Every thought in my head told me this was a bad idea. That I'd get absolutely nothing out of this I would actually appreciate and I should just walk out right now. But I was in the visiting room regardless, sitting in a chair and waiting. Because sometimes you need to find out if you're reopening an old wound or just checking to see if it's become a new scar yet.

A buzzing sound filled the room as a door from the other side of the indestructible glass opened. A figure in an orange jumpsuit and nullifier cuffs walked in and planted himself in his own chair. He was exactly as I remembered him, unfortunately: black, burn-like scales, spiked tail, fanged muzzle, and third eye in the middle of his forehead. With a smile that made my skin crawl, Andrew said to me, "Bienvenue, Leilani. Oh, my apologies, Guiding Star."

"Hey Andrew. Been a while."

"Five years, two months, and twenty-three days. But you know, who's counting?" Andrew leaned forward. "So, what psychopath hinting at a vague connection to me warranted this little miracle?"

"I... I stopped a mugging last night."

"A mugging? You know, I didn't have the highest opinion of you, but even I didn't think you'd be petty enough to--"

"It was Serena and Wyatt that were being mugged, Andrew."

"Oh." Andrew looked at the floor. "Are they... okay?"

I nodded. "Serena was a little shook up, but she was fine. But she misses you. She's scared she's gonna have to raise Wyatt without ever knowing his father, and that got me thinking about you, and I felt guilty about not visiting you all these years, so...here I am."

Andrew looked back up at me, his smile gone from his face like he never knew how to smile in the first place. "You want to know why, don't you?"

I wiped a tear from my eye as I responded, "Yes. I didn't have it in me to ask when you became Tuatara, but I want to know now. Why did you do it?"

A deafening silence blanketed the room for what felt like a lifetime before Andrew spoke again. "The day you created your first speed star to get to school on time was the greatest day of your life. But for me, it was the first nail in the coffin. I'd already gotten my eighth negative metagene test, and you were breaking land speed records. It didn't take a genius to foresee that dad would've given up on me after that.

"Life after that was just an exercise in how many nails the coffin could take. Seeing dad train you, coming home from school to see you hanging out with other heroes-in-training, your preliminary sketches for your uniform--it all just drove home that you were everything I always wanted to be. And the day you showed off your finished uniform was the day it finally clicked for me: I hated you. Not Leilani, but Guiding Star. The symbol of every opportunity I had been screwed out of.

"So when Serena and those other alien refugees showed up, and I heard about the virus they were carrying, I saw my chance. My chance to be special. To be somebody. To kill the people who ruined my life." Andrew looked at me and the tears streaming down my face and shrugged. "You asked."

I got out of my chair and walked up to the glass. "I'm sorry, I--I have to go now. I just... I miss my brother."

"And yet you're commiserating with the guy who killed him. Funny how that works."

In between sobs, I said to him, "Goodbye, Tuatara."

"Goodbye, Guiding Star. Don't come back."