One red, one yellow.
Two streaks of lightning burst from the café and tore into the night.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
They raced through the neon-lit streets, weaving between buildings, cutting across intersections in blurs no human eye could track. Iris was the most important person in Barry Allen's life — the person he cared about more than anyone — and this bastard had done that right in front of him. The rage was white-hot and total.
Barry locked onto the red blur ahead. One thought consumed him.
Catch up.
Faster. Faster.
Yellow lightning crackled and surged. The gap shrank — forty feet, thirty, twenty — and then Barry slammed on the brakes. His boots tore smoking grooves into the asphalt as he skidded to a halt.
The red figure ahead didn't slow down. Didn't even hesitate. Jack Kadere hit the base of a forty-story high-rise at full speed and ran straight up the face of it, red lightning arcing vertically into the dark sky. In the space of a breath, he was on the roof.
Barry stood at the base, chest heaving, neck craned back.
"You can do this." He clenched his fists. "He did it. You can do it. Just run fast enough."
He'd never tried running up a building this tall.
He backed up a full block, planted his feet, and exhaled hard through his nose. Then he launched — legs pumping, speed climbing — and when his lead foot hit the wall, he committed. Gravity pulled at his back, but momentum won. His feet found purchase on glass and steel, and he was climbing, actually climbing, the city shrinking beneath him.
It was working.
Barry grinned and poured on more speed — and then saw Jack Kadere coming down. Straight at him. Faster than freefall, red lightning blazing, running down the building's face like it was a sidewalk.
The shockwave hit first. A wall of displaced air slammed into Barry as red lightning screamed past him close enough to feel the heat, and his feet lost the wall. His body pitched backward into open air.
"AHHHHH—!"
The scream ripped out of him on instinct. Below, the street waited. Wind roared in his ears. Jack's red streak hit the ground and vanished — gone, just like that.
Panic flooded every nerve. Barry twisted, flailing, reaching for the building. His boots scraped glass, caught, lost it, caught again — and then he was tumbling down the wall's surface, rolling, bouncing off ledges, desperately trying to control the fall. His body spun and the ground rushed up to fill his vision.
No time to think. He swung his legs under him, got his feet on the wall, and ran — launching off the building's base at an angle, hitting the street in a dead sprint. He tore through two full blocks before his legs gave out and he collapsed face-first onto the pavement with a heavy thud.
His heart hammered so violently it felt like it might crack his ribs open. His limbs were jelly. The world tilted and spun, a nauseating carousel behind his eyes.
"Fun, right?"
Jack Kadere appeared in front of him with a soft whoosh, standing casual as someone who'd just stepped off an escalator.
"You—" Barry tried to shove himself up, but his legs buckled and he dropped back to the concrete.
"Tsk, tsk." Jack glanced down at Barry's clenched fist — still white-knuckled around the scrap of fabric he'd been handed at the café. "You're still holding onto my gift. Didn't realize you liked it that much. Don't worry — if you're too shy to ask, I'll bring you a fresh pair every time we meet." He spread his hands and laughed. "Only downside is I have to wash my hands after. Gets old."
"What do you want?" Barry snarled. Every thought of Jack near Iris fed fuel into the furnace in his chest.
"You know the saying — the Lord looks after fools, but I don't." Jack paused, the grin sharpening. "So if you can't figure out why I keep doing this, I'm perfectly happy to keep going." He tilted his head as if considering something. "Actually, I was going to bring you her bra too, but I thought — nah. That might be a bit much even for me."
Barry's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
"My coffee's getting cold, so I need to head back." Jack turned, already half-fading. "Word of advice — burning through the Speed Force tanks your blood sugar. And also..." He glanced at Barry's feet. "You should probably change your clothes."
He vanished. A crack of red lightning, and the street was empty.
Barry looked down. Smoke curled from his shoes. His jacket smoldered at the seams, the soles of his sneakers warped and half-melted from friction heat. He stamped his feet and slapped at his clothes, killing the embers before they caught.
"How the hell was he fine?"
Jack had been faster — significantly faster — and nothing on him had so much as singed. No smoke, no heat damage, no visible strain at all. How?
