Quinn stood alone in the bright morning sun, tapping her foot impatiently.
She hadn't slept well over the past few nights, questions keeping her awake, dancing in front of her eyes whenever she shut them. Quinn, however, didn't reach the top of her grad school class by letting unknowns slide out of her mind, discarded like leftover spaghetti into the trash. When she didn't know something, those questions lingered, and she usually didn't rest until she got the answers she needed.
Presently, it was Ethan keeping her awake. He seemed nice enough, but she still wasn't sure where Rainey was, or how he knew her name, but he and Titan both acted fishy in the lab during the firestone incident. Something was off about how Ethan got his powers, and she was determined to find out why.
She smiled upon seeing Ethan, the key to her answers, step out of the coffee shop holding his drink holder. He spotted Quinn waiting on him across the street and opened a portal in front of him, then another across the street, stepping out in front of her. A person jumped out of the way of his newly opened portal, forcing Ethan to apologize.
Before she even had time to say hello, Ethan downed the last of his coffee, then eyed the bottom of the cup, making sure he had gotten every last drop. He shrugged, tossed his cup in the trash, then caught Quinn, staring at him, bewildered.
"Normally," she said, reaching out to grab the cup labeled 'Quinn' in the holder, "people sip their coffee?"
Ethan laughed, then handed her the remaining coffee. "I've, uh, had a morning," he told her. "Plus, don't you want me to be alert if I'm going to teleport us across the city?"
"I did offer to drive," she pointed out, "and maybe I still should, because you look like you've had a rough night. Protector stuff?"
He paused, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was kind of…kidnapped by Sola."
"This morning?" she exclaimed. "She held you hostage?"
Ethan nodded. "Part of the job, I guess. Don't worry, I escaped!"
"Obviously! But why are you here? Why aren't you getting checked by the medics, or reporting it to Apex?"
"I'm fine," Ethan insisted, "and Raz is giving the report to Apex. Probably. I, uh, didn't know that was something I had to do, exactly. Besides, we have something more important to do!"
"Which is?"
"You ever get bored in school and think, if I had the ability to just stop time and do anything right now, what would I do?"
Quinn smiled, folding her arms. "In college, I always wanted to go into the lab and read over all the instructions so I could get ahead and do the experiments twice."
"You and I lead very different lives. We will not be doing that today. Instead, we'll be doing something that I hope is a little more exciting and just a hair illegal."
Ethan opened a portal in front of them and onto a nearby rooftop, gesturing for her to head through.
"Okay," she tentatively put one foot through the portal. "Whatever we're doing, don't think I'm going to go easy on you just because you were kidnapped," Quinn said. A passerby shot her a concerned look. She waved them off.
"He's fine," she assured them, stepping through the portal.
"Help!" Ethan exclaimed, acting like he was being pulled through. "She's doing it again-"
The portal shut, leaving the person confused. Ethan opened one more portal, right in front of them.
"Seriously, I'm fine," he said. "Don't call my sister."
"Who?"
"Nevermind."
—
"Sorry," Quinn laughed, "this was your plan?"
Ethan twirled the club in his hand, looking genuinely hurt. "I think you're maybe not getting the point here." He gestured to the windmill. "See, normally that wouldn't be here. But the windmill adds an extra layer of challenge."
He swung his club back gently, knocking his neon yellow ball up the ramp where it was savaged by a windmill blade, careening off the path and onto the sidewalk where it bounced into the pond.
"Seems to be a significant challenge," Quinn laughed, brushing by him as she took his place on the mat.
"It might be unbeatable," Ethan shook his head. "I've played here maybe 39 times and never gotten a hole in one."
"Well," she studied the hole, watching the windmill intently, "since you think it's unbeatable, I'd like to propose a wager."
"I'm so in," Ethan said, then hesitated, "unless this involves money, which I do not have. I'm basically an unpaid intern at the moment, except I get beat up."
Quinn laughed. "I wouldn't take what little money you have, though there is something else I want: info."
He froze, eyeing her suspiciously. "What kind of info?"
"I get the sense that you've been…holding back."
Alex had drilled into Ethan over the past three months a list of things he should not talk about. Whenever someone started poking around those topics, a warning bell rang in his head. Right now, it was blaring, but Quinn was, as far as he could tell, on his side. How much could a few questions hurt?
