Blaise sat in his cell. His head was pounding. He couldn’t even muster the strength for a small fire.
Blaise sat in his cell. This place was cold. He was too tired to be angry. This wasn’t even a prison, but it was so secure.
Blaise sat in his cell. How long had it been since he was captured? 23 meals, but how often did he receive food? Twice a day? Once a day? Every other day? They kept him hungry.
Blaise sat in his cell. God, he needed a smoke. He ran out of cigarettes a few meals ago, and he hadn’t slept well since then.
Blaise sat in his cell. He heard shouting in the distance. What was going on?
A teenage girl wielding a katana ran past him, arms outstretched behind her. The sounds of her footsteps stopped just after Blaise lost sight of her— At least, Blaise assumed it was a girl from the brief glimpse he had of the teen.
“Yo, sword girl,” Blaise called out. The sound of his own shout made him wince.
The kid stepped back into Blaise’s line of sight. Definitely a girl, but Blaise wasn’t sure she was a teen after all.
“I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.”
“Jeez, sorry,” Blaise said insincerely. “Sword boy, then.”
“Just call me Max.”
“Whatever. You’re not one of the scientists, are you?” Blaise didn’t really need an answer, so he kept talking. “Doing a little prison break?”
“Any ideas where the keys are?” Max asked.
Blaise studied the boy. His shaggy brown hair was held out of his face by a red sweatband. His face was lightly freckled, and he had a mole near his right eye. His skin was tan, although Blaise couldn’t tell if that was from the sun or just his natural skin tone. His warm brown eyes darted around, as if he hadn’t beaten up all of the guards. Maybe he hadn’t. He had a bandage on his cheek, but it didn’t fully cover the cut.
“Did you hear my question, dude?” Max asked impatiently. “The keys?”
Blaise shrugged, no longer staring. “Got something I can fucking smoke? I need a cigarette.”
“Focus on escape!”
“I need to smoke. I can’t do anything else until I’ve got a fucking cig.”
Max clenched his fists. “I don’t have any on me.”
“One or two of the scientists are smokers. Tall white guy with blond hair always seems to have a pack in his labcoat.”
Max sprinted the way he’d come. About 10 agonizing minutes later, he returned with a single cigarette.
“I only found one,” Max said, handing it to him. “Couldn’t find a lighter.”
Blaise didn’t need to concentrate to light the cig. He didn’t even need to think about it. It was already lit by the time he put it in his mouth. He sucked in the smoke and inhaled. That felt nice. Energizing.
“Well? Any bright ideas?!” Max asked.
Blaise didn’t say anything. He just put his hand around the cell’s lock. The metal glowed with heat for a moment before melting away. He kicked the cell door open.
He nodded at Max approvingly. “Name’s Blaise Dufour.”
“Max Elior.”
“Anyone else you’re here to rescue?”
“This is the only part of the holding cells I could get into, and you’re the only prisoner in here.”
“Fucking figures,” Blaise said, then yawned.
“We should hurry out. A friend of mine disabled the alarms, but he couldn’t keep ’em off for over an hour without the scientists noticing. We have maybe ten minutes.”
They ran. Max seemed to know exactly where he was going through the maze of corridors, even though it all looked pretty much the same. Blaise wondered what kind of superpower he had. Surely it had something to do with navigation.
.They reached a dead end with a single window, which was a crack open.
“This is the fire escape,” Max said. “It’s how I got in.”
Blaise chuckled at that.
“What?” Max snapped, checking his watch nervously.
“I’m a fire, and I’m escaping.”
The corner of Max’s mouth twitched. “We can laugh once we’ve escaped.”
“Sure thing, sword boy.”
Max climbed out first, and Blaise followed. They carefully walked down the shaky metal stairs. They were only a single floor up when Max stopped.
“We have to jump. Now.”
“What, is time up already?”
“Just jump. There’s a soft bit of ground below us.”
They jumped. Max checked his watch again and sighed.
“Time’s up right… now,” he said.
“Damn. We barely made it.”
“Drop the barely,” Max said. “Makes it feel more successful.”
Max’s smile was dazzling. Blaise momentarily lost track of everything else. He couldn’t process what he was feeling.
“Dude? You’re kinda staring.”
Blaise snapped out of his daze. His cheeks still felt strangely warm.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Max said, dusting himself off, “we’re still technically on the lab’s property.”
“You could have said that sooner,” Blaise grumbled.
“See those gates?” Max asked, pointing to a spot off in the distance.
The setting sun made it difficult to see where Max was pointing. Blaise squinted, but it didn’t help.
“Yeah,” he lied.
“Are you ready to start running again? Because the moment the cameras on the roof can see us, we can’t stop.”
“Heh, then I’ll melt them,” Blaise said, his eyes suddenly glowing orange.
“You can’t,” Max said. “My hacker friend tried to disable them remotely, and the whole place went on lockdown immediately. He promised me he covered his traces, but told me that the outer cameras are more dangerous if taken out.”
Blaise nodded approvingly. “Let’s sprint for it, sword boy.”
Max rolled his eyes, but he didn’t bother reacting further. They ran.
It was a lot further than Blaise was expecting, but he kept going. He wasn’t sure exactly how far it was, but when they reached a fence, he glanced back. The lab was visible, but all the details blended together.
Max grabbed Blaise’s hand and led him through a tear in the fence.
“Did you—” Blaise stopped talking. He still had to catch his breath.
“Not my handiwork. I don’t know who broke through, but it helps us, so I ain’t complaining.”
The two of them sat down and caught their breath. Then, Blaise realized suddenly that Max was still holding his hand. Blaise didn’t pull it away. Max didn’t seem to realize he was still holding Blaise’s hand.
Blaise’s heart started pounding all over again. He didn’t understand it. He wasn’t pissed off. This wasn’t adrenaline.
So why did he feel like if he wasn’t careful, he would ruin everything? What was the “everything” that could be ruined.
Max stood up, and as Blaise’s hand slipped free, he came up with a possibility.
Was this a crush? Blaise hadn’t ever had a crush on another guy before, so he immediately ruled out the possibility.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
“Oh, I recognize this area,” Blaise said after several minutes of walking.
Max made a little noise— sort of a mix between a grunt and a squeak— to prompt him to continue. It was… kind of cute. Or it would be, if Blaise wasn’t straight. (He desperately wanted to believe that.)
“Yeah, me and my sister used to come to these woods to get away from the mansion.”
“Oh, right, you did say you were a Dufour,” Max said. “The billionaires, right?”
Blaise often forgot that being rich was rare. In fact, having superpowers was a bit more common.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, if you know your way home, we should go our separate ways. I told my boyfriend I’d return as soon as I could.”
He’s already got a boyfriend, Blaise thought. He tried to convince himself he didn’t care.
“Hey, sword boy— I mean, Max. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, drop by the manor. Ask for ‘Sparks.’ The butler knows not to bother me unless a visitor knows that name.” Not that anyone cared enough to visit these days, but he left that part out.
“Sure. See ya, Blaise!”
Max ran off, with his arms stretched out behind him in a way that looked kind of dorky. Blaise stared for a bit, even after he was out of sight. Then he went home.