He woke at sunset, with one foot propped up on the dashboard and the other tucked awkwardly beneath him. He sat up cotton headed and bleary eyed. He took his foot off the dashboard with a slight grunt and wiped away the crescent moon smudge the dirt from his heel had left behind.

His headache was gone now, only giving an occasional throb to remind him he'd gone through three days of shit.

He got out of the car and stretched. His back cracked. He twisted, letting his knees crack. His shoulder hurt.

That meant rain was coming.

The fog began to fade from his thoughts. He watched the son falling below the horizon bathing the trees in a beautiful orange. He watched it until it set. He'd always liked the way the world looked at sunset.

He was clear headed. He had to stop himself from grinding his teeth.

He scuffed his feet as he listened to the high cries of night birds. He looked around him. The woods were beautiful.

He walked over to his tree. He'd destroyed down seven or eight, but he'd made sure not to hit his tree. There tree. Chris traced his finger over his and Amy's names. He'd carved them with a foldout knife in the winter. She'd taken the knife and made a heart around them.

He'd kissed her and watched the snowflakes shining in her hair. Thinking about this hurt. He was going to start crying like a little kid if he spent any more time looking at the tree.

He thought about adding a line, some kind of last words, but then he decided that was betting against himself and so he put his knife away.

, he shot a volley of lightning from his fingertips. Twelve hours of sleep had only increased his control. As the echoes of the thunder faded he waited for the rhythmic throbbing that would indicate that a migraine was coming. It didn't come. He felt good.

As the birds started back up he got into his car and left. his tires crunched over wood chips and gravel. He wished he knew how to make all the trees grow back. The section of woods he was leaving looked empty and sad without them.

He thought about the bank. He'd seen a murder. The face of the kid he'd seen die was etched into his brain. He saw it whenever he closed his eyes. He'd never met the kid before, but that wasn't the point.

Murder was wrong. He'd gotten mad before, gotten into a few fights, but he'd never wanted to kill anyone.

And seeing that kid screaming and begging and then watching his body fall, that'd stuck with him. And then that old dude had smirked. Smirked like he hadn't just snuffed someone out of the world.

He couldn't go to the cops. He knew who'd killed the kid, and he knew that wasn't the only murder that had happened in the last week. In his town.

He'd never thought of it as his until someone had started fucking with it. But now he felt like he was responsible for it.

The others had said they'd help. Except for Jack. But he wouldn't think about Jack, that would just leave him pissed off.

But the others weren't gunna be that much help anyway. Dubois was the only one of them he trusted in a fight, and Dubois was still normal. He hadn't read anyone's mind or shot lightning or ripped down rafters or whatever Jack had been doing.

Amy was dealing with some debilitating shit and Cindy scared the crap out of him if he was honest about it, and now wasn't the time for lies.

She'd killed that cop. But it had been an accident. That'd been clear to everyone. It wasn't the same as the bank. Not even close.

He was going to put a lightning bolt through that bastards face. Then he'd go home.