“. . . nearly died in a fire, seems to be burning everything—and everyone—she can get her hands on—”

“She’s not burning them,” said Eli, skimming the photos.

“The piles of ash beg to differ.”

Eli traced a finger along the hole in the wall, then flipped to the crime scene close-up of the debris on the kitchen floor.

He rose and pressed the photo against the fiberglass. “Do you see that? The edges of the diamond?”

Stell squinted. “It looks dirty. Which would make sense, considering it’s sitting in a pile of human remains.”

“It’s not dirty,” said Eli. “It’s graphite.”

“I don’t follow.”

Obviously. “Marcella isn’t burning things. She’s eroding them. If she’d been using heat, you might have been able to combat it with extreme cold. But with a corrosive ability like this, you’re better off killing her.”

Stell crossed his arms. “Is that the only advice you have to offer?”

“In this case, it’s certainly the best,” said Eli. He had seen power like Marcella’s before. Raw, destructive, boundless. There was no place for power like that in this world. She would carve a swathe of chaos, until she was put down. “Do you know the half-life of carbon?”

“Off the top of my head?” asked Stell.

“It’s nearly six thousand years. How long do you think it took her to kill the person wearing that diamond? How long do you think it will take her to penetrate whatever armor your men are wearing?”

“It won’t be the first time our agents have gone up against someone with a touch-based ability.”

“And assuming you capture her, do you even have a cell capable of containing someone with these powers?”

“Every power has its limits.”

“Just listen—”

“I don’t need to,” cut in Stell. “Your philosophy is hardly a mystery at this point, Eli. If it were up to you, EON would never salvage anyone.”

“It’s in part because of me that you have salvaged the last twenty-two EOs. So listen when I tell you that someone this powerful belongs in the ground.”

“You know the policy.”

“I know you want to believe that all EOs are worth saving, but we aren’t.”

“We don’t decide who lives and who dies,” said Stell tersely. “We don’t condemn EOs without confrontation.”

“Now who’s letting their ideals cloud their judgment?”

“Marcella will be offered the same opportunity as every other EO we engage—to come willingly. If she refuses, and the on-site team is unable to safely—”

“Safely?” snarled Eli. “This woman can reduce people to ash with a single touch. She can decay metal and stone. Do you value an EO’s life above a human’s? Because you are sending your agents on a suicide mission to sate your pride—”

“Stand down,” said Stell.

Eli exhaled through clenched teeth. “If you don’t kill her now, you’ll wish you had.”

Stell turned to go. “If you have no other suggestions—”

“Send me.”

Stell glanced back, raising a thick brow. “What was that?”

“You want other options? Ones that won’t get innocent humans killed?” Eli spread his arms. “Our abilities are complementary. She ruins. I regenerate. There’s a cosmic elegance to it, don’t you think?”

“And what if her power is faster?” asked Stell.

Eli’s arms fell back to his sides. “Then I die,” he said simply.

Once upon a time he had believed he survived because God willed it. That Eli was unbreakable because He had a purpose for him. These days, Eli didn’t know what he believed, but he still hoped, fervently, desperately, that there was a reason for it.

Stell smiled grimly. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Cardale. But I’m not letting you go that easily.”

The wall went solid, swallowing the director from sight. Eli sighed, and crossed to his bed. He sank down onto his cot, elbows on his knees, fingers laced, head bowed. As if in prayer.

Eli hadn’t expected Stell to say yes, of course.

But he had planted the seed. Had seen it take root behind Stell’s eyes.

Now he simply had to wait for it to grow.

XXV

FOUR YEARS AGO

EON—LABORATORY WING

THOMAS Haverty was a man of vision.

So he wasn’t at all surprised when Stell stripped him of his post at EON. Wasn’t surprised when security escorted him from the lab, took his access card, his files, his crisp white coat. So many men of genius were stymied by shortsighted fools. Scientists condemned before they were lauded. Gods crucified before they were worshipped.

