Nix took a step toward me. An electric current traveled up her right arm. The look on her face was a mixture of disappointment and cold resolve. I backed away, not believing this was actually happening.
"You're joking, right?"
I gave an uneasy chuckle as she followed me. The look on her face didn't change. She was serious.
"No, Stormy, I have to do this. You are too dangerous to leave alive."
She ran forward and threw a roundhouse kick at my ribs. I threw myself backward, narrowly avoiding her foot. I landed on my butt in the mulch between two swings.
"Kill her, make it slow and painful," Typhon said.
Images of her flesh melting away from her bones delighted the monster inside me. I could never do that to her. I just needed to understand what was going on so I could hopefully talk her down.
"Nix, you're not making any sense. How am I dangerous? That Spartan would've made easy work of me if you hadn't saved me."
I hoped that would get me some sympathy. It didn't. She raised her right hand and fired a beam of black electricity at my head. I moved my head slightly to the right, and the attack missed over my left shoulder.
"You don't get it, Stormie. The rules are ancient. Typhon's children have to be eradicated upon confirmation. If I don't kill you, they'll kill us both."
She continued walking toward me. I scrambled to my feet using a metal pole for support. Loose chips of wood made my feet unsteady.
"Okay, I get he is powerful, but why does that automatically make me a problem? Shouldn't I get to decide how to live my life before being labeled?"
She threw an electrified right hook at my face. I ducked under it just before her left knee smashed into my forehead. I crumpled onto the mulch-covered ground. The thick leather seat of a swing smacked against the side of my head on my way down. I landed flat on my back, staring directly up at the clear night sky. The stars looked close enough to touch, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. I'd never seen the sky that way. It felt off. As if it were leaning for a better view.
"Get up and slay this deceiver. She has proven to be disloyal," Typhon said.
His words coiled around my brain and caused a wave of bloodlust to course through me. I resisted the urge to get up, though. Nix didn't really want me dead. Something about the look in her eyes let me know she was holding back. When the urge to splash acid all over her passed, I stood back up. Pain throbbed in my head and neck.
"Tell me there isn't a voice inside of you right now tempting you to kill me," she said.
She stepped in front of me. Arcs of electricity shot up her arms. She was ready to attack again. I had to convince her before she landed a harder blow and did some actual damage to me.
"There is a voice begging me to kill you. I'm not listening to it, though."
She shook her head from side to side.
"How long do you think you can hold that back? Are you really saying you have the strength to outlast a creature that crippled Zeus?"
Her question was valid. Overcoming someone that powerful and persistent would be an almost impossible task. I had the same power inside of me somewhere? If I truly had the potential everyone was afraid I did, then I could pull it off. I just needed time to grow and master it.
"I'm not like Typhon. I don't like hurting people. You know that about me."
She lunged at me again. This time, she threw a flurry of electrified attacks. Right hook, left hook, right roundhouse.
Come on, wind power, boost my movements.
I jumped backward. When the wood chips all around my feet blew away, I knew it was working. That confirmed that I just had to concentrate on the power I wanted to use, and I could make it happen. The scent of her spicy perfume wafted past my nose as I dodged her attack. What I wouldn't give to be back in my room goofing off again.
"That time is past. She has to die. The storm cannot be betrayed."
I ignored his words, even though I felt the power churning in my stomach. Nix came at me again with another series of attacks. This time I hovered out of the way of her attacks without landing between movements. Her last attack was a right hook aimed perfectly at my jaw. I reacted fast enough to use a gust of wind to make her punch miss straight up, exposing her ribs for a counterattack. I backed away instead. Nix froze for a split second before her face hardened again.
"You think I'll go easier on you if you just run away? You don't have a choice in the matter. Either you live or you die."
She tried to sound as if she were my enemy, but I knew she wasn't. I knew she was really warning me that the others weren't going to let me escape without someone dying.
"I get your point. If you just stop, we can talk about this," I said.
I stopped moving and absentmindedly grabbed the chain-link fence that separated the playground from the baseball field beside it. In a split second, Nix's eyes shot from my hand to the fence and back at my face.
"Action speaks louder than words ever could," she said.
Before I could react, she reached out and grabbed the fence with both hands. The entire fence radiated with her power in milliseconds. I didn't have time to pull away before her electricity started singing into the flesh on my hand. I thought the only thing that could cancel out the attack, electricity.
My own electricity shot out and moved over and around hers like a snake moving through undergrowth until it made contact with her skin. She began shaking and convulsing as the attack overpowered her. I snatched my hand away the second I realized I was electrocuting her. It was too late. The damage was done. She sank to the ground, twitching as the electricity short-circuited her nervous system. Black smoke rose from her scorched hands. I ran over to her and cradled her in my arms. Her skin was as hot as fire against mine.
"Hey, I didn't mean to do that. It was a knee-jerk reaction."
Her head was limp, but she was breathing. As long as that remained true, there was a chance that she would be okay. I hoped so anyway. She was like me, so she would start healing eventually. Hoping that was true, I rocked her in my arms. Fear of losing her sent icy chills through my body, and I shuddered uncontrollably.
"I'm sorry. Please be okay."
Her eyes popped open suddenly, and she grabbed my right arm at the wrist. She was okay. I wanted to dance and shout until her thumb pressed into my wrist. A pain worse than anything I had ever felt before hit me. It started beneath her finger and then vibrated throughout my entire body. It felt as if she were dragging knives across the underside of my skin. I sat frozen with my arms around her as the attack consumed me whole. My eyes welled up, and my vision doubled. I had to fight just to keep my eyes from rolling back as the black electricity danced across my vision. When I heard the steady hum of a live wire inside my skull, I realized she was electrocuting me. I screamed out as the pain traced down my spine and erupted in all my nerve endings.
She let me go at that point, and I fell face-first in the mulch. I convulsed violently as drool pooled beneath my face. She leaned over and whispered in my ear.
"I left that organization yesterday. We're in this together now. Please don't make me regret choosing you over them."
She picked me up and silently threw me over her shoulder like a lightweight sack. All I could do was let her carry me back to my house. She climbed back into my room window and laid me back in my bed. My body trembled as I locked my eyes on hers, wishing I could do or say something. I forced out a slow grunt that made drool ooze down my face.
"I'm sorry that attack was so harsh, but our enemies want us dead and it's our job to keep one another alive from here on out. I can't go easy on you. I just needed to know you could control yourself."
She took another small vial of the yellow liquid out of her pocket and poured it into my mouth. I automatically swallowed when the warm liquid hit the back of my throat. It tasted like Pepto Bismol this time. She wiped the drool and excess liquid from my chin with her thumb.
"That will fix you up. I'll see you at school on Monday. We'll get your training officially started. Goodnight Stormie."
She gently pecked me on the cheek before turning and vanishing.