Jacob Knight wakes up to a bloodbath at the mall, and finds himself at the epicenter. He is quickly arrested and forced to fight on a secret squad of metahumans who are given a choice between forced military service or prison.

The problem is, he has no idea what his ability is, and no one will give him a straight answer. But one thing is clear: he needs to figure it out, and fast, since the success of his first mission hinges on it.

Excerpt

I heard her scream again, yelling as loud as she could muster, but it was lost in the fire this time, unable to penetrate the heat. I think she ordered him to stop. We both ignored her anyway, just staring at each other through the white energy pouring out of his body. It was like a powerful storm of pure thermal plasma raging out of him, like shaking hands with the center of a supernova.

He wasn’t angry. If anything, he was a little surprised, but there was something else there too.

Respect.

He was a monster who could survive an ungodly amount of heat, who could live in the flames. And I was equally a monster, who could stand in the flames with him. Something no one else could do. Something he could respect.

© 2018 Kurtis Eckstein ℗ 2019 Kurtis Eckstein