The left wall was entirely glass, looking out onto Nova City from a dizzying height. The buildings next to Burke Tower were lit up from the colors of the celebration below: hues of red and white and blue dancing along brick and steel and glass.

  But it was the opposite wall that captured Nick’s attention. To his right, a massive screen that was dark save for a spinning symbol in the middle: two letters, BP. Burke Pharmaceuticals. Below the screen, metal shelving above a counter that stretched the entire length of the wall. The same double-helix model sat at the far end. Next to it, a row of half a dozen computer monitors, all asleep. To the right of the monitors, a row of circles in the counter, small handles above each.

  The last goon through the doors closed and locked them behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Rebecca Firestone go to the desk, setting the Guardian helmet down on top of it, the lenses pointed toward them. Nick breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good.

  Burke went to the counter on the right wall, stopping in front of the circles, touching the handles with something akin to reverence. “Patricia,” he said without turning around. “Please show our guests just how serious I am.”

  Fake Nick was gone. Jennifer Bell was gone. In their place, a woman he’d only seen a few times up close, the last of which being a quick flash as she fled their home through a hole in the wall. Her dark hair hung around her shoulders in waves. Shadows like bruises under her eyes, skin washed out. She wore slacks and a blue blouse, the collar slightly crooked. Her fingernails were painted white. Her feet were bare. He was about to snap at her, but the words died in his throat when the back of her blouse began to ripple.

  Black tendrils of smoke rose from her back, thick tentacles that moved as if alive. They rose above her head, casting shadows on the floor. She twitched, and the smoke shot forward, slamming into Dad’s chest, into Bob. Trey. Miles. They were all lifted off their feet as smoke wrapped around them, pinning their arms to their sides.

  What had Smoke and Ice told him?

  Mr. Burke sends his regards.

  It was true. All of it. Part of Nick had hoped that Owen was wrong, but here it was: proof. A chimera. Made up of things she’d stolen from others. Not a cure. A disease, harmful and destructive.

  “Let them go,” Nick growled as Dad’s head rocked back, the smoke tightening around his chest. They’d been here before. Dad, trapped in smoke. Nick, unable to help him.

  “No,” Burke said coolly. “Time and time again, your family has stood between me and harnessing the powers of Extraordinaries. It’s time I paid you back in full.” And with that, he gripped the handle and pulled upward. A hiss, followed by a cloud of white vapor as the container rose. He moved on to the next handle, and the next, and the next.

  A dozen in all, filled with what looked like brightly colored candy. Green and yellow. Violet. Blue. Orange. Black. White. Nick had seen them before, far below where they now stood, in a lab underneath Burke Tower.

  Green is superstrength, capable of turning you into a human wrecking ball. Yellow is the power of flight. Violet is the ability to summon storms. Blue can make you become a conductor of electricity. Orange is fire. Black is smoke. Or maybe shadow. I’d stay away from that one if I were you. I’m told it’s … intense. I wouldn’t want that for you. Perhaps the blue. Or green.

  And the white?

  The white one is off-limits. Even for you, Nicky. It’s the most unstable. It’s telekinesis.

  But they weren’t the only ones.

  A pile of pink pills, with two yellow stripes around the top and the bottom. Pale blue, crisscrossed with a black X. Clear pills, halfway filled with liquid that sloshed. Red, but not like fire. No, this was the dark red of blood. An electric green with a light pulsing in each pill, a steady heartbeat.

  Burke finished pulling up all the containers, and stood back, pride evident on his face. “And there are more,” he said, answering Nick’s unasked question. “So many more. These are the most stable.”

  Patricia had a dreamy look on her face, the shadows from her back roiling, the men suspended above her still struggling. They’d known this was a possibility. They’d planned for this, and yet Nick could barely tamp down the fury that roared in him.

  “Why?” he asked. “I thought you wanted to take our powers away.”

  “Both can be true,” Burke said, stroking the container filled with clear pills lovingly. “One doesn’t negate the other. Before we go any further, where is Pyro Storm?”

