “If you’re sure.”

  Nick nodded. “If it helps Cap figure out what Burke is up to while there’s still time, then it helps us. And it’s better he hears it from us. You know I’m right. It was never just about Owen, or even Seth. It was about Mom and you and him.” He took a deep breath. “And me.”

  Dad hesitated before nodding slowly. He turned back toward Cap, but he wasn’t going to do this alone. Nick was with him until the end. That’s what Bell men did.

  Cap arched an eyebrow at the pair of them. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to say?”

  Nick laughed hysterically. “Cap, you have no idea. So—you were right, I’m not Pyro Storm, but I am an Extraordinary. Telekinetic, though my powers don’t always work when I want them to unless I’m jumping off the roof of a building.”

  Dad stiffened and turned his head slowly to Nick. “You did what?”

  Nick shrugged. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. But don’t worry. I floated. Hooray!”

  Dad’s eyes bulged.

  Cap sat forward, hands folded in front of him, his knuckles bloodless. “Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”

  And so they did.

  * * *

  By the time they finished, the sky outside had begun to darken. Nick had let his dad do most of the talking, only jumping in to provide color commentary that he knew was appreciated, even if Cap and Dad didn’t say as much. In fact, Cap barely spoke at all, allowing the Bells to tell their story. When Nick got to the part about falling off the bridge, the metal struts floating above him, Cap made a wounded noise as if gut-punched, low and breathy. He closed his eyes as Nick filled him in on being pseudo-kidnapped by Burke. And though he was itching to tell them everything, Nick didn’t say a word about Miss Conduct or TK. If he could keep them away from this mess, all the better. They didn’t deserve to have this crap piled on top of them, especially since they wouldn’t have been involved, had it not been for Nick. If he could keep them safe, then it was a small price to pay.

  Thankfully, Cap looked too dazed to even question it. Nick almost felt bad, but then he remembered Cap had tried to enact a plan without telling them, leading them to believe he’d switched sides and joined Burke.

  Nick and Dad fell silent, waiting for Cap’s reaction, both fidgeting in their seats.

  Cap closed his eyes, hands resting on his stomach as he leaned back in the chair. Nick opened his mouth, but Dad shook his head in warning. Nick sighed instead, picking at the edge of the table.

  Finally, Cap opened his eyes, though they looked distant. He surprised the hell out of Nick when he said, “Thank you for telling me. I—” He laughed quietly, glancing at Dad. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  Dad sighed. “You have no idea.”

  Cap sat forward in his chair, thumping his knuckles on the table. “All right. Now that that’s out of the way, what’s the most pressing issue we need to focus on first?”

  Nick blinked. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  Cap smiled at him. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll have a million questions as soon as I can think straight, but that can wait. I know you, Nick, and this is—well, if anyone can do it, it’d be you. That being said, it seems to me we’ve got bigger things to worry about at the moment. Where do we begin?”

  Good question. Simon Burke was after them. He had Smoke and Ice. Nick had powers that he couldn’t properly use, and he had no idea what he was going to call himself if he figured out how to use them. Owen Burke was hidden away in some psychiatric hospital, probably seething and plotting revenge, not unlike his father. Nick’s mom was dead, and while she could have told him how to do what she could, nothing was going to change the fact that she was gone. TK didn’t want to help him and was hopefully in hiding, along with Miss Conduct. There was a bounty on Pyro Storm’s head, causing the city to go mad with greed. Rebecca Firestone was hell-bent on stoking the flames of discontent.

  It was too big. All of it.

  So Nick started with the one thing bothering him the most. “I don’t know how to dance, and prom is coming up. Jazz is supposed to help me, but I think I’m beyond saving because Seth made me dance with him in the cafeteria and I stepped all over him. I don’t want to look like a dick when we’re at prom. I mean, I’m wearing a dead magician’s suit because of lead face paint. Wait, that sentence was confusing. I didn’t have lead face paint. He did, which killed him and now his suit is mine, but I still don’t know how to dance, and I can’t embarrass Seth by moving like a three-legged hippo in front of everyone again.”

  Dad sighed. Cap stared.

  Nick shrugged. “What? I’m sixteen; I have a lot going on. Just because we’re all probably going to end up fighting for our lives in some epic showdown at the end of all this Burke stuff doesn’t mean I can’t also worry about wanting to impress my hot boyfriend. My god, have you seen him in an ascot? The things I want to do to him should probably not be described here, since I’m a virgin and will stay that way for a long, long time.”

  Dad looked toward the ceiling. “I don’t even know what to do with any of that.”

  “I do,” Cap said. He stood, unbuttoning his uniform, then pulling off his coat and hanging it on the back of the chair. He nodded toward the battered radio sitting on the counter next to the small television. Without waiting for an answer, he went to it, switching it on and fiddling with the dial until he found a station playing old music, the voice sweet, the horns wailing in the background. Cap turned and held his hand out for Nick.

