The Boy Who Never Awakened
The smell of burned plastic drifted through the hallway. Riker Vance stopped near the intersection between the science wing and the gymnasium, where a loose circle of students had gathered around the lockers ahead, whispering and craning their necks for a better view. No one stepped forward. No one ever did. “Please,” someone said from the center of the crowd, the voice quiet and nearly buried beneath the murmurs, but Riker recognized it immediately. Nico. He pushed through the gathered students, earning several annoyed looks that disappeared the moment people realized where he was going.
His best friend sat against a row of dented lockers, backpack thrown several feet away, its contents scattered across the floor. One lens had fallen out of Nico’s glasses, and he held a hand over his ribs as if breathing hurt. Standing over him was Gabriel Ashford, flames dancing lazily across his fingertips, curling around his knuckles without burning him, casting flickering orange light across his pleased expression. Three boys stood behind him, laughing whenever Gabriel did. “Say it again,” Gabriel said.
Nico swallowed. “I didn’t mean to bump into you.”
Gabriel leaned closer, grin widening. “Oh, I know. That’s what makes this fun.”
A flame snapped from his fingers and burst inches from Nico’s face. Nico recoiled, slamming the back of his head against the locker, and several students gasped, but no one moved. Riker’s attention snapped toward the teachers’ lounge, where Mr. Halden stood in the doorway, watching the scene. For one hopeful second, Riker thought he might intervene. The teacher’s gaze met Gabriel’s. Then Mr. Halden lowered his eyes, stepped backward, and quietly closed the door. Coward, Riker thought, jaw tightening. “See that, Nico?”
Gabriel laughed. “Even the teachers know better.”
A few students gave nervous chuckles, and Gabriel turned toward the crowd, soaking in their fear as though it were applause.
He was tall for seventeen, broad-shouldered and athletic, with carefully styled blond hair and the effortless confidence of someone who had never been forced to face consequences. Everyone at Willingboro Central knew the Ashford name. Gabriel’s father owned half the construction contracts in the county, his mother sat on the Regional Education Council, and his older brother had graduated from Oracle University into a prestigious corporate enforcement unit. Gabriel was also the only student at the school known to possess an ability. That made him special. It also made him dangerous.
Riker’s hands curled into fists. Something stirred beneath his skin, a familiar pressure gathered behind his ribs, warm and restless, like a second heartbeat waiting to be released. He forced it down. Not here. Not now. Aunt Carol’s voice returned to him with perfect clarity: Promise me. He had been twelve when she first made him say it, the two of them standing in the basement beneath the dim glow of an emergency lamp, staring at the shattered training dummy across the room. No matter what happens, never let anyone see what you can do. At twelve, Riker had not understood why her hands trembled. At seventeen, he understood too well: the world loved people with useful abilities. It studied them. Recruited them. Bought their loyalty. And when it could not control them, it found other ways to make them disappear.
Riker had kept his promise for four years. He had hidden every flicker of energy, pretended to be one of the students whose abilities never manifested before their thirteenth birthday, endured the sympathetic looks and the jokes and the quiet assumption that his future would always be smaller than everyone else’s. He had kept silent through every insult, every injustice, every time Gabriel chose another victim. But Nico was on the floor. “Let’s see how funny you look without those eyebrows,” Gabriel said, raising a burning fist. Nico shut his eyes. Riker moved.
He drove through the crowd before anyone could stop him. Gabriel turned at the sound of rushing footsteps, but Riker was already there, lowering his shoulder and slamming into Gabriel’s waist, carrying them both across the polished floor. The fire vanished from Gabriel’s hand as his back struck the ground, and a shocked silence fell over the hallway. Riker climbed on top of him. His first punch struck Gabriel’s mouth. The second hit his cheek. The third never landed. Gabriel caught his wrist and stared up at him, more astonished than hurt, a thin line of blood at the corner of his lip. “You hit me.”
Riker twisted free and drove an elbow toward Gabriel’s jaw, but Gabriel jerked his head aside and the strike only clipped his ear. “I said,”
Riker drew back his fist, “leave him alone.”
