I was in a cabin. A tiny ember flickered in a cast iron stove. My hands hovered over it, but it did little to warm my frost-bitten fingers. It wasn’t enough, but there was nothing in the room to burn. All the furniture that should have been there was gone. I’d need to leave the confines of the cabin to get firewood, but before I could do anything, the sound of crashing glass drew my attention. A gust of wind blew through the room.

The source of the noise stood facing me, a wolf growling in warning. I stepped back, but another entered the room from the kitchen. I was cornered.

I decided to bolt past the one that had just appeared. My charge was met with a snarl. As I threw myself past the creature, pain shot through the back of my thigh. I screamed and flung a hand out. I struck the wolf and it went careening into a wall. The other wolf followed me into the kitchen while its companion fell to the floor, unmoving. Behind both, the stove’s ember darkened dangerously. Unable to bear the thought of it being extinguished, I turned and ran back toward it, but it was too late. The glow dwindled to nothing, and despair surged in my chest. The wolf took advantage of the opportunity and leapt at my neck with its teeth bared.

“We need to call an ambulance,” a woman said with urgency.

“He’ll be fine,” another said calmly.

“His neck is broken!” the first shouted. “He will not be fine.” I blearily opened my eyes.

“Look,” Al gestured. “He’s waking up.”

Leah was crouched next to me; Al stood a few feet away. I blinked a few times and put a hand over my eyes. It was cold. I shook my head to clear away the fog, but a sharp pain pinched deep in my neck and through my jaw.

“Don’t move!” Leah warned. “You’ll make it worse.” She was right.

My reserves were low after the fight, but I had plenty to correct the damage. It didn’t take a lot, and the healing didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Once done, I moved my jaw back and forth, then cracked my neck loudly, and sighed in relief.

“I never get sick of seeing that,” Al commented, smiling down at me.

“I get sick of doing it,” I said, massaging my jaw.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She walked away and Dale quickly took her place.

“That was awesome, Jesse,” Dale said. “Can you do it again?” Leah and I both shot him incredulous looks.

“No, Dale. I cannot do it again.”

“Why not? Look, you’re totally fine.”

“Do you have any idea how much it hurts to have your neck broken?”

“No?”

“It’s a lot.”

I looked up and the granite countertop was cracked. I sighed and started to get back to my feet. Leah held out a hand to stop me, but I shooed it away. A wave of exhaustion struck me when I stood fully. The fight lasted about 15 seconds, but the energy expenditure...

“Well?” Al asked.

“Well what?” I said, stretching as if from a nap.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked gesturing to the door. My mouth fell open.

“Are you pulling Cerberus’ chain? You just—" I said in confusion, then added with sass, “No, I’m not ready to go.”

“Why not?”

“Do I even need to answer that? And who said you could come?”

“We both know you don’t stand a chance without me,” she said. “And every second we waste gives the creature time to get stronger.”

“I—"

“You have as long as it takes me to get changed.” There was finality in her tone, and she’d already been walking toward the door. As the door shut behind her, I threw my hands up in exasperation.

“Why? Why did you have to call her?”

“You were out for three days! That’s kind of something an emergency contact should know,” Leah defended. “How was I supposed to know that you’d pop up as if nothing happened. And I didn’t know she was like that?”

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“Still,” I complained. Dale punched me using the force of his whole body, and I fell to the ground.

“What the death, Dale?!” I said rubbing my cheek. He shrugged. “Really?”

“Stop messing around,” Leah said punching him in the arm.

No longer down on himself, Shawn walked toward us with a determined expression. He held a hand out to me, which I reluctantly grabbed. He pulled me to my feet and stared into my eyes.

“I’m coming, too.”

“The ‘H-E-double upside down scythes’ you are,” I said. “You’ll just make everything worse.”

“I know this is my fault. I want to face the consequences of my actions.”

I eyed him suspiciously.

“We’re going too,” Leah said.

“We are?” Dale asked.

“Yeah. We are.”

“No. No. None of you are going,” I said.

“If you don’t let me go, I can just drive there myself,” Shawn said. I rubbed my face.

“Ughhhhhhhhhh… Alright, fine,” I said. “But you’ll stay in the car.” We had a staring contest, which I won.

“Fine,” he said.

Al walked back into the apartment holding a duffle bag. She glanced over at us, then walked into my bedroom. With the holes in the walls, we could see everything as she started undressing.

“Can’t you change somewhere else?” I called out.

“And where do you expect me to do that?” she asked, looking through a hole at me.

