SEAMUS
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

“What did you do to me?”

Seamus glared at his father, trying to summon something—anything—to attack him. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to use his Legacy since waking up and finding himself in a cell that morning.

“We’ve implanted you with an Inhibitor,” Peter McKenna said. “It’ll help us keep your abilities under control.”

Seamus snorted. “So, if I don’t do what you want, you’ll just control me like a robot?”

His father’s expression remained impassive. “You know why this had to be done. You’re dangerous.”

“Wow,” Seamus said, clapping his hands together. “Congratulations. You finally got what you always wanted—complete control.”

“I never wanted to control you, son” his father said.

Seamus ignored him. He thought back to the night before. He remembered running from the fight on the roof, going back to the room. He remembered telling Freakshow and Spike that they needed to leave, and them slipping past the crowd in front of the hotel.

Then things got a little hazy. He’d argued with Freakshow and Spike about where to go. With Eleni and Magdalena gone, he knew things would fall apart. They were better off sticking together. But Freakshow and Spike wanted to return to their new hideout and wait for orders, so he headed off alone.

He remembered stealing a car, but there was a roadblock on the freeway. Then a voice telling him to step out of the vehicle.

“You’re lucky Watchtower got involved and they didn’t shoot you when you tried to attack them.”

“I wish they had,” Seamus said. “At least then maybe I’d be back with Catriona.”

At the mention of Seamus’s sister’s name, he finally saw some emotion on his father’s face. It was there only for a moment, but he could tell he’d struck a nerve. He pushed. “Then you’d have killed off both your kids. Isn’t there some kind of merit badge for that?”

His father seemed about to speak. Then, abruptly, he turned and walked out of the cell, the door sliding open and then shut behind him.

Seamus lay back on his cot and wondered if he should have stuck with Freakshow and Spike. Surely they weren’t worse off than he was, trapped here with no way out.

Except that there was always a way out. He just had to find it. And when he did, a lot of people were going to be very sorry. Especially his father.

MAX
POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA

“Do it again!” Max cried.

“Okay,” Kalea said. “Hang on.”

The ground beneath their feet rumbled. Max fell down, laughing. Rena, holding on to a tree trunk for balance, shook her head. “That is one dangerous Legacy.”

“It’s not as bad as Kona’s,” Kalea said, pointing to her brother. “At least I don’t turn things into liquid fire.”

“I don’t know,” said Bats, seated at a picnic table nearby, watching her friends show off. “I think Rena’s Legacy might be the coolest.”

Rena walked over and sat down across from her. “We all have great Legacies,” she said as the others joined her and Bats.