Firebreak (Jackson's Hollow #2)

Chapter 10

Gym 10 was a lot bigger than the small room she had been forced to show her powers off in the night before. There were targets on the far side across from the door, ranging in size from small circles to large squares. Against one corner was a stack of boxes, gray and black and mostly square. A few pieces of exercise equipment seemed too normal to be here, but there was a set of them spread out in the opposite corner from the boxes.

She had been allowed to shower and change into newly issued shorts and a tank top in the gym's small locker room, which had somewhat refreshed her. Still, she was exhausted and ornery. And the main object of her irritation was in the room with her.

"You need to explain who Jax is," Jo said stubbornly. She was standing beside Diego, who had instructed her to shoot fireballs at a medium-sized target.

"No. I don't." Diego nodded his head toward the target. "I don't want to stand around here all day. Start working."

"Not until you tell me who Jax is." Jo crossed her arms over her chest. "Did you guys grab me just because I have a name that starts with a J and I have fire powers so I could replace him?"

Diego stared at her. "Are you being serious?"

"I just want to know what's going on!"

"Jax was our former teammate, that's it," Diego said. "I can't tell you more than that because it's classified."

"But everyone else knows, right?"

"No. Because it's classified."

Jo glowered at him and his carefully neutral expression. Did she irritate him as much as he irritated her? Did he just enjoy getting under her skin while he stayed all calm, cool, and collected?

"Can you accept that I can't tell you what happened to Jax, but it wasn't caused by the team, and my team's safety is the most important thing to me," Diego said. "Speaking of, try not to set Cal on fire today."

"I wouldn't!" Jo snapped.

"Glad to hear it," Cal interrupted, strolling in the door with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Not that I couldn't handle it, but I'd prefer not to." He winked at Jo, before turning to grab some equipment from a rack beside the door.

"Your comfort is my utmost concern," Jo muttered, too quiet for either of them to hear. Getting the last word in might be petty, especially when it was just for herself to hear, but hey–it was just for herself. Some small thing to make her feel slightly better in this uncomfortable situation.

"What was that?" Diego said, looking away from the second target he'd just telekinetic-ed over to a position by the first target.

"Nothing," Jo said, giving him a falsely sweet smile. Diego frowned at her, but chose not to say anything more as he turned back around.

"So what can you do?" Jo asked as Cal strode over.

"Well, I'm told I make a mean carbonara, and I recently took up woodworking, although I'm debating trying my hand at–"

Jo rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. What ability got you your lifelong position on this team?"

"Oh, it was definitely the pasta." He grinned unrepentantly at Jo's unimpressed expression. "Guess you'll just have to find out."

"The same way you would in battle," Diego said, crossing his arms. He nodded at the target. "You two, show me what you got."

Jo looked at the target, then looked at Diego, who arched an eyebrow. No more instructions? Fine. This was like training Day 1 with Ryker, but she wasn't going to complain. She could handle a non-living target any day. Turning back to the target, she threw out several fireballs in rapid succession, then jumped back, startled, when a fireball, not of her creation, when zinging by her.