***ALEX***

Rain starts to fall again by the time Ahmad brings our ride to a stop in front of my house. Trying not to think about how likely it is that we in Spellman will get flooded out next, I lead the way to the front door and almost fumble my keys while trying to unlock it.

No sooner does a certain thought pop into my mind than AK says, "Don't you have gloves?"

"I do, yeah..." I finally get the key in place and turn it. "But I got out of the house this morning thinking I was going to the movies. Gloves and buttered popcorn don't mix, cuz."

Beyond the front door, Mom is already waiting for us. She hugs me hello, then looks over my shoulder and gasps. "You didn't tell me-"

"It's only five people," I tell her.

"No, I didn't...it's nothing to do with how many people. Why didn't you tell me one of them was your cousin?"

I turn around to see AK leaning against the doorjamb as Josh, Firdaus, and Ahmad file in past him. "I've just been his tagalong buddy today, I guess," AK says brightly.

"What's that smell?" Ahmad points his nose into the kitchen. "Smells like Christmas in here."

"Hey, be polite," Josh says with phony sternness. "Ask before you go nuts with the...what is that, almond cookies?"

"Oh no, it's a cyanide leak!" Firdaus cries, but luckily she winks at the rest of us - I almost legit thought she was serious for a second.

"Not cookies, no..." Mom shakes her head. "I was roasting almonds, though. Alex, you need to start doing that yourself. You're the one who eats them after dinner all the time!"

I shake my own head, but not casually like Mom does. I'm on the verge of a meltdown, or at least the closest I usually get to one. A bit of a panic attack, emphasis on flight over fight.

"You all right?" Leave it to Josh to pick up on my problem.

I'd say something, but I'm afraid it'll come out as a grunt or a scream. It's not often that I get stressed to the point of non-verbality, but it does happen more often than I'd like.

"Did you get in touch with Luca yet?" Mom asks.

I reach for my phone and gaze into the screen for a moment before clicking it so it comes back on. "Uh...no. I've been trying, but he's not answering."

"Keep trying," Mom says. "Don't fail him now, huh?"

"Okay, okay..." Rather than stick around where everyone can see me, I run upstairs and retreat to my room before attempting that call once again. After so many tries, though, I get a busy signal and not an endless cavalcade of rhythmic ring...ring...rings, which tells me at least somebody's getting through to him. Probably Gideon. Out of curiosity, I call Gideon and get the same busy signal, practically confirming this guess.

"Hey, Alex?" Firdaus knocks on my closed door. "Are you okay?"

Please, everyone, stop asking me that, it's just going to make me worse. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not." It's Josh's voice. "But if you were, you wouldn't be angel, would you?" He chuckles softly. After a long pause, he adds, "Sorry, does that one not translate so well? I mean, we know they say 'you're only human' all the time on Earth, but...and why'd I say 'translate?' It's technically the same language-"

I open my door, and that manages to shut him up for a moment. "If you're freaking out as much as I am, then welcome to the club." I stand back to let him and Firdaus in, then click my speakers' remote to put on some ChronoWulf because who else would I club to? "Where's Ahmad? Trying to hook up to the Wi-Fi? How much can we pay him to service it too? It's always screwed up these days."

"Last I saw him," Firdaus says as she explores the perimeter of my room, "he was sneaking outside to smoke again."

"At least he had the manners not to light up indoors with a child present," Josh says solemnly.

"Yeah, especially around my mom," I say. "She's a teacher, in case you didn't know."

"We didn't." Firdaus looks up at a high shelf of Star Wars action figures. "You put Rey next to Finn, but not Kylo?"

"I ship 'em. Rey and Finn. I used to get into fights with my brother all the time, 'cause he ships StormPilot-"

"Okay, cool. As long as you're not a Kylo anti."

"More likely I'd be his uncle." See, I still haven't lost it completely. As long as I can still crack a fandom joke or two, you know I'm fine. Or, at least, better than I look and feel.

"Just give it a minute before you try and call your friend again," Josh says. "You'll get through, I promise."

I nod, imagining how pale I must look right now. "I'm such a bad friend."

"No you're not," Firdaus says firmly. "Believe me, Alex, you're not the only one who has to put up with this kind of anxiety." She stands under my Star Wars shelf, twisting the burgundy tips of her hair around her finger. "It's a shitty feeling, but you'll power through it."

Josh stands behind me, his hand a gentle weight on my shoulder. "You're stronger than you know."

"God, I hope so."

"Uh, don't ask him for hope." His hand vanishes, replaced by his whole arm snaking around my neck and pulling me close to him. I'm more than a bit taken by surprise, and I even choke a little. But it's Josh, devoid of malevolent intent, so I submit to his excuse for affection.

