Jack's line of questioning had been loaded from the start — Caitlin knew that. But hearing him state, without a shred of hesitation, that Doctor Harrison Wells was the Reverse-Flash still hit like a slap. The refusal was instinctive, immediate.
"No. That's impossible," Caitlin said. "How could Doctor Wells be the Reverse-Flash? He's been with us this entire time."
"Exactly!" Cisco jumped in. "And back then, Wells didn't even know Barry. Why would he go after Barry's mother?"
Barry trusted Wells more than either of them. He stared at Jack, jaw tight.
"If this is some kind of joke to mess with me — it's not funny."
"I figured you'd react like that." Jack waved a hand toward the video, unbothered. "Doesn't matter. You ever carve meat with a dull knife? The fun's in going slow — piece by piece." He let the silence sit for a beat, then continued. "First things first. You have to admit another speedster exists, right?"
Barry nodded. Both speedsters in that footage were faster than him.
"And if someone's fast enough," Harrison Wells offered smoothly, "moving between two points at sufficient speed creates afterimages indistinguishable from the real thing."
He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. The implication was clear: Jack could have used his own speed to fabricate a Reverse-Flash.
Wells smiled as he said it — calm, composed, helpful. The perfect mask.
Underneath it, he was seething. He'd burned through nearly every scrap of Speed Force energy he'd painstakingly accumulated just to save Barry Allen, and now Jack Kadere had waltzed in with a video and blown his cover wide open. The only reason he wasn't exposed already was that he'd thought fast enough to spin a counter-narrative in real time.
"Impressive, Doctor Wells," Jack said with a grin. "You know a lot about speed for a man in a wheelchair. And sure — I could play both roles. Race between two points, fight myself, make it look convincing." He tilted his head. "But so could you. Be the Reverse-Flash in one moment, save Barry the next, and wheel yourself back into S.T.A.R. Labs like nothing happened."
"Provided I have your speed," Wells replied, still smiling.
Jack's grin widened. "You know what your biggest mistake was? Messing with me. Because I know who you are. I know where you come from. I know every weakness you have." He let that hang. "But relax — I'm not going to use any of it. Not yet. We're going to play this out nice and slow. And when you can't take it anymore, when you get down on your knees in true despair — that's when it's over."
Wells kept smiling. Jack turned to Barry.
"Think about who saved you tonight."
A crack of red lightning — and Jack was gone.
The lab went quiet. Nobody moved. The weight of it pressed down on all of them, tangled and unresolved.
Cisco broke the silence first, eyes on the monitor bank. "Look — whatever just happened, we still have three metas loose in the city. The squad's down one member, but they're moving again."
---
Red lightning tore through Central City, streaking between avenues and overpasses in jagged bursts.
Jack stopped at a power substation on the outskirts of town. Transformer towers rose against the night sky, humming with current. The air smelled sharp — ozone and hot metal.
This was where he'd find the last person on his list.
Farooq.
The night the particle accelerator exploded, Farooq and a friend had come out here to watch the startup from a safe distance. Farooq had climbed one of the transmission towers for a better view. The explosion hit, the tower lit up, and the current ripped through him. He fell. His friend rushed to help and grabbed his hand — and Farooq electrocuted him without even knowing it. Killed him on contact.
Farooq came back from the dead with the ability to absorb electricity and discharge it at will. On paper, the power sounded middling. In practice, Farooq had drained the Speed Force straight out of Barry Allen's cells, leaving the Flash powerless. Barry had to subject himself to a second massive electric shock just to reignite the dormant Speed Force and get his abilities back.
More importantly, the Reverse-Flash had later studied Farooq's genetics and reverse-engineered a method to siphon Speed Force energy.
The absorption potential was the real prize.
Jack moved through the substation at a walk, hands in his pockets. He found Farooq standing beneath a transformer array, arms raised, pulling current out of the grid. His pupils had gone pure white. Arcs of blue-white electricity crawled up his forearms and danced between his fingers. The air around him crackled and popped, hair lifting from static charge.
"Hey," Jack called out casually. "Stealing electricity is a crime, you know."
"I need... energy..." Farooq turned slowly, his voice dragging like a dying battery. He raised one hand and loosed a bolt of current straight at Jack.
Jack blurred sideways. The bolt scorched the concrete where he'd been standing, leaving a blackened scar.
"Thanks for the ability," Jack said, grinning. "Now you can die."
Red lightning surged forward. Jack closed the distance in a fraction of a heartbeat and threw a single punch — no energy, no Speed Force channeled through it. Pure physical force, amplified fifty times over. He wasn't about to give an energy absorber anything to feed on.
The fist connected with Farooq's skull.
Crack.
The bone caved inward, deformed for a split second, and then the head simply came apart. Fragments of skull, brain matter, and blood sprayed across the concrete and the base of the nearest transformer. Farooq's body stayed upright for one wobbling instant, neck ending in a ragged stump, before it toppled backward and hit the ground with a wet thud.
Jack looked down at the headless corpse, then raised both hands. Fire erupted from his palms — white-hot, roaring — and engulfed the body. The flesh blackened, curled, and disintegrated. Bone crumbled to powder. Within seconds, nothing remained but a thin layer of ash spread across scorched concrete. A gust of wind swept through the substation and carried even that away.
The reason was simple. If the Reverse-Flash got his hands on Farooq's body — or worse, his genetic material — he'd have a ready-made blueprint for draining Barry's Speed Force. Jack couldn't allow that. And now that he'd copied Farooq's absorption ability, he could drain Speed Force energy from both the Flash and the Reverse-Flash himself, keeping them leashed.
Barry wants to break the time barrier and rewrite the timeline? Not happening.
The Reverse-Flash stockpiling enough Speed Force to punch a hole back to his own century? Forget it.
Both of them were pinned. Jack controlled the board.
"No wonder Farooq never surfaced after getting his powers," Jack muttered, flexing his fingers. A faint residual hunger gnawed at him — the new ability demanding fuel. "He was baseline human before the resurrection. The energy demands must have been enormous. Spent all his time feeding." He shook his head. "I just need a decent meal."
Red lightning cracked, and the substation stood empty.
---
Back at the villa, Jack dropped into a chair at the dining table and told Laurie to make food. She moved to the kitchen without a word, and twenty minutes later the table was covered — roast chicken, rice, bread, leftover pasta reheated in a skillet, a bowl of cut fruit. Jack tore into it like he hadn't eaten in days, plate after plate disappearing with mechanical speed. Grease on his fingers, crumbs on his shirt, a glass of water drained in one pull and refilled twice.
When the hunger finally ebbed, he leaned back and exhaled.
"What... is wrong with you?"
Laurie stood beside the table, watching him. The question came out quiet, almost reluctant — like she hadn't meant to say it aloud.
Jack wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Is this the first time you've spoken to me on your own? Without me asking first?"
Laurie's mouth closed. She said nothing.
In the weeks since she'd been here, Laurie had settled into a rigid pattern — cook, clean, help Jack about his research into granting her the Speed Force, and fulfill whatever role he demanded of her at night. She endured it in silence. When he pulled her into bed, she let him. When he was finished, she lay still. Whatever he wanted, she gave without protest and without a single voluntary word. She existed in the villa like furniture that happened to breathe — present, functional, and mute unless addressed.
Jack studied her face for a moment longer, still smiling, then reached for the last piece of bread on the table.