Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(30)

An electric charge shot through Clark’s entire body, and in an instant he was hurling himself through the warm night air, teeth and fists clenched, eyes locked on the flames. In a fraction of a second he arrived, shoving Paul and Mikey away from the fire.

Mikey sprang to his feet and swung at Clark, missing badly.

Clark froze, afraid to swing back. Afraid he might do real damage. In front of everyone. So he just stood there as Mikey charged and shoved him in the chest as hard as he could. It took Clark a second to realize he should be falling, like Paul had, so he threw himself backward. His fake fall turned real when he tripped over a small pile of wood, launching himself directly into the searing flames.

The crowd around him gasped and screamed as the fire torched Clark’s clothes and hugged his skin, the smoldering red logs popping against his rigid back, giving off an odd warming sensation and a smell like burned rubber.

Clark spun quickly out of the pit and into the glass-covered grass, where he began frantically tamping down the flames leaping off his shirt.

“Jesus, Mikey!” Corey shouted, racing to Clark’s side. He helped pat down Clark’s shoulders, saying, “Shit, man, you okay?”

Clark nodded, scrambling to his feet. He reached down for his glasses and put them back on.

His clothes were torched, and everyone was staring. He shoved his hands, which should have been covered in burns and cuts, into his pockets. “I’m fine. I was only in there for a second.”

Corey pulled Mikey away.

Gloria hurried to Clark’s side. “Oh my God, Clark! You fell right into the fire.”

“I’m okay,” he insisted.

“Are you burned?”

He shook his head.

Bryan was there now, too. He held Clark’s right arm as he looked at his brother. “Corey, get that guy out of here! You see what he just did?”

Several of the football players huddled around Clark. “You saved him,” Tommy was saying. “You saved Paul from the fire.”

Paul was still kneeling on the ground a few feet away from Clark, picking glass out of his elbow. “You had my back,” he said.

Clark shook his head. “I just reacted.”

The hum eventually died down once people saw that Clark wasn’t seriously injured. In the dim light, it must have happened really fast for those watching. They probably assumed he had minor burns under his shirt. And little cuts from the glass, like Paul did. But Clark didn’t have a mark anywhere. The flames had been warm against his skin. He’d felt them. But they’d caused him no harm.

“You have to go to the hospital, Clark,” Gloria said, visibly shaken. “Have them check out your back.”

“I’ll take him,” Lana said. “I’m his ride.”

“I’m okay,” Clark assured them both. “Honestly. I just want to get out of here.”

“Of course.” Lana turned toward a group of friends. “He’s okay. I’m taking him home.”

Corey was shouting at his friends as they headed out to the parking area with their chauffeur.

Bryan kept asking Clark if he was okay. Lex, too, and lots of people from school. Everyone wanted to talk to him, to see if he needed anything.

But all Clark wanted to do was disappear.

He’d shown a glimpse of his powers, right here in the open. Were they all secretly wondering about him now? Did they think he was a freak?

Lana was eventually able to lead Clark through the crowd, toward her car. “You really are a good guy,” she said, opening his door. “Those football bros always give you shit. Yet you’re the first one there when any of them is in trouble.”

They were both quiet as she drove them to Clark’s house.

He played back everything that had happened after they heard the shattering of the sliding glass door. Paul and Mikey falling toward the flames. The impossible speed he’d reached in getting to them. How he’d rolled out of the pit with his shirt on fire.

Had he revealed himself to his classmates?

Did they know?

Lana was in her own world, too. She stared straight ahead as her headlights cut through the dark night. Sometimes she would nod to herself. Other times she’d shake her head or tap the steering wheel as if emphasizing some unspoken point. It wasn’t until she pulled up to the foot of Clark’s long driveway that she spoke. “What are your plans for tomorrow morning?”

“Going back to the Joneses’ farm,” he told her. “With you.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “How’d you know that’s what I was going to say?”

“Because,” he said, “there might be something there. And we both want answers.”

She nodded.

As Clark went to get out of the car, he felt Lana’s soft hand on his wrist. “Clark,” she said. “Wait.”

He turned to look at her.

“I agreed not to take you to the emergency room.” She paused, looking him in the eye. “But at least let me make sure your back is okay.”

Clark fell into his seat again, feeling anxious. How was he going to explain it to her? That the fire hadn’t marked him. That the glass hadn’t cut him.

But this was Lana.

So he turned away from her, giving her access to his back.

In a few seconds he felt her slowly lifting his shirt up his back. Then he felt her warm hands on his skin. And he listened to her breathing. And when she slowly slid her entire hand down the length of his back, his whole body tingled under her fingertips. And his breath caught. It was Lana’s hand. His best friend. But at the same time it was the hand of a beautiful woman. The hand of someone he trusted. Someone he’d do anything for.