October 12th, 2014

  Timber Hollow, United States

  Lady Nyx flinched away as if the gring light had struck her with physical force. The way her body tensed, I thought she was going to stab me right then and there. But instead of attacking, her gaze snapped past me, locking onto the source of the light.

  Toward the ocean.

  For a fleeting moment, my fear of the vilin in front of me was eclipsed by something far worse—a spine-chilling terror of what was lighting up the docks. Coping denials blitzed through my mind at the thought. It’s too soon. The st one wasn’t that long ago. Timber Hollow has never been directly hit. That wouldn’t change tonight. Even if it did, I was fast enough to get to Mom in time. We could run.

  But no litany of rationale could quell the horror in my gut. My body moved despite the protests of my more fearful mind, trembling, reluctant, knowing–I turned around. Relief nearly made my knees buckle.

  A fire.

  A monstrous inferno roared two blocks away, so rge and so hot I could see heatwaves distorting the air and fmes cwing skyward like starving beasts. Even from here, over two blocks away, I swore I could feel it grow hotter as the fire grew, devouring everything in its path. The sight should have been awe-inspiring, enough to make one simply gawp. Instead, my mind tore through the implications.

  It was too big, too fast. A natural fire wouldn’t have spread this quickly without me noticing first. The distance—two blocks—was close enough that an explosion would’ve been deafening, yet I’d heard nothing. That left only one possibility.

  A cape.

  I knew Timber Hollow’s capes. Knew them more than just about anyone. And there were no pyrokinetics among them. That meant a fresh awakening. If it was caused by…something else, there would be a trail of steam and fire stretching from the ocean to the bze, and the ones that crawled from the earth never started in abandoned warehouses. They emerged where the most people were.

  Which meant, whoever started this?

  Human.

  The realization sunk into me with startling relief. An unknown cape? A terrible possibility. But compared to the alternative? It wasn’t even a question.

  “Fuck!”

  The cape I was decidedly not relieved to see shouted, her fists clenched as she gred at the fire. Then, as if the bze had burned through whatever had distracted her, she snapped her attention back to me.

  “You!”

  She stomped forward, jabbing a finger in my direction, her snarl curling with unfiltered rage and accusation.

  “You stupid piece of shit!”

  Instinctively, I backed away with my hands raised, making sure to distance myself from the edge of the roof. Despite the pcating gesture, my face was twisted into a frown, irritation sparking beneath the confusion twisting in my gut.

  “What the heck did I do?” I asked, bewildered. The only thing I’d done was spy on her. Which—okay—sounded worse than it was. But she was a vilin!

  “That,” she snapped, whipping her arm around to point at the raging inferno in the distance, “is what I come out here for.”

  Another stomp forward. This time, I held my ground.

  “But now,” she dragged the words out, voice dripping with venom, “instead, I have to deal with some mook in khakis and a hockey—”

  She stopped. Perfectly still.

  Her eyes flicked between my raised fists and the dagger gleaming in her grip. Then, to my utter humiliation and rage—

  She snorted.

  Which turned into a chuckle.

  Which turned into full-blown, doubled-over ughter.

  “Are—are you going to punch me?” she wheezed, barely holding herself together.

  Heat rushed to my face, indignation and embarrassment fighting for dominance.

  “I will,” I stated, more resolutely than I felt.

  The amusement drained from her in an instant, as if the air itself had changed. What was left in its wake was something else. Something primal. Something I’d appuded and feared in equal measure.

  A vilin, in all her terrible, untethered glory. An apex predator without the constraints of a hero.

  The change was so sharp, so stark, that every instinct screamed at me to run. But I didn’t. Whether it was stubbornness, adrenaline, or my newfound, unproven confidence as a newfound morph, I didn’t back down. Instead, I tightened my fists and drew one hand back, like an arrow nocked on a string.

  I could feel Lady Nyx’s smile behind the mask.

  “Do it,” she murmured, voice almost bnk—almost. Beneath the emptiness, a manic excitement coiled, barely contained and waiting for a reason to be let out.

  “The old man said no attacking other capes.”

