Warm Up (Villains, #0.5)

by V.E. Schwab

It didn’t catch fire. Nothing ever actually caught fire. No, it all simply burned. The photo—the broad smile, the wind-chapped face, the three gloved fingers—crumbled to ash in his hand.

Instead, he clutched a metal rail beside his stretcher. The silver began to glow beneath his fingers. He felt nothing, no heat, but when an EMT leaned against it midflight, it burned the skin from the man’s arm. A malfunction, they called it.