Free How to Save the World by Lexie Dunne Page A

this feel like a good day?” he said, a wide grin stretching the shiny burn scars on his cheeks. He looked at me, flicking his fingers dismissively so that a fireball hurtled at my head. Since there was no heart behind the hit, it missed.
    I flung another knife at his head in retaliation. He burned it out of existence. A cloud of ash floated to the ground. “I’ll deal with you later,” Scorch said, and began to fly off.
    â€œGail!” I whipped around to see Kiki waving at me, frantically. “You can’t let him get away!”
    Oh, shit. Let loose, Scorch would take the news that Plain Jane had lost control of her powers to the supervillain community. It might be temporary, it might not, but either way it wasn’t news we could afford to let out.
    I sprinted hard, watching the tattered hem of Scorch’s duster flutter as he flew off, laughing. Instinctively, I pushed off and arced through the air. My shoulder knocked into the back of his knee and I wrapped myself around his boots, incapacitating his legs before he could kick me. Luckily, my dense weight helped: we crashed onto a platform, him cursing the entire time.
    I rolled out of the way of a blast of heat and flame. Reaching blindly into the belt, I grabbed a glop of what felt like sticky putty and lobbed it at Scorch’s hand, right before he could shoot a jet of fire at me. The putty expanded and exploded over his arm, throwing him back so he thudded hard onto the platform. I dove at him, trying to wrestle him into a choke hold, but the instant my skin came in contact with his, I let out a cry. My hand sizzled.
    He destroyed the Raptor’s antifire gel with another burst from his palm and tried to knock me aside. I dodged and kicked him in the midsection, making him double over. When he sprang back up, I pepper-­sprayed him in the face. His high-­pitched screech brought a sick sense of satisfaction. The uncontrolled whip made of pure fire, however, made me yelp. I scrambled back and a fireball engulfed the air right in front of me, the force of the blast slamming into me so hard it carried me backward right into one of the station’s support pillars.
    The last thing I saw before a black curtain descended over my vision was Scorch’s smirk and red eyes as he launched into the sky.
    Oh, hell.
    I t probably said a lot about me that when I opened my eyes I expected a hospital room. That was how I still felt waking up most mornings, even though my Hostage Girl days were long behind me. Back then, I’d spent a lot of time getting the maximum benefits out of a gold standard health insurance plan. Granted, now I had the Mobium, and it was rare to wake up under the harsh fluorescent lights and to the beeping of the pulse monitor, but old habits died hard.
    I really didn’t expect to wake up in Angélica’s gym, though. In the middle of a boxing ring, no less.
    â€œHuh?” I asked, blinking around at me. I was dressed for a workout—­if you ignored my torn sweatpants—­but everything smelled fried to a crisp and my skin felt like I was recovering from a horrible sunburn.
    Jessie Davenport popped into the edge of my vision and my world made even less sense. She raised her eyebrows at me.
    â€œDid you knock me out?” I asked.
    â€œNope. I put you in there because it seemed like the most comfortable spot in the house.” She frowned. “I always forget how heavy you are.”
    â€œSo does everybody else.” Warily, I sat up. “Why am I here? Why are you here?”
    â€œEverybody else is at Davenport and I got the feeling you hate Medical more than I do. I offered to take care of you since it didn’t seem like anything serious.”
    I looked around. “Where’s Guy?”
    â€œI’ve been texting him updates.” Jessie held up her phone, and thanks to my keen eyesight, I read six different versions of still hasn ’t woken up, breathing normally .