Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

Sophia moved to intercept her, but even with reflexes enhanced by superior DNA, her shock at this unexpected turn of events hampered her response. Jenna stiff-armed her into a wall, tore the door open and burst out onto the elevated landing.

Despite having the element of surprise on her side, Jenna was mired in guilt. She felt like a shoplifter, caught at the exit of a department store, hoping to outrun the security guards, while knowing full well that every detail of the crime had been recorded on video. She had just committed an unforgivable act of treason against her own kind. She was an apostate, reviling the creator’s message, clinging to the false gospel of human ingenuity and dooming the entire planet to extinction. Worse, what she had done would probably amount to nothing more than an inconvenience for Jarrod. She had failed the stop the really important part of the plan. The signal had gone out. She and those like her had been what...upgraded? What were they capable of now, that they weren’t before? And really, what had she accomplished aside from revealing her betrayal? Jarrod could send his message to the others from a cell phone. She had simply delayed the inevitable.

No, she thought. The computer had the names of all the clones. Cort could use that to track them down and—

Hunt them? Kill them?

—stop them from carrying out their planned terror attacks, or at the very least, use the information to prevent any successful terror attacks from setting the superpowers at each other’s throats.

The mental turmoil dulled her edges. Just as she extended a foot toward the first step, Sophia managed to reach out and snag a handful of her hair. Jenna’s head snapped back and her feet flew out from under her, causing her to slam down hard on the metal treads. The fall tore her loose from Sophia’s grasp, but that was about the only good thing to come out of it. The impact sent a jolt of pain through Jenna’s torso, driving the breath from her lungs. Worse, she started sliding down the flight, each step gouging into her skin as she scraped her way lower. Above her, the entire staircase trembled as Sophia descended.

Hugging the laptop to her chest, Jenna threw her free hand out, trying to snag the guardrail to arrest her slide, but before she could do so, her feet hit the landing near the elevation gears. Sophia seemed to be gliding down the steps, her feet barely touching as she made huge bounds. With an excruciating effort, Jenna hauled herself erect and started across the landing, but before she could take two steps, Sophia was there.

So fast.

She darted in front of Jenna, blocking her access to the descending stairs. “Jenna, don’t do this.” There was anger in the woman’s tone, but something else, too. Understanding. “We all had to deal with this. It will pass, and then you’ll see that this is what has to be done. Trust us. Trust yourself.”

Trust? She had asked Noah to trust her. Mercy had trusted her, surrendering herself to Cort’s custody just so Jenna could get this far. Right now, Jenna was putting her trust in that inner voice of reason that didn’t belong to the teacher speaking through her DNA. It was the ability Noah had instilled in her to detect falsehood, to know when something wasn’t right.

But what if she was wrong?

Jenna gripped the laptop in both hands, raising it as if preparing to swat a fly. “If you don’t move,” she said in a low menacing voice, “I’ll go through you.”

Sophia shook her head slowly. Jenna saw the other woman’s eyes dart back and forth, and then settle on the computer like a compass needle pointing true north. Sophia might have been older and more experienced with her gifts, but Jenna had been trained to look for the signs that would forecast an attack, and she had been taught how to fight back. As if catching a glimpse of the future, Jenna saw Sophia start to move and knew exactly what the woman was going to do. As Sophia reached for the computer, Jenna used the laptop like a shield, deflecting the grasping hands. She side-stepped, allowing Sophia’s momentum to carry her forward. As Sophia passed her, Jenna spun on her heel, one leg extended, to sweep Sophia’s legs out from under her.

Sophia went down hard. The landing shuddered with the impact. Jenna started for the descending stairs, but Sophia was back up in a heartbeat, and with a feral growl made more fierce by the mask of blood streaming from split lips, she charged again. The woman moved with inhuman speed, but Jenna, somehow, moved faster. She dodged back, a reflex drilled into her from hours spent at the dojo, and Sophia shot past again.

In a sickening premonition, Jenna saw what was about to happen. She was powerless to prevent it. Sophia hit the descending rail at an angle and flipped over it, out into empty space. Her head hit the hard metal floor on her way over and when Jenna saw the woman’s face again, her eyes were closed. Unconscious. Totally unaware that her life was about to end.

Jenna felt as if something had been ripped out of her.

The unconscious Sophia did not cry out as she fell, but a scream from above echoed the pain in Jenna’s heart.