"If I knock this ball in, you tell me what I want to know. If I don't, you keep your secrets until I find a different game to beat you in."
"Sounds like I lose no matter what?"
"Not quite, because either you get to spend more time with me now, or I have to come up with something for us to do later so I can win then," she grinned.
"Maybe this does work out in my favor. Besides this hole should be impossible to get a hole in one…Alright, if you win, don't tell Amory I let you ask me something, but give it a shot."
"Sweet," Quinn celebrated under her breath. She held her breath, lined up her shot, following the windmill spin as it spun at a lackadaisical pace in front of them, gently cutting through the air. She brought her club down and sent her pink ball up the small hill. For a moment, it looked like it would sail through cleanly, but the ball was just clipped by a wooden blade, forcing it slightly off course by no more than a few inches.
Ethan watched the ball roll. He would've preferred to hide his secrets from Quinn as long as he could, but if he wanted a real relationship with Quinn, he couldn't just lie to her whenever it was convenient, and now would be a perfect time to start coming clean about where he got his powers from. If he wanted the chance, he couldn't ask for a better one than now.
Her ball had been knocked gently off course to the right, but Ethan summoned a small void, no larger than a dime, placing it on the outside edge of the ball. It bumped into his void, jumping like it hit a rock, course corrected, and drained right in the cup.
"Yes!" Quinn shouted, pumping her club in the air. "I knew it wasn't impossible!"
"You beat me," Ethan told her, shaking his head. "Now what?"
"Now," she said, walking back towards the concourse, "I buy us hot dogs, and you tell me everything I want to know."
That seemed to Ethan like a fair trade, but just a few moments later, sitting down across from Quinn at one of the old, flaking wooden tables, he felt like he was suddenly under the microscope, shifting uncomfortably.
"Okay," she said, chewing thoughtfully. "Where did you get your powers from, really?"
Ethan wiped his mouth, meeting her eyes with his. "How many questions did that win entitle you to, exactly?"
"Should've set that parameter before you agreed. Powers. Where?"
"The Stillrock incident," he told her, truthfully. "I got mine a year after anybody else got theirs."
"I knew it!" Quinn shouted, louder than he would've liked. "That's why your energy signature is the same as the Firestone you brought in: you really did get your power during the same burst that hit the Firestone."
Ethan nodded. Oddly, despite telling Quinn his secret, he felt nothing but excitement at sharing this part of him. "I…kind of caused that incident."
Quinn's eyes widened. "You destroyed the mines?"
"Yep, and nearly killed myself in the process, but it got me these!" He flexed his palm, a purple swirl appearing above his hands.
"Wait," Quinn said quietly. Ethan could practically see the possibilities racing behind her almond eyes. "If you got powers after the Surge, then others could, too. There's…literally nothing stopping me from going down in the mine and finding my own breach point. I could get better powers than yours!"
Ethan's mood soured. "That's kind of why Apex wanted me to keep myself a secret. And, there's really no better power than mine. I can go anywhere I want."
"So, where do you want to go?"
"Today?" Ethan smiled. "I wouldn't rather be anywhere else."
Quinn rolled her eyes. "So, you knew you weren't supposed to be able to get powers after the Surge, but you found a way to do so?"
Ethan nodded. "Working in the mines was going to kill me eventually. I had to find a way out, no matter what anyone told me."
She smiled, meeting his eyes. "Maybe we're alike in that way, both putting ourselves in harm's way to try and get the most out of our lives."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Quinn pointed a fry at him. "You found your own way to get powers by accessing the Surge to get powers, and I willingly put myself in an underground lab with the Surge to stop anyone else from getting hurt by it."
"Maybe neither of us know when to say 'no'," Ethan chuckled.
Quinn's face suddenly had a mischievous quality to it, one that made his heart skip.
"I think," Quinn leaned forward to the center of the table, putting her face in her hands, "that instead of settling for a no, both of us know when to push life for a 'yes'."
It took Quinn one sentence to summarize how Ethan felt for a year after the Surge, after Alex gained powers and fame while he spent his nights working in the mines and wondering what else could be out there for him.
A no meant spending his life wondering what could have been, wondering how far he could have gone if he hadn't been afraid to make a mistake. Going into the tunnels was his way of pushing life to give him a 'yes', of taking more than the world was willing to give him.
Ethan was practically buzzing. Quinn's hand felt perfect in his, and he leaned forward to meet her, only to be interrupted when her phone buzzed on the table.
