Ali burst out of the hospital's doors, dropped to his knees, and yelled, startling a flock of pigeons from the parking lot. It was more of a war cry than a scream, a roar of relief. Ben was going to make it.

  The doctor had just informed him, Kendall and Jenny waiting anxiously in tow, that Ben had sustained major damage to a kidney and part of his lower intestine, but that with a transplant and some surgery he would be expected to make a full recovery.

  This was undeniably awful, and Ali expected to be racked with guilt over the incident for years to come, but he hadn't murdered his best friend. Ben would live. Yelling was the only tool he had to express an emotion as huge as the one that accompanied that news.

  Kendall stumbled out after him, stopped short, bemused.

  "Ali, wait, are- Oh, God. Okay. Let it out."

  "Who's yelling?" Jenny crashed into Ali as she sprinted through the doors. "Oh."

  Ali, breathless, flopped onto his back, too overjoyed to register any disgust at the mystery puddle of parking lot liquid seeping into his shirt. "I didn't kill him."

  "Even if you had, you wouldn't have. Hadn't. I-" Kendall massaged her baggy eyes. They'd all spent the last night sleepless and confused. She was still in her work uniform.

  A pause hung between them. They hadn't broached the subject of what the hell had even occurred yet. The drive to the ER had been too panicked, and the bustling interior of the hospital hadn't seemed like the best place to toss around theories. Kendall, thinking quickly, had told the ER nurse that Ben had been messing around with homemade fireworks, and that cover story seemed to have held enough water for now.

  "What the fuck even happened?" Jenny was the first to break the ice.

  "I don't know," Ali said. "I don't know."

  "You threw a baseball through Ben."

  "I know. I don't know."

  "How did you do that?"

  "I don't-"

  "We're not getting anywhere." Kendall walked over and grabbed Ali's hand, helped him to his feet. "I wasn't even looking when it happened. Maybe I can ask Keith if the security camera captured anything. We could-"

  Jenny pressed a can of LaCroix into Ali's hand. "Throw this."

  "What?"

  "Hey, that was mine," Kendall protested.

  Jenny jabbed a finger at the nearest dumpster. "Pretend the trash is Ben and throw the can. See if we can replicate it."

  "Jenny, this is stupid."

  "If Ali has super powers we need to know!"

  "Ali doesn't have super powers."

  Ali wound up and hurled the can. It went wide, clunking harmlessly off the corner of the dumpster. The three stood in silence and processed this.

  "Okay, so, see? No powers."

  "Or he doesn't have control over them yet." Jenny hustled over to a Kia parked in a handicapped spot. "Ali, Ali, come try to lift this car."

  Ali turned away, fishing out the keys to his mom's hulking minivan. "Jenny, I respect the effort, but I'm too damn tired for this right now."

  "Yeah, let's bounce," Kendall agreed, walking after him.

  He unlocked the driver's side door and climbed in, Kendall hopping in shotgun. Jenny stamped her foot, pouted, and then relented, sidling into the van's middle row of seats.

  "I'm just saying, and I know you didn't mean to, but Ben got really hurt. What if you slip up again? Shouldn't we get to the bottom of this, like, first thing?"

  "We'll figure it all out," Ali promised. "But we're going to be useless until we get some sleep. We'll meet up tomorrow."

  "There might not be time! What if, you, like, rip the steering wheel out on the drive home? Or, like, cave Lucky's head in when he runs up for pets when we get back!"

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Morbid," Kendall said.

  "The girl's got a point," added a strange voice from the back of the van.

  The three teenagers all yelped in various pitches. Ali flailed in his surprise, accidentally honking the car's horn, which caused Kendall to scream again. Jenny fumbled with the van's handle and tumbled out into the parking lot.

  In the back seat, eyebrows raised, hands held open and empty, sat a well-dressed stranger. The man, maybe ten years older than Ali, cleared his throat.

  "Sorry, sorry, Jesus, sorry. Waiting in the car was a dumb move. I didn't know your friends would be coming along."

  "Who the fuck are you?" Kendall was the first to gather herself.

  "How did you get in my car?" Ali quickly joined her.

  "Ali! There's a guy!" Jenny added from outside, not quite helpfully.

  "My name is Marco," the man said, placating. "I'm good at opening locks. And I'm not here to hurt anyone or do anything nefarious, but I wanted to talk with Ali, quick, privately."