  Nick stared at it. “What are you doing?”

  Cap rolled his eyes. “Showing you how to dance. Trust me when I say I’ve got a move or two. Mary says I’ve got hips that won’t quit, and while I—would you stop gagging? Seriously, Nick. Focus. While I may not be the best, I still know what I’m doing. I can show your skinny white ass what to do.”

  “Yes,” Nick breathed. “Yes to all of this, oh my god, yes.” He jumped up from the table, rounding Dad’s chair and taking Cap’s hand in his. Nick looked over at Dad, who watched them with a quiet smile.

  Things would be all right, Nick thought. One way or
another, they’d be okay.

  16

  “Wow,” Dad said, staring at Nick as he walked down the stairs, head held high. “Now I know why you didn’t want me to see the suit until you were ready to go to prom.”

  “Right?” Nick said gleefully, jumping the last few steps. The dress shoes didn’t have any traction, and his feet almost slid out from underneath him. He managed to stay upright, playing it off like he’d done it on purpose. Spreading his arms away from his body, Nick turned in a slow circle, hoping the overhead light was catching the sequins on his suit. “Isn’t it awesome?”

  “Ye-es?” Dad said. “You’ll certainly stand out, that’s for sure. I’ll admit, when you told me that it once belonged to a dead magician, I thought you were overselling it a bit. I was wrong.”

  “It might even be haunted,” Nick said as he stopped turning. Suddenly realizing he was about to go to prom with the boy of his dreams, Nick asked nervously, “Do you really think I look all right? It’s not too much, is it?”

  “Nah,” Dad said. “It’s you, through and through. And that’s a good thing.”

  “Good,” Nick said, slightly relieved. “At least I’ll look devastatingly handsome, which will hopefully divert attention away from the fact that I still can’t dance very well.”

  “I doubt Seth is going to care about that at all,” Dad said, “looking like you do.”

  Nick narrowed his eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dad said, eyes wet.

  “Aw, Dad, come on. You don’t need to cry. I know I’m redefining couture, but it’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dad said as he sniffled. “I’m … you look happy, Nicky. Which makes me happy.”

  “I am,” Nick said. “We’ve earned a night where we get to go be stupid and not worry about someone trying to punch us in the throat or freeze our innards.” He paused. “Huh. Our lives are weird.”

  “That might be an understatement, kid.” Dad lowered his phone. “You do deserve this. All of you do.”

  “Which is why I convinced Seth to ignore the app, at least for tonight.” Nick had expected Seth to put up a bit of a fight, which is why he was surprised when Seth agreed almost immediately, saying that he wasn’t going to answer any call, no matter how serious. Tonight was about them and Jazz and Gibby.

  “Good,” Dad said, taking a step back. “She’d love this, Nicky.”

  Nick flushed happily. It was getting easier now to bring her up. It still hurt and probably always would, but it wasn’t like how it used to be. “I think so too. She’d say I looked kickass.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like her.” Dad took a deep breath before shaking his head. “Okay, let’s head out. I’ll need to take at least a hundred pictures when we get there, and I don’t want the restaurant to send the hit men after you.”

  “Five pictures.”

  “Ninety.”

  “Ten.”

  “Ninety-one.”

  Nick glared at him. “I hope you’re never called to be a hostage negotiator because everyone will die, since you don’t know anything about negotiating.”

  “Or do I know everything?” Dad said as he headed for the door. “Get your butt in gear.”

  Grumbling, Nick followed Dad toward the door.

  * * *

  On the ride over to the Gray house, Nick played with his new phone. It wasn’t anything special, but so long as it got him online and could get him in touch with Dad, he really didn’t care.

  He pulled up the Pyro Storm Twitter account, staring, dumbfounded, as the number of followers now approached almost half a million. The mentions were a mess, so he mostly ignored them, trying to keep his excitement in check at the verified celebrities who’d started retweeting Pyro Storm’s missives. Knowing this sort of popularity was part of the slippery slope of becoming evil itself (a social media influencer), Nick absolutely did not consider sliding into the DMs of one of the retweeters, the dude who played a superhero on the big screen with a costume so tight it was basically an advertisement for circumcisions. Nick already had a boyfriend, and he was a real superhero who also happened to wear a skintight costume. Granted, it didn’t give away whether Seth was circumcised or not (and Nick did not pull up the many, many photos he found of Pyro Storm to look closely, no sir!) but that was okay. It’d be like a fun surprise when they got around to … doing stuff. Which they would, eventually, right? What if something happened tonight? What if Seth was ready for hand stuff or butt stuff and Nick hadn’t even prepared? What did one do with another person’s penis, anyway?

  “What are you looking at?” Dad asked.

