My Life as a Teenage Superhero

Chapter 20 - Sapphire

After the impact of the explosion knocks most people over I start to hear screaming. For a second I am thrown back to my training with Casey a couple of days ago and I find myself looking about wildly for a rogue robot before I suddenly realise this is real. There is no robot. Students are running everywhere, blindly as the smoke from whatever caused the explosion is still thick in the air around us. Eve has grabbed my arm and is screaming in my ear.

'Shut up!' I tell her sharply before reaching out to calm everyone's mind.

Instantly I am forced to reel my powers back in. Wow, Casey was right. In a real life situation it is not possible to control hundreds of panicking people all at once. Their brain waves are too messy. Desperately I reach out to contact Casey, even though he is all the way in the city. I cannot find him, though, and realise he must still have his defenses against me up. Damn!

'Sapphire, what is happening?' Eve whimpers in my ear.

'I think someone is trying to attack the school,' I hear Zoe say from my right and I had no idea she was there. I stretch out my hand towards her outline and she takes it. She is shaking.

'I cannot see anything!' says Eve.

I peer at my friends through the smoke, they are both so afraid. I realise I do not need to be able to influence their minds to take control of the situation. All I need is a little wind! Quickly I call out to the air element, I feel it rush around my body but I hang onto my friends. The wind whirls around us and then starts to whirl outwards, clearing the school yard and fields as it goes until everything is clear again.

Then I wish I had not.

Up ahead, coming through the school gates, is a large group of people dressed in grey jumpsuits. As Eve and Zoe squeeze onto my arms even harder than I thought humanely possible I see the bodies lying at the feet of the group in grey jumpsuits. As they draw closer to students there is a quick blast and a student will fall. Or a student will just collapse without warning, spewing vomit or worse.

'Grey Heights inmates,' Zoe whispers to me fearfully. 'It must be a breakout.'

'This is the kind of situation the Circle of Nines should be dealing with, right?' says Eve, equally as afraid.

Oh, God. Right. The Circle. Why are they not here? I scan the skies for any sign of Nickolas or Alistair's flying machines but I cannot see any evidence the Circle are coming. Vaguely I wonder if this is a test, sent by Marianne to see if I can do my job, but I remember that would be against the law. The authorities cannot reveal who I am until I finish school.

We start to back away from the approaching group. I wonder if going into the school building is a good idea but more students are pouring out of the school and into the yard looking equally as worried. I start to tell a group near me to go back in but then I see there are more Grey Heights inmates coming out of the school and herding the students outside. Soon we are going to be trapped.

Eve spots an adult nearby, one of the teachers called Mr Jukes who teaches superhero history. He is standing fixed to one spot looking worried and Eve waves at him.

'Sir! Sir!' She drags us over to him. 'Do something, sir!' she begs him.

'Right.' Mr Jukes seems to snap out of his daze and instantly puffs up, marching over to one of the delinquents herding students out of the school with his scary pointed horns on his head. 'What on earth do you think you are doing, young man?' Mr Jukes barks at the horned criminal. 'You have no right-' But he is cut short as the inmate mercilessly impales Mr Jukes with his horns.

As Mr Jukes slumps to the ground, blood gushing from a hole in his chest, Eve staggers backwards into me. She looks like she is about to faint.

'It is OK,' I whisper to her, putting my hands around her protectively, but the horned guy is just trying to get all the students into the middle of the yard and barely pays us more than a savage glare.