“Evan, shut up! None of that’s true, damn it!” Alik spat at his brother, just as appalled that he would say those words as he was to imagine they might be true.
“None of it, Al? Think—you’re the smart one, piece it together. Meg was acting weird after that first night in the hospital waiting room when she ‘read’ all our emotions. She didn’t remember us—and trying to replace her lost memories with ours probably just made her feel even more of a shell. Then there was the whole battle in Flagstaff when she was trying to defend us—people she kept trying to tell herself that she belonged to—and she does it, too. But now, there’s a problem. It’s us. She feels us afraid of her shocking powers. Can you imagine what a purely emotional-minded person like Meg felt when she sensed fear from the people she just risked everything to save?”
From behind the boys there was a stifled sob. Margo was hanging on every word her son spoke to Creed, but the explosion his words created may as well have been aimed directly at Margo’s heart.
“I miss her too, damn it!” Evan waved his scarred hand angrily at the night. “But that wasn’t our Meg who walked out on us that night. What Arkdone did to her? That night in the asylum? Our sister died that night!”
“Nooo!” Alik let go of Creed and turned to attack Evan himself.
A bright flash of light burst as Evan seemed to grab the moonlight and aimed it right at Alik. Though not strong enough to make him burst into flames, the moonbeam he did refract with his scarred hand knocked Alik to the ground, his shirt singed and smoking.
“What the hell?” Alik hollered, his eyes glowing violet as he watched his brother warily. Farrow was at his side in an instant, standing between a hulking Alik and a glowing Evan. Cole moved slowly, hands out, to stand between the brothers. Creed paced, his shoulders rolling as he moved like a caged panther, eyes never leaving Evan.
“Some things have changed since you’ve been gone looking for the sister who doesn’t want to be found.”
Evan held up his left hand, showing his scarred palm.
It was glowing.
“See big brother, I did go through my evolution, but that fire…” he shook his head thoughtfully, turning his palm toward himself. The bluish moonlight still captured there set a hauntingly pale glow across Evan’s face. His usually warm, hazel eyes held bluish-white flames in their irises. “That fire in Flagstaff couldn’t have come at a worse time for me physiologically. It left me scarred. Changed. I don’t know what my evolved gift would have been if I hadn’t been exposed to the intense heat and fire right when my molecular structures were going through metamorphosis.” He stretched his scarred fingers and made a fist around the ball of blue captured moonlight. “But my cellular makeup must have made a deal with the flames that day in Flagstaff.”
“Evan? What happened to you?” Farrow broke the silence, confusion clearly defining her.
“Now, there’s an interesting question, Farrow.” Evan’s haunted eyes locked onto her. Alik instinctively stepped in front of her, though his torso was hurting he was ready to shield her with his own body.
Evan ignored the chivalrous gesture.
“The nearest I could figure is that there was a molecular change in my burned hand and now I can capture and refract light and heat from the sun using the scarred tissue.”
His eyes slipped back to his own glowing palm as he spoke.
“Humans have become accustomed to sunlight and firelight, but something about my metahuman scar made me able to work outside the visual spectrum of light and harness not just the frequencies but the light wave energies themselves.
“By cupping my hand to create a concave surface, I’m able to project a ray.” He reached up to the moonlight again and in a graceful move pushed his radiant hand forward, directing a burst of light at a shrub next to the fence.
Everyone jumped in surprise—everyone except Margo who lowered her head, heartbroken that her son was saying and doing these things.
The smell of burning foliage followed the blackened smoke and disappeared in the now smoky night air. Evan stared into the fire he made with a look of reverence. “But that’s not all I got. No, ladies and gentlemen, there’s more. You see, by opening my scarred palm wide, I can create a convex surface that absorbs the heat and light.” Even as he was finishing his sentence, he reached out with an open palm and the fire seemed to jump from the burning bush to his hand and disappear into his glowing palm.