Dark, and then light.

  Something was roaring in Simon’s ears. A long, awful drone, both distant and too close.

  His head was on the steering wheel, depressing the horn. He lurched backward, and the sound stopped.

  He was still in his garage. He had been somewhere else, briefly, but where that was, and why, he didn’t know. He felt oddly bitter about having returned.

  Someone was shifting around in front of the car, casting a dancing shadow on the garage’s walls as they paced in front of the headlights, talking in hushed tones on a cell phone.

  The man in black. The person who’d shot him in the head.

  He’d been shot in the head. Simon glanced up at the rearview mirror, fingered a lock of hair out of the way to see a fresh, pink patch of skin on his forehead, surrounded by a crusted halo of old blood.

  The wound had healed. New data point, there. Probably related to all the spontaneous fires, he assumed, but how exactly that was the case he didn’t know. But for one miracle to come so closely on the heels of another struck him as too big a coincidence. He’d need some time to-

  The man had noticed that he was stirring. He threw his phone down and swung his gun up again, angled for Simon’s face. Simon felt a surge of fury and slammed the accelerator.

  The car roared forward and rammed into the man, carried him into and nearly through the back wall. The man had let off another silent gunshot, but fumbled and dropped the gun when the car slammed him against the house, rattling its foundations.

  The man groaned and bent forward at the waist, planted his hands on the car’s hood, and pushed. He was fumbling, grasping, reaching for something. Impossibly, the car moved backwards: first an inch, then another, its tires screeching their protest. For a moment it looked as if he was going to push the car off on his own.

  Simon kept his foot on the accelerator, didn’t let up. Slowly but surely, the man in black was pressed against the wall as the car made its inexorable advance. The man was freakishly strong, that was obvious, the fact that the vehicle hadn’t immediately pancaked him was testament enough to that, but whatever power he was drawing on to keep himself from getting sandwiched, it was fading.

  The car roared and groaned as it crept forward, inch by inch. The man’s arms folded back, his biceps bulged, veins throbbed on his head. Above, the lights in the garage flickered and sparked as the bulbs exploded. The car’s headlights winked out, then back on, then out again. Finally, with a sudden lurch, the car sprang forward and pinned the man by the waist, driving him into the wall with an audible crunch of bone.

  The man cried out, then slumped onto the hood.

  Simon put the car into park and, surprised at just how numb he felt, crept out to inspect the man further. He stopped to scoop his handgun from the floor, to feel its weight. He’d never held a gun before. He liked it.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Three options formed in Simon’s brain. One was the social option, the kind option: to take this man to a hospital. The other was the baseline option, the one he’d assume the average person would take: call the police and let them sort this out.

  Then, the third option. The antisocial option. A further confirmation of Father’s nastiest prognostications, about his “limited empathetic capabilities” and “stunted moral framework,” and “sociopathic tendencies.” One that would cause his attacker immeasurable fear and pain, and would in turn result in potentially immense material and intellectual benefit to Simon.

  His heart raced when he realized just how little he’d even considered the first two options.

  Time to commit. Knight to E4.

  Simon propped his arm on the hood of the car, levelled the gun at the man. He didn’t quite manage to stop himself from panting as he talked, and his hand was shaking, but he otherwise tried to project an air of authority.

  “Who are you?” Simon demanded. “Why did you shoot me?”

  “Don’t-” the man spat, voice tortured and quiet. “Wouldn’t get it-”

  “That’s not an acceptable answer.”

  “You wouldn’t get it.”

  Simon frowned. He considered pressing the man farther on this--he’d definitely like to know if any more murderous strangers would be forthcoming--but he expected the man probably wouldn’t give anything more on this subject.

  There was another, though, that he thought he could make some ground on.

  “How were you moving my car like that?” Simon asked.

  “Wha-” the man coughed up another mouthful of blood. “Wha- dya- mean?”

  “I hit you with an SUV going full tilt, and you kept it at bay totally on your own for maybe five seconds. That’s physically impossible. How did you do it?”

  “Field. ‘Sa Field.” The man goggled up at him, expression hidden behind glasses and mask. “Y’don’ already know?”

  Simon fished a match out of his pocket and placed it in the man’s hand. “Light this.”

  “What?”

  “You probably have potentially fatal internal injuries. Shattered legs, maybe a perforated liver if you’re unlucky. If you want to keep your legs, you need to get to a hospital soon. I’ll take you, but only if,” Simon pointed at the match with his gun, “you light that match for me. Without a lighter.”

  The man shook his head, more incredulous than uncomprehending. He took a rattling breath, hesitated, and then the match head burst into flames.

  A theory formed in Simon’s brain at that moment. Seemingly inexplicable details (the flickering lights, the shimmering aura, the man’s groping for the hood of the car) clicked into place. He was beginning to understand.

  He needed more information, though. And the only person capable of giving him that was now completely under his control.

  The runaway plan would have to wait. Simon hurried back into the car and reversed just enough to let the man slump away from the wall. Simon hesitated before returning to his side, before scooping him up from the ground, bracing him on his shoulder, and walking him to the house. At any moment there was a chance that the man would do something that defied Simon’s nascent understanding, perform some other violent miracle that would kill him.

  No nasty surprises were forthcoming. Whoever this man was, whatever his powers did, they ran on energy, and this man was totally drained. Simon marked that mental hypothesis as tentatively confirmed.

  “Thought-” the man coughed. “Thought you were taking me to the hospital?”

  “Soon,” Simon lied. He half-carried, half walked the man down the stairs to his basement, propped him on a bed in the guest room. After a moment’s thought, he walked over to the breaker and turned off the electricity to the room. Then he retrieved a padlock.

  “Wait-” the man groaned and writhed on the bed at the sight of the lock. “Wait, wait-”

  “You’ll get your hospital visit,” Simon said as he fixed the lock to the guest room’s door. “In the meantime, I’ve got a lot I plan to learn from you.”