A camera-click sound effect echoes around my room for a moment as Firdaus snaps a shot. "Sorry, I just couldn't help myself," she says. "But look, you guys...you ever seen Chris Wood hug Grant Gustin? You looked just like that, right there. Look!"

I know which picture she's talking about, and when she shows me the one she just took, I smile my approval. "So I'm Grant and you're Chris, huh, Josh?"

"Grant's awesome," Josh says. "Everyone should be like him. Or Chris. Or Melissa Benoist. Not to sound too proud of myself, but I think she and I are related, if you know what I mean."

"What, you mean, she's an archangel too?"

"Or descended from one," Firdaus suggests, "but she got all the good genes."

"Guess that explains why even Gabe's got a crush on her."

"Alex?" Mom's voice sounds urgent.

I rush to her, my wings fluttering as I glide over and down the stairs. I've almost gotten it down to an art over the years, this super-fast descent, but today, I think I might have hit one or two of the framed photographs hanging high on the wall. Wing hazard in addition to an earthquake one, but I hear no sounds of breaking glass behind me. Or perhaps my heartbeat in my ears is busy blocking out said sounds.

"What's happening?" Mom asks me when I'm in the living room with her. Thankfully, she doesn't have the TV on. Ahmad and AK stand by the window, exploring the Christmas tree and conversing quietly as they admire the ornaments. I think they're admiring them, anyway, though I'm sure at least one of them must be questioning my love for miniature muscle cars.

"Didn't they fill you in?" I ask, gesturing to the guys. AK, in particular, looks up with a "Who, me?" phony-innocent face. Damn, he's good at that baby face, even when he's got a better jawline than I do.

"I still don't know everything," Mom says. "So, uh, let me recap...Luca's flooded out of his home, there's been a car crash at the movie theater where you were meeting your cousin, and there was almost a train crash too? Alex, how...how do you keep getting into these situations?"

"Could be worse," Ahmad comments. "Could be..." I shoot a hasty glare at him until he shuts up.

It's not like he was about to reveal your big secret, Josh says. That would've been too dick a move for him.

"Remind me," Mom says to Ahmad, "what do you do again? This goes for all your new friends, actually."

"Tech support," says Ahmad.

"Writer," says Firdaus.

"Spy for God and country," says Josh. He then looks up, pointing his ear toward the stairs. "Hey, Alex, your music's still playing."

"What?" I take a listen and hear, very faintly, what might be Tears For Fears. "Oh shit, you're right!" I run upstairs long enough to shut my tunes off, then race back down.

When I touch down on the bottom step, the doorbell rings, followed by several loud raps. Someone's a little too eager to get in, and I'm not so sure I want to let them. Being closest to the door, I tiptoe over and look through the peephole. On the other side is a male figure, about as tall as I am, with longish blond hair and eyes that I feel are staring back at me even though he can't possibly see me.

Or can he?

He's no ordinary mortal, this guy. Last time I saw him, he deployed a zombie army, almost literally, from a row of Third 'Verse dream pods.

Today, though, Michael's not looking so good. Even in the general lack of lighting, I see he's got a bruise on one side of his face, and the rest of his skin, already whiter than even Elijah Emery's, is practically deathly blue. Whether from cold or injury or illness, I can't tell. Do people like him even get sick?

I turn around to see Mom mouthing, "Who's there?" and Josh stepping softly past her to get a look for himself. "Is he here yet?" he asks, not troubling to keep his voice down.

"Is who?" Ahmad asks in a hoarse whisper.

The last thing I want to do is open the door for Michael. Treat him like a vampire, like he can't come in without being invited. What if he faked his injury, wherever he got it from? Who could've done it to him? Surely not Mr. G or somebody. Isn't Michael his son too? Chalk up more family abuse on Mr. G's litany of sins, in that case.

Maybe that's why, in the end, I open the door. Because I know a thing or two about a bio dad who doesn't give a shit about harming his own flesh and blood.

I step aside, though, so Josh can be the first to greet his brother. "What the..." he begins before Michael latches on to him with a power hug. "Damn, man, what happened? Don't tell me-"

"Scoville's little minions," Michael says tersely.

Mom looks from me to Josh and back again, then to Josh and Michael once more. I know what she's thinking, and very loudly too. They look just like-

Me and Gabe, I know. I wave my hands her way to try and get her to calm down. Except Josh takes after his dad instead of his mom like I do.

"Not the same people we saw in the city?" asks Firdaus.

"I knew they weren't fixing power lines," AK says, almost triumphantly.

