Tremor Read Free

slamming it into a concrete pillar the drifter was hiding behind. Had it connected with its target, the drifter might not have lived.
    â€œEnough!” Meredith yelled. She was standing on a grated platform overhead, staring down over a paint-chipped rail.
    All the washers and dryers and bowling balls fell to the floor at once, and with a brush of her arm, Meredith cleared away the mess. It was as if a giant broom had swept across the floor and pushed everything away.
    â€œToo bad you don’t have a second pulse,” Faith said, staring up at her as she dropped the metal hooks with a loud clang. “You’d be one badass mother—”
    â€œLet’s reset and try the storm simulation,” Meredith interrupted. “And this time, how about we dispense with the theatrics?”
    â€œBut it’s easier to concentrate if I put them on hooks,” Faith complained. “Otherwise they’re harder to contain.”
    A huge, bald-headed drifter of Samoan descent walked by, holding a red bowling ball. His name was Semana, and he was wearing a football helmet that did nothing to hide his wide, black eyebrows. His head, which was unusually large, barely fit inside the protective gear.
    â€œI don’t mind hanging,” he said through the guard on the helmet. “Just don’t hit me with my own bowling ball. That would be crossing the line.”
    The training session was reset as Meredith watched. Up high it was relatively safe from any flying object she couldn’t see in time to deflect. They’d been at this for nearly four months, almost entirely focused on getting Faith as far along as possible in the short time they had. She was remarkable, but Meredith was still having trouble containing Faith’s reckless outbursts. Half a dozen drifters had been injured in sessions where Faith went too far, too fast. They were like sparring partners in a boxing match with an invincible opponent. They never complained, but hanging them up on meat hooks? It was just one in a string of such events that worried Meredith.
    The rest of the drifters emerged from the meat locker, all of them holding red bowling balls, which they’d retrieved from the pile of rubble. As they brushed past Faith, some of them threw a shoulder in her direction, and none of them were smiling.
    â€œWe’re on your side, you know,” one of them said. She was the only woman among the five drifters pouring out of the room. Faith caught her eye, her nostrils flaring ever so slightly as their eyes met.
    â€œAnd I’m on your side,” Faith said, walking away without so much as a glance. “I’d say that makes you pretty lucky.”
    It was as close as Faith was going to get to an apology, and it served only to drive a wedge further between her and the rest of the resistance movement. She had the real power, the rare second pulse. Nothing could harm her. All those drifters? They could throw cars up in the air with the power of their own thoughts all day long. But if they didn’t get out from under that thing fast enough, they’d end up the same as a normal, everyday person: dead.
    The drifter shook her head and kept walking.
    â€œBetter play nice,” she said over her shoulder. “You might need us one day.”
    Doubtful, Faith thought. She was at least smart enough not to say it out loud as she walked into the meat locker and slammed the metal doors shut with her mind.
    Meredith watched the drifters span out around the edge of the warehouse, and she knew how badly they wanted a second pulse. She understood because she wanted one, too. From the time she’d stood before Hotspur Chance and that godforsaken table full of objects, she’d longed to take a hit as well as she could dish one out. At least she had been taught how to coax a second pulse into existence, a skill of highly selective use out in the real world. Finding single pulses was hard enough. In all her searching