  “I have no idea,” Nick said. “He’s his own person. He can do what he wants.”

  “Really,” Burke said. “You of all people don’t know where he is.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I said. Glad to know you can retain information.”

  “Nick,” Dad croaked as the end of the smoke tentacle stroked the side of his face. “Not helping.”

  “Anthony,” Burke said. “Please check the security grid. Make sure we won’t have any … interruptions.”

  Anthony nodded, striding around Burke’s desk and wiggling the mouse. Rebecca Firestone cleared her throat, stepping away from the desk, leaving the Guardian helmet facing toward the others. Nick couldn’t see what was on the screen from where he stood, but Anthony’s face lit up when the monitor awoke. Holding his breath, Nick waited as Anthony typed something on the keyboard. He frowned, typed something else, and then said, “Clear.”

  Burke stroked his jaw. “Fascinating. You’re sure?”

  “Sure, boss. No one else in the building.”

  Burke looked at Nick. “What are you planning?”

  Nick startled when he felt a vibration against his chest. A hardened circle underneath his costume. The pin that Gibby had given them. The cameras. His was covered, but the Dad Squad still wore theirs. Burke had found the mics in their ears, but it’d made him careless.

  It was go-time.

  “Me?” Nick asked innocently, hand near his throat. “Planning? I’m more of a by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy.” He tapped the side of his head. “Neurodiverse, remember? ADHD makes planning things hard.”

  “I know,” Burke said. “Your parents came to me, asking for help with that and something a little … extra.”

  “When I say it, it’s cute and fun,” Nick said. “When you say it, it comes off sounding like you’re trying too hard. Maybe leave the quips to me, yeah?”

  “Talk, talk, talk,” Burke said. “If you were my child, I’d have strangled you the moment you learned your first word.”

  “Neat,” Nick said. “Though, a note, if you’re open to constructive criticism. Every fic author knows you need critical feedback in order to grow as a writer. Ready? Threatening to kill teenagers is extremely shitty, and not very mayoral. Focus, dude. You’re obviously proud about the pills, seeing as how you’re stroking them. That’s a little weird.”

  “The pills,” Burke repeated, eyes narrowed. “Yes, I suppose I am proud of them. A feat of human engineering, temporary though the effects are.”

  Anthony rejoined the goons, and Rebecca Firestone stood next to the desk, arms crossed, expression carefully blank. “But it still doesn’t make sense,” Nick said. “Why would you make pills to give people powers when you want to cure Extraordinaries?”

  “That’s your problem, Nick. You’re so wrapped up in the here and now that you fail to see the future. I may not be precognitive, but the future is known to me, and it is glorious.” He stepped away from the pills, gaze trained firmly on Nick. “Imagine, if you will: those whose job it is to protect and serve. Unfairly maligned. Ridiculed. Powerless against those with abilities and the unending tides of social justice.”

  Nick frowned. “Social—holy shit. Are you talking about the NCPD?”

  “I am,” Burke said. “Give them the tools to do their jobs. An army of Extraordinaries weeding out those who would defy us. Finding the Extraordinaries who hide their powers, who fight back. Removing their powers, leaving them ordinary. And once we’ve proven our success, the entire country will be begging me to do the same for them. Why call a SWAT team when you could call a single Extraordinary who could put people to sleep with a wave of their hand?”

  Nick scoffed. “There’s no way you’ll convince people that they’ll be safer being protected by cops with superpowers.”

  “You sorely underestimate the need for security that people feel. So many of them desperately want to believe the police can keep them safe. And the police want that as well. So if I give them the power to do just that, who do you think the rest will turn to? You, a child playing a game, or the men and women in blue? And once a few of the officers get a taste of what I can offer, won’t the others want the same thing? You of all people should know what someone will do with abilities like I can provide.” He smiled. “You did everything you could to become an Extraordinary, not knowing it was already in your blood thanks to your mother.”

  “Who you had killed,” Nick snapped.