  She stepped forward, slow and deliberate. A second dagger slid from one of her many filled sheaths, firelight glinting off the cold metal.

  “He didn’t say anything about self-defense.”

  The words were a provocation, btantly goading me to start something she thought I couldn’t finish. I tensed, my breath heavy and bored like I’d just run a marathon. My arms trembled pathetically, betraying my best efforts to be–no, look–composed. But she didn’t move, didn’t attack. And so, my fear of what could be remained greater than what was.

  “Do it.”

  Her voice was almost breathless—like she had to physically restrain herself from leaping at me.

  Then sharper, hungrier—almost desperate.

  “Do it!”

  Her arm snapped forward. A dagger buried itself in the rocks between my feet. I flinched—far too te. Too slow to dodge. Too slow to react. Even then, I didn’t throw a punch.

  “Fucking pussy.”

  Something snapped, and I saw red.

  My arm moved before I even knew I’d decided to strike. Fast. Faster than I thought possible. Strength surged through me—raw, untethered, and out of my control.

  That sentence. Those words. I’d heard them before. Most people have. But most people didn’t have it so often directed at them. It was always the same few people who called me that, and among them, one name stood above the rest.

  Brad Bradbury.

  Every time he felt the whim to treat me and Violet as toys to py with and break at his amusement. Every time he swaggered over, wearing that crap-eating smirk with a glint of cruel merriment in his eyes. Every time I didn’t do a thing about it. Every time I dropped my gaze to the sound of his mocking ughter.

  Not this time. I wasn’t that guy anymore.

  I snapped out of my fugue–my fist mid-swing. Lady Nyx stood over ten feet away, knees bent and dagger poised ready to strike. She was ready to kill me.

  But I didn’t want to kill her. At the st second, I yanked my arm downward.

  A howling gale erupted from the impact and the rooftop vanished in a dense cloud of dust–pulverized rock choking the air, leaving me blind and coughing, but alive. And so was she.

  Uncomfortable but safe within the cover of my own destruction, I shook out my arm. It was trembling, a pulsing, throbbing pain ncing throughout. Too much force. Far more than I’d ever called on in practice.

  That strength hadn’t come without cost. My arm barely felt usable now, every movement twinging.

  Then–a struggle. A muffled curse.

  I whipped around, my heart hammering against my chest.

  “Show yourself,” a voice commanded from beyond the dust. Deep. Steady. Male. Not Lady Nyx, the only other person who should be on this roof.

  I thrust out my good hand, careful not to use too much force. A weak but effective burst of wind tore through the haze, revealing the man who had spoken.

  He stood cd in bronze, his armor straight out of ancient Greece—polished, imposing, and familiar. A chainmail skirt that fell past his knees, hovering over metal greaves that blended into sturdy boots. A massive, rounded shield on his back, and a sheathed straight sword hanging from his hip, a gauntleted hand resting lightly on its hilt.

  His other hand was locked easily around both of Lady Nyx’s wrists. She thrashed, struggling in vain to escape his grip.

  “So my eyes weren’t deceiving me…” The man muttered, though loud enough for me to hear. I felt his gaze settle just above my eyes, prompting me to look up—and up again—to meet the stare behind the famous helmet.

  Hoplite.

  Long ago, before I was even born, he was a legend in the making, or so people cimed. But time changed that, and now he’d passed into obscurity so much I thought he’d simply passed away.

  “Are you affiliated with her?” the hero asked casually, jostling the vilin in his grip as if there was anyone else he could mean.

  My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I shook my head in the negative.

  “Good.”

  Without a hint of effort, he sent Lady Nyx flying. The vilin didn’t even hit the ground, melting into shadow and vanishing before she did—a facet of her power the internet absolutely did not know about. Something I would be rectifying ter. But now, with her gone, I was left alone with the man I had written off as dead.

  “Come with me,” he ordered. Before I could blink, I felt a grip crushing my shoulder, and the man was standing right beside me.

  “This is not a request.”

  That night, I learned how little choice I really had. That night, I became a hero...ish.