Free I Am Titanium (Pax Black Book 1) by John Patrick Kennedy Page B

“Run.”
    The man shoved Pax’s hands off their shoulders and turned back to face the action.
    Gotta love New York.
    Pax grabbed their shoulders again and shoved them to the side. “Get out of the way! I’ve got work to do.”
    The man whimpered while his wife gave Pax a dirty look from behind her sunglasses.
    “The fuck is wrong with you people?” he demanded, pushing his way forward again.
    A burst of flame shot up into the sky.
    Everyone’s faces turned skyward for a second. The flame, shaped like a weather balloon, rose up about a couple of hundred meters and disappeared into the deep blue sky, leaving a short trail of black smoke. The wind caught it and carried it out toward Queens.
    Scarlett was getting worse.
    The crowd pressed tighter.

    Scarlett knelt on her hands and knees and panted.
    Another blast of heat was building up in her gut like a stomach full of bad seafood. She burped. It tasted like rotten eggs mixed with matches. A six-year-old kid wearing a Batman shirt screamed, “ Mom, that lady stinks! ”
    Scarlett moaned, “Lady… I can’t hold onto this much longer. Get—” burrrrp “—your kid out of here as fast as you can.”
    Her stomach heaved, and she had to swallow back burning acid. She was gonna hurl again. She sat back on her feet and looked upward. She didn’t know what would happen if she puked downward. Probably the heat would blast all over the place and kill everyone.
    Just kill him. Put him out of his misery. He’s just going to grow up to be a waste of space anyway.
    She balled up her fists on her thighs and waited for the next wave of vomit.
    Her face itched. When she scratched it, a black mask made of ash fell into her hands. For a second it looked back at her with blank eyes. Then it fell apart like melting snow.
    Don’t hurt anyone. Don’t hurt anyone.
    It was coming. It was coming.
    She threw her head back and puked fire.
    It blasted straight up, almost hitting one of the helicopters circling above her.
    Hey, yeah, that suspected terrorist in Central Park? Right here.
    The fire roaring out of her was loud, but not loud enough to drown out the sounds of people panicking. The ones who could see what was going on were trying to get away. And the ones who couldn’t see were trying to push their way in. Whistles blew. Every cop in the park must’ve been there, trying to help people escape. Or trying to arrest her.
    Good luck with that.
    Babies were crying.
    Scarlett closed her eyes. Another wave of nausea hit her and she puked again.
    The negative energy was pouring into her faster and faster, igniting her flames brighter and brighter. In a couple of minutes, she was going to be puking constantly. But that still wasn’t going to be enough. The more she puked, the more she terrified people, and the more negative energy they sent her way.
    It was never going to stop. It was like being asked to swallow the East River.

    A long, black whip of negative energy lashed across Akllana’chikni’pai’s face. The cut burned weakly. She wiped the back of her hand across her face and inspected the blood on it: it rippled on her hand, orange fire mingled with black smoke. A sign of her building rage. A sign of purity: the fire that burned her clean of negative energy.
    She was trapped in a small pacha within the girl’s mind, a blank, featureless space that wasn’t even a room. The pacha had been all she could create; the negative energy had drained her of too much energy for anything more sophisticated.
    She could sense nothing from outside. She could control nothing. She was trapped until Terkun’shuks’pai came to rescue her. How pitiful she was, the mighty warrior of the astral plane, reduced, once again, to a prisoner. And now the girl had allowed herself to become so overwhelmed with negative energy it was invading even the tiny prison Akllana’chikni’pai had been able to create.
    Akllana’chikni’pai bared her teeth. Insult after insult. Injury after injury.
    At least