Power (Book 1)

Chapter 38

She let me catch up to her. I ran evenly next to her and swiped at her. She veered off to dodge it.

"Come on, Jay, I know you're faster than that," she taunted. She streaked ahead of me.

Her voice sounded fuzzy and weird as if it was coming from far away. This was probably because the speed we were running at was distorting the sound.

I slipped into hypermode and raced back to her. I couldn't talk. Dodging obstacles and running while keeping myself in this state was taking all of my concentration.

"Oh, look at you, trying to keep up with your big sister," she said. She laughed.

My foot tripped over something and I slowed down to catch my footing.

At that moment, I remembered what Jake had said about the suit. I reached across to my right arm and twisted the face of the watch and it covered my body. It became easier to run as soon as it went over my feet.

"You've got a new black suit, too?" Sage commented. "Haven't you been busy."

"Ironically, it matches your personality," I shot back. "Where did you take my friends?"

"They're safe, don't worry," she said. "We understand your frustration of having them repeatedly becoming collateral damage."

That made me feel even worse. Now I knew they were definitely in the Master's possession.

"Tell me where they are," I said.

"You're going to have to catch me first," she said.

I stretched my hand out towards her. I almost had her, but she turned right before I was able to make contact. I turned with her.

I always stayed at her heels, never quite catching her. She was probably pulling on her speed, but I was, too. I hadn't even hit my top speed yet.

I felt like she was leading me somewhere.

I started to breathe a little bit harder. I had never run for so long before. "Where are we going?" I asked her. I made sure to keep a little edge in my voice so she didn't think I was in a playful mood.

Suddenly, she stopped and stuck her foot out. I was going too fast to slow down and went sailing over. I landed face first on the ground.

I spit up grass and dirt out of my mouth. It left a bad taste.

"See for yourself," she said.

I looked up.

In front of us was a huge mansion. It was so stereotypical I would have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious. It was made out of brick, but it has been painted grey. There were various windows spread throughout the house, but they each had matching black curtains. The clouds above had changed from its normal thin white to thick and grey. Lightning flashed in the background. I expected to hear the words, "It's alive!" come from inside.

"This is the Master's mansion." I said it as a fact, not a question. My nanobots informed me of it after I woke up from being stabbed.

"Yep," Sage said. "Do you know why you're here?"

"I don't know. Is the Master controlling you right now?" I asked her.