Page 112 of Villains Series

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

LOCKLAND UNIVERSITY

“TO see a world in a grain of sand…”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, the clouds flushing blue. It was the start of senior year, and after unpacking, they’d gone up on the roof to watch the storm roll in.

“… and Heaven in a wildflower,”

continued Eli.

He lifted his palm until it seemed to rest just beneath the lightning.

“Hold infinity in the palm of your hand…”

“Honestly, Eli,”

said Victor, perching on one of the folding chairs that scattered the makeshift patio.

“spare me the scripture.”

Eli’s hand fell away.

“It’s not the Bible,”

he said testily.

“It’s Blake. Get some culture.”

He swept the bottle of scotch away from Victor.

“And the point holds. There is no harm in seeing a creator behind the creation.”

“There is when you purport to study science.”

Eli shook his head. Victor didn’t understand—would never understand—that it wasn’t a matter of faith or science. The two were inextricable.

Eli took a cautious sip from the stolen bottle and sank into a second chair as the storm crept closer. It was their first night back, the first night in their new shared apartment. Victor had spent his summer avoiding his parents on some remote family vacation while getting a head start on organic chemistry. Eli had spent his at Lockland, interning under Professor Lyne. He cut a sideways glance at his friend, who was sitting forward, elbows on his knees, his attention seemingly transfixed on the distant lightning.

Initially, Victor had presented a dilemma. Eli Cardale’s persona, so carefully constructed over the last decade, found little audience with his sober new roommate. There was no need for a steady smile, affability, the practiced ease. There was no point to them, not when Victor seemed so utterly disinterested. No, disinterested was the wrong word—Victor’s attention was constant, acute—but the more charming Eli tried to be, the less Victor responded to it. In fact, he seemed annoyed by the effort. As if Victor knew it was just that. An effort. A show. Eli found himself culling the unnecessary trappings, trimming his persona down to the essentials.

And when he did that, Victor warmed.

Turned toward Eli like a face toward a mirror. Like to like. It frightened and thrilled Eli, to be seen, and to see himself reflected. Not all of himself—they were still so different—but there was something vital, a core of the same precious metal glinting through the rock.

Lightning flashed arterial lines of blue over the rooftop, and seconds later, the world around them shook with a concussive force. Eli felt the tremor through his bones. He loved storms—they made him feel small, a single stitch in a vast pattern, a drop of water in a downpour.

Moments later, the rain began to fall.

In seconds, the first drops became a downpour.

“Shit,”

muttered Victor, springing up from his seat.

He jogged toward the roof door.

Eli rose, but didn’t follow. Within seconds he was soaked through.

“You coming?”

shouted Victor over the rain.

“You go ahead,”

said Eli, the downpour erasing his voice. He tipped his head back and let himself be swallowed by the storm.

An hour later, Eli padded barefoot across the apartment, dripping rainwater in his wake.

Victor’s door was closed, the lights out.

After reaching his room, Eli peeled off his soaked clothes and sank into his chair as the storm faded beyond the windows.

Two in the morning, classes starting the next day, but sleep still eluded him.

His cell phone sat on the desk, a handful of texts from Angie, but Eli wasn’t in the mood for that, and anyhow, she was probably asleep by now. He ran a hand through his damp hair, slicking it back, and tapped his computer awake.

Something stuck with him, from the roof. The image of the lightning in his palm. Eli had spent the better part of the summer studying electromagnetism in the human body. The literal and metaphorical spark of life. Now, drifting in that exhausted early-hours space, the darkened room and the artificial light of the laptop keeping him conscious if not fully awake, his fingers slid over the keyboard, and he began to search.

For what, he wasn’t exactly sure.

One screen, one page, one site, gave way to another, Eli’s attention wandering between articles and essays and forums like a mind lost in a dream. But Eli wasn’t lost. He was just trying to find the thread. He’d encountered a theory, some weeks before, on another insomniac night. Over the last month, it had grown roots, fed on his focus.

Eli still didn’t know what made him click that first link. Victor would have blamed idle curiosity, or fatigue, but in Eli’s trancelike state it felt eerily familiar. A hand resting over his own. A blessing. A push.

The theory Eli had discovered was this: that sudden, extreme trauma could lead to a cataclysmic, even permanent shift in physical nature and ability. That through life-or-death trauma, people could be rewired, remade.

It was pseudoscience at best.

But pseudoscience wasn’t automatically wrong. It was simply a theory that hadn’t been adequately proven. What if it could be? After all, people in duress did extraordinary things. Claimed feats of strength, moments of heightened ability. Was the leap so extreme? Could something happen in that life-or-death moment, that tunnel between darkness and light? Was it madness, to believe? Or arrogance, to not?

The page loaded, and Eli’s heart quickened as he stared at the word across the top of the screen.

ExtraOrdinary.