Just For One Day

11

     I came to with the feel of concrete underneath me; pieces of brick, rebar, and other debris digging into my back. I groaned and just lay still for a while, listening to the sound of sirens and people shouting in the background. When the ringing in my ears and the pounding in my head died down a little, I sat up. I looked around for Meteor, but he was nowhere in sight. What was in sight was the bank, which was leveled. And I mean leveled. It was literally a pile of burning, charred rubble with the ruined vault sitting toward the back of where the building used to be.

     Torres was going to have a fit. No, Torres was going to have more than a fit. Torres would go through rage and right out the other side, into the placid, disturbingly deep waters of stone cold fury. She was going to kill us. It didn't matter that we had powers; she was going to kill us and chop us up into little pieces and then jump up and down on them.

     As I began to mentally compose my last will and testament, I noticed movement among the rubble. A small, slender form slipped away from the burning wreckage of the bank and into a nearby alleyway. In an instant I was on my feet. Ignoring the cuts and bruises on my entire body, I sped through the police line, over the piles of brick and twisted metal, and back into the alley where I saw the figure disappear. I stood just inside the entrance, against the wall to make sure that I wasn't silhouetted against the light, and surveyed the alley. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and I wiped it away, rubbing my smarting eyes. The alley was completely empty. There were a few beaten up trashcans in the back, sitting next to a slimy-looking dumpster, but aside from that, nothing. I checked behind and inside the dumpster just in case, but there was no denying it. She had gotten away.

     For a speedster, this was the most embarrassing thing that could happen. Someone ran from me and escaped, and on foot, no less. I was glad Meteor wasn't around to see this.

     Just then, I noticed something I had missed before. Near where I had been standing, there was a rusty black ladder. It led all the way up to the roof of the building. Maybe the chase was still on.

     As quickly as I could, which is saying something, I scaled the ladder. As I crested the ledge, I spotted the figure hoofing it across the roof.

     Gotcha.

     "Stop!" I shouted, and against all odds, she did. "There's nowhere you can go that I can't get to first. You can't escape."

     Teravolt turned around to face me. I could see that her costume had been badly ripped and singed, leaving huge holes and tears for a lot of skin to show in various places. As I noticed, feelings stirred inside me, but I managed to quell them. This was definitely not the time.

     I closed the distance between us but left about five feet of space. She walked forward slowly and I tensed, ready to dodge if she tried to shock me.

     "Are you going to come quietly?" I asked.

     "I never do," she replied, and suddenly her hand was on the back of my head and her lips were on mine. She pushed me down as we kissed and straddled me, her hands tugging at the shirt of my costume. I sat up and slipped it off, then hugged her to my chest as she ran her tongue up my neck and bit my earlobe.

     I grabbed her hair and kissed her shoulder. She moaned with pleasure and drew her nails up my back, putting our faces back together and shoving her tongue into my mouth.

     She pulled her off ruined shirt and leaned forward, pushing me onto my back as her hands worked furiously at my belt. Finally, she managed to unclasp it and slipped my pants down my thighs, still sitting on me all the while. She ground her buttocks against my pelvis. I grabbed her hips as she put her hands on my chest and-