Darker Days by Jus Accardo Page A

The ground was solid one moment, and gone the next. My world tipped sideways, then upside-down and I was flying backwards through the store. I hit the far wall hard, teeth banging together with a brain-jarring snap. The sound echoed inside my head and caused my ears to ring.
    A warm hand grasped my arm, tugging me upright. Lukas. My vision cleared to see him standing over me, brows furrowed with concern. “Are you all—” The air whooshed from his lungs, the sentence stolen, as a large man plowed him over on his way to the door.
    “Craps!” I watched him go down as Kendra took me by surprise, hitting like a Mac truck with no brakes. Stars bloomed behind my eyes as I tipped back and lost my footing. I crashed to the ground again, jamming my left shoulder and bending the fingers on my right hand back at a completely unnatural angle.
    “I’ve spelled myself,” she said with a wicked grin. “I’m faster and stronger than you. You can’t take them away from me!”
    Spelled herself? Oh, she was going to be sorry later. I gave her a quick once over to search for extra appendages. A tail, spikes…another set of horns… But whatever the side effect, it wasn’t plainly visible.
    Kendra kicked out, but I managed to roll away as the pointy toe of her favorite black boots sailed by, inches from my face.
    “Not cool, Ken!” I scrambled back to my feet as she turned for another round. This time, as she passed, I jumped back and grabbed a chunk of her hair. Girl move? Totally. But it did the trick.
    Kendra let out a howl as I yanked back. She teetered for a moment before losing her balance. Unfortunately, so did I.
    I went stumbling inelegantly forward into Lukas, knocking us both to the ground. When we untangled ourselves, I turned around, and Kendra was gone.

Chapter Twelve
    “We need to find her. She’s all amped. Knowing how wonky her powers can be, who knows what kind of damage she can do?”
    Lukas dusted off some debris from the front of his pants and frowned. As he bent forward, tiny bits of glass fell from his hair to the floor.
    I turned to take stock. The crowd was thinning, most of the looters gone—along with a huge portion of the store. The counter had been destroyed, and the cash register was nowhere in sight, but there was a pile of nickels on the floor two kids were fighting over. I stepped forward, pulled them apart, and shoved them in the direction of the door. They went, but not before calling me several names that would have made a trucker blush.
    With every step, glass crunched under my shoes, scraping against the previously pristine hardwood floors. Mr. Flankman was going to have a coronary when he saw them. He’d once chased me from the store because I tracked mud inside.
    From where I stood by the counter, I could see out to the road. The police had people cuffed and lined up along the sidewalk side by side like a prison yard. Some were still screaming and trying to get to each other, and the police were having a hard time keeping them all apart.
    “How are we going to find your friend?”
    “I have no idea, but we need to hurry.”
    “Oh, you need to hurry all right. You need to hurry your ass right along home,” a voice said from the door. I looked up to see Mom and Dad standing there—and hell in a hailstorm, did they look pissed.
    “We heard the explosion and saw the smoke from the field. I thought—”
    Mom held up a hand and shook her head. I closed my mouth immediately. “No, Jessie. You didn’t think . You had no idea—”
    “Klaire!” Officer Barnes called from across the room. He released Tom Aaron, the local postmaster, and started toward us. Tom let out a maniacal giggle, grabbed the box of shoes Kendra had abandoned, and took off.
    Mom peered around him, eyebrows cocked. “Um, Officer Barnes…Tom is—”
    “I was hoping to see you here.” He puffed out his chest and hitched up his pants, stretching them tight over places that would give me nightmares for weeks. “You