Page 10 of Stealing Jia

The bear lumbered after me.

Adam latched onto my mind.“Don’t let them take me. Please. Don’t let them take me.”Our link broke.

“I’m coming Adam,” I shouted and darted into a large burial chamber with colorful mosaic tiles covering the walls and mounds of ancient bones littering the floor. I flinched as the stench of death hit me and skidded to a stop when I spotted a large pile of rotting corpses. By the monstrous deformities I knew these poor souls had been Giovanni’s test subjects. Was Adam among them? I frantically checked the bodies. “Please. Please don’t be dead. Please.”

“Stop! Your brother’s not here.” CeeCee pulled me away from the awful remains. “They’ve been dead for days.”

“I can’t sense Adam anymore. Our link has been severed.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“You’re not an assassin or master thief, are you?”

I sighed wearily and sidestepped her question with a half-truth, “I’m not an assassin, but Bianca is.”

“Let me guess. She looks a lot like you and decided to borrow your identity,” CeeCee said.

My mouth tightened. “I’m still trying to clear my name.”

“What psychic abilities do you have?”

Did she really think I would tell her everything? “I can cloud minds, disrupt power sources and if I get close enough, I can zap you with enough electricity to put you down.”

“Like a taser?” CeeCee inquired.

That made my “talent” sound harmless. “Exactly.”

CeeCee frowned. “Anything else?”

“Animals of all kinds are drawn to me,”I answered.

CeeCee rubbed the muscles in her neck. “You’re an animal lover?”

“Si, very much so. I’m the co-owner of Lost Souls Animal Rescue.”

Multiple glittering blue lights formed in the chamber.

“Rodan!” CeeCee shoved me out of the way.

A crackling red energy beam missed my shoulder by an inch. Merda!

The shaman grunted as a barrage of laser fire struck her armored chest.

I had to steal me some of that armor.

Her uncle pounced on the Rodan soldier firing at us and literally ripped him to pieces.

I watched as CeeCee quickly incinerated two Rodan soldiers and her uncle, the bear, pounced on the last one. Nice to know the suppression field had been disabled. My psychic senses screamed a warning as one of Giovanni’s creations appeared. I thrust the image into CeeCee’s mind and yelled, “Behind you!”

CeeCee spun around and got smacked across the face by the skinny monstrosity’s long scaly tail. Her knees buckled and down she went.

The need to kill burned through my veins. Taking a deep breath, I fought it down. Now was not the time to display my battle skills. If CeeCee and her Coletti friends knew what I was capable of, they’d lock me up. I stabbed at the half-naked freak with my sword. “Shoo. Shoo.”

The monster gave me a grotesque parody of a smile. “First, I’ll eat your pussy, then your heart, little girl.”

“You won’t be eating anything but metal. Die, alligator man!” I swung my sword and missed the monster by a good foot.

Giving a hissing laugh, the monstrosity whacked me with his tail and sent me flying across the chamber. I landed in a graceless sprawl. Oof!

CeeCee hurled a lightning bolt at the misshapen monster.

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