Evan slapped his hands to his classroom desk and held them there like the other thirty students, as was procedure. His sweaty palms stuck to its plastic surface. A vibration coursed at the tips of his fingers. He bit his tongue, bidding his powers to stay locked within.

Dean VanDusen continued his announcement over a loudspeaker. “Instructors, please ensure that your students maintain protocol and do not impede the authorities in their search for a possible Afflicted on Campus. Show them that Nero Caine Academy students are the best the Federation can produce.”

The room filled with the murmur of classmates. Things like, “Do you think they’ll send a purifier to find it?” and “What if it’s a student?” or “I hope they kill it before graduation today.” All the while Mr. Reltih shushed them and waved his hands for them to calm down, his mustache dancing on his lip.

This was all wrong. Father said he’d take care of the situation. He’d always been able to protect Ken and Evan before. Had things gotten out of his control? Had Evan finally sabotaged everything? Were soldiers coming for both Ken and him? Would they drag them away only three hours before graduation? Maybe they’d shoot them right there in front of their classmates.

Monster.

Evan took deep breathes, trying to keep his powers from flaring out. What about Ken? His friend was in bio-lab, across the hall.

The classroom doors were sealed slabs of metal, and only a teacher’s keycard could open them. Evan could attack Mr. Reltih and steal it. The man was scrawny, though Evan had no illusions of his own strength. Forget the keycard, he could try and disintegrate the door, run down the hall, blow up an escape for Ken, and they’d both make a break for freedom. But the more likely scenario was Evan would lose control and fall to the floor writhing in his own vomit, or accidently kill everyone in the room. None of those seemed like great outcomes.

Anyway, even if he could save Ken, what would they do next? Jump through one of the six-foot windows that lined the outer walls of both classrooms? There were dozens of them, big enough to climb through. But it’d be a four-story drop into solid rock pavement. They’d be like the autumn leaves, making their decent into the next life.

Evan shook his head. Don’t be stupid. Dad has a plan.

If the Governor could keep both Ken and Evan’s powers a secret for over six years despite what Evan had done, then surely, he’d find a way to protect them now.

The class quieted as the sound of clanking feet came down the hallway. Enforcers.

Evan’s mind flashed to six years ago. Dark blue uniforms, soulless black visors, and thick guns strapped to their thighs. He imagined one held to his forehead. Evan’s body melted in sweat. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

Swoosh. A door had opened. Not the one to Evan’s class. One across the hall.

There were muffled voices. Someone screamed. Swoosh.

They’re in the hallway. Evan ran from his desk.

“Evangelos,” Mr. Reltih shrieked, “get back into your seat!”

Evan ignored him, pushing desperately against the locked door to open it. Who did they grab? Who was in that hallway? Who was being dragged, kicking his feet, crying?

“Hey, look!” Squawked another classmate who pointed to something outside. The other students shoved each other as they crowded to look through the windows. Reltih’s disapproving shouts were reduced to white noise amidst the clamor and excitement.

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Evan squeezed his way to the glass. Several stories down, upon that hard-cobbled pavement, hummed an armored car. It was an onyx black box of slanted hard edges, with a gunner hatch on top, and viewports slit on its hull. It bloomed white exhaust that wreathed around it like a dragon’s head.

A handful of enforcers dragged someone in an academy uniform out of the school.

Please not him. Please not him.

But it was. Ken’s shoes popped off his feet as they skid across the pavement. Tears and snot ran down his face. He looked up at the windows helplessly, almost as if he knew Evan was looking down at him. The soldiers shoved a syringe into his neck, and he went limp. Then they tossed him into the car, climbed in, and drove away from the school.

Evan’s body burned, his vision blurred, his stomach pulsated. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all. It was his fault, his, not Ken’s. It was never Ken’s fault.

The dean’s voice blared over the sound system again. “Well done, students. The Afflicted menace has been dealt with. As the lockdown ends, please make your way to your designated positions for graduation!”

The class cheered. It was sickening.

Evan stumbled back to his desk. He gulped when he saw that an impression of his palms had melted the top of his desk, and waxy plastic caked his hands. He threw his backpack over the desktop and wiped his hands on it, waiting to be the last student out of the class so that no one would see what had happened.

He followed quickly behind the last two students on their way out the door.

“Its parents were idiots not to get vaccinated before having a kid,” said one of them, a squeaky girl named Patel.

“The vaccine doesn’t always work,” suggested Ruce, her dreary-eyed boyfriend.

Patel scoffed. “It could’ve killed us!”

Usually, Evan ignored when people called Afflicted people it, but this time each use drummed his heart deeper into his chest. Ken was more human than any of these fools. Evan wanted to turn the two of them into dust, and he could, if only it wouldn’t prove them right about how dangerous Afflicted were. He instantly regretted the idea.

“Yeah, I would have fought back,” Ruce said.

Patel shivered. “It was an idiot. Couldn’t even speak right. Probably had a lame Affliction, like drooling too much. Glad I don’t have to sit next to it gnawing on its collar like some reject.”

Evan seethed. He shoved past the couple, knocking their books to the ground.

Ruce swore. “Freaking GK.”

“Shut up! You want his dad to-”

Evan walked too fast to hear that last part, but he knew what they would say about him. People usually avoided the Governor’s Kid for good reason. But at that moment he didn’t care what they said about him. Ken didn’t deserve any of this.

Evan’s mind cycled through everything.

I could have tried to save him.

A worse realization came to mind.

Father should have saved him. Evan ran for the cover of his dorm, slamming the door behind him. He adverted his eyes from Ken’s bunk and made a phone call.

It rung until it went to voicemail.

“I’m sorry,” his father’s pre-recorded voice said, “I’m not available-”

Evan canceled the call and tried again. Don’t do this to me.

“I’m sorry, I’m not-”

“Come on!”

“I’m sor-”

Evan swore and pressed the phone into his face. He pulled back when he noticed his reflection in it. Sweat evaporated from his cheeks. His hair sprung up in every which way, and his eyes were drug-addict red. His stained shirt hung from his frame like a wrinkled curtain. The person staring back at him made him sick.

His hands buzzed with heat, and he felt his vision pull away from him. Control was slipping. He grabbed for something, anything. A toothbrush. He squeezed the plastic handle like someone might bite down on a wooden stick before an amputation. Its bristles rippled like wheat in a field, until the white strands disintegrated one by one. Dust particles floated around the purple handle, like candle wax slipping through his grasp, dribbling on to the floor. He stumbled, feeling like a capsized boat. The worse of it had passed. He wiped his palm with a towel and curled up in the frame of his dorm’s large window – wishing he was a leaf,

wishing he was a leaf,

wishing he was a leaf.

The phone buzzed in his hand.

“Dad?”

Father’s smooth river of a voice responded, “We’ll talk when I see you after graduation. For now, trust in the Federation.”

That was code for, “Our conversation is being monitored.”

There was so much Evan needed answers for. But then the call ended.

Evan was alone. Lost. Hollow. Except for a single thought.

It should have been me.