Super Spy (Book 2)

2. Lightning Bolt

Panic spiked through Jace; she dodged to the side. Her hairs raised as the air prickled with hot electricity surging past her. The lightning had missed her by a hair's-breadth.

Her fingers clamped down on Alaric's arm just in time to dissolve a patch of his tattered jacket, breaking down its molecules with her superpower. Some of her own energy drained out of her as she did so, a brief wave of nausea. It startled him enough. His body jerked as a streak of electricity burned the air, a shock pulsing through Jace like she'd been zapped by placing her hand on hot metal. It made the air quiver and smell like something was singed.

Her earpiece crackled. "Hang on, Jace, I'm almost there—"

The wiry target was stronger than he looked, and his fist collided with Jace's stomach. She gasped. But she didn't let go; she wrapped her arm around his neck and squeezed.

He gasped for breath, fingers trying to pry her arm off. Jace ripped away the syringe strapped to her thigh with her free hand. Alaric struggled, writhing, but she plunged it into his neck. As the light-blue liquid drained into his skin, his body went limp in her arms. Then she was supporting all his weight, and she grunted, easing him to the floor. She hooked her arms under his and dragged him into one of the stalls.

She waited until she could stop panting. "I'm in the farthest stall from the door. Target's . . . neutralized." She tried hard to keep all the signs of exertion out of her voice.

Propped against the floor, Alaric snarled, his upper lip curling. The stuff in the syringe didn't knock him out, just made him lose any control over his limbs. His entire body would be feeling strange and numb. Jace winced in sympathy; she knew that feeling herself, even though it had been a long time ago.

The numbness wouldn't make it impossible for him to reach for his powers. But Jace wasn't worried. She'd only known experienced supers to be able to use their superpowers while drugged so heavily, and from the careless way Alaric used his lightning, she doubted he'd cause any trouble. Still, she crouched beside him, ready to strike out if he tried anything.

Up close, his face wasn't as smoothly pale as it had looked in the picture on his file. His skin was a lot rougher, and his forehead was pitted with acne scars that made it clear he was just barely out of his teenage years. A year younger than Jace, according to his file. And already, he'd been both a famed superhero and a wanted villain.

"You're with the Council, aren't you," Alaric said. Up close, his eyes did look like they had in the photo from his file, dark purple and wide. They flickered wildly around the stall, his thin lips taut in a sneer. A sheen of sweat gathered on his pale forehead.

"Y-yeah." Jace crouched down next to him, trying to catch her breath.

"Coward," he spat. "Drugging me. You couldn't take me in a fight."

She thought about that and winced. "Probably not, no." Hard to beat someone who could fry everything with lightning. She flexed her hand, wondering what it would be like to have lightning crackling at her fingertips, to feel its heat and power on her skin.

Though if she were to escape the Super Sector, she'd never be so careless. She'd find someplace deep in the sublevels, one of the long-abandoned buildings in the bowels of the planet, closest to the earth. And she'd change her appearance much more than merely getting a haircut.

Only one agent that she knew of had successfully escaped from the superheroes, a guy named Garret who had erased all traces of himself. All the secret agents talked about him.

"What's gonna happen to me?" Alaric's tone was derisive, but fear still shone in his eyes. The drug was starting to take over all his bodily functions. Drool leaked out of his mouth, an involuntary side effect.