Infinity Son

by Adam Silvera

  I know she has a point, but there’s something so off about all of this. And already, I’m struck with how badly I want to talk nonsense with Emil, how stupid I was to think that I won’t miss him when I leave for school. We can figure out the phoenix blood business later, but as I’m freaking out over if my brother is going to be okay again, I’m missing when we ask each other questions the world doesn’t need answering. Like what I would do if I suddenly grew two extra arms or how Emil would occupy himself if he were stuck in an empty room for a whole week. No one else cares that I would take up wrestling if I had four arms or that Emil would have the time to perfect his cartwheels, but this is the kind of stuff you talk about with someone you’ve known your entire life. And Emil isn’t allowed to die now because we have so much more to chat about as old men on our deathbeds.

  I’m shaking too much to call Ma so Prudencia grabs my phone and takes over, giving her the heads-up to meet us at the hospital.

  We arrive at the Vega Center for Gleam Care, where we haul Emil through the lobby until nurses place him on a stretcher, wheeling him away to a room where we can’t follow. I’m not trying to hang out in the waiting room or pretend a magazine will have the power to distract me. It didn’t work the countless hours we waited for Dad, and it won’t work for Emil. I pace the halls, feeling Prudencia’s eyes on me as I go back and forth between the check-in counter and the gender-neutral bathrooms. Who knows how long later, but I’m rescued from dark thoughts when my mother shouts my name.

  “Where is he?” Ma asks with her hand pressed against her heart.

  “He’s already in the ER.”

  Ma sees how busted we look and pulls us both into a hug. “Are you okay? Do you need to be seen too?”

  “We’re fine. Thanks, Carolina,” Prudencia says.

  Ma runs her fingers over my swollen eye. “What happened?”

  “We were headed home when . . .” I shut up. I’m not talking about Emil’s powers; that’s his call. “A specter jumped us on the train. We were okay until Emil fainted in the middle of the street, so we brought him here in case there was some side effect.”

  She bursts into tears. “Is he okay? What powers did the specter have?”

  “It was strange,” Prudencia says. “He could phase through us and the door like a celestial, but he also had phoenix fire.”

  “Is Emil okay? Was he burned?”

  “No, Ma.”

  She takes a deep breath, but she’s shaking. We guide her to the waiting room, and Prudencia keeps her company while I stay by the doors my brother is behind.

  I’m getting more and more steps in when my phone goes off and won’t chill. There’s a stream of notifications that keep coming in, like people asking me Do you have powers too? and saying Upload an interview with your brother! I finally stop in my tracks.

  I’ve been tagged in several videos where all the thumbnails are cropped pictures of Emil holding phoenix fire. I click the viral video so fast, even though I know the scene firsthand. I watch, getting to see the moment the gray and gold fire first lights up my brother’s fist, paying close attention to Emil’s reaction—he’s just as shocked as anyone.

  The video is making serious numbers. Any outsider would assume Emil is extremely popular online and not someone with a near-dead Instagram with posts that never even get a thousand likes. I check out all of Emil’s social media accounts. His Twitter of two-hundred-plus followers who hang around for his random musings on video games, nonfiction, and phoenix activism has exploded into six thousand followers; in the same way I feel weird that hundreds of thousands people peripherally know who I am, I can only imagine how Emil will react when he wakes up to this. After staring at a GIF of Emil’s flaming fist, I switch over to Instagram, where his following has skyrocketed. Everyone is leaving comments on his latest photo that have nothing to do with his review of some graphic novel, like asking whether he’s flying solo or part of a squad.

  This isn’t something he’s going to be able to keep to himself.

  For all I know, Emil is near death, and still, I envy everything about my supernova superstar of a brother.

  Nine

  The Spell Walkers

  MARIBELLE

  I’m the most hated celestial alive today.

