Read Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera for Free Online Page A

hovered above my palm. He gaped at it, the pale light casting a bizarre pallor on his jowls. His grip loosened, and I sucked in air.
    “Let me go,” I said, “and I won’t shove this orb up your ample ass.” I found hitherto undiscovered confidence in the oxygen and my newfound powers. Okay, maybe they weren’t actually
my
powers, but they were proving seriously useful.
    “What the hell are you?” he asked, tightening his grip again. The lack of constant air was making me light-headed, and I struggled to keep the orb bright enough to scare him.
    “I’m annoyed.” He wanted to do this the hard way, fine. “And you’re in pain.”
    His eyes widened. I slammed the orb into his left shoulder with a solid crack. His entire left side snapped backward as he bellowed—surprise or pain, I didn’t care which—and his hold loosened. I shoved. He hit the filthy pavement with a splat and rolled onto his left side, groaning.
    Inhaling greedily, I touched my sore throat, disgusted by the slick substance I found. I wiped my hand on my jeans, then snapped my fingers. A second orb flared to life, roughly the size of a chicken’s egg. Paler and translucent, this one wouldn’t hurt as much; the larger the orb, it seemed, the less solid its form.
    Probably. Granny Dell’s orbs had been nothing quite so controlled—one of the reasons, according to Dad, that she’d retired so young. Further testing of my orbs was required, and the perfect subject was squirming at my feet.
    I pushed Cliff’s shoulder with the toe of my sneaker, and he rolled onto his back. He stared up at me with glassy eyes. His shirt wasn’t torn and the area of impact wasn’t bleeding, but I bet he’d have one hell of a bruise. I loomed over him with the orb and poised my hand dramatically over his crotch.
    “Something tells me I’m not the first girl you’ve demanded your twenty bucks’ worth from,” I said, indignation boiling over.
    My entire life I’d felt helpless to stop the violence around me. Compared to the more powerful Rangers and trainees, Trancing someone seemed weak and stupid. My cowardicein Central Park had haunted me through my adolescence and four different foster homes while I ignored the school bullies I should have stood up to and absorbed the taunts of my foster siblings, who knew I was different but weren’t sure why.
    I came to understand that I couldn’t count on anyone but myself, so I kept my head down and lived my life, the rest of the world be damned. I tried to block out the violence running rampant in the decaying cities and in the hearts of people I passed in the street every day. For years I’d felt weak and naked and unreliable, and now I stood with the power to take some of that control back. To make my life mean something.
    Very cool.
    And really friggin’ scary.
    “Please,” he muttered.
    “Please what?” I asked. “Please don’t burn my balls off? Would ‘please’ have stopped you from raping me?”
    He didn’t respond, which was answer enough. I bent at the waist. Several strands of my hair fell loose from the disheveled cap and curled purple around my face. In the pale parking lot lights, I must have looked terrifying, because he started to whimper like a puppy whose tail I’d just ground into the pavement.
    “How about we make a deal?” I said. “You get to keep your dick, and in exchange, you tell your friends about this. Let them think about me the next time they pick up a hitchhiker with the expectations of getting a blow job in exchange for miles.”
    He nodded, still whimpering, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Who are you?”
    “Trance?”
    The new voice broke my concentration. The orb disappeared. I snapped my head toward the sound, intent on giving the arrival a taste of my annoyance. The barb died on my lips, as did all thoughts of the man at my feet. I gazed at a pair of black and silver eyes that shimmered and danced, swimming in brilliance, like a starry night sky.
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