  "Oh my God, are we getting trafficked?" Jenny said. "Is this what trafficking is?"

  "This is about Ben?" Kendall jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, toward the hospital.

  "Your friend with the newly-installed gut window? Yeah. About him and Ali."

  "Not funny," Ali warned.

  "Sorry, just- I want to keep the mood light." Marco shot a smile in Jenny's direction. "Nobody's getting trafficked."

  "What are you, cops? Government?" Kendall asked.

  "Neither. I…" Marco took a second to formulate his next few words. "Your friend Ali is undergoing a serious change right now, and as somebody who has also experienced this change, I wanted to reach out to him to show him the ropes, to make sure he doesn't get anyone else hurt."

  "A change?" Ali said.

  "Oh my God, does he have super powers? Do you?" Jenny added.

  Marco cocked his head, thinking. He was a handsome man, tan, with arched black eyebrows that lent him an impish quality. "That's a simplification, but yeah, kind of."

  "Fucking called it," Jenny pumped her fist.

  "Prove it," Kendall said.

  Marco shrugged, glanced around the car, as if looking for some sort of prop. Then, with another shrug, he exploded. Or, no, his entire body began glowing and emitting a wave of percussive sound so violent and sudden that for a moment it had seemed that he'd exploded. Spots danced in Ali's vision as he squinted at Marco through his fingers, a man who ten seconds ago had been a seemingly normal person in a suit and was now a human-shaped mass of roiling plasma.

  Then, just as violently as it had started, it stopped, and Marco was back to normal.

  "That proof enough?"

  The three teenagers shared a shellshocked look.

  "Listen," Ali said, rubbing his face. "This is... a lot. I've been awake for 36 hours straight. You're a stranger that just showed up in my car. I need to get home, and-"

  "Oh, sure, sure, sure," Marco waved a hand. "This is all too complicated a conversation to have in the back of a Honda Odyssey anyway." He clambered over into the middle row of seats, slipped a card onto the central console. "That's my card. First thing when you wake up, you're gonna want to call me. We have a lot to go over."

  "Am I good to drive in the meantime?" Ali asked. "I'm not going to, like, make the engine explode with my mind?"

  Marco barked a laugh. "No, no, something like that should be way out of your league. To be honest, I'm not quite sure how you pulled off that fastball of yours in the first place."

  "That's not comforting," Kendall groused.

  "You should be fine until tomorrow." Marco moved to leave the van, then paused. "Though, on second thought-"

  "Jesus Christ, guy," Kendall said.

  "You should know…" Marco fiddled idly with the ornate watch on his wrist. "There is a non-zero chance that some… people might come after you."

  "Fucking what?" Ali said.

  "How did you almost forget about that?" Jenny added.

  "It's a low chance!" Marco said. "Low. Vanishingly slim. But- Well. The why of it is complicated, like everything, it's a conversation for another day, but if any strange men or women appear out of nowhere and try to interact with you, first, absolutely flee, and second, call me immediately." Marco tapped the card on the console for emphasis.

  "So I should, for instance, look out for random men I've never seen before in my life breaking into my car?" Ali frowned.

  "The vibe will be different with these people," Marco said. "They won't pause to try and disarm you with banter. They'll probably be too busy bum-rushing you for that. And they'll almost definitely be wearing robes, or, like, masks, or a whole bunch of car batteries strapped onto their backs."

  "This is the single weirdest day I've ever had," Jenny said. "Including the time Kendall and I did mushrooms at Joann Fabrics."

  "It's a lot to take in," Marco apologized. "But please, for the sake of yourself and your friends, do not forget to call me. There's a shitload you need to know, kid, and very little time."

  Ali nodded, taking this in. "Got it. Noted. Please get out of my car."

  "Right." Marco sidled out, stepping awkwardly around Jenny as she climbed back in. He glanced around, as if checking for bystanders. "Remember. Call. Me. Tomorrow."

  And then, with a puff of dust and wind, the suited man disappeared. The three teenagers recoiled at the sudden motion, then settled into an uneasy silence. Jenny shut the door, and Ali started the van. They remained wordlessly stunned as he pulled out of the lot, paid the exorbitant overnight parking fee, and set off for home.

  "Okay, maybe this is tone-deaf," Jenny finally piped up as they idled at a stoplight. "But hot take: this is the coolest shit that's ever happened to anybody."

  Ali drummed a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel. He wasn't sure how much he agreed.