JACKIE:

  “Do it. End him for good.” Grace wiped her tears with a look of steely determination.

  My heart pounded in my throat. “What? No, we’ll figure something else out.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Jackie. My actions have consequences. Time to reap what I sow.”

  I pleaded with my eyes, but Grace didn’t waiver.

  Firestorm whispered, “This is the best, most probable outcome, Jackie. This would mean mission accomplished.”

  “No. Forget it. There’s got to be a better way. We’ve got to come up with a plan to kill Feraz without losing my mom. I can’t lose her again.”

  Feraz’s leviathan form started the rebirthing process on the balcony like a bomb ready to explode. He wouldn’t stop until he was dead, or we were. Either way, there was no happy ending.

  Firestorm put his wing around me. “Jackie…”

  “No!” I shouted.

  We should have killed him before he grew to full strength, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my mom yet. Grace deserved to live happily ever after with Zayne in every probability, but the cost was too high. There had to be a better way…

  Firestorm yelled, “Jackie, we’ve got to stop this. He’s rebirthing at an astonishing rate… Get ready for battle!”

  Zayne and Firestorm leapt into action. As Feraz gathered his senses, they pounced onto his body to tackle him. He roared viciously. His breath stunk like rancid batteries.

  Grace grabbed my hand. “End this, Jackie.”

  “But I can’t lose you.”

  “Aren’t we together in, like, other dimensions or something?”

  “Yeah, but there’s still so much life ahead of you in this one.”

  The leviathan ripped into Zayne’s back with its razor-sharp teeth, reopening his old wound. He stumbled to the ground bleeding.

  Firestorm head butted Feraz, and another face-off ensued.

  “Zayne!” Grace and I rushed to his side, but there wasn’t much we could do. The gash was too deep, and there was too much blood.

  I grabbed a nearby lab coat and covered him with it. He winced as the cloth touched the gaping rip in his skin.

  Grace said, “I don’t want this life, Jackie. All this violence, and suffering because of me. I messed up, and it’s time to face the music.”

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  We hugged it out as the battle between Feraz and Firestorm raged on. I understood Grace’s desire to sacrifice herself for the greater good. That’s how I felt when I leapt into the volcano to take Alpha down on my last adventure.

  There was no way to know if the slipstream would catch Grace because she only injected underground Life Rite. She never got the pure recipe. Deep down, I knew some version of her would live on in other probabilities, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  Still, acceptance of the inevitability of this plan settled in. Kill Feraz for good and Grace will die too…

  Grace fell into me like dead weight.

  “Mom, are you alright?”

  Catching her in my arms, I looked up and saw Firestorm panting over Feraz’s dead body. Radioactive blood dripped down his dropping neck. One more face-off with Feraz, and Firestorm might rebirth right out of this probability.

  Zayne wasn’t doing any better. He lay on the floor, bleeding out from his back.

  “It’ll be easier to defeat Feraz if we hit him right when he rebirths,” Firestorm said as he coughed up blood.

  “What’s it like?” Grace asked me.

  “What’s what like?”

  “The… other side? You know what comes after death, don’t you?”

  “It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try…” I chose my words carefully, trying to describe the indescribable. “Existence without any shape or form. No physical limitations. A deep love for all that is. Knowledge of past, present, and future probabilities. That’s what came next for me when I died.”

  “Do it. Kill him,” Grace repeated. She looked worse for wear from the last rebirth, already on her last legs. This was the most probable outcome, but I still sobbed.

  “How many lives do you think he has left?” Firestorm asked. “He only got the pure serum once.”

  I shrugged. “Who knows how mixing both serums will interact in his blood stream. Anything’s possible.”

  The leviathan burst into flames, beginning another full rebirth. Did he have access to the slipstream? If so, all the more reason to end his life quickly. That place is so dangerous in the wrong hands. If Feraz lived, he would find a way to get into the slipstream and bring Alpha with him. Once the drone crunched the numbers on the probabilities, the redistribution program would be born once more.

  I gave Grace another hug. I hate goodbyes. “I’m so sorry he did this to you. Please, let me have the honor of getting rid of this low-life loser.”

  “Kick him to the curb.” Grace nodded and lay down besides Zayne.

  Firestorm and I gathered round as Feraz morphed back into his leviathan form.

  “Do it now, Jackie!” Firestorm commanded.

  But I waited until Feraz regained consciousness. I wanted him to know this was coming from me.

  As Feraz finished his reformation and gathered his wits, I leaned in close. “Excuse me Mr. Tal, it’s your favorite janitor here. I’m here to take out the trash.”

  I zapped him with every ounce of fire power in my body. It didn’t take long for Feraz’s grotesque body to go limp. Newly rebirthed, he wasn’t strong enough to withstand my attack.

  “You want next dibs?” I asked Firestorm.

  He looked over at Grace and Zayne holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes on the ground. Maybe, in a way, they still ended up together in this lifetime.

  “Grace? Are you okay? What’s going on up here?” Mark stood at the entrance of the balcony with his mouth agape. He carried a fresh bouquet of flowers to pay respects to Queen Beatrice, the love of his life.

  His face twisted with horror as he took in the whole scene. The tower castle he’d rebuilt brick by brick took some serious damage. His pet project, Alpha, was burnt to a crisp. His daughter lay dying next to the boy from the cage, a reminder of his life’s biggest folly. A dead mutant lay in front of him, guarded by another mutant phoenix, Firestorm. Beasts of his own creation here to haunt him.

  Mark ran to Grace and coddled her in his arms. She was on death’s door.

  He pointed at me. “You. Who are you? What the hell is going on here? Spit it out, now! Every detail.”

  “Hi, Mark. I’m, um, I’m Grace’s… friend.”

  “I don’t remember you. Is this your doing? What happened to my baby? Huh?”

  Nice to see you too, grandpa Mark. Sheesh.

  He looked at me with rage in his eyes. How could I possibly explain? If he knew the truth, would he try to stop us from killing Feraz in order to save Grace?