The question burrowed into Barry's skull alongside the anger. He pulled out his phone, still dizzy, and called Caitlin Snow. Told her he had to leave. Asked her to pass a message to Iris. Then he shoved the phone back in his pocket and staggered into the nearest fast-food joint on wobbly legs. He needed sugar. Badly.
---
Back at the café, Caitlin set her phone down and looked across the table at Jack, who was sipping his coffee like he hadn't just played tag on the side of a skyscraper.
"What did you do to him?"
Jack smiled over the rim of his cup. "Gave him a little gift. And I told him, while I was at it, that I didn't kill his mother. Because if I had, I wouldn't bother denying it — it's not like he could do anything about it either way."
"So... you two are done talking?"
"Should be."
Caitlin folded her arms. "Then let's talk about you forcing Weather Wizard to attack S.T.A.R. Labs. That was about what you asked me to help with yesterday, wasn't it?" She held his gaze. "Did you get your answer?"
"Got it." Genuine satisfaction bled into Jack's voice. He leaned back, the corner of his mouth curling. "My Speed Force has absolutely no connection to his."
"So I don't need to keep monitoring him for you anymore?"
"No need."
"Good." Caitlin let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for a while. Keeping tabs on Barry without his knowledge had weighed on her more than she'd ever admit out loud.
Ring ring ring—
Jack's phone buzzed against the table. He picked it up, frowning slightly at the screen.
"Laurie. What's going on?"
On the other end, Laurie's tone was flat and unbothered: "Someone's here. A woman. Says she wants to see you. Says her name is Felicity, and that she's your girlfriend."
"Got it. I'll be there soon."
He hung up.
"Go ahead," Caitlin said, reading his expression. "I'll wait for Iris and pass along Barry's message."
"Thanks."
Jack nodded once, tapped the Speed Force, and was gone.
---
The villa's front hall still smelled like lemon polish and the jasmine candle Laurie kept burning on the entryway table.
Laurie lowered her phone and looked at Felicity. "He said he'll be here very soon—" Her eyes shifted past Felicity's shoulder. "He's here."
Felicity turned around.
Jack Kadere stood three feet behind her, hands in his pockets, exactly as if he'd been there all along.
Five years. Five years and change since she'd last seen him. She'd gotten used to the distance — or convinced herself she had — but seeing him standing right there, real, breathing, close enough to touch, cracked whatever wall she'd built against missing him. It all came flooding up at once. Five years of silence. Five years of wondering. Five years of biting down on the ache.
Her vision blurred. Tears spilled down her cheeks before she could stop them.
Jack opened his mouth — "How did you find—" — and got exactly one syllable out before Felicity crossed the distance between them and threw herself into his chest. Her arms locked around him, fingers twisting into the fabric of his jacket, and she kissed him hard. Desperate. Fierce. Five years of longing compressed into the press of her mouth against his.
Laurie thought: I should... leave. Or get water. Is she crying? She's definitely crying. I'll get water.
Jack held her. The shape of her body was familiar — the curve of her waist under his palms, the way she pressed her forehead into his collarbone when she finally broke the kiss. He could feel her trembling.
They stayed like that for a long time. Long enough for Laurie to quietly disappear into the kitchen.
When Felicity finally pulled back, her mascara was a mess, her eyes red and swollen, and her expression had shifted from desperate longing to something much harder.
She swung her hand at his face.
Smack — except the sound was wrong. Her palm connected with her own shoulder. She blinked, confused, and found Jack standing six inches to the left of where he'd been, her slap having sailed through empty air. He'd tilted his head away without even uncrossing his arms.
"I'm not Thor," Jack said, mouth twitching. "I don't stand there like an idiot and let my girlfriend hit me."
Felicity stared at him, lips parting. "You still admit I'm your girlfriend?"
"Shouldn't you be more curious about who Thor is?"
Felicity opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. No words came out. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and let out a shaky breath that was half laugh, half sob, the sound catching wet in her throat. Jack leaned against the hallway wall and watched her with the kind of patience he almost never showed anyone, the faint grin still pulling at the corner of his mouth.