  I’m holed up in my room at Nova Grace Elementary, which was once a low-income school for celestials and which we’ve taken over as a hidden haven for everyone we rescue. There are more people in this building who resent me than I can count, but they know better than to say it to my face as long as we’re giving them shelter. Everyone swears my parents are responsible for the Blackout, and even when I finally prove otherwise, the Lucero line will still be blamed for the recent surge of intolerance that marked many celestials as terrorists.

  If the world doesn’t want to remember my parents as heroes, then maybe I’ll stop saving it.

  I kill that thought.

  When I was little, I was always threatening to run away every time I didn’t get my way, and Mama made me promise I would never make any decisions with rage in my heart. If I still wanted to leave whatever haven we were camping out in after I calmed down, she would help me pack my bags, kiss my forehead, and send me on my way.

  Deep breaths bring me back to reality. I will continue to protect celestials because it’s how I honor my parents’ legacy best, even though it feels pointless on most days. Our movement isn’t ever going to be a big enough tide to wash out the world that’s so ready to set itself on fire. Especially under our team’s current leadership. But maybe we can take down Luna Marnette and her Blood Casters since the enforcers never seem to be knocking down their doors.

  I’m in the zone on my laptop, reviewing security footage for the millionth time of everything that went down in the Nightlocke Conservatory nine months ago. The only camera in the room was aimed at the students and teachers visiting for their class trip, and on the screen, they’re all surrounding a massive bronze telescope. I continue scanning faces in the crowd for one particular girl, but when shards of glass begin raining from above, I brace myself and watch as Mama and Finola crash through the ceiling, my mother’s hands wrapped around Iris’s mother’s neck. Papa and Konrad arrive through the entrance, trying to pry their wives away from each other, but Finola breaks out of the grip with her powerhouse strength and sends all three of them into the air and collapsing around her.

  There’s no point turning away as Finola pursues Mama. The memory is all burned into my head anyway: Mama slams Senator Iron’s son, Eduardo, to the floor, and she pulls out two ruby gem-grenades from inside her power-proof vest. Mama throws one gem-grenade high into the farthest corner of the room, and Papa jumps into flight and soars after it. Then Mama throws another over Finola’s head, and Finola and Konrad try to catch it.

  Everyone fails.

  The end begins with electric red lights flowing through the room like furious waves meeting in the middle, and with one last crash into the telescope, the conservatory becomes nothing but glass and blood and smoke and fire, all in the time it takes to inhale a single deep breath.

  All that’s left standing is a girl peeking out from the smoke—big eyes, pale skin, tiny frame, and an eerie calmness about her despite the destruction. Then she turns away from the camera and sinks into smoke, vanishing like an illusion. Except I know she’s real. There are even message boards devoted to trying to figure out her identity. Is she responsible for the chaos? Was she a student whose power protected her? Does she have any information on what really happened? I need answers.

  I could’ve prevented all of this if I trusted the dream of where I was underneath the stars and saying goodbye to Mama and Papa. I was used to my parents leaving to fight the good fight, but that morning when they were leaving to investigate a situation near the conservatory, I was unsettled and nervous and light-headed and thought about asking them to sit this one out, but I shrugged it off. That’s the last time I ignore my instincts.

  There are three quick knocks at my
door, and Atlas walks in.

  “You decent? I got Wesley out here.”

  “I’m good.”

  Two words that are true, and two words that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Atlas comes over and kisses me on the top of my head as Wesley enters. They both reek and need showers. Atlas certainly isn’t helping the case when he kicks off his sneakers, but there’s something odd about how the smell of his sweaty socks brings me comfort. I’m transported back to our training sessions after the Blackout. I would be fine and focused for hours, but eventually I would snap over how much my life had changed. I would throw equipment because I was now an orphan. I would punch walls because Iris and I stopped being best friends. I would howl until Atlas could calm me down, bring me into bed where we would kick off our boots, and I would let him hold me.

  I can’t sleep without his arms around me anymore.

  “How did it go?” I ask as I review my notes.

  “Turns out we suck at manual labor,” Atlas says.