"What power lines?" Michael asks, mystified. "They weren't doing anything with power lines. They were trying to let people out of their pods on my watch."

"Oh, you mean like you did with me and my friends." I cross my arms as I stare daggers at him.

Michael blanches, as if that were even possible given how pale he already is today. "Listen, I didn't know if you were friendly or not-"

"And that's your excuse for trying to unleash the dead on us?"

Mom looks horrified, as she usually does when she learns about another one of my past adventures. I don't usually tell her the details.

"Would you believe me if I said I was just trying to get you out? It's not often I get visitors, and-"

"Yeah, I don't wanna hear it."

"All right," Josh says, looking again at his brother's face. "How many Scoville people do we gotta punch in the faces to make up for these bruises?"

"'People?'" Michael scoffs. "Try 'person.' Try Scoville himself."

Josh pales a bit, the effect making me think of some shot from some old movie where they raised the lighting on the actor to make them stand out more. "You met him? When did...did Dad make you-"

"You know Dad doesn't make me do shit," Michael says, crossing his arms and casting his eyes down. "Aside from keeping watch over his little house of cryogenics. No, this mission, I took it on myself."

My phone rings, distracting everyone, including myself. Checking the screen, I see that it's Luca, and he's not just calling - he's looking to video-chat too. I hope if I do, he's not wasting too much data on his end. "Excuse me..." I step into the kitchen so I can take this in relative privacy. "Hey, Luca. You all right?"

He's not looking so hot, not when he opens the video connection with a scarily long-lasting still of him palming his face. Our entire video connection is this bad, but not so much audio, which begs the question of why he even started this video chat to begin with. Still, at least I can see his face, even if it's live at only about ten frames a minute.

"Not sure," he says. "You saw what happened, right? We had to get out hella fast. I don't know how bad it's gotten by now, but..." The next freeze-frame shows him staring off to one side, like he's looking at someone over my shoulder. Instinctively, I look to see if AK or Firdaus or someone is poking their head in behind me, but for now, I'm alone. "Last I remember," Luca continues, "it was getting up to about three inches deep. The sandbags were overwhelmed."

"You want me to come down there and help?" I ask. "I could...I could maybe clear some of the waters away, you know?"

The video fixes itself for a short time, enough for me to see Luca shaking his head. "Alex, you're good, but not flood-controller good. Besides, if I know you, you'd probably just turn my place into a fucking skating rink." He does that "looking beyond my shoulder" thing again. "Crap, my mom heard me."

"This is why you need to swear in bloody Hellish," I tell him. "It's classier."

"But seriously," he cuts in, "they say the flood controllers are already out working my neighborhood. You'd just get in the way. Don't feel the need to fly down here on my account, huh?"

"But where are you gonna go?" I ask. "You've got family somewhere nearby, right?" Of course he does, if he's anything like me, and being Mediterranean and Catholic, he is. Though I bet most of that family is cousins he barely knows until the time comes for annual family reunions.

Speaking of cousins, AK sticks his head through the kitchen door. "Hey, Alex, Josh needs to ask you something-"

"Who's that?" Luca asks. "I know this guy from somewhere. Who is he?"

My head turns rapidly as I look from my phone to the door and back again. "Listen, Luca, I'm sorry, but I've had a lot to do today. More of the same, you know? World-breaking conspiracies and all that."

"What, are you trying to say someone made this flood happen?"

"I think so." Josh walks in, having heard that last from Luca. "I...I hate to tell you this, but I think my dad did it."

"Yeah, this one wasn't Scoville," Michael chimes in. "Acts of God aren't exactly that man's speciality."

"Alex, talk to me," Luca says. "What's happening?" He gasps when a single alarm tone goes off on his end. "Shit, my phone's gonna lose battery-"

"Guys, can you back out?" I stand up from my seat. "I need to-"

"Wait, if his battery's running out, why don't we just go down to him ourselves?" asks AK.

"Isn't that what we were gonna do anyway?" asks Josh.

"I'm trying to...no, no, no, just..." I feel myself clamming up again.

"Alex, if you're too busy, I can call you back-" Luca begins.

"No!" I put my phone back in front of my face - I realize I've been holding it off to one side, giving him a lovely view of the spots on the bananas in the fruit bowl instead. "I'm gonna help you, all right? I just need to get all these houseguests out-"

"Starting with me, right?" Michael asks with a cocked eyebrow. "I get it, you don't want me here." He reaches out to me, and I flinch away. "I'm sorry, but you're stuck with me for the moment."

