The flames caught Nelson's clothes almost instantly, wrapping him in fire. But even as he burned, he didn't stop. Nelson couldn't feel the pain at all. Dwayne stared in shock. Nelson's clothes, hair, eyebrows—everything—was burning. His skin blistered and peeled away, showing pink flesh underneath that turned black and charred in the fire. But Nelson didn't care. He held the half-melted microscope in one hand and grabbed a pen from the table. With its sharp tip, he aimed straight for Dwayne's temple. Dwayne was horrified at this stage. He looked at Nelson like he was a demon crawling straight out of hell. "Y-you ... Stay back! I'll go! I swear, I'm leaving! I don't want to take you anymore!" His knees buckled. He couldn't even stand. The sheer presence rolling off Nelson crushed his will and drained every ounce of strength from him. This—this wasn't something his mind could explain. A man, burning from head to toe, but he didn't scream nor flinched. He was still moving around like the pain didn't exist. Nelson's face was half-melted, skin peeling away. He slowly pulled a twisted grin, eyes wide and bloodshot, almost bulging from their sockets. "Too late." He drove the pen straight into Dwayne's temple. There was a sickening pop. Dwayne's head burst open, blood and tissue splattering across the wall. Nelson grabbed a glass syringe from the table, plunged it into Dwayne's neck, and drew out a tube of blood. Dwayne was an ability user; his blood couldn't go to waste. Before his body turned cold, Nelson could use his blood for an experiment. And just like that, Dwayne was dead. When Raven finished off the pair outside the lab and rushed in, the smell of burned flesh hit him immediately. Nelson had already doused himself with a bucket of water. Steam rose from his body as he sat calmly on a stool, hands moving fast, repeating the experiment Dwayne had ruined. He was going to remake that destroyed vial, no matter what it took. On the floor beside him lay a body. It was a terrible sight. The man's eyes were wide as saucers. His mouth hung open. He looked like he had seen something awful before he died. You couldn't tell if he'd died of fear or been stabbed in the temple with a pen.Nelson himself was a different kind of horror. His skin had been burned and charred. Black flakes kept falling off him. New skin was growing back under the ash. Whenever he moved a little, the black pieces would fall and scatter. They made a dark, red-black mess on the floor. He sat there completely naked and didn't care. He kept working on his experiment and didn't stop. For a long moment, Raven stood frozen at the doorway. He didn't know if he should go in. Handsy was drugged by Nelson's injection. He slept heavily in the corner. He didn't know anything had happened. Nelson worked for ten more minutes, then finally poured the two liquids together. A bottle of yellow fluid appeared in his hand again. He lifted it up and shoved it under his nose and sniffed hard. "Yes! That's the smell!" he said, a pleased smile spreading across his face. As he smiled, the last patch of black skin on his face fell away with the twitch of his muscles. He was a handsome young man again, skin smooth like a newborn's. Except his hair and eyebrows hadn't come back yet. He sat on the stool, completely bare, not a hair on his body. "Raven, can you do me a favor?" Nelson asked, not bothered by his nakedness. He stood from the stool and poured the liquid into a larger bottle, stirred it, and held it up to Raven's mouth. "Take this to Caroline. The steelworms will back off if she has it." Raven's eyes went wide at his words. Even a dog could tell how powerful the thing might be. Still, he didn't move. Caroline had asked him to stay put and protect Nelson. That was his job. He'd been too slow before; that's how a man got inside. Nelson understood. He stepped forward and patted Raven's head, grinning big and confident, even with his bald head, which looked almost ridiculous. He picked up a syringe and a pair of tweezers and spun them in his hand. "Don't worry," he said. "If anyone or steelworm comes in, I'll stab them!"