We’re covered in shadows, you and me. It’s easy to give into it when you want it badly enough. I know what you would’ve done for her. You would have stopped them by any means necessary. Even if it meant blood on your hands.” His grip tightened. “Be gay. Do crimes.”
He wasn’t wrong, but Nick wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “I am nothing like you.”
“Aren’t you?” Owen asked, his face inches from Nick’s, his breath hot against Nick’s cheeks. “Because I seem to remember you saying you would do anything to protect those you love. We’re not like Pyro Storm, Nick. You’re not like Seth. You and me, we have to fight tooth and nail just to be on his level. How is that fair? He won the genetic lottery, and the rest of us are supposed to accept it? Why should he get to have powers the rest of us don’t? I may hate my father, but he still gave me the tools to become what I am. He didn’t know how far I could take it. He will, though. Everyone will.”
“Pyro Storm is coming for me,” Nick snapped, spittle spraying from his mouth and landing on Owen’s mask. It glistened in the light. “And he’s gonna kick your ass.”
Owen let go of this throat, reaching up to ruffle Nick’s hair as he gasped in a deep breath. He gagged, eyes watering.
“It’s kind of irritating how much he cares about you,” Owen said. “Seriously, watching the two of you fumble around each other was embarrassing.”
“Hey!”
“But it doesn’t matter,” Owen said, squaring his shoulders. “Because today is the day that I bring about the end of Pyro Storm. You’re right. He’ll come for you. And it’ll be the last thing he ever does.”
“Would you stop quoting my fan—”
“What about me?” Rebecca Firestone asked, and Nick again was unimpressed by her. She always tried to make it about herself. It was really an unattractive quality to have.
“You’ll tell my story,” Owen said, rising higher. In the distance, Nick thought he could hear the sounds of approaching sirens. “This city will love me. You’ll make sure of it.”
“And if I don’t?”
Owen shrugged. “I’ll kill you and find someone else.”
“I’m on board, then,” she said quickly. “I’m thinking we try to go national. A sit-down interview. We need to meet the real Shadow Star. The boy—the man behind the mask.”
“What about your scruples?” Nick demanded. “Your moral integrity? You’re a reporter. You’re supposed to be unbiased!”
She snorted. “Kid, I don’t know what in the hell is going on, but I don’t want to die. I would also like a Pulitzer.”
“I will never watch Action News again! You hear me? Never!”
“Is he always this loud?” she asked Owen.
“Yes. Always. And filled with outrage over the weirdest things. This one time, I—”
But whatever example Owen was about to give was cut off as he exploded.
Not literally, but Nick didn’t know that, at least not right away. One moment he was standing on a pillar of shadows above them, and the next, there was a bright burst of fire engulfing him. Nick shouted in terror, turning his face away from the immense heat that rolled over his skin. He felt the shadows binding him begin to loosen, and he slipped a little down the spire, shirt riding up on his back and pressing against cold metal. He heard Rebecca Firestone cry out across from him, and he managed to open his eyes in time to see her sliding down her own spire, feet dangling into nothing. Her other shoe fell off, a sharp wind blowing it out into the river.
Nick looked down and saw a dozen police cars screeching to a halt, their lights spinning. He was dizzy at the sight of them so far away. He couldn’t even make out the sound of the doors flying open.
He lifted his head toward the sky.
Owen had been knocked off his shadow pedestal and was clinging to the top of Nick’s spire, costume smoking, embers smoldering on his shoulder. He looked out, face twisted in fury.
Nick followed his gaze.
There, high above Nova City, cape billowing around him, was Pyro Storm.
“Quite the entrance,” Owen said. “I’m impressed.” He brushed off the embers on his shoulder. They winked out as they fell.
“This is over,” Pyro Storm said, and Nick shivered at the steel in his voice. “I should’ve stopped you a long time ago. Everything you’ve done in the last few days, the people that were hurt, that