  The skin under Burke’s right eye twitched. “Someone’s been talking, I see.” He nodded gravely. “That … was unfortunate. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I did everything I could to make her see the light. That someone like her, someone like you needed to be studied, tested to see just how powerful your telekinesis truly is.”

  Stunned, Nick said, “You wanted me?”

  “I did,” Burke said. “A child, abilities passed down from his mother. The implications were staggering. Owen didn’t have that. His mother was … well. Normal, as was everyone else in her family, as far as I could tell. And Patricia’s own parents were long dead when I met her, but there’s no evidence they were anything but ordinary. Seth Gray’s parents weren’t able to manipulate fire. So the question is why? What is it about certain people that makes them genetically predisposed to pass their abilities on to their offspring while others can’t? The things I could have learned from her. From you.” He eyed Nick speculatively. “Still could, in fact.”

  “And she refused,” Nick said, skin vibrating painfully. “So you sent people after her to make sure she couldn’t tell you no again.”

  “Collateral damage,” Burke said. “She was onto me, and it was only a matter of time before she spoke. Maybe no one would have listened to her, but I couldn’t take that chance.”

  “They would have,” Nick snapped. “She would’ve convinced everyone.”

  “And now she can’t,” Burke said.

  “You’re a goddamn monster,” Nick said coldly.

  Burke sneered. “What you call a monster, others will see as a visionary. Your mother was an unfortunate—but necessary—sacrifice, not unlike Christina and Christian Lewis.”

  “If only she’d listened,” Patricia cooed, forehead drenched in sweat as the shadow tentacles from her back quaked. Trey, head bowed, breathing heavily through his nose. Bob was pressed flat against the ceiling, face red. Miles was near Dad, but they couldn’t reach each other, arms still pinned at their sides. “She could have done so much. Instead, she threw it all away with her misplaced sense of virtue. I would know. I’ve been her.” She smiled up at Dad, a terrible thing with too many teeth. She arched her back, and a piece of one of the smoke tentacles holding Dad snapped off, shrinking to the size of a quarter before expanding into a thin line with a sharp point at the end, like a spear. Ice began to form at the base, snapping and crackling as it spread until the smoke had disappeared entirely, replaced by solid ice. The spear hovered in front of Dad’s face, the tip inches from his nose.

  Nick jumped when something exploded behind him, the bang muffled. He turned toward the windows. Green sparks fell down the side of Burke Tower. A second later, another explosion in the sky, blue and yellow, lines of fire stretching high above Nova City and illuminating the seventy-second floor.

  The fireworks had begun.

  Burke stepped away and stopped in front of the windows, looking down. From this high up, the massive crowd must have looked like ants. His face lit up in shades of gold and violet as another firework detonated. “Greater men than I have tried to revolutionize the force used to protect their own people,” he said. “But I have something they didn’t.”

  “A misplaced sense of grandiosity?” Nick asked. He glanced at Rebecca Firestone, who had her hand on top of the Guardian helmet. She nodded, twisting the helmet until the lenses faced Burke once more. She jerked her hand back when Burke turned around, but he paid her no mind.

  “The will to see it through,” Burke said. “No matter the cost. Some won’t understand. They may even think me a villain—”

  “Uh, yeah,” Nick said. “That’s because you are. I can’t believe I have to be the one to explain this to you.”

  Burke rushed forward. Nick didn’t move, refusing to be intimidated, even when Burke gripped his face, fingers digging into his cheeks. “They will do whatever I tell them to,” Burke snarled. “Sheep need direction. And I will give it to them. Nova City is just the beginning. If you think I give two shits about becoming mayor, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  Nick laughed in his face. “Oh my god. You’re a freaking cliché.”

  Burke blinked, grip loosening slightly. “What?”

  He twisted his face and dropped his voice mockingly. “‘I will be the supreme leader. People will bow before me, and I’ll take everything from them because no one ever loved me.’” He sighed, refusing to wince as Burke applied pressure to his cheekbones. “Fic villains are more three-dimensional than you’ll ever be. Disappointing that real life doesn’t imitate art. I’ll admit you’ve got some skills, though. Having your wife take the form of my mom and erase our memories of her death was pretty hard-core. And then you had her train me? What was that all about?”