“This way, Mr. Haverty,” said a soldier in a black suit.

“Doctor,” he corrected as he stepped through the scanner, spread his arms, and let them search his clothes, his skin, his skeleton, all to make sure he hadn’t stolen anything from the lab. As if Haverty would do something so obvious, so stupid.

They escorted him all the way to the parking lot, and proceeded to search his car, too, before returning his keys and signaling the security post to let him out. The gates slid closed behind him with grim finality.

Haverty drove the twenty-four miles back to the outer edge of Merit, to a small apartment on the southern side of the city. He let himself in, set the keys in their designated tray, peeled off his coat and shoes, and rolled up his sleeves.

A few stray flecks of Mr. Cardale’s blood still stained the inside of his wrist, beyond the protection of his latex gloves. Haverty considered the dots for a moment, the strange pattern like a smattering of stars, a constellation waiting to be discovered.

He held his wrist out and went to his office. A windowless room, sterile and white and lined with refrigerated shelves of samples, vials of blood, small glass jars containing a dozen different drugs, folder after folder of hand-copied notes.

No, Haverty hadn’t been foolish enough to steal from EON on his way out. Instead, he’d done it every day. Stolen his research one piece at a time. A single sample. A slide. An ampule. Each token small enough to be claimed an accident, if he’d been caught. A slip of the mind. Patience really was the highest virtue. And progress was a thing achieved one halting step at a time.

Every night—or morning—when he’d returned home, Haverty had taken up a notepad and reprinted word for word the notes he’d made in the sanctum of the EON compound.

Men ahead of their time were always, by definition, outside of it.

Haverty was no different. Stell couldn’t see—EON couldn’t see—but he knew that the ends would justify the means. He would show them. He would crack the ExtraOrdinary code, and change the face of science, and they would welcome him back. They would worship him.

He crossed the lab and drew a small glass slide from a top drawer, along with a scalpel, delicately scraping flecks of Eliot Cardale’s brown-red blood onto the surface.

He had so much work to do.

XXVI

FOUR WEEKS AGO

SOUTHERN MERIT

NICK Folsetti sank onto the bench beside the block of lockers and began unwinding the tape from his hands. He ran his tongue along his inside cheek—he could still taste the tang of blood where his opponent had landed a punch.

The last of the tape came free, and Nick flexed, watching the skin on his knuckles tighten, harden to something like stone. It wasn’t stone, of course, or anything else. It was more like all the softness went out of him. All the weakness erased. He flexed again, his fingers gaining a sudden flush of color as they softened back into flesh and bone.

Nick could only harden himself in pieces—hands, ribs, shins, jaw—and even then, it was a conscious thing.

But it was a hell of a thing.

He’d heard the whispers, of the soldiers who came looking for people like him. Had gone down the online rabbit hole, dug up everything he could on ExtraOrdinaries in those first few days before he realized that was probably a giant red flag and switched to incognito searches on public computers.

EON—that’s what they were called. He kept picturing them like the people on TV shows, the ones who believed in ghosts or monsters or aliens. Nick had never been gullible, he didn’t really think they existed, these hunters.

But then again, up until six months ago, when Nick, fresh out of the hospital, put his hand through a wall, and the wall was the only thing that broke, he hadn’t believed in people like him either.

The bookie, Tavish, whistled from the doorway, a fresh toothpick between his teeth.

“For a guy your size, you sure can throw a punch.” His chin bobbed toward the hall, the room, the ring. “Bigger stages than this, you know.”

“You want me gone?” asked Nick.

“I didn’t say that,” said Tavish, shifting the toothpick in his mouth. “Just saying, you ever looking to go big, I could help you . . . for a cut.”

“I’m not looking for more attention,” said Nick. “Just cash.”

“Suit yourself.” The envelope arced through the air, landing on the bench beside him. It wasn’t all that thick, but it was untraceable, and more than enough to get by until the next fight. Which was all Nick needed.