Influx (Book Four)

Chapter Six

Chaos, chaos, chaos!!! And so it truly begins... 

Chapter Six

"Beta!" Click screams out from downstairs, bolting up I drop my things and sprint towards the stairs.

"What's wrong?" I ask her alarmed and I can see she is shaking.

"I-I-I," she stutters out and I run down the stairs to check on her. She doesn't look injured but the horror in her face scares me to my core. Click's father did a lot of horrible things, I can't fathom what happened.

"Click breathe," I say, and I pull her into a gentle hug. Running a hand up and down her back, I feel her suck in a few breaths.

"I saw her, Cathleen," she finally spits out and I pull back confused.

"She's over this way again?" I ask confused. The Mavericks don't normally move into this part of town because the people here don't want their help. Why would she have been here twice in a few months?

"Beta, something's wrong," Click says.

She starts yanking me out the door anxiously and I don't resist. Hitting the call button on my watch, my board flies from my lab and clicks into the docking station on the side of my watch. Pulling my scarf extra tight around my face, Click takes off running and I follow her worried. We run quite a few blocks until I see a figure in all black and the mask she wears standing by a building on fire.

"What the hell?" I ask confused, something feels wrong, but I don't know what it is. Click gives me a torn look, I don't think either of us really knows what to do.

"Cathleen," I call out angrily I jog over to her. The woman turns and I wait for the shadows in the area to feel alive. The sensation is something I found so calming as a child, and yet everything feels dead now.

"It's you," she says but goosebumps flair on my arms.

"Cathleen, why did you set this building on fire?" I ask her baffled. This was way out of the behavior she normally has from what I've been observing. I'm not sure if I would have noticed her turning into an arsonist from this distance though. 

"It's you, I finally got your attention," the woman says angrily but a horrible feeling fills my stomach.

"You aren't Cathleen," I say, and I draw a charge to myself.

"Beta!" Click screams and she is thrown into a nearby building.

"To easy," a voice says close to me and I panic and release all of the energy at once and cause a mini-explosion. I can't see them, but I can feel their electrical signals.

"There are multiple people here," Click yells before she hits a hover on her board.

"Run," I tell her, and her eyes widen in fear. Sensing three people around me, I can tell two are tethered together and then there is the Cathleen look alike.

"Beta?" Click asks confused and I don't flinch for a moment when I feel hands on me.

"I said to run!" I scream and I start pulling all of the electricity from the wires near me as well as amplifying the rest of the energy I have, my skin starts sparking and I am let go of for a moment but I grab one of the invisible people and the Cathleen look alike and let off a cackle before letting off a much bigger explosion.

We are all thrown a sizeable distance and I use the last little bit of energy I have to enhance my electrical signals long enough to land well. Slowly standing back up, I see three people out cold on the ground. Click lands next to me and I try to regulate my breathing.