  “Nothing!” Nick cried, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “And I definitely wasn’t looking up the differences between circumcised and uncircumcised penises, if that’s what you were asking!”

  “No,” Dad said slowly. “I wasn’t asking that at all. But now I think I need to. Nick, why were you looking up the differences between—”

  Nick was saved when Dad pulled up to the curb a couple of spaces down from the Gray house. He was already out of the car and running up the pathway before Dad had even come to a stop. Pounding on the door, he shifted from one foot to the other, glancing back at Dad, who was stepping out of the SUV and demanding Nick answer his question right this second, and that he shouldn’t be looking up anything about penises.

  “Oh my god, Dad!” Nick bellowed. “Would you stop shouting about penises in public?” What the hell was taking them so long to answer the goddamn door?

  Dad reached him before anyone let them in. “You’re wearing a dead magician’s suit to prom. Nothing I could say could possibly embarrass you. I have something for you.”

  “Would you stop calling it—ooh. Present. Give it.” He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers.

  Dad reached into the pocket of his slacks, something plastic crinkling as he pulled his hand back out. Slacks. Weird. And a button-down. Nick frowned. Why was Dad so dressed up? When he wasn’t at work, Dad was a jeans-and-shirt sort of man. Before Nick could ask (a brief thought, dangerous and bright: what if he had a date?) Dad dropped whatever he’d pulled from his pocket into Nick’s hand.

  For a second, Nick thought it was a wet wipe wrapped in plastic. Or candy. A mint to keep Nick’s breath fresh? It certainly didn’t feel like a mint. And there were … three of them? All squishy, almost wet, like it was … like it …

  No. No, no, no.

  Nick’s eyes bulged as he stared down at the condoms in his hand. “What,” he whispered, “in the fresh hell is this?”

  “Just in case,” Dad said as if he hadn’t blown Nick’s mind, and not in a good way. “I don’t know what you and Seth are going to get up to, but it’s better to be prepared. Always wrap it. They’re also lubricated. You’re welcome.”

  Unfortunately, the next words out of Nick’s mouth were, “But we’re both virgins!”

  The skin under Dad’s left eye twitched. “That doesn’t matter. Use condom sense, Nick.”

  Nick slumped against the door, legs wobbly. “Did you—did you just make a dad joke about condoms?”

  “I did. And I regret nothing.”

  “Dad, no.”

  “Dad, yes. Don’t be an idiot, kid. It doesn’t matter if you’re virgins or not. Get used to needing condoms. The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner you can have something in your—”

  “Remember the touching moment we had back at home when you cried and then we hugged?”

  “You mean twenty minutes ago?”

  “I take it back,” Nick said savagely.

  “Oh no,” Dad said. “Anything but that.”

  “Why is no one answering the damn door?” Nick growled, shoving the condoms in his pocket. He banged his hand on the door again, hoping they hadn’t been overheard. Nick almost wanted to tell his father that he and Jazz had already gone and bought condoms last weekend just to see the look on his face, but the less said about that adventure, th
e better. Suffice to say, it’d ended with Nick throwing crumpled money at the startled clerk at CVS before fleeing, box of condoms in hand. Unfortunately, the automatic sliding doors hadn’t opened as quickly as Nick had been running, and Jazz said she’d never seen someone bounce off glass so hard before. Not one of his prouder moments.

  “Hold your horses,” Nick heard Bob call from inside the house. “I can only move so fast, my goodness.” The door opened, and Bob grinned out at them. “About time! Everyone else is already here. Come in, come in. Aaron, nice to see you. Nick, you look—” He choked as Nick stalked inside, suit glittering. “Wow. Now that is a suit. Good lord. I don’t know what statement you’re trying to make, but you sure are making it.”

  “Thank you,” Nick said. “That’s very nice of you to say. The color of my lapels is called eggplant, according to the clerk at the suit rental place.”

  Bob recovered as he shut the door behind him. “The girls are getting their pictures taken. Figure when Seth comes down, we can get a few more before we head out.”

  “‘We’?” Nick asked. It was only then that he noticed that Bob was a little more cleaned up than usual. Gone were his overalls. Instead, he wore a pair of khakis and a nice sweater that hugged his shoulders. “What do you mean we head out? Dad’s dropping us off at the restaurant, and then we’re taking a Lyft to prom. Where are you going?”

  “You didn’t tell him?” Bob asked, glancing at Dad.

  Dad shrugged. “Figured it’d be better if I told him here. That way, he wouldn’t yell at me because we’re at someone else’s house.”

  “Oh boy,” Bob said, gazing intently at Nick. “Okay, I want to see the look on his face. Go ahead.”

  “Dad?” Nick asked. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Nothing big,” Dad said. “You won’t even know we’re there.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Know you’re where?”

  “Prom,” Dad said cheerfully. “Martha and Bob came up with the idea—”