The Gladiator

“Jayden, what did they steal from you?” I asked.

“Those would be the car keys,” He admitted with a grimace.

“Come and get them,” Andrea demanded playfully.

I tried to use my powers to throw the Shadow with the keys to the side, but the one I had knocked down suddenly revealed he was still conscious by grabbing my legs and tackling me to the floor. Will grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him away from me, and Jayden knocked him out with a touch. I looked up to see that Andrea and her Shadow had made it outside, where it had started raining lightly. The three of us ran out after them, but they were already in a car and driving away.

“Can you use your powers to stop the car?” Jayden asked as the rain started to pick up. I held out my hand toward the car, but nothing happened.

“It’s too big, and the rain’s getting in the way,” I explained as the car started down the street. “But I can follow it,” I suggested. Jayden looked at me in surprise, but he sighed when he realized that I was serious.

“Find out just how fast you can run,” He consented, and I smiled excitedly before I took off after the car.

As I ran down the street at top speed, lightning flashed, and thunder started roaring through the sky as the rain came down harder. I was quickly soaked, and the car was barely visible through the torrents of rain. Cars were honking at me, and others couldn’t even see me. My feet pounded against the pavement, causing huge splashes in the great puddles that were forming along the sides of the streets. I was taking great, bounding leaps toward the car with my legs moving in a blur. I nearly slipped around a corner and had to catch myself by scraping one of my hands against the pavement. I looked away from the two bright lights in the dark that marked the back of the car just long enough to see the cut on my hand healing.

Then I tried to run even faster and actually started to catch up to the speeding car, but my legs started feeling odd. I had never felt it before, and it kept getting steadily worse. It was making it hard to run. Something must have been wrong with my legs because they felt like they were burning. Then my lungs started acting up as well. My breathing became labored, and I felt like my chest was about to burst. The pain was starting to become unendurable when the car drove out onto the High Bridge over the Mississippi River. I could just barely see as the window on the passenger side rolled down, and a gloved hand stuck out of it, dangling the keys. I started using my powers as best I could to pull the keys toward me, but rain was piercing against my face, and I could barely keep my eyes open in the dark. Then the hand suddenly flicked, and the keys went soaring over the edge of the bridge and toward the river. I couldn’t let her win like that, so I did the only thing I could do. I leapt over the railing and off the bridge.