Chapter 3

Firecrackers got on the car.

It was already past twelve and public transport had shut down, so Sparky called a taxi and picked up Sky and Firecrackers. She rode shotgun. The driver was drinking coffee and rubbing his eyes.

Firecrackers had told his parents that he wanted to man the grocery store this night, to which they gleefully agreed. He sat behind the counter waiting for Sparky while his parents slept upstairs. When the taxi pulled to the front of the store, he shut the place down and slipped right into the backseat.

Alright guys, Sparky turned around and signed to them, we're not going to talk out loud. She was not very fluent in signing, and it was so dim he could barely see her hands, but Firecrackers could work with that. Sky, though, could not.

"Er, what? We're not gonna… do what?"

Don't talk! Sparky said.

"Oh!" Sky said, and clasped his hands over his mouth. He took his hands off and made an "okay" gesture. He wished he could have some of the driver's coffee. He had gone to bed early, much to the delight of his parents, but kept his phone next to his pillow so Sparky's call functioned as an alarm. He was still in his pajamas, with a thin jacket hastily thrown on. He had not completely woken up.

Now, Qibli probably won't come. Even if she hasn't chickened out she would still just sleep through it. So here's what we're gonna do. I'll be down in the basement getting the — she didn't know how to sign "nuke" and simply said — thing onto the cart. Firecrackers, you have to help me lift it up the stairs. Sky, you stand guard outside and alert us if you see danger.

How the fuck do we get it to your place, then? Firecrackers asked.

I don't know yet.

That's fucking stupid.

We'll find a way, Sparky said.

They arrived quicker than Firecrackers had anticipated — eleven bus stops were longer than the taxi ride. They got out, and Sparky hauled her cart out of the trunk. It was the foldable kind with only a pushy handle and a platform, and four spinning wheels making squeaky noises from the lack of lubrication. She had bought it with Peacock's credit card, stolen after she reached home and had proper dinner, promptly refused to go home, and instead waited outside for nightfall, going to random stores for snacks while she was at it. One nice store owner also allowed her to exchange for some cash to pay for the taxi. The driver scraped up enough change for the hundred-buck bill, and Sparky offered all of it to Firecrackers, who refused, but accepted after Sparky insisted.

They turned to see Qibli standing in front of the house, holding her wand with her mouth.

"Whoa, motherfucker! You didn't ditch us!" Sparky yelled out.

Qibli took the wand out of her mouth. "I practiced this flashlight spell all evening." She waved the wand around, and it produced a feeble light for a couple seconds before going out.

"Well that sucked," Sparky said. "You can keep watch with Sky. We're going down."

The night was chilling and Sky was shivering in his thin jacket. Qibli offered to cast a spell to warm him up. It failed.

"How long have you've been attending that magic school of yours?"

"I didn't remember." Qibli was still trying, tiny purple sparks sprouting out the tip of the plastic star.

"They don't seem to teach you anything."

Qibli sighed. She had been learning about magic. In that school. Just… not from the teacher.

Suddenly Sky felt a surge of warmth through his body, leaking from his skin to the insides.

"Yes!" Qibli exclaimed.

The warmth went as quick as it had come, leaving Sky even colder than before.

"Ooops…"

"Why don't you just stay put," Sky said. "I'll try to move around to get warm and stuff."

After a while Sparky and Firecrackers came out. Sparky was pushing the cart. Firecrackers was holding the nuke in place with one hand, and holding his phone flashlight with another.

"Job almost done," Sparky said. "Let's get this baby out."

Sky turned around in surprise. "How'd you guys manage to be so quiet?"

"Um, no?" Sparky was confused. "We made a buncha noise down there. I kinda expected you motherfuckers to come help."

"Oh," Qibli said, "I think it was because I cast a muffle spell around the house. I didn't think it would actually work."

"Whatever," Sparky said. "One last flight of stairs left."

She was referring to the three steps leading to the entrance of the house. It should have been easy enough, but the trip out of the basement had worn down even Sparky's superstrength. By the time they finally got the cart to flat ground without the nuke rolling off, all four kids were panting.

Unsurprisingly, Sparky was the first to recover. She grabbed the cart handle and started pushing it to the road.

That was when a large beam of light shone down upon them, turning night to day and blinding their eyes. Sky immediately squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with his hands; Firecrackers winced and latched himself onto the nuke for some reason; Sparky tried to stare at the light source but saw nothing except the blinding light; Qibli simply froze in place. While they were all recoiling from the sudden brightness, a voice, loud and deep, rocked in their ears as if Paperweight was standing right beside them.

"Hands up. Don't move. You're under arrest."

They were too shocked to do anything. Qibli was the most shocked of all, which was probably why she was the only one to put her hands up.

Goose, Pumpkin, and Halcyon all emerged from the light like angels descending from heaven to pick up a dead soul. The kids were cuffed behind their backs and shoved in the back of a car — Sparky tried to fight but was knocked to the ground and cuffed up too. The officers patted all over their bodies and took away their phones, Sparky's pistol, and Qibli's wand, after which she threw up — not inside the car though, luckily — and everyone else retched.