Josh physically lowers his brother's hand, but then does exactly what Michael just tried to do, and I back further away. It's harder this time because, well, it's Josh, but I'm still too sensitive to let him into my bubble right now.

Tears prickle my eyes. "Josh, I'm sorry, but you gotta put this on hold, okay? This whole Scoville shit. I-I-I-I need to help my friend, okay? Let me help him. Please."

"I told you, you don't need to come down to me-"

I ignore the sounds of Luca's voice issuing from my hand. "I can only deal with one problem at a time. This is my priority."

"I'm going with you for sure," AK says.

"He doesn't need you, he says!" Michael cries. "But we do!"

"Don't tell me-"

"I know, we all feel like we're being stretched thin here," Josh says. "That's the plan from the bad guys' end. That's what Scoville wants. That's what my dad wants." Before I can stop him, he takes my hand in both of his. "Listen, I know you wanna help. Believe me, so do I. But you can't do shit when you're this keyed up-"

I struggle to pull myself away from him. "I won't be if you let me go!"

"I'd let him go, guy." There goes Luca, sounding like he's possessed by Paul Smythe's ghost. "Look, I know I said you don't need to help me, Alex, but clearly you've set your mind to it-"

"But what are you even gonna do?" Josh asks oh so earnestly. "Trouble is, you don't have a plan, do you? I know it's not your style-"

Forgetting who he is, I storm at him. "What do you know about that? What good's a plan gonna do?"

"Fat lot more than you'd think," Michael says. "If only I'd had a plan when they put Josh on the bloody damn cross, I'd have spared you all a lifetime of misery."

"Don't give yourself so much credit," Josh remarks. "I'm allergic to braggadocio." He sees me tugging on my hand, trying to break free of his grip, so he redoubles it. "Like I said, Alex...calm down. Deep breaths. Like you're meditating."

"I can't fucking meditate!" Not exactly untrue there, based on my limited experience of having attempted to do so. "And I can't stay here!"

"Alex, you're spiraling-"

"SHUT UP!"

As I scream in Josh's face, a heavy flurry of ice and snow surrounds us, forcing us both to cover our otherwise naked eyes. When the snow goes away, though, the ice doesn't, and neither does the cold seeping into virtually every bone of mine.

"Alex, what..." Josh attempts to stand up, but like me, he's on the floor, virtually immobile.

Only then do I realize that we're not even in my kitchen anymore.

I've been here once or twice, but never when the place is in this condition.

Luca's room was flooded, but now I'm here and, just as he suggested I would do earlier, I've frozen the place, trapping myself and Josh both.

Trapped, but only for a second until my brain slows down enough for me to unfreeze us. This, though, makes us wet instead, because the water doesn't just go away.

I hold my phone up, but I can't talk to Luca anymore, because half of it - the upper half, the part farthest away from my hand - is now missing.

My voice is reduced to a rough whisper as I ask, "What the hell did I just do?"

"You teleported." Josh sounds oddly happy about it. "See, I was wondering when you'd get to do something like that. After all, you're already a Breaker - the Terminal just lets you in. Intra-universal jumping without breaking a sweat? Shouldn't be that hard for you."

As it happens, I actually am breaking a sweat. Or did I break my brain and give myself some kind of psychic bleed...? No, I touch my temple and my finger comes away shining with traces of fluid, but clear, not red.

But still, I'm hyperventilating. "What...what...what did I..."

"Are you gonna let me hug you now?" Josh already has his arms outstretched. "If it helps, that is."

"No, no, we...we gotta get out of here." I look around the dark room until I see what looks like Luca's phone charging cable. Picking it up, I stuff it in my pocket and say, "Help me find everyone else's."

"What?"

"I can't just bring Luca's charger and that's it. What kind of dick would I look like if I did that?"

"A dick who cares about his best bro."

"Gee, thanks, Jesus. And don't get yourself confused. My best bro is dead."

I slosh through the flooded house, opening the door to the next bedroom over. Marco's, I think. Pretty spare and spartan compared to Luca's, which is full of posters. Like Luca, though, Marco keeps his charging cable on his desk. Hopefully the rest won't be so hard to find.

At the same time, I try to teleport myself from room to room, but this ability appears to have deserted me. Maybe that one time, it activated because I was stressed almost to the breaking point, but now that I'm a little more in control again, it's not going to happen on command.

Just another superpower I'll need to train myself with. At least I got one that could be useful as hell, if I gain control over it. And if I could figure out how not to freeze the shit out of everything every time I teleport myself.

But for now, I've got something else to distract my screaming, crying, begging-for-fucking-help brain. A purpose, however small it may be.

That, plus my current and unfortunate lack of shoes.