One of Gabriel’s friends grabbed Riker from behind. Riker shifted his weight, hooked the boy’s ankle, and sent him crashing into the lockers, then turned as a second boy rushed forward, caught the incoming arm, and used the boy’s momentum to throw him over his hip. Years of Aunt Carol’s training took over: balance, breathing, position. Never fight the force coming at you. Redirect it. The third boy hesitated. Gabriel didn’t. Heat flashed across the hallway, and Riker turned just as Gabriel’s flaming fist struck the side of his face. The world became light and noise. Fire burst across his collar and shoulder, the impact lifting him off his feet and hurling him into the lockers, metal buckling behind him with a deafening crash.
Students screamed and scattered. Riker collapsed onto one knee, smoke rising from his ruined shirt. The left side of his face tingled where the blow had landed, but there was no agony, no blistering skin, no smell of burned flesh, only heat. The energy inside him surged toward the point of impact, absorbing what should have destroyed him, and Riker clenched his teeth and forced it back down. Don’t react. Don’t let them see. Gabriel stared at him, confusion briefly replacing his anger, then his friends seized Riker’s arms and pulled him upright. “You should have stayed down,” Gabriel said, his expression twisting into a smile.
His fist struck Riker’s stomach, and air exploded from Riker’s lungs. Another blow connected with his ribs, then his jaw. Riker could have stopped him. That was the worst part. He could have released a fraction of the energy straining inside him and thrown Gabriel through the wall, could have shattered the floor beneath their feet or formed a barrier strong enough to make every punch useless. Instead, he remained trapped between Gabriel’s friends and took each hit, Aunt Carol’s warning echoing in his mind. Once people know, you can never make them forget. Gabriel grabbed Riker by the front of his scorched shirt. “Still looking at me like that?”
Riker tasted blood. He smiled anyway, a small, humorless expression, but it made Gabriel’s face darken. “You think you’re tough because you surprised me?”
“No,”
Riker managed. “I think you’re weak because you needed three people to hold me.”
A few students reacted before they could stop themselves, and Gabriel heard them. The flames around his hands flared brighter. Riker’s pulse quickened as Gabriel drew his fist back, this time with enough fire surrounding it to illuminate the ceiling. A woman’s voice cut through the hallway. “Gabriel Ashford.”
The flames stuttered. The school’s security officer stood at the far end of the corridor, Officer Grant, an older man with a shaved head and a heavy tactical vest fitted over his uniform, pale stone covering both forearms, the visible sign of his earth-based ability. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. “Release him.”
Gabriel’s friends immediately let go, and Riker stumbled but remained standing. Gabriel extinguished his flames with a flick of his fingers. “He attacked me.”
“I saw the recording.”
“He started it.”
Officer Grant’s stone-covered hands tightened. “I said we’re done.”
For several seconds, Gabriel looked as if he might challenge him, then glanced toward one of the black security lenses mounted above the lockers and stepped back. “This isn’t over,” he whispered to Riker.
Riker wiped the blood from his mouth. “For Nico, it is.”
Officer Grant moved between them before Gabriel could respond, and teachers finally emerged from their classrooms now that the danger had passed, rushing into the hallway to order students to disperse while pretending they hadn’t spent the last several minutes watching from behind locked doors. Someone reached for Riker’s arm. He pulled away. “Don’t.”
“Riker, you need to calm down,” Mr. Halden said.
Riker turned toward him, and the teacher stopped. “You saw what they were doing.”
Mr. Halden glanced around the hallway. “This isn’t the time.”
“It wasn’t the time when Nico was on the floor either, was it?”
“Riker...”
“You didn’t even call security.”
The shame that flickered across the teacher’s face gave Riker no satisfaction, and he walked past him.
Nico was still sitting against the lockers. Riker crouched and picked up the pieces of his glasses. “You look terrible,” Nico said.
Riker glanced at his friend’s swollen face. “You’re one to talk.”
Nico tried to laugh, then winced and clutched his ribs. Riker slipped an arm beneath his shoulder. “Come on.”
“You know he’s going to make your life miserable now.”
“He was already doing that.”
“Not like this.”
Riker helped him to his feet, and Nico leaned heavily against him. “For someone without powers, you have a serious lack of survival instinct.”
Riker’s gaze followed Gabriel, who was being escorted away by Officer Grant. “You don’t need powers to stand up.”
The words sounded simpler than the truth.