  “Speak for yourself,” Wesley says as he plants himself onto the beanbag chair Atlas called dibs on when we all first moved into Nova. “You were slowing me down.”

  “You run ten times as fast as anyone else,” Atlas says.

  “Not my fault you were born with the wrong power,” Wesley says.

  Atlas and Wesley use their downtime to run what they like to call “side quests” to bring in money. We get some cash flow from online donations, but in a post-Blackout world, people aren’t as friendly and grateful as they used to be for all our efforts. We need money to pay the illusionists who keep us camouflaged and safe, buy food and beds and clothes for our rescues, and tons of other expenses none of us were prepared for when we suddenly became the new faces of our group.

  “I thought we were taking a break from Mystery Girl,” Atlas says.

  “She’s the only survivor.”

  Atlas crouches beside me, and it’s hard to stare too long into his eyes, which are gray as rain clouds. “Have you eaten, Mari?”

  After my parents died, I became so gaunt I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I would ignore my screaming stomach because feeding myself meant living, and I didn’t know how to do that in a world that hated my parents and wished I had died with them. Atlas respected my parents, especially Mama, for giving him and Wesley a chance, and he was always looking after me, even when I said the foulest things to drive him away. One night I found myself knocking on his door because crying alone was too suffocating. He distracted me with his favorite romantic comedies when I needed to space out, and I eventually started eating all the food he was bringing me. Being alive and awake stopped feeling so lonely because of how Atlas cared for me. I even learned how to care for myself again.

  Nine months later, I still slip.

  “I’ll eat later,” I say.

  “If I go get you tostones and blaze cake, can we take the night off and watch a movie?”

  I twirl one of his blond curls and nod.

  “You in, Wesley?” Atlas asks.

  Wesley presses his hand against his heart and throws his head back with an exaggerated sigh. “You two love me enough to crash your date night? I’m flattered. But it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been able to see my ladies. Maybe I can give Ruth a break and put Esther to sleep.”

  “Good call,” I say.

  Ruth is hiding out in a separate shelter in Philadelphia with their three-month-old. Cloning comes in handy when you’re raising your daughter alone and taking care of celestials, but I’m sure her life would feel simpler if Wesley was with her 24-7. Except none of us will be safe if we can’t prove to everyone that Spell Walkers are heroes and that celestials are humans too. That we’re more than vessels who are contracted—or forced, in prisons—to power the wands and gem-grenades and shackles they use against us.

  Atlas kisses my knuckles after Wesley leaves. “I’ll be back in thirty.”

  There are times I wish we never had to leave this room. Ever since Nova shut down in May because of funding, it’s been hard settling in, knowing sooner or later we’ll have to relocate when we inevitably get discovered. I was hesitant to ever unpack, but one night I returned to find string lights stretching across the walls and my favorite belongings set up around the room: Papa’s binoculars hanging by the window; Mama’s reading glasses sitting on top of the Colombian fairy tales she read me when I was young—well, younger—and the bottle of star-touched wine Atlas got me for my eighteenth birthday two months ago, which I’m saving for the day I clear my parents’ name. He turned this history classroom into our home and I pray to the stars that enforcers never find us because we won’t have time to pack.

  “Hurry back,” I say.

  Before Atlas can leave, our door opens, and Iris lets herself in. Everything good within me vanishes as fast as a blink. This isn’t like when we were growing up, and Iris and I shared everything—clothes, toys, beds, secrets. I don’t barge into her room, and she sure as hell shouldn’t be barging into mine.

  “Excuse you,” I say.

  “Save it,” Iris says. “We have an innocent to rescue. Where’s Wesley?”

  “He just left,” Atlas says.

  “We need all hands on deck,” Iris says. For someone so short, Iris has always done a solid job of making herself appear more powerful, more dominant.

  “Why? Who’s the celestial?”

  “He’s a specter,” Iris says.

  This is the first time I’ve laughed in weeks. It’s great.

