Overload

Chapter Fourteen - Into Town

With a full year ahead of her and classes to attend to everyday, June was surprised that time flew by so quickly. She’d wanted to catch up with her schoolwork and match it to what she’d learned from her old school, missing out on a couple of weekends to get back into the game.

Then there was the fact that Professor Grimwald expected her to practise every night on the basic exercises that June had found shamelessly easy on her first couple of tries.

“Practice makes perfect,” he claimed every lesson. Although he would get agitated with Gretchen making snide remarks to his face, June was admittedly a little impressed that he’d grown accustomed to the girl so quickly.

That didn’t mean that her own dislike for the man would diminish.

Having caught up with all her homework, June found herself sitting on her bed with her fingers pressed together on a sunny weekend. Though the weather should have been transitioning into autumn already, it was surprisingly a nice day out.

“June,” Max whined, breaking her concentration.

A scowl shaped her lips. “What?”

Max pouted. “You’ve been cooped up in the dorm since school started. You need to get a life.”

“I have a life and it’s trying to make sure that I don’t accidentally electrocute the next person that pisses me off,” June snapped. “I reckon that’s a pretty good life, don’t you think?”

Danni came out of the bathroom with a trail of steam following after her. “That’s not a life. You should come with us to town.”

“I don’t think so,” June replied and pressed her fingers together again, trying to regain her lost concentration. “Grimwald won’t stop pestering me until I get this right.”

In the centre space of her domed fingers, a tiny ball of white lightning accumulated. June increased the pressure on her fingers, trying to condense the white light down into a small ball instead of letting it run amok like she normally did.

“June, seriously.”

June tried to block out her roommates’ voices but failed miserably. The ball of lightning snapped out of its spherical shape. She clamped her hands down on it before it could get free and winced at the sharp slices along her palms.

“I give up!” June exploded, throwing her hands into the air. “Fine, I need to get out of this place and just away from Grimwald.”

“They really shouldn’t be letting the normals teach you guys,” Danni commented, quickly changing from her towels and into a skirt and t-shirt. “It’s really not a good idea, especially since you guys are electric-talents.”

“Tell that to the school,” June sighed. “He’s so useless. Honestly, he has absolutely no idea what it’s like to teach us, let alone help us keep control of our powers when he has none!”

June shook her head and started stripping out of her pyjamas. “I wouldn’t mind any other teacher so long as they had some sort of power to understand what we’re going through.”

“I agree,” Max said with a firm nod. “It’s particularly dangerous for a normal since he doesn’t have the enhanced agility and resistance that our bodies have.”

“Exactly.” A small smile lit up June’s face. “But I wouldn’t mind the idea of ‘accidentally’ electrocuting his pants off.” Just imagining what his face would look like triggered a snort. “But I’m sure Gretchen will beat me to it at some point.”

“Speaking of which,” Danni began and started hopping around to get her boots on. “Why hasn’t she yet? I expected her to already make a huge fuss like last year.”