They walked toward the medical office as students moved aside to let them pass, Riker feeling their eyes following him: some impressed, others frightened, a few staring at the scorched side of his uniform with open confusion. He kept his head down. The school medical office looked more like a small emergency clinic than a nurse’s station, white cabinets lining the walls, diagnostic screens glowing beside two examination beds, a pair of recovery pods occupying the rear of the room. Ms. Carter glanced up from her desk as they entered. She was younger than most of the school staff, perhaps in her early thirties, with dark hair pulled into a neat bun and sharp gray eyes that noticed everything at once. Her gaze passed over Nico, then Riker, then the smoke still rising from his collar. “What happened?”
“Gabriel,” Nico said.
Ms. Carter sighed as though the name explained everything. “Put him in the left pod.”
Riker helped Nico across the room. The recovery pod opened with a soft hiss, revealing a padded interior surrounded by silver medical bands. “I hate these things,” Nico muttered.
“You hate everything that requires you to stay still.”
“I’m an active person.”
“You once got tired opening a jar.”
“It was sealed unusually well.”
Despite himself, Riker smiled. Nico climbed inside, and the lid lowered over him, pale blue light sweeping across his body as the machine began assessing his injuries. Ms. Carter studied the readings. “Two bruised ribs, mild concussion, facial swelling.”
She entered several commands. “The pod will reduce the inflammation and accelerate tissue recovery. You’ll still be sore tomorrow.”
“Can it fix my dignity?”
“No.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Ms. Carter looked at Riker. “Your turn.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were hit by an active pyrokinetic.”
“He held back.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Gabriel Ashford does not hold back.”
Riker shrugged, the movement pulling at his burned shirt. “Then I got lucky.”
“You’re bleeding.”
He touched the corner of his mouth. “That’s from a regular punch.”
“And the fire?”
“Mostly hit my clothes.”
Ms. Carter stepped closer, and Riker resisted the urge to back away. “Sit,” she said.
“I should stay with Nico.”
“He will survive three minutes without your supervision.”
From inside the pod, Nico raised a hand weakly. “I make no promises.”
Riker sat on the examination bed while Ms. Carter pulled a diagnostic scanner from the wall and passed it over his chest, ribs, and face, information flickering across the device. “No fractures,” she said quietly.
“I told you.”
“That was not an endorsement of your medical expertise.”
She set the scanner down and examined his torn collar. The fabric around his shoulder had melted into a blackened ring, parts of his shirt fused together from the heat. Ms. Carter reached for a pair of surgical scissors, and Riker caught her wrist, the reaction automatic. Her gaze dropped to his hand. Riker released her. “Sorry.”
She did not respond immediately. Then she began cutting away the damaged fabric while Riker kept his breathing steady. The cloth peeled from his shoulder, and Ms. Carter stopped. Silence settled over the room, broken only by the hum of Nico’s recovery pod, as she looked down at Riker’s skin, then at the ruined shirt, then back at his skin. Her fingers passed gently over his shoulder: no burn, no blistering, not even redness. Riker forced himself to meet her eyes. “He must have missed.”
“I watched you come through the door with smoke rising from your clothes.”
“Then the uniform absorbed it.”
“This fabric is designed to resist accidental ability discharge.”
Riker had no answer for that. Ms. Carter lifted the scanner again and passed it over the point where Gabriel’s fist had struck him, and the device chimed. She studied the result for several long seconds while Riker’s heartbeat grew louder. If she reported him, Aunt Carol would know he had failed. The authorities would come. The questions would begin. And once they learned what he could do, there would be no returning to the life he had spent four years protecting. Ms. Carter placed the scanner on the counter. “Has anything like this happened before?”
“No.”
The lie came too quickly. Her expression did not change, but something sharpened behind her eyes as she picked up what remained of his shirt and examined the scorched fabric again.
“Gabriel’s flames burned hot enough to melt synthetic material,” she said.
“At that temperature, you should have suffered severe tissue damage.”
Riker said nothing. She leaned closer, lowering her voice so Nico could not hear through the pod. “But you didn’t.”
Only then did Ms. Carter smile, the first real one since he had walked into the office, not a comforting smile, but the expression of someone who had just found the answer to a question Riker hadn’t known she was asking. “Interesting,” she said. And Riker knew his secret was no longer entirely his own.