Power (Book 1)

Chapter 14

"I'm already awake," I said.

"Yes, you are now," Sage said. "Be quiet. I am speculating."

"Well, can you keep speculating, please?" Jokes, the fallback defense when there was little left to defend with.

"I'm conversing with myself." She rubbed the bottom of her chin. "So how should I kill you? Energy ball to the head on one hand, but on the other, I could just drain your life force. Then again, I can also do to you what I did to her-" she gestured towards Mckenzie's dead body on the ground behind her "-but I think I'll go with laser vision to the face. Yes, that would be the most painful and the longest way to die."

Was it just me, or was her voice becoming nastier and nastier the more I heard it? Kind of like when your mom comes back home after a long trip, and you're happy to see her again, then she grounds you for everything you didn't do while she was gone, and you just wish she had stayed away.

Sage's eyes started to glow brighter, gaining power by my guess. The air grew hot around us.

I stood back up off of the car. The sickness faded away. I spread my arms wide, trying to create a force field. It flickered in, but went right back out, just like my teleportation. There wouldn't even be a point in going for my energy ability.

My powers chose the wrong time to stop working.

I turned to run. When all else fails, you will always be able to rely on your feet.

I headed back to the cornfields- I could lose her there.

A stream of white-hot energy landed next to my foot. I veered to the right, running in a zigzag pattern so Sage would have a harder time shooting me.

Cement is not fun to run on when you're fighting an evil psychopathic teenage girl.

Two more bolts of energy landed right behind me. I kept running, pushing to the safety of the corn. Adrenaline filled my body, fear clouding my mind. I was on the street now. Just a little...bit...further...

I finally made it. I fell on the ground just past the first line of crops.

Sage called out. "Why are you running, Jay? You know I will find you."

I peeked in between two corn crops. Sage was standing in the middle of the crops, looking around for me. Man, she was fast.

I quietly crept backward into the street. Maybe I could go back inside the Afterlight complex.

I watched people start to spill out the front doors. Jake was among them.

He looked around, seeming to search for something before his gaze landed on me. I tried to motion to him to be quiet, but apparently, he didn't get the message. "Jay!" He shouted. "Thank God you're alright. I was worried!"

Sage's head turned around so fast I swear she should have broken her neck. She was in front of me in a second.

"There you are. I thought I had lost you." She smiled. "Say cheese."

Two pencil-thin rays of electric energy formed in her eyes. I covered my face, waiting to feel the pain of a thousand needles.

Only, it didn't come.

I lowered my arm and opened my eyes.
Sage was still there, her mouth open, lasers coming out of her eyes. But they were moving so slowly I didn't even notice the movement.

I walked over to the side of Sage to get a better view. I leaned in close to her face, watching the lasers move towards the ground. They hit the empty space where I had been moments before.

I saw Sage turn her head towards me as slow as a turtle, her mouth forming an "o." I smiled and waved.

Then she started to move faster, catching up to me. I panicked. I forgot she had superspeed.

Wait, was that what I was doing? Moving at a time where everyone else seemed to slow down? I glanced at the people who were coming out of the shoe store. They were moving slow, too. Jake was frozen in place, an ice circle forming in the air in front of him, his face looking ferocious.

It was like I was in some sort of...hypermode.

I looked back at Sage, who had almost caught up to my state in time. I backed up a few yards away.

I ran into her as fast as I could. Which, now that I think about it, was probably really fast.

The ground gave way beneath my feet faster than my mind could comprehend. I charged like a bullet straight at Sage, who had just caught up to me. She gasped in shock and turned to run, but it was too late.

I plowed hot into her side with the force of Superman. She rocketed back bumping on the gravel like a bouncing ball. She stopped a short distance down the street before picking herself up off the ground.

"This isn't over," she said. Then she was gone in a blur of white lightning.

I smiled as time caught back up to me.

It felt good to win a fight.