  Burke almost looked pleased. “It was, wasn’t it? What I would have given to see the look on your face when she walked through your door. And she worked with you because we wanted to know just how powerful you are. And you gave it up like it was nothing.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “It only lasted a few weeks, dude. And for what? You thought you could tear us apart from the inside out?” He gasped dramatically. “We’re way more loyal to each other than your people will ever be to you.”

  “Is that right?” Burke asked. “As much as it pains me to say, you’re partially correct. Rebecca.” He turned toward her and cocked his head. “Or should I say Lauren Underwood?”

  More explosions, the room awash in whites and greens and reds. Rebecca’s face pale, eyes wide as she took a step back.

  “You think I didn’t know?” Burke asked softly. “You’re good, Lauren, but you’re not that good.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, gaze darting around as if looking for an escape. The only doors were blocked by henchmen.

  Burke clucked his tongue. “You were careless.”

  “Your father gurgled,” Patricia said darkly. “When I ate his powers and then filled his lungs with water, the sounds he made.”

  Rebecca Firestone bellowed as she rushed toward Patricia, hands raised. She only made it halfway before she came to a stop as if crashing into an invisible wall. Her eyes darted from side to side, a low moan falling from her mouth. But the rest of her seemed frozen midstep, one foot slightly raised off the floor.

  “The human body,” Burke said. “A marvelous feat of evolutionary engineering. Funny thing about bodies, though. Sixty percent of an adult human is made of water. The lifeblood of human existence, water is. And I just so happen to have an Extraordinary at my disposal who can control water. Anthony, your spare piece, if you please.”

  Anthony bent over, lifting the leg of his slacks, revealing a snub-nosed pistol in an ankle holster. He pulled it free, handing it over to Burke.

  “You have her?” Burke asked.

  “Yes,” Patricia said, but Nick could hear the tremor in her voice. Sweat now dripped off her face in rivulets, and her hands were shaking.

  You know when lightning strikes a power line? Owen whispered in Nick’s head. It sends a charge through wherever the line goes. Sometimes, it’ll knock out power all over. But most places are outfitted with surge protectors. I think she’s like that. A limit to how much she can take in. Regardless of what else Extraordinaries are, we’re still human. Our bodies can’t handle that much energy. I think if she tried to take any more she’d …

  “Boom,” Nick murmured. “Stretched too thin.”

  Burke took Rebecca Firestone’s hand in his, lifting it up. He placed the gun in her hand, positioning her fingers around the grip, thumb up the side, index finger around the trigger. It was as if she were a puppet. She moaned as Burke raised the gun in her hand, pressing the barrel against the side of her head just above her ear. A tear fell from her left eye, tracing a line down her cheek.

  “A terrible thing, grief is,” Burke said quietly, letting go of Rebecca Firestone’s hand. It stayed where he’d put it. “All-consuming. I didn’t know Rebecca Firestone was depressed. I didn’t know that she was crying out for help. Had I known, I would’ve done whatever I could to save her.” He sighed. “Alas, she was already far too gone. She stole my employee’s weapon. She put it up against her head.” He smiled as Rebecca shuddered. “Pity, that.” He turned away.

  Too far. Though Nick thought Rebecca Firestone sucked ass, Burke had gone too far. He stepped forward, about to tell Burke to leave her alone when Rebecca Firestone made a small sound at the back of her throat. Nick glanced at her to find her watching him. She shook her head once, lifting her shaking finger off the trigger.

  “A limit,” Nick whispered. Then, louder, “And the rest of us?”

  “By the time I’m done with you, you won’t remember any of this. Patricia will see to it.” He tilted his head back, smiling. “You’ll join me on that stage, and the only thing any of you will be able to say is how sorry you are. And before you think you can break free from Patricia’s hold again, a warning: I will make you kill your father.”