“That’s probably it,” Astrid said.
It was so unexpected, even Sam couldn’t hide a look of surprise.
“What else could have caused him to choke?” Astrid asked. “And the light must have been some internal alarm system going off.”
“No offense, Astrid, but no way,” Edilio said. He put his hands on his hips, squared himself up to Sam, and said, “Man, it’s time you started telling us the truth. I respect you, man. But how am I going to respect you if you lie to me?”
Sam was caught off guard. It was the first time he, or any of them, had seen Edilio angry.
“What do you mean?” Sam stalled.
“There’s something going on, man, and it’s about you, all right?” Edilio said. “That light just now? I saw that light before. I saw it just before I pulled you out that window from that burning building.”
Quinn’s head snapped around. “What? What are you saying?”
Edilio said, “The wall and the disappearing people, that’s not all of it. There’s some other strange thing going on. Something is going on with you, Sam. And Astrid too, since she was pretty quick to try to cover for you just now.”
Sam was surprised to realize that Edilio was right: Astrid knew something, too. He wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. He felt a wave of relief. He didn’t have to be alone on this.
“Okay.” Sam took a deep breath and tried to organize his thoughts before he started blurting it all out.
“First, I don’t know what it is, all right?” Sam said quietly. “I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know how it happens. I don’t know anything about it except that sometimes…it’s this…there’s this light.”
“What are you talking about, brah?” Quinn demanded.
Sam held up his hands, turning his palms toward his friend. “I can…Dude, I know it sounds like I’m crazy, but sometimes this light just comes shooting out of my hands.”
Quinn barked a laugh. “No, man, that doesn’t sound crazy. Crazy is you saying you’re better than me at riding a curl. This is mentally ill. This is off the hook. Let me see you do it.”
“I don’t know how,” Sam confessed. “It’s happened four times, but I can’t just make it happen.”
“Four times you shot lasers out of your hands.” Quinn was on the line between laughing and yelling. “I’ve known you, like, half your life, and now you’re the Green Lantern? Right.”
“It’s true,” Astrid said.
“Bull. If it’s true, then do it. Show me.”
Sam said, “I’m trying to tell you, it only happens when I’m panicked or whatever. I don’t make it happen, it just happens.”
Edilio said, “Just now you said four times. I saw the flash at the fire. I saw it just now. What’s the other two times?”
“The time before was at my house. It made…I mean, I made…this light. Like a lightbulb kind of. It was dark. I had a nightmare.” He met Astrid’s steady gaze and suddenly a different lightbulb went off. “You saw it,” he accused her. “You saw the light in my room. You’ve known all along.”
“Yes,” Astrid admitted. “I’ve known since that first day. And I’ve known about Petey for longer.”
Edilio still wanted the basics laid out. “The fire, here, this lightbulb thing, that’s three.”
“First time was Tom,” Sam said. The name meant nothing to Edilio, but it did to Quinn.
“Your stepfather?” Quinn demanded sharply. “Ex-stepfather, I mean.”
“Yeah.”
Quinn was staring hard at Sam. “Brah, you aren’t saying what you sound like you’re saying, right?”
“I thought he was trying to hurt my mom,” Sam said. “I thought…I was asleep, I woke up, I come down the stairs, they’re both in the kitchen yelling, I see Tom with a knife, and there’s this flash of light shooting out of my hands.”
Sam felt tears stinging his eyes. It surprised him. He didn’t feel sad. If anything, he felt relieved. He hadn’t told anyone about this before. This was a weight coming off his shoulders. But at the same time, he registered the way Quinn drew back a step, putting distance between them.
“My mom knew, of course. She covered at the emergency room. Tom was yelling that I had shot him. The doctors saw a burn, so they knew it wasn’t a gunshot. My mom told some lie about Tom falling against the stove.”
“She had to choose between protecting you or supporting her husband,” Astrid said.
“Yeah. And Tom realized, once the pain was under control, he realized he would end up in the psychiatric ward if he kept talking about his stepson shooting beams of light at him.”
“You burned your stepfather’s hand off?” Quinn asked, his tone shrill.
“Whoa, back up. Did what?” Edilio demanded. It was his turn to be surprised.
Quinn said, “His stepfather ended up with a hook, man. They had to cut his hand off, like, right here.” He made a chopping motion on his forearm. “I saw him, like, a week ago, over in San Luis. He’s got one of those hooks now, you know, with, like, two pincers or whatever? He was buying cigarettes and handing the clerk money with his hook.” He pantomimed it, using two fingers for the pincers of the prosthetic arm.
“So you’re some kind of freak?” Quinn asked. He still seemed undecided whether he was mad or found it funny.