"It gets even louder sometimes." Black Siren gave a low, suggestive laugh, hooked her arm through Jack Kadere's, and glanced back at the police officers still writhing on the ground. "I know a good spot. Want to come?"
"Sure." Jack Kadere flashed a bright smile.
Black Siren's eyes lit up. She walked arm-in-arm with him, her stride long and deliberate, high heels clicking sharp against the pavement.
She led him to a remote, abandoned factory on the outskirts of the district. The warehouse was pitch black inside. After several turns through corridors that smelled like rust and standing water, they reached a room near the back.
She pushed the door open.
The space was small—a single bed, a few scattered daily necessities, bare concrete walls.
"You live here?" Jack Kadere looked around. The place was worse than most shelters. "Being a criminal on this Earth is pretty pathetic."
"You think I want this?" Black Siren leaned against the doorframe. "I'm not afraid of the cops. They're trash. But ever since Zoom took over Central City, people like me are out of luck. He's been rounding up every meta-human he can find. I hid here, and his people still tracked me down." She exhaled. "I was about to give in and work for him. Then you showed up."
She tilted her head, studying him.
"You're a hell of a lot better-looking than Zoom, who hides behind a mask all day—nobody even knows what he looks like. And you're strong. Reverb, Deathstorm, Killer Frost—those are Zoom's best—and you handled all three of them at once without breaking a sweat." Her gaze sharpened. "Your power is stronger than Zoom's. You can copy other people's abilities."
"Smart people know when to keep what they've noticed to themselves." Jack Kadere chuckled, watching her. "A lot of people get themselves killed because they never learned that."
Black Siren's expression stiffened. She stepped half a pace back, forcing an awkward smile. "I mean—plenty of people saw it, right? And so what? You're strong enough that nobody's going to challenge you over it. Not even Zoom."
"So that's why you called out to me for help and glued yourself to my side?" Jack Kadere looked her up and down. She nodded, her expression caught between hope and dread. He let out a quiet laugh. "I'm not Zoom. I have no interest in ruling Central City, and I'm not in the market for followers."
"Take me with you." The words came fast, before he could turn away.
"Whatever world you come from—take me. If you don't need a subordinate, I'll stay out of your way. If you do, I'll put my life on the line. Whenever you need it." Black Siren drew a long breath and held his gaze.
She wasn't stupid.
She'd watched him copy Reverb's, Deathstorm's, and Killer Frost's abilities in real time. She'd also caught the look on his face the moment he first saw her—surprise, the kind that only came from recognizing someone. Then there was what he'd said when he saw that female officer: no matter which world, still just as annoying. Put it all together and the conclusion was obvious.
He wasn't from this Earth.
If he were, he wouldn't talk like that. And he wouldn't be unknown. Nobody with power like his would stay anonymous by choice.
Black Siren had shown off her abilities on purpose, hoping to make herself useful enough to keep. Even if she was wrong about the other-world theory, following him still meant protection from Zoom. The risk was real—Zoom might come after Jack Kadere eventually—but everything carried risk.
And Jack Kadere clearly knew another version of her. Knew her well enough that seeing her face had stopped him cold. That alone was worth the gamble.
"Still not interested." Jack Kadere considered it for a moment and shook his head.
Black Siren's composure cracked. "Zoom's people aren't all conscripts. Some of them follow him willingly—because he's the strongest, by a wide margin, and following strength is human nature. Even if you don't want subordinates, people are going to attach themselves to you whether you like it or not. That's just how it works."
"You can ignore them. You can kill them. They'll keep coming."
"This really does feel like you're trying to latch onto me," Jack Kadere said, half-laughing.
"Yes. I am." Black Siren closed the distance between them, two slow steps, and placed her hand flat on his chest. Her voice dropped to a murmur. "If you need me, I'm here. If you don't, I'll go. I won't be a problem for you. Ever."
"What you're describing sounds less like loyalty and more like a booty call." Jack Kadere lifted her hand off his chest and set it aside. The smile on her face froze. Then he continued: "Let's go somewhere else. I'm not staying in this dump."
Black Siren blinked. Then the meaning landed, and a jolt of excitement shot through her.
He said yes.
Red lightning split the darkness of the room. Before Black Siren could draw her next breath, her surroundings had changed completely—bright fluorescent lights, humming equipment, the sterile chill of a laboratory.
Harrison Wells sat at a computer station, fingers frozen above the keyboard. He stared at Jack Kadere and the woman standing beside him.
"That is definitely not my daughter."
"In your dreams." Black Siren fired back before she'd even gotten her bearings. She recognized Harrison Wells—the owner of S.T.A.R. Labs, the man whose name had become synonymous with the particle accelerator disaster.
Jack Kadere ignored her and walked over to Wells, leaning past him to glance at the monitor. Dense equations and formulas packed the screen, some recognizable, most not.
"Are you done?"
"You promised to rescue my daughter," Wells said, his voice low and hard. "I finish writing when she's safe."
"You sure about that?"
"Positive." Wells didn't blink. "If you don't save Jesse, you can kill me. I won't write another—"
He was talking to empty air. Jack Kadere was gone.
"Keep writing, Doctor." Black Siren didn't know what Jack Kadere needed Wells to produce, but she understood her role well enough.
Wells sat in silence for a beat. Then he lowered his head and resumed typing.
---
Yellow lightning tore across Central City and out past the suburbs in a single, continuous streak. It stopped at the edge of a cliff.
Across a wide gap, a second cliff face rose higher than the first—sheer, clean-cut rock with what appeared to be an old mine entrance bored into its center. The heavy equipment that had once serviced the shaft was long gone, leaving only anchor bolts and rust stains on the stone.
This was Zoom's prison. In the show, he'd used it to hold Jesse and the Flash he'd captured from Earth Three.
The gap between the two cliffs was enormous, the angles mismatched—one face sloping, the other vertical. Without industrial equipment, reaching the opposite side was nearly impossible.
That was exactly why Zoom trusted it to hold anyone he locked inside.
Jack Kadere stood at the edge, yellow lightning still crackling faintly around his shoulders, and looked across.