I was counting cracks in the pavement. A perfectly normal, boring thing to do. Forty-one, forty-two…

  A scream tore the air, sharp and raw.

  I froze. My whole body went rigid. Keep walking, a panicked voice in my head pleaded. Not your problem. Not anymore. The vow I’d scrawled on my mirror—No more—felt like a brand on my skin.

  A wet thud, followed by a choked gasp.

  My feet wouldn’t move. The library bag felt like it weighed a ton, with War and Peace pressing its title into my spine.

  I peeked around the corner. Of course. The Sliders. Six of them hovered inches off the pavement on whirring anti-grav pads, forming a tight circle around a couple, laughing like hungry hyenas. The man was already down, curled around his ribs.

  The woman was flat against the brick wall, palms spread. “Please,” she begged, “we gave you all our credits—”

  The one with the color-shifting neon purple mohawk shoved her. Her head hit the brick with a sound that vibrated in my teeth. A thin line of blood tracked down her temple.

  That was it. The paper-thin vow I’d made tore apart.

  A low hum started in the base of my spine, spreading up into my shoulders. It wasn’t rage, not this time. It was a cold, sharp focus. My hands didn’t shake; they felt like they were plugged into a power socket, buzzing with energy they weren’t supposed to have.

  I let out a breath. It tasted like failure, self-loathing, and the cheap mint gum I’d been chewing. So much for the vow.

  I stepped into the alley. Broken glass crunched. The air hit me: a wall of garbage, urine, and an acrid chemical tang. Even the air was hostile.

  The Sliders were too busy laughing and rifling through the woman’s purse to notice me. I cleared my throat.

  Mohawk turned, his face coated in sickly white. “Look what we got here. Little girl’s lost on her way back to the library.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I let a small smile play on my lips. “Wow. Anti-grav pads and a light-up crowbar. Did a circus explode in this alley?”

  A growl started in my chest, low and hungry. It wanted to rip and tear. No, I thought, digging my non-superpowered fingernails into my own palm. We do this my way.

  Mohawk glided forward, an electric crowbar crackling. Sparks danced on his three gold teeth. “Then we’ll crash you first!”

  Rude.

  These cost forty credits.

  He swung.

  I caught the crowbar mid-arc. The electricity was an unpleasant buzz, a thousand needles in my palm, but it wasn’t pain. Not compared to the hot, eager strength flooding my veins. I twisted. The metal groaned and bent like warm taffy, folding in on itself into a useless spiral.

  Mohawk stared at the ruined weapon, his expression flipping from confusion to fear. “What the f—”

  I shoved him. Not hard—not with the power thrumming through me—but enough. He stumbled back, taking two of his friends down in a tangle of limbs and whining anti-grav servos.

  The others recovered. A green haired pigtail woman with cybernetic eyes—red, reticled irises—rushed me with a mono-molecular blade. I sidestepped her lunge, caught her wrist, and let her own momentum do the work, introducing her face to the side of the dumpster.

  The clang was satisfying.

  She left a dent.

  An amateur came from behind. I spun, caught the arm, bent it just shy of breaking, and swept his legs. He crashed, and his grav-pad died with a pathetic electronic wheeze.

  The last two stared at their friends, then at me. I wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “Leave. Now. Or the next thing you’ll be riding is a gurney.”

  They scrambled, dragging their groaning friends, leaving a trail of ozone in their wake.

  I turned to the couple. The woman was helping her partner sit up; he was coughing, wincing at his ribs.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She just nodded, her eyes wide with adrenaline.

  “Thank you. We…”

  “Just go,” I said, helping the man to his feet. He was heavier than he looked. “Take the main streets. Stay under the lights.”

  They stumbled off toward the street, the woman supporting him. Smart. Cops would mean questions, and questions were a death sentence in this part of town.

  A whine from above. High and thin, drilling into my skull. The mark on my arm burned.

  I looked up.

  A sleek black drop-ship descended, pinning me in a blinding white searchlight. The world beyond the beam vanished into shadow. On its hull, the Pandora logo gleamed—a three-dimesional red cube.

  Of course. They were always watching.