The car had two vertically-arranged strips of seats, one on each side. Paperweight sat between the girls, facing Halcyon and the boys. There was a guard with a rifle across his knees sitting at the entrance to the drivers' part of the car. If Firecrackers had recovered from the shock, he would have assumed Goose and Pumpkin were in the drivers' seats.

No moving. No talking. Sparky opened her mouth to protest, but Paperweight shut her up with a baton to the nose before she even said anything. She tried struggling against the handcuffs, but failed after another baton to the arms. Qibli either fell asleep or fainted on Paperweight's shoulder, and got pushed off, bounced against the wall, and leaned on it. Firecrackers's horns kept hitting Halcyon, and in exasperation he made him crouch down with his head between his knees.

The ride felt like it would never end. By the time they were escorted off the car, Sky's knees were bruised because he kept fidgeting his legs and Halcyon kept hitting him. Qibli hadn't woken up, and had to be carried off by Goose and the guard. Sparky had grown so accustomed to the taste of blood she might just become a vampire, and Firecrackers was so dizzy from all the blood in his head that his horns hit even more people, earning him quite a lot of batons to the head.

They were in a room. A single bright light hung from the ceiling, dazzling their eyes like the flashlight did. They might be on a bench or on the ground; it was impossible to tell. People came and went; Firecrackers couldn't make out their faces.

Slowly, they came to their senses. Qibli woke up, blinking and attempting to rub her eyes, only to find her arms cuffed to a heater on the wall. Her friends were lying beside her, cuffed to the same place. Paperweight was sitting at a table on the other end of the room, shuffling paper around.

"All awake?"

Groans. He took them as "yes."

"Who's the magic one?"

Qibli tried to sit up straight. "Uuurrrggghhhh…"

"All but one of your warmth spells got casted on me. I almost sweat to death. You need to give up your magic forever."

Qibli didn't know how to respond.

"Who planned it?"

"I did," Sky said immediately.

Paperweight raised an eyebrow and scribbled something down. "Sparky, is that true?"

"I don't care."

"You planned it."

"Yeah."

"You really want the bomb that much?"

Silence. Paperweight waited patiently.

Finally Qibli said, "we're sorry!"

"For what?"

"For trying to steal the nuke."

"Don't be sorry for that," Paperweight said. "Be sorry that you almost gave me a stroke."

"Sorry," Qibli said again.

"None of you had answered my question. How much do you want the nuke?"

"It's supposed to be ours," Sparky started again.

Firecrackers could literally not speak with his hands bound.

"I don't want it!" Sky was yelling now. "You can't actually do a single thing with it! I have no idea why we're going through all that trouble!" His squiggling made his handcuffs clatter and he kept bumping into Sparky.

"But you said you planned this? You told me that first thing," Paperweight said ever so calmly.

Sky shut up. Paperweight walked towards the heater with a stick in his hand. He prodded the metal against the radiator, sending a jolt of electricity through the kids¹.

"Are you aware of how much trouble you're in?"

"I'm sorry!" Qibli said again, almost screaming.

Paperweight didn't seem to hear. He zapped the heater again.

"The fuck do you even want?" Sparky yelled.

Firecrackers watched in horror as he brought the baton down for a third time when a hand grabbed his arm.

"Please, sir!" Pumpkin pleaded. "Don't hurt them. They're just kids."

"Annoying kids," Paperweight jerked his arm out of Pumpkin's hand and shoved the baton into his belt. "Thieves. I was going light on them. If they were adults they'd be down in the dark house right now."

"Please," Pumpkin sounded more desperate. "They caused no harm!"

Paperweight sighed. "What do you suggest we do then. Let them go free? Like nothing happened? Where's the lesson in that?"

"There isn't really a lesson in zapping them either," Pumpkin said.

"Discipline," Paperweight scowled. "That's the lesson. And it seems to me you need a refresher in that too."

The kids watched the interaction play out above them in awe until their neck hurt.

"Still, they don't pose a threat to us!"

"They pose a nuisance. They have no idea how busy we are and how hard our job is. So they come and waste our time."

"I have an idea!" Pumpkin looked like he just had the greatest epiphany ever.

Paperweight frowned at him.

"Don't you think they don't understand our job enough? How about we let them do our job?"

Paperweight stood there for a split second, mouth agape.

"…What?"

"Make it a race. Oh yeah, make it a race!" Pumpkin was jumping up and down. "We'll both investigate the nuke. If they could find out how exactly the nuke ended up there before we did, they get to keep it!"

"This is stupid," was Paperweight's curt reply.

"I like it," Sparky shot up.

Paperweight nearly took out the stun baton again, but Pumpkin stopped him.

"Give them a chance, please," he said.

Goose and Halcyon were also present. Firecrackers hadn't even noticed when they slipped inside.

"I second this," Halcyon said. "It's not like they're actually going to find anything, and it would make them realize how stupid their actions were tonight."

Paperweight scratched his chin in contemplation. Finally, he said, "fine, I'll let you do this challenge. If you win, you get the nuke. Exactly how you split the ownership between the four of you is none of my business. If you lose, you'll never bother us again. Deal?"

"Deal," Sparky was eager to say. She had a plan in her head already.

"And the rest of you? No more bothering?"

"Sure," Sky said.

"O… Okay…" Qibli muttered.

Firecrackers rattled his handcuffs and stuck a thumbs-up.

The race was on, apparently.