“I don’t know, back at your place?”

“That would be a waste of time,” she said continuing to undress. She quirked an eyebrow and smirked at me. “You act like you’ve never seen me naked before.”

I blushed.

Throughout my stay with her, she tortured me in more ways than one. She’d take every opportunity to get a rise out of me; it was a game to her. I turned away from the sight. My companions didn’t.

Dale, Shawn and even Leah ogled her with their mouths agape. Dale turned to his wife. Her mouth was still open in awe when she looked at him. He smirked at her and she nodded in understanding.

The group continued staring at Al as she returned in black combat clothes that were tight fitting but loose enough to not restrict movement. She also wore a tactical vest, but there weren’t any guns or ammo strapped to it. She didn’t need them. She was the weapon.

“Ready?” she asked.

“No?” I said.

“Too bad.” She started walking toward the door.

“Wait.”

She stopped and turned with frustration on her face. “What?”

“They want to come,” I said. She glanced at the three around me.

“No.”

“We’re coming,” Shawn said, lifting his chin, but the uncertainty in his voice and terror in his eyes revealed his true feelings.

Al appraised Shawn, then stepped toward him. The temperature rose with her approach. Dale, Leah, and I distanced ourselves as she stopped directly in front of him. Steam rose off his soaked clothes.

“You think so, huh?”

“Yeah. I do,” he replied with his chin still raised.

She touched his chest with a fingertip seductively. As she drew her finger across and down his shirt, a black line followed as if she was drawing on a page. His face contorted, and he clenched his fists. To his credit, he didn’t make a sound, even when the smell of burning meat hit me.

“You see, I don’t think you could handle the heat,” Al said. When she finished moving her hand, he let out a held breath. She chuckled and walked away. His knees shook, but he still stood.

“I’m still going,” he said. She stopped and spun on him.

“And what do you think you can do? You can’t even fight.”

“I can learn.”

“And what would your power come from? Fear? Water is useless,” she said. He quirked an eyebrow.

“Lightning,” I said, in an uncharacteristic defense of my apprentice. “And water isn’t useless.” She turned to me in disbelief.

“What good is fear in a fight?”

“It’s useful. Can we just leave it at that?” I replied dismissively.

“No, tell me. I’m curious,” she challenged.

“Look, I don’t want to argue. You always lose your cool and I end up a bug on a windshield.”

“I don’t lose my cool. I’m perfectly capable of remaining calm.” I took a deep breath to compose myself.

“You know what? Fine,” I said. “Fear is the emotion that provokes the fight or flight response, that’s why it provides the body with more speed to escape.”

“Why would you need to escape? If you hit the enemy hard enough, the fight is over,” she argued.

“Because sometimes, you can’t get to them fast enough or they’re strong enough to take the hit and you have to run away.” She just stared at me. “You also get the benefit of agility and dexterity; you could dodge their attack, or you could throw something at them and be more accurate.”

“You don’t need to be any more accurate if you throw something big enough.”

“Not all of us can throw cars,” I said, barely maintaining my composure, “And what happens if you don’t want to kill the target?”

“Jesse, you don’t have to throw a car at them. You could throw a table or a bed,” she said. I put my face in my hands and took another deep breath. She sighed. “Fine, forget about the body augmentation, what good is water?”

“Well… you could use water to sweep someone off their feet and create an opening or you could trap them in water so they couldn’t breathe, thereby incapacitating them.”

“You could just use fire to knock them down or burn all the oxygen out of the air so they can’t breathe.” I just eyed her. She stood deep in thought. “I guess you could control their blood.”

My eyes widened with horror. She might be right, but that was just—wrong. For the first time, she looked around the room to inspect everyone else’s reaction. They all wore the same expression I did, even Shawn. “…or you could spray them into submission or whatever. Very astute, Jay.” I shook my head. She gestured in Shawn’s general direction and said, “You can teach whatever his name is how to use it.” I rolled my eyes.

“I just said his power was lightning.”

“Fine, fine. I don’t care. As long as he stays out of my way. Can we go now?”

I stared at her for a moment.

“You need energy again, don’t you?” She extended her arm to me.

And then it was there again. The fear, the anxiety, the temptation. I reached for her wrist and I stood once more before the sun, but something was different. I was much closer this time. Too close.

My subconscious was driving me forward before I even made contact. I tried to pull away, but the draw was like an addiction. I could turn back whenever I wanted; I didn’t need it. I just wanted it. It’d feel so good if I could have just one more taste, then I was walking into the sun.