Estranged [Completed]

New Tricks

The routine continued, and the air began to cool as fall approached. The roof was especially cold, but Kalei didn't mind throwing on a jacket to go up there. It was peaceful on the roof, perhaps the most peaceful place in all of Downtown. Occasionally, she heard a shout or a siren below, but the distance muted the sounds down to a whisper, and the wind usually kicked up to carry the lower notes away. It was nice.

Until she sat down to meditate. The meditations were really just redundant, boring, and exhausting at this point. All they really did was feed her frustration, making her feel like a hamster spinning in its wheel while the world outside slowly moved along the road to destruction, a journey she was helpless to avert so long as she was stuck in her wheel. But the harder she worked, the faster the wheel spun, and the faster she went nowhere. All the while, thoughts of Xamic and his kidnapped Untouched plagued her, taunting her powerlessness. She wanted to scream.

When she became especially restless, she began experimenting with what Erit had told her about using the darkness to enhance muscle performance. It was one of the few areas where she could make progress. She started with wall sits. Without trying anything, she could last about a minute and a half before tiring. Then, when she started shifting the darkness to her quads, she could last... well, she never really found out. She got bored after twenty minutes and went back to meditating.

After that, Kalei started testing out her speed. She found a stopwatch in the rec room and timed how long it took her to run from one end of the roof to the other. Just over eighteen seconds. It wasn't a bad time. Then she pooled the darkness throughout her legs. She ran again.

She had barely made it off the line when she had to stop because her stomach and back weren't strong enough to hold her up against the new speed, nearly sending her over backward.

With a bit more concentration and some proper adjustments, she made the sprint in eight seconds flat. She couldn't keep the grin off her face. She sprinted across the roof for another hour before pulling herself away to get back to work. It wasn't an easy choice.

She had just sat down at her terminal when Jenna said, "Kalei."

Kalei ignored her.

"Your friend Lecia was found outside the gate. We've got a couple of Wardens bringing her into the district now."

Kalei turned around. "Why are they bringing her into the district?"

"Looks like she's Estranged."

"What?"

Jenna apathetically replied, "You heard me."

"Shit." Kalei jumped out of her seat and headed over to the elevator. "Tell them to bring her to headquarters." She hit the button.

"Roger that," Jenna replied as she went back to work.