  Iris glares. “I’m serious, Maribelle. I’ve been trying to track down more specters with white phoenix fire like we’ve seen since the Crowned Dreamer woke up, and in a viral video, I found one—attacking another specter with phoenix abilities who seemed surprised. I don’t think he’s one of Luna’s guys, but you can bet that she’ll be sending out the Blood Casters to hunt him down.”

  “Wait. Is this a rescue mission, or are we trying to take down the gang?”

  “Two phoenixes, one stone.”

  I’ve never met anyone who came to be a specter for understandable reasons, so I can’t believe we’re risking our necks for someone who’s likely just as power-hungry as all the others. We gear up quickly, hoping this rescue isn’t going to screw us over and get us killed, but just in case, Iris is kissing her girlfriend, Eva, at the door.

  We know better than anyone that loved ones don’t always come home.

  Ten

  Enigma

  EMIL

  My entire body feels like I’ve been dropped out of the sky.

  I groan as I wake up in a hospital room. Brighton is quick to his feet and looks down at me with eyes redder than whenever he stays up all night editing.

  “You’re okay,” he says. “Don’t get up.”

  The bright ceiling lights hurt my eyes. I take deep breaths, thinking about what makes me happy to try and calm myself down. That very first memory of being in the Sunroom for my thirteenth birthday comes to mind, and just as quickly, the happiness of it all warps. How did that kid who posed in front of gorgeous replicas of phoenixes grow up to find their blood inside of him? “I just don’t understand,” I say. “I didn’t do this to myself—I would never.”

  “We’ll figure that out later,” Brighton says. “Right now, we have to deal with Ma. She was losing it when she saw you in this bed, so Prudencia took her to the cafeteria to calm her down.”

  “Does she know? About me?”

  “I told her we got jumped by a specter. She doesn’t know anything about your powers, but we can’t keep it secret.”

  He hands me his phone. A video of the subway fight has gone viral. It’s weird playing viewer to the moment those gold and gray flames surface for the first time. I can even make out the shape of a phoenix in the fire, flickering in and out. “They’re calling me Fire-Wing,” I say, reading the top comments. “I’m not some comic book superhero.”

  “Yeah, and there are better names out there,” Brighton says.

&n
bsp; “I have no idea how I got us out of there. I wasn’t even trying to throw those fire-darts at him.”

  “However it happened, your hero game is strong.”

  I struggle with the gratitude. “I’m not a hero for making sure someone didn’t kill you two. That’s common sense.”

  “Tons of people disagree with you,” Brighton says.

  “Like who?”

  Brighton hands me my phone. “All your new followers.”

  I go on Instagram. I’ve never seen a flurry of notifications like this. My follower count keeps shooting up the couple times I refresh my page. Maybe I can use this new platform for creature awareness, but everyone would just call me a hypocrite since I have phoenix blood in me. Somehow.

  There’s a missed call from Nicholas and a text letting me know that if I need to chat with someone who sort of understands what’s going on, then he’ll be there for me. Knowing Nicholas cares is a true light in the darkness. Unlike all the other high school friends who are hitting me up to hang out, which is interesting since none of them seemed to have my number on my birthday but suddenly found it again today. Imagine that. There are two missed calls from the museum. One from Kirk saying he wants to speak with me, probably to curse me out for stealing phoenix blood, and another from Sergei who’s annoyed at how my newfound fame is going to make his life hell at the gift shop. As if I’m actually going to be able to go back to work this week. Or ever.

  “Do you think this will blow over?” I ask.

  “Honestly?” Brighton shakes his head. “I’ve seen every video out there where people come into their powers, and the attention you’re getting is spectacular. Phoenix fire like that? You’re going to need someone with the power to bring back the dead to take their eyes off you.”

  Great, just great.

  “I guess we should tell Ma before she finds out some other way.”

  “You sure you’re ready?” Brighton asks.

  “No, but I’d rather it come from me.”

  “I’ll be by your side the entire time,” Brighton promises.