More Than Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #2) by Kelly Oram

a running jump.
    My aim was perfect. I tackled him to the ground before he ever even saw me coming. He let out a jumbled string of curse words in an accent so thick I couldn’t really be sure which swears they were, but I knew they were bad.
    “Hey, perv,” I greeted as we both scrambled to our feet. “Tell me something. Do you like to play games with the girls you take, or do you prefer to get straight to the killing?”
    He stumbled backward, eyes wide as saucers. Even in the dark I could see the blood drain from his face. I couldn’t blame him for being afraid. I had taken Danger Mode to a whole new level. My eyes were glowing so brightly I was seeing the world through a yellow-green haze.
    “Because I’m down for a game, but if you’d rather I just get straight to the killing, I suppose I could manage that.”
    Not that I was going to hurt the guy no matter how much he deserved it—but hey, he didn’t know that. I had no problem giving him a taste of the dread he’d caused poor Chelsea.
    The man started muttering a bunch of incoherent babble, but I’m pretty sure I heard the term witch . I supposed it was a fair guess. Wrong, but understandable.
    “The Wicked Witch ain’t got nothin’ on me, jerk-off,” I said.
    The man’s eyes darted to the rowboat where his shotgun was lying on the seat. “Oh, I don’t think so, buddy.”
    The second his feet shuffled that direction, I sent a blast of lightning at the ground next to him. The man let out a scream and stumbled back. He tripped and landed on his butt.
    Geez, a girl shoots one little bolt of lightning from her hands and he has to wet himself? Seriously?
    Apparently, the guy was a giant coward. Part of me wanted to stay there and mess with him, but I figured Chelsea probably wasn’t in the mood to stick around.
    “Sorry, Mr. Wrong Turn, this isn’t going to feel very good, but I can’t think of another way to stop you from running off before the cops can come find you.”
    Quicker than he could blink, I grabbed the gun from the boat and knocked the man on the head with the back end of it. He went down like a sucker. Apparently it was as easy to knock someone unconscious as Smallville made it seem. Or it was when you had superstrength, anyway. The guy probably had a concussion, but that was going to be the least of his worries once I told the police where to find him.
    I had to wait a minute before I was calm enough to turn off my power, but once I was no longer a walking electrical storm I found some rope in the boat and tied the kidnapper to a tree.
    After I was sure he wasn’t going anywhere, I slowly approached the seven-year-old still huddled in the boat. I don’t really have any experience with little kids, but I figured it was a safe bet that she was going to be scared of me. Boy, was I ever wrong. As soon as I untied the little girl, she threw herself into my arms so fast she practically used superspeed. “Thank you!” she cried.
    “Are you okay?” I asked. “Did he hurt you?”
    The girl shook her head against my chest. “When I didn’t stop screaming he hit my face, but it doesn’t really hurt anymore. Just my arms and legs where the ropes were.”
    The girl sat back, wiped her tearstained face, and showed me her wrists. There were angry red lines where the ropes had rubbed her skin raw. Seeing the marks, I had to once again focus on my energy or I would have lost control.
    It was the little girl’s voice that brought me out of my rage. “Where are your wings?” she asked.
    When I looked at her she was watching me with a mixture of awe and confusion.
    “Wings?” I asked.
    She nodded. “I know what you are. Mommy always says I should pray to Jesus when I’m scared, so that’s what I did and he sent you to help me.”
    I smiled. “You are a very brave girl, Chelsea.”
    Chelsea threw her tiny arms around my neck again. “Because I had my angel here to save me.”
    “I’m not an angel.”
    “But I saw you come from the