Free Will Power: A Djinn Short by Laura Catherine

Chapter One

    Two sharp icicles shot toward me with deadly precision, but I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. Nothing really hurt me. Not physically, anyway. I didn’t feel pain.
    I side-stepped the attack, whipping my head around as the ice hit the back wall of the training room, shattering on impact.
    “You’ll have to try harder than that, Pyke,” I called.
    “Oh, I’m just getting started,” Pyke replied, slapping his palms on the wooden floorboards. A thin sheet of ice erupted from his hands.
    The ice moved like a snake, slithering toward me. I ran toward Pyke, sweat beading on my brow. We’d been training for several hours already and I was tired, but I wasn’t going to lose.
    I jumped over the ice slick as five icicles shot up towards me, missing by inches. I rolled along the floor and lunged at Pyke, tackling him in the chest.
    Pyke groaned as his back hit the ground and I pinned him in place. I gripped his shirt and pushed down. He grabbed my hands and froze them. I could feel the slightest chill, but there was no pain.
    That was all part of my ability. I had thick skin that protected me from weapons and also numbed everything.
    “Enough.”
    Pyke and I looked to the side at our instructor, Jack, whose beefed up frame leaned against a wall, tattooed arms folded across his chest and shaved head pointed down.
    “Pyke, I said enough,” Jack said.
      I looked down to see Pyke was still trying to freeze my hands off. They were blue.
    “Fine,” Pyke said and the ice melted away, leaving my hands red and raw. There was still no pain but they were hard to move.
    I let go of Pyke’s shirt and pulled him to his feet. “Good fight,” I said, nudging his side.
    “Yeah, yeah,” Pyke replied, rolling his shoulders.
    “Great work,” Jack praised. “Pyke, you need to be faster with your abilities. Less showy and more action.”
    Pyke smirked. “I can do both.”
    Jack sighed, but didn’t press the matter. We were all used to Pyke’s attitude.
    “And Will, your fighting style is impeccable. You move light on your feet and punch like a rock — ”
    “Here we go,” Pyke said, rolling his eyes. “Let the praising of Will begin.”
    “But,” Jack continued, “you need to control your ability.”
    “What is there to control?” I said. “My ability just … is.”
    “Your ability might stop a knife from killing you, but you’re not invincible. You need to recognise when you’re in danger. Look at your hands.”
    My fingers were bleeding, puffed up and my pinkie was blackened.
    “Aw man, sorry,” Pyke said. “I didn’t mean to give you frostbite.”
    “I didn’t even feel it,” I replied.
    “And that’s my point,” Jack said. “You need to focus on what your limits are or you might not notice how injured you’ve gotten. Blooders use our abilities against us. There are plenty of abilities out there that can kill you.”
    I understood what Jack was saying. I had excelled at weapons training and hand-to-hand combat, and though I was doing really well against other Guardjinn abilities, I did have to visit a healer after every session.
    “What should I do then?” I asked.
    “Everyone has to master their abilities. You are no different. You need to learn what’s too much for you and protect yourself accordingly.”
    I’d never tried to control my ability before. It had always just been there. For as long as I could remember I hadn’t felt injuries or they had been nothing more than a scratch. But Jack was right. If I was going to be the best Guardjinn I could be then I was going to have to master my ability.
    We were all born Djinn. Guardjinn and Djinn were really the same thing and yet we were seen as lower class because of one defining difference. All Djinn could shape shift into one kind of animal, but to shift into a dog made you Guardjinn.
    “Go get yourselves healed up. Oh and Pyke? Tell your cousin if she misses another training session I’ll make her do laps around the