"Ugh, sorry," she shook her head, putting her phone back down. "It's my sister, finally calling me after weeks of ghosting me. I'll get her later."
"I didn't know you had a sister," Ethan noted. "Is she also an invulnerable superhero beloved by the entire city?"
Quinn laughed, pulling up her phone. "You would've thought so, by the way my Mom talked about her. I still remember when I was little and she was pregnant, she would always say that she could just feel that the baby was in charge, so she started calling her the Queen. So, when she was born, they gave her a name fit for a Queen."
"What was it?" Ethan asked.
Quinn smiled, holding out a photo of the two of them. It was clearly a few years old, maybe early college, but Ethan's heart sank immediately, recognizing the raven colored hair.
"They named her Rainey."
Ethan choked on his hot dog, then tried to play it off by coughing into his shoulder. He forced it down, sucked down some water, then used his go-to response for when he was truly stumped.
"Oh?"
Quinn gave him a concerned look. "Are you okay?"
Ethan waved her off, coughing into his shoulder. "I'm fine," he choked out, sounding anything but.
"I don't know CPR, but I can whack you on the back really hard."
Ethan waved her off. "Are you two, um…close?" he asked.
Quinn shrugged, looking away. "As close as we can be, all things considered. We had pretty different friend groups and weren't really interested in the same things." She chuckled to herself. "Last year, for her birthday, I actually got her a necklace made from a topaz I found."
Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Topaz?" he asked. "Like…the firestone we stopped Sola from stealing?"
Quinn thought for a moment, then nodded. "Actually, yes. That's funny, I hadn't even thought of that but you're right."
So the firestone we need to lure Rainey into our trap is just sitting in a field right in front of the collapsed mines. A perfect spot to ambush her far away from Alex and anyone else she could hurt.
"She tried to pawn it off before she realized it wasn't worth anything. If she knew what we knew about the topaz, I wonder what she'd think about it now."
Oh, she is well aware of how valuable it is, Ethan wanted to say. Instead, he shrugged. "Sometimes people don't always realize what they have in front of them."
Quinn stared at Ethan, then smiled. "Sometimes they don't." She checked the time on her phone, then pushed herself to stand. "Well, beating you at baseball was fun, but the Surge isn't going to monitor itself," she sighed, pushing herself to stand. "Maybe we could get together at a bar after you capture Sola and become a full-fledged Protector to celebrate?"
Ethan hopped to his feet. "I'd love that," he said shakily. Quinn still looked concerned. Ethan tried to shake it off. "Need me to drop you off?"
She shook her head. "I've spent enough time walking through portals that shouldn't exist this morning, I'll call a lift. Besides, you look like you could use a break. I think your lack of sleep last night is getting to you."
Ethan nodded. "Yeah…that's probably it."
"Oh," Quinn said, turning to leave, "I almost forgot, what does Alex like to drink?"
"Anything with alcohol," Ethan laughed. "Why?"
"Amory's having me sub in for her at some event tonight. It's at the Colosseum? Alex is supposed to be there, but Amory can't make it so she's having me go instead."
"Do you like wrestling?"
"Not in the slightest," she admitted, shaking her head.
"It's better in person," he assured her, hugging Quinn goodbye, and opened a portal to the nearest rooftop, far out of view of everyone else around. He crouched, letting out a deep, angry exhale that turned into a scream.
"I nearly died getting powers, Apex won't let me become a Protector, and now Quinn's sister wants to kill my sister?" Ethan yelled at no one in particular. He threw his hands up. "Why can't anything just be easy?"
As if on cue, his phone buzzed. It was a text from Alex, vaguely sinister as almost all of them were. Enough time. Need to talk.
Right, he thought, Alex and I still haven't discussed Rainey's attack on Maybell at all since I snuck out last night and never made it home. She'll have reported Rainey's existence to Apex by now and they'll all be wondering where she came from and how she got her powers. That's…not a conversation I'm looking forward to having.
He hung his head for a moment, then sighed. At least one thing went right…I found another firestone. I still had to lie to Quinn, but I'll tell her everything after Slate's in Apex's custody.
He texted Sola to set up a meetup with Slate tonight at the Stillrock mine collapse site. She sent him a thumbs up back, which didn't feel solid, but was at least positive. With that plan set, he opened another portal back towards his apartment, ready to face Alex.