"Hit me," I say, stretching my legs out and pretending my hand doesn't ache from earlier. "Who's our first contestant?"

Jordan spins back to their monitors, pulling up a profile that looks like it was ripped from some low-budget crime database. "First up: Hotwire. Electricity-based powers, sparks fires by overloading circuits. We caught them once about six months ago trying to light up a warehouse."

I shake my head. "Hotwire needs direct contact. They can't just light things on fire from a distance."

"True," Jordan admits, clicking to the next tab. "Okay, how about Johnny Matchstick? Pyrokinetic, pretty small-time. He's got that whole 'firefighter turned arsonist' backstory. Classic villain stuff."

"Can't generate fire," I point out. "He can only manipulate it. Unless someone handed him a pocket full of flares, he's out."

Jordan groans, rubbing their temples dramatically. "Fuck, right, I remember that. Will o' Wisp?"

"The floating flame lady?" I ask, sitting up straighter. "Isn't she usually blue?"

"Always blue," Jordan confirms, scratching that name off the virtual list. "Damn it, Bee, you're making this hard."

"Not my fault your suspects are terrible," I reply, smirking despite myself. "What else you got?"

Jordan flips through a few more tabs, pulling up names and faces I don't recognize. There's T-4, who turned out to be a Jumphead, so they're out of the running entirely. Torch Tongue, whose name makes me cringe, but they're currently locked up in a facility outside Pittsburgh. Every option feels like a dead end, and the longer the list gets, the more frustrated I feel.

"This isn't going anywhere," I mutter, standing up and pacing the room. "We're missing something. Someone."

"Or something," Jordan says, spinning their chair to face me. "What if it's not a person? Could be some kind of malfunctioning tech. A bot or something."

"Robots aren't real, Jordan. And they don't sabotage sprinklers," I snap, my voice sharper than I mean it to be. Jordan raises their hands in mock surrender, but I can see the tension in their jaw. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. "Sorry. It's just... this doesn't feel random. The coffee shop, the dumpsters, the garbage fire by the school--it's all too... specific."

Jordan narrows their eyes, leaning back in their chair. "Specific how?"

I stop pacing, turning to face them. "It's places I go. Or... places I've been. The coffee shop's where we stop after school. The dumpsters were behind that corner store I hit last week. The school... obviously. It's like they're targeting my territory."

Jordan's eyebrows shoot up. "Your territory? You're not a mob boss, Sam. You said so yourself."

"You're not helping," I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck. "I'm just saying, what if this isn't random? What if it's about me?"

Jordan's quiet for a moment, their gaze flicking back to their monitors. "You're saying someone's tracking you. Targeting places you've been."

"Maybe," I say, my voice hesitant. "Or maybe it's just a coincidence, but... it doesn't feel like one."

Jordan nods slowly, their fingers drumming on the arm of their chair. "Alright. Let's work with that. If it's someone targeting you, who'd have the motive? Anyone we've pissed off recently? I mean, besides the guys already named?"

I snort. "That list's longer than your suspect list."

"Fair," Jordan says, smirking. "But seriously, who's got the means and the grudge? Maybe it's another Kingdom agent we're not aware of? They've got a bunch, I wouldn't put it past them to have a Mrs.... Uh... Mrs. Fire. Or Mr. Prometheus - no, that wouldn't work... Mr... Roadflare, or something. With that whole alphabet thing going on."

"Alphabet thing?" I ask, incredulously. "What?"

"You haven't noticed?" Jordan asks back.

"What are you talking about?" I ask back, back.

"None of the guys we've met had overlapping names. They have, like, a name scheme. Mr. or Mrs. X-Y-Z. Mrs. Zenith, Mr. T-Rex, Mr. Polygraph, Mr. Nothing, Mrs. Heartstopper, Mrs. Xenograft, Mr. ESP... See? No overlaps. You really haven't noticed?"

I stop to think about it for a second. "What the fuck? That's..."

"Right? They have an alphabet thing going on," Jordan sums up.

"Mr. ESP, if you're listening, I think your organization's alphabet thing is clown shoes," I shout out to nobody in particular. "Oh my god, the Kingdom of Keys. Like on a keyboard,"

"FUCK!" Jordan shouts. "That's so fucking stupid. How did I miss that."

I flop back onto the couch, my mind racing through the past year of encounters. Small-time villains, rogue Jumpheads, angry civilians who thought vigilantes were a menace--it could be anyone. And yet, nothing about this lines up with anyone I've faced. No one with this sort of power. "It definitely could be a Kingdom person."

Jordan's fingers fly over the keyboard, pulling up a map of Tacony with little red dots marking the fires. "Alright, let's look at the pattern. Dumpster fire here, coffee shop here, school here..." They trail off, frowning at the screen. "It's like they're drawing a... I don't know, a weirdly specific circle."

"A circle around what?" I ask, leaning over to look at the map.

"Good question," Jordan says, zooming out to reveal more of the city. "But if this keeps up, we're gonna find out the hard way."

Jordan swivels in their chair, pulling up another map on the screen. This one's not just the fires we already knew about--there are new markers now, little red dots scattered along streets and alleys, connected by faint lines like constellations. I sit up straighter, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling as I realize where this is going.

"Alright," Jordan says, their voice too casual for the intensity of the screen in front of them. "So, I cross-referenced the new reports with your usual patrol routes, and guess what? They line up. It's not a perfect fit, but, uh, I think you might be getting stalked."

I shake my head, pushing off the couch to pace again. "It's just a coincidence. Tacony's not that big. The fires are bound to overlap with places I've been."

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Jordan raises an eyebrow, spinning the chair to face me fully. "Sure, because garbage fires spontaneously appear in nice little patterns wherever you've happened to show up recently. Totally normal."

I glare at them, but it doesn't stick. The tension in my chest is back, that creeping sense of dread that's been building since the coffee shop. My right hand twitches at my side, the faint throb in my fingers like a distant alarm I'm trying to ignore. "Even if they are following my routes, that doesn't mean they're targeting me."

Jordan leans forward, their tone softening. "Sam... come on. You're smarter than this. Someone's doing this on purpose, and it's not just some random pyromaniac."

I bite my lip, my mind racing through possibilities I don't want to consider. I know his name, but I don't say it. I don't want to be the one to say it first. "Alright, fine. Let's say it's not random. What's the pattern? What's the goal?"

Jordan turns back to the screen, tracing the lines between the red dots with a fingertip. "It's not just about where you've been. Look at this." They zoom in, highlighting the cluster around my school, sweeping their mouse around to emphasize the point. "It's forming a circle. A slow, deliberate, block-by-block circle. And guess what's smack dab in the middle?"

The school. My school. Tacony Charter Academy High School.

My heart sinks, and my hand aches worse now, the pain spreading up my arm like it's trying to tell me something I already know but don't want to hear. I shake my head again, more to myself than to Jordan. "That doesn't make any sense. Why the school? Why now?"

Jordan hesitates, their fingers still on the keyboard. When they finally speak, their voice is cautious, like they're trying to disarm a bomb. "What if it's Aaron?"

"No," I snap, the word coming out sharper than I intend. My pulse spikes, the ache in my hand flaring as I turn to glare at them. "It's not him."

Jordan doesn't flinch, but they don't back off either. "You don't know that."

"Yes, I do," I insist, pacing faster now. "Aaron's fire is yellow, remember? It smells like rotten eggs. This isn't him. These fires are red. They smell like... like road flares. And that smoke? Totally different. It's not him. He doesn't make big plumes of white smoke like that."

Jordan tilts their head, watching me with that annoyingly patient expression they get when they know I'm lying to myself. "You should know yourself that people can discover more aspects of their powers, Mrs. "Grows-Teeth-Wolverine-Claws". And you said it yourself--these fires feel intentional, like someone's planning them. He's got plenty of reason to plan."

I scoff, crossing my arms. "Aaron? Plan? The guy who couldn't even pull off a simple drug run without screwing it up? He's not smart enough for this."

Jordan doesn't argue that point, which almost makes it worse. They just keep watching me, their gaze steady, like they're waiting for me to run out of excuses. I stop pacing, my hands curling into fists at my sides. My nails dig into my palms, the pain grounding me just enough to stop my voice from shaking when I speak again.

"He's not here anymore," I say firmly. "Not Philly. He ran away, remember? He's gone. End of story. I haven't seen him since. Surely he would've tried to hit me earlier if he was here."

Jordan sighs, leaning back in their chair. "You want me to say you're right? Fine. Maybe it's not him. But you've gotta admit, he's a good match."

"He's not a match," I snap, but my voice wavers this time, betraying the knot of fear tightening in my chest. "He's not... he's not here."

They don't press further, but the silence that follows is worse than anything they could've said. I can feel their eyes on me, can feel the weight of their unspoken thoughts pressing down like a stone on my chest. My hand throbs again, sharp and insistent, like it's trying to force me to acknowledge something I'm not ready to face.

Jordan breaks the silence first, their tone gentle but firm. "Sam, if it is him, we need to be ready. I'm not saying it is, but we can't ignore the possibility."

I close my eyes, taking a deep breath that does nothing to steady the storm in my head. "It's not him," I mutter, more to myself than to Jordan. But the words feel hollow, like I'm trying to convince myself of something I stopped believing the moment they said his name.

Jordan doesn't argue. They just nod, turning back to the monitors and pulling up another map, their fingers moving with practiced precision. "Alright. Then let's figure out who it really is."

I sink back onto the couch, my hands trembling in my lap. The pain in my right hand is still there, dull and constant, like a warning I can't quite decode. My mind keeps circling back to the same thoughts, the same memories I've been trying to bury since the last time I saw Aaron McKinley.

Jordan's typing slows, the staccato rhythm of the keys fading into a tense silence. I glance up from where I'm hunched on the couch, rubbing my aching hand as if that'll somehow make the throbbing stop. Their screen glows faintly in the dim room, and I can see the reflection of their helmet visor pushed up, revealing a pinched expression that sends a jolt of unease through me.

"What?" I ask, sharper than I mean to. The ache in my hand feels sharper now, like a warning bell.

Jordan tilts the screen slightly toward me. "There's something you need to see."

I get up slowly, the weight in their voice dragging at my movements. Crossing the room, I perch on the arm of their chair, leaning in to see the map they've pulled up. It's not Tacony this time--it's a broader view, stretching northward into Bucks County. Little markers dot the map, pinned to reports that Jordan has somehow dug up from who knows where.

"These are arson reports from the past year," Jordan says, their voice flat but loaded with implication. They hover the cursor over one of the markers, clicking it to pull up a brief blurb. "Red fires, like the ones we've been seeing. And blue fires. Yellow, too."

I blink, staring at the list of incidents popping up on the screen. A car fire outside a shopping center in Langhorne. A residential blaze in Bensalem. A trash can fire--red, like a road flare, specifically noted in the report--in Village Shires.

"Invisible fire," I murmur, squinting at the words in one of the reports. "What the hell does that even mean?"

Jordan shrugs, pulling up another file. "Witnesses said they couldn't see the flames, but they could feel the heat and smell something burning. And that the fire "just started out of nowhere". Shady guy in a hoodie. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

My stomach tightens, and I step back, shaking my head. "No. It's just... it's a coincidence. There's no way Aaron could... he wouldn't know how to do that."

I take a step closer, my hands curling into fists at my sides. My nails dig into my palms, the ache in my right hand flaring again as I stare at the screen. The words blur together, the weight of them pressing down on my chest like a physical thing. "Aaron's power doesn't work like that," I say, my voice coming out sharper than I intended. "He sets stuff on fire. It's yellow, it smells like sulfur. This... this isn't him."

Jordan gives me a look, their expression carefully neutral. "Are you sure? Because it kinda seems like his power might be more complicated than we thought. Like, half of these are his yellow fire, smells like rotten eggs. And they're all earlier. Time goes on, fewer of the reports are yellow, the more are red and blue."

"Powers don't evolve," I snap, pacing again to shake off the crawling feeling under my skin. "That's not how it works. You don't just wake up one day with new abilities. It's static. I said that already! It's static! What you get when you Activate is what you've got for life."

"Sure," Jordan says, leaning forward with their elbows on their knees. "Remember what I said like two minutes ago? What if it's not about evolution? What if Aaron's power was always capable of this, but he didn't know it? Or he didn't know how to use it."

No. I refuse to believe it. "He's not that smart," I say, more to myself than to Jordan. "He wouldn't even know where to start. Powers don't change like that!"

Jordan doesn't argue, but their silence says enough. They look at me like I'm a kicked puppy and it makes me want to start yelling. My mind races, memories of Aaron flashing behind my eyes like a bad slideshow, my head suddenly throbbing right where a crowbar hit it a year ago.

The sound of a notification ping cuts through the room, and Jordan swivels back to their monitors. "Oh, great," they mutter, pulling up a new HIRC thread. "Looks like we've got another one."

I step closer, peering over their shoulder as the screen fills with a string of messages. The chat thread reads: Weird Red Fire Near Torresdale--WTF Is Going On? My stomach sinks as I skim the posts, each one describing the same thing: a garbage fire, burning bright red, with that same metallic smell. "Anyone see this?" "WTF?" "Smells like shit", and it's close. Too close.

"Torresdale," I whisper, my chest tightening. "That's... that's right near here."

Jordan nods, their jaw set. "Yeah. Like, a block away."

The ache in my right hand spikes, sharp and sudden, like a warning bell. The pattern isn't just closing in--it's tightening around us. Around me. I feel it in my bones, in the pit of my stomach, in the way every nerve in my body is screaming at me to move, to act, to do something before it's too late.

This is a warning shot. And I'm the one being warned.