mom had entered a bank a few months after their trip to the lighthouse. Four minutes after she’d passed through the doors, three men wearing armor and carrying guns followed.
Six people died that day. A security guard. Two of the gunmen. An elderly man named Bill who came in at least three times a week to make a deposit, but usually used it as an excuse to chat up the pretty bank tellers. A woman named Ella who was meeting with her broker.
And Jenny Bell.
Nick looked at the picture on his desk.
She was there like she always was, her head on his shoulder. “I met him,” he said quietly. “Mom, I met him.”
She was smiling.
But she was gone. Nick knew that. She wasn’t real, not anymore. And he needed to tell someone, right? A person couldn’t go through a life-changing event of monumental proportions and not tell someone.
That was why best friends existed. For moments exactly like this.
He called Seth.
“You’ve reached Seth’s voicemail. I’m probably busy. And nobody calls anyone anymore unless it’s an emergency. Send a text. Unless it’s an emergency.”
“This is an emergency,” Nick hissed after the beep. “What could you possibly be doing right now that you can’t pick up the phone when I call to tell you something that will forever alter the course of my history? Seth! I demand you call me back immediately! The only way I’ll forgive you is if you’re taking a nap because you were so tired earlier today. Also, I hope you’re having a good afternoon and that you didn’t get rained on too much because I know you get sick easily, and I don’t like it when you’re sick. This is Nick. Bye.”
He thought about calling Jazz, but she was probably still shaking her groove thang, or whatever it was that cheerleaders did.
He didn’t need to call Gibby, because she’d been there. And also because she’d told him before they parted that he was not allowed to call her about this tonight because she didn’t want to hear him gushing about Shadow Star for the billionth time.
He almost called Owen, but that was probably a bad idea. Owen still made him feel weird when they talked on the phone, and he wasn’t in the mood to hear Owen do that dumb flirting thing he did.
Instead, he put the phone beside him and stared at it, thinking as hard as he could at it so Seth would call him back.
It didn’t work, and fifteen minutes later, Nick had the beginnings of a headache.
He picked the phone back up, looking at the photo of him and Shadow Star for longer than was healthy.
He texted his dad, letting him know that everything was five-by-five and that he was doing his homework, even though homework on the first day of school was the equivalent of Christmas getting canceled and being replaced by a mayonnaise enema. He thought it was dramatic enough so Dad wouldn’t know he’d already done his homework in detention.
He stared at his phone some more.
He thought about posting the photo on Tumblr. It would set the fandom on fire and would add to the validity of his fic. After all, he’d breathed the same air as Shadow Star now, which meant he understood the Extraordinary better than anyone else in the fandom. Do it. Just do it. Let them all see he wrote from experience, which was what every author worth their salt should do.
He overthought it. It might be using his position as Shadow Star’s most incredible rescue to increase his popularity, and he never wanted to use Shadow Star for anything.
Well. Maybe for a few things that shouldn’t be said out loud because in all seriousness, Nick was sort of a prude when it came down to it.
His phone still hadn’t rung. His stomach rumbled.
“Fine,” he growled, his voice almost like Shadow Star’s. “I’ll go downstairs and forget how I have no one to tell this to, even though I’m never going to be the same again.”
He needed new friends. But the idea of trying to make new friends sounded terrible, so he decided to keep the ones he had, even if they did things like not call him back when he wanted them to.
He stood from the bed and was about to head down the stairs when his phone lit up and started ringing. He dove for it immediately.
“Did you get my message?” he asked breathlessly. “You’re not going to believe what happened to me. Like, it