Daughter of Zeus ✔

14.4

When the ritual finished, Ada couldn't see herself repeating the process.

Her arms and legs were no more. The muscles had been replaced with liquid. She couldn't stand, couldn't walk. Her body would only allow her to throw up, then throw up some more.

One good thing about the purge was that it left Moretz in the same wrecked condition.

He led the ritual, using his special gloves to conduct the current, throwing out crackles of energy directed at the trees. His sparks left fine scorch marks. They weren't small, but not anything spectacular. Ada let him show off what he could, then showed him her version of sparks.

Much bigger sparks.

The lightning display she managed frightened even her. Initially, she meant to up-show the bastard, but it turned into another thing entirely. Her abilities took over, moving through her like a living thing. A rope pulled inside, and when it snapped, it dragged her along like a toy. Wave after wave of electricity flowed from her arms. Control slipped away, and energy erupted from every point of her body.

Ada pawed at her eyes, rubbing furiously to no avail. Panic raged, forcing her to her knees.

"Focus."

Kressick's voice held a soothing quality, and it was the one thing she could find. She held on, concentrated, and the blinding white dissipated. The light leaving her body remained powerful, but was no longer catastrophic. From the air, Ada imagined she resembled a fireworks display.

She rasped a "thank you" to her grandfather, but he seemed not to hear her. Head bent in concentration, his hands cradled a glowing blue light, and the light intensified.

The light grew into a dome, surrounding the area. The ephemeral edges touched down to the forest floor. Ada gazed up in wonder at the bright structure crafted from Kressick's hands. The walls gleamed in iridescent, hexagonal patterns. Ada's next arcs of lightning absorbed into the dome, and she understood what it was for. It was a safety net, and perhaps even a way to cloak what they were doing.

As Kressick warned her, the purge could go for hours. And it did. Afterward, Ada tried to catch herself, but she dropped to the ground, barely breathing. Moretz collapsed in a similar mess, but Kressick rushed to help her first, leaving his son while he loaded her onto the golf cart. Moretz managed to crawl into the front seat, and Kressick drove back to the estate.

With limbs like ice, and a head will full of fire, Ada picked out the faint buzzing of tech. The noise was prominent, especially since Kressick insisted all three of them leave their electronics behind, so as not to interfere with the ritual. The buzzing grew louder when the golf cart passed by a row of bushes. Mostly the result of muscle memory, Ada sent a spark toward the offending shrubs. There were three yells followed by three thuds.

"What was that?"

Kressick hit the brakes. Mustering strength born of curiosity, Ada rose slowly from the back seat. Moretz stirred, but she held up a hand as if to ward him off.

"Stay. I can handle whatever forest animal dropped over there," she said.

Ada guessed that whatever had dropped was bigger than a forest animal, but no one else needed to know that.

In her condition, handling anything bigger than a squirrel would present a challenge, but she kept up the pretense of investigating. Kressick must have shared her mindset, because he left the cart to follow her.

Behind the bushes lay three bodies, twitching and writhing. She was reminded of the Sammie she had blasted so many weeks ago in Aurora and left twitching on the side of the road. Dance, monkey, dance.

Nerve endings tended to respond negatively to electronic charges forced on them. The human body had a hard time handling so much power, and the three trespassers were in very defenseless positions.

Ada advanced slowly, but almost ate dirt instead. Kressick took her arm and helped her get closer. The trio were wearing black clothes and official looking gear. Their faces were smudged with black paint. Underneath the grime, it was obvious they were young. One of their faces looked very familiar, and then Ada knew--- it was the same girl from her first dinner with the Moretz family. 

The detainee hanging from the guard's arms, and she had parted with the clichéd warning, "We